Title: An American Tragedy (1925)
Author: Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)
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Title:      An American Tragedy (1925)
Author:     Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)





BOOK ONE



Chapter 1


Dusk--of a summer night.

And the tall walls of the commercial heart of an American city of
perhaps 400,000 inhabitants--such walls as in time may linger as a
mere fable.

And up the broad street, now comparatively hushed, a little band
of six,--a man of about fifty, short, stout, with bushy hair
protruding from under a round black felt hat, a most unimportant-
looking person, who carried a small portable organ such as is
customarily used by street preachers and singers.  And with him a
woman perhaps five years his junior, taller, not so broad, but
solid of frame and vigorous, very plain in face and dress, and yet
not homely, leading with one hand a small boy of seven and in the
other carrying a Bible and several hymn books.  With these three,
but walking independently behind, was a girl of fifteen, a boy of
twelve and another girl of nine, all following obediently, but not
too enthusiastically, in the wake of the others.

It was hot, yet with a sweet languor about it all.

Crossing at right angles the great thoroughfare on which they
walked, was a second canyon-like way, threaded by throngs and
vehicles and various lines of cars which clanged their bells and
made such progress as they might amid swiftly moving streams of
traffic.  Yet the little group seemed unconscious of anything save
a set purpose to make its way between the contending lines of
traffic and pedestrians which flowed by them.

Having reached an intersection this side of the second principal
thoroughfare--really just an alley between two tall structures--now
quite bare of life of any kind, the man put down the organ, which
the woman immediately opened, setting up a music rack upon which
she placed a wide flat hymn book.  Then handing the Bible to the
man, she fell back in line with him, while the twelve-year-old boy
put down a small camp-stool in front of the organ.  The man--the
father, as he chanced to be--looked about him with seeming wide-
eyed assurance, and announced, without appearing to care whether he
had any auditors or not:

"We will first sing a hymn of praise, so that any who may wish to
acknowledge the Lord may join us.  Will you oblige, Hester?"

At this the eldest girl, who until now had attempted to appear as
unconscious and unaffected as possible, bestowed her rather slim
and as yet undeveloped figure upon the camp chair and turned the
leaves of the hymn book, pumping the organ while her mother
observed:

"I should think it might be nice to sing twenty-seven tonight--'How
Sweet the Balm of Jesus' Love.'"

By this time various homeward-bound individuals of diverse grades
and walks of life, noticing the small group disposing itself in
this fashion, hesitated for a moment to eye them askance or paused
to ascertain the character of their work.  This hesitancy,
construed by the man apparently to constitute attention, however
mobile, was seized upon by him and he began addressing them as
though they were specifically here to hear him.

"Let us all sing twenty-seven, then--'How Sweet the Balm of Jesus'
Love.'"

At this the young girl began to interpret the melody upon the
organ, emitting a thin though correct strain, at the same time
joining her rather high soprano with that of her mother, together
with the rather dubious baritone of the father.  The other children
piped weakly along, the boy and girl having taken hymn books from
the small pile stacked upon the organ.  As they sang, this
nondescript and indifferent street audience gazed, held by the
peculiarity of such an unimportant-looking family publicly raising
its collective voice against the vast skepticism and apathy of
life.  Some were interested or moved sympathetically by the rather
tame and inadequate figure of the girl at the organ, others by the
impractical and materially inefficient texture of the father, whose
weak blue eyes and rather flabby but poorly-clothed figure bespoke
more of failure than anything else.  Of the group the mother alone
stood out as having that force and determination which, however
blind or erroneous, makes for self-preservation, if not success in
life.  She, more than any of the others, stood up with an ignorant,
yet somehow respectable air of conviction.  If you had watched her,
her hymn book dropped to her side, her glance directed straight
before her into space, you would have said:  "Well, here is one
who, whatever her defects, probably does what she believes as
nearly as possible."  A kind of hard, fighting faith in the wisdom
and mercy of that definite overruling and watchful power which she
proclaimed, was written in her every feature and gesture.


     "The love of Jesus saves me whole,
      The love of God my steps control,"


she sang resonantly, if slightly nasally, between the towering
walls of the adjacent buildings.

The boy moved restlessly from one foot to the other, keeping his
eyes down, and for the most part only half singing.  A tall and as
yet slight figure, surmounted by an interesting head and face--
white skin, dark hair--he seemed more keenly observant and
decidedly more sensitive than most of the others--appeared indeed
to resent and even to suffer from the position in which he found
himself.  Plainly pagan rather than religious, life interested him,
although as yet he was not fully aware of this.  All that could be
truly said of him now was that there was no definite appeal in all
this for him.  He was too young, his mind much too responsive to
phases of beauty and pleasure which had little, if anything, to do
with the remote and cloudy romance which swayed the minds of his
mother and father.

Indeed the home life of which this boy found himself a part and the
various contacts, material and psychic, which thus far had been
his, did not tend to convince him of the reality and force of all
that his mother and father seemed so certainly to believe and say.
Rather, they seemed more or less troubled in their lives, at least
materially.  His father was always reading the Bible and speaking
in meeting at different places, especially in the "mission," which
he and his mother conducted not so far from this corner.  At the
same time, as he understood it, they collected money from various
interested or charitably inclined business men here and there who
appeared to believe in such philanthropic work.  Yet the family was
always "hard up," never very well clothed, and deprived of many
comforts and pleasures which seemed common enough to others.  And
his father and mother were constantly proclaiming the love and
mercy and care of God for him and for all.  Plainly there was
something wrong somewhere.  He could not get it all straight, but
still he could not help respecting his mother, a woman whose force
and earnestness, as well as her sweetness, appealed to him.
Despite much mission work and family cares, she managed to be
fairly cheerful, or at least sustaining, often declaring most
emphatically "God will provide" or "God will show the way,"
especially in times of too great stress about food or clothes.  Yet
apparently, in spite of this, as he and all the other children
could see, God did not show any very clear way, even though there
was always an extreme necessity for His favorable intervention in
their affairs.

To-night, walking up the great street with his sisters and brother,
he wished that they need not do this any more, or at least that he
need not be a part of it.  Other boys did not do such things, and
besides, somehow it seemed shabby and even degrading.  On more than
one occasion, before he had been taken on the street in this
fashion, other boys had called to him and made fun of his father,
because he was always publicly emphasizing his religious beliefs or
convictions.  Thus in one neighborhood in which they had lived,
when he was but a child of seven, his father, having always
preluded every conversation with "Praise the Lord," he heard boys
call "Here comes old Praise-the-Lord Griffiths."  Or they would
call out after him "Hey, you're the fellow whose sister plays the
organ.  Is there anything else she can play?"

"What does he always want to go around saying, 'Praise the Lord'
for?  Other people don't do it."

It was that old mass yearning for a likeness in all things that
troubled them, and him.  Neither his father nor his mother was like
other people, because they were always making so much of religion,
and now at last they were making a business of it.

On this night in this great street with its cars and crowds and
tall buildings, he felt ashamed, dragged out of normal life, to be
made a show and jest of.  The handsome automobiles that sped by,
the loitering pedestrians moving off to what interests and comforts
he could only surmise; the gay pairs of young people, laughing and
jesting and the "kids" staring, all troubled him with a sense of
something different, better, more beautiful than his, or rather
their life.

And now units of this vagrom and unstable street throng, which was
forever shifting and changing about them, seemed to sense the
psychologic error of all this in so far as these children were
concerned, for they would nudge one another, the more sophisticated
and indifferent lifting an eyebrow and smiling contemptuously, the
more sympathetic or experienced commenting on the useless presence
of these children.

"I see these people around here nearly every night now--two or
three times a week, anyhow," this from a young clerk who had just
met his girl and was escorting her toward a restaurant.  "They're
just working some religious dodge or other, I guess."

"That oldest boy don't wanta be here.  He feels outa place, I can
see that.  It ain't right to make a kid like that come out unless
he wants to.  He can't understand all this stuff, anyhow."  This
from an idler and loafer of about forty, one of those odd hangers-
on about the commercial heart of a city, addressing a pausing and
seemingly amiable stranger.

"Yeh, I guess that's so," the other assented, taking in the
peculiar cast of the boy's head and face.  In view of the uneasy
and self-conscious expression upon the face whenever it was lifted,
one might have intelligently suggested that it was a little unkind
as well as idle to thus publicly force upon a temperament as yet
unfitted to absorb their import, religious and psychic services
best suited to reflective temperaments of maturer years.

Yet so it was.

As for the remainder of the family, both the youngest girl and boy
were too small to really understand much of what it was all about
or to care.  The eldest girl at the organ appeared not so much to
mind, as to enjoy the attention and comment her presence and
singing evoked, for more than once, not only strangers, but her
mother and father, had assured her that she had an appealing and
compelling voice, which was only partially true.  It was not a good
voice.  They did not really understand music.  Physically, she was
of a pale, emasculate and unimportant structure, with no real
mental force or depth, and was easily made to feel that this was an
excellent field in which to distinguish herself and attract a
little attention.  As for the parents, they were determined upon
spiritualizing the world as much as possible, and, once the hymn
was concluded, the father launched into one of those hackneyed
descriptions of the delights of a release, via self-realization of
the mercy of God and the love of Christ and the will of God toward
sinners, from the burdensome cares of an evil conscience.

"All men are sinners in the light of the Lord," he declared.
"Unless they repent, unless they accept Christ, His love and
forgiveness of them, they can never know the happiness of being
spiritually whole and clean.  Oh, my friends!  If you could but
know the peace and content that comes with the knowledge, the
inward understanding, that Christ lived and died for you and that
He walks with you every day and hour, by light and by dark, at dawn
and at dusk, to keep and strengthen you for the tasks and cares of
the world that are ever before you.  Oh, the snares and pitfalls
that beset us all!  And then the soothing realization that Christ
is ever with us, to counsel, to aid, to hearten, to bind up our
wounds and make us whole!  Oh, the peace, the satisfaction, the
comfort, the glory of that!"

"Amen!" asseverated his wife, and the daughter, Hester, or Esta, as
she was called by the family, moved by the need of as much public
support as possible for all of them--echoed it after her.

Clyde, the eldest boy, and the two younger children merely gazed at
the ground, or occasionally at their father, with a feeling that
possibly it was all true and important, yet somehow not as
significant or inviting as some of the other things which life
held.  They heard so much of this, and to their young and eager
minds life was made for something more than street and mission hall
protestations of this sort.

Finally, after a second hymn and an address by Mrs. Griffiths,
during which she took occasion to refer to the mission work jointly
conducted by them in a near-by street, and their services to the
cause of Christ in general, a third hymn was indulged in, and then
some tracts describing the mission rescue work being distributed,
such voluntary gifts as were forthcoming were taken up by Asa--the
father.  The small organ was closed, the camp chair folded up and
given to Clyde, the Bible and hymn books picked up by Mrs.
Griffiths, and with the organ supported by a leather strap passed
over the shoulder of Griffiths, senior, the missionward march was
taken up.

During all this time Clyde was saying to himself that he did not
wish to do this any more, that he and his parents looked foolish
and less than normal--"cheap" was the word he would have used if
he could have brought himself to express his full measure of
resentment at being compelled to participate in this way--and that
he would not do it any more if he could help.  What good did it do
them to have him along?  His life should not be like this.  Other
boys did not have to do as he did.  He meditated now more
determinedly than ever a rebellion by which he would rid himself of
the need of going out in this way.  Let his elder sister go if she
chose; she liked it.  His younger sister and brother might be too
young to care.  But he--

"They seemed a little more attentive than usual to-night, I
thought," commented Griffiths to his wife as they walked along, the
seductive quality of the summer evening air softening him into a
more generous interpretation of the customary indifferent spirit of
the passer-by.

"Yes; twenty-seven took tracts to-night as against eighteen on
Thursday."

"The love of Christ must eventually prevail," comforted the father,
as much to hearten himself as his wife.  "The pleasures and cares
of the world hold a very great many, but when sorrow overtakes
them, then some of these seeds will take root."

"I am sure of it.  That is the thought which always keeps me up.
Sorrow and the weight of sin eventually bring some of them to see
the error of their way."

They now entered into the narrow side street from which they had
emerged and walking as many as a dozen doors from the corner,
entered the door of a yellow single-story wooden building, the
large window and the two glass panes in the central door of which
had been painted a gray-white.  Across both windows and the smaller
panels in the double door had been painted:  "The Door of Hope.
Bethel Independent Mission.  Meetings Every Wednesday and Saturday
night, 8 to 10.  Sundays at 11, 3 and 8.  Everybody Welcome."
Under this legend on each window were printed the words:  "God is
Love," and below this again, in smaller type:  "How Long Since You
Wrote to Mother?"

The small company entered the yellow unprepossessing door and
disappeared.



Chapter 2


That such a family, thus cursorily presented, might have a
different and somewhat peculiar history could well be anticipated,
and it would be true.  Indeed, this one presented one of those
anomalies of psychic and social reflex and motivation such as would
tax the skill of not only the psychologist but the chemist and
physicist as well, to unravel.  To begin with, Asa Griffiths, the
father, was one of those poorly integrated and correlated
organisms, the product of an environment and a religious theory,
but with no guiding or mental insight of his own, yet sensitive and
therefore highly emotional and without any practical sense
whatsoever.  Indeed it would be hard to make clear just how life
appealed to him, or what the true hue of his emotional responses
was.  On the other hand, as has been indicated, his wife was of a
firmer texture but with scarcely any truer or more practical
insight into anything.

The history of this man and his wife is of no particular interest
here save as it affected their boy of twelve, Clyde Griffiths.
This youth, aside from a certain emotionalism and exotic sense of
romance which characterized him, and which he took more from his
father than from his mother, brought a more vivid and intelligent
imagination to things, and was constantly thinking of how he might
better himself, if he had a chance; places to which he might go,
things he might see, and how differently he might live, if only
this, that and the other things were true.  The principal thing
that troubled Clyde up to his fifteenth year, and for long after in
retrospect, was that the calling or profession of his parents was
the shabby thing that it appeared to be in the eyes of others.  For
so often throughout his youth in different cities in which his
parents had conducted a mission or spoken on the streets--Grand
Rapids, Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago, lastly Kansas City--it had
been obvious that people, at least the boys and girls he
encountered, looked down upon him and his brothers and sisters for
being the children of such parents.  On several occasions, and much
against the mood of his parents, who never countenanced such
exhibitions of temper, he had stopped to fight with one or another
of these boys.  But always, beaten or victorious, he had been
conscious of the fact that the work his parents did was not
satisfactory to others,--shabby, trivial.  And always he was
thinking of what he would do, once he reached the place where he
could get away.

For Clyde's parents had proved impractical in the matter of the
future of their children.  They did not understand the importance
or the essential necessity for some form of practical or
professional training for each and every one of their young ones.
Instead, being wrapped up in the notion of evangelizing the world,
they had neglected to keep their children in school in any one
place.  They had moved here and there, sometimes in the very midst
of an advantageous school season, because of a larger and better
religious field in which to work.  And there were times, when, the
work proving highly unprofitable and Asa being unable to make much
money at the two things he most understood--gardening and
canvassing for one invention or another--they were quite without
sufficient food or decent clothes, and the children could not go to
school.  In the face of such situations as these, whatever the
children might think, Asa and his wife remained as optimistic as
ever, or they insisted to themselves that they were, and had
unwavering faith in the Lord and His intention to provide.

The combination home and mission which this family occupied was
dreary enough in most of its phases to discourage the average youth
or girl of any spirit.  It consisted in its entirety of one long
store floor in an old and decidedly colorless and inartistic wooden
building which was situated in that part of Kansas City which lies
north of Independence Boulevard and west of Troost Avenue, the
exact street or place being called Bickel, a very short thoroughfare
opening off Missouri Avenue, a somewhat more lengthy but no less
nondescript highway.  And the entire neighborhood in which it stood
was very faintly and yet not agreeably redolent of a commercial life
which had long since moved farther south, if not west.  It was some
five blocks from the spot on which twice a week the open air
meetings of these religious enthusiasts and proselytizers were held.

And it was the ground floor of this building, looking out into
Bickel Street at the front and some dreary back yards of equally
dreary frame houses, which was divided at the front into a hall
forty by twenty-five feet in size, in which had been placed some
sixty collapsible wood chairs, a lectern, a map of Palestine or the
Holy Land, and for wall decorations some twenty-five printed but
unframed mottoes which read in part:


"WINE IS A MOCKER, STRONG DRINK IS RAGING AND WHOSOEVER IS DECEIVED
THEREBY IS NOT WISE."

"TAKE HOLD OF SHIELD AND BUCKLER, AND STAND UP FOR MINE HELP."
PSALMS 35:2.

"AND YE, MY FLOCK, THE FLOCK OF MY PASTURE, are men, AND I AM YOUR
GOD, SAITH THE LORD GOD."  EZEKIEL 34:31.

"O GOD, THOU KNOWEST MY FOOLISHNESS, AND MY SINS ARE NOT HID FROM
THEE."  PSALMS 69:5.

"IF YE HAVE FAITH AS A GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED, YE SHALL SAY UNTO
THIS MOUNTAIN, REMOVE HENCE TO YONDER PLACE; AND IT SHALL MOVE; AND
NOTHING SHALL BE IMPOSSIBLE TO YOU."  MATTHEW 17:20.

"FOR THE DAY OF THE LORD IS NEAR."  OBADIAH 15.

"FOR THERE SHALL BE NO REWARD TO THE EVIL MAN."  PROVERBS 24:20.

"LOOK, THEN, NOT UPON THE WINE WHEN IT IS RED:  IT BITETH LIKE A
SERPENT, AND STINGETH LIKE AN ADDER."  PROVERBS 23:31,32.


These mighty adjurations were as silver and gold plates set in a
wall of dross.

The rear forty feet of this very commonplace floor was intricately
and yet neatly divided into three small bedrooms, a living room
which overlooked the backyard and wooden fences of yards no better
than those at the back; also, a combination kitchen and dining room
exactly ten feet square, and a store room for mission tracts,
hymnals, boxes, trunks and whatever else of non-immediate use, but
of assumed value, which the family owned.  This particular small
room lay immediately to the rear of the mission hall itself, and
into it before or after speaking or at such times as a conference
seemed important, both Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths were wont to retire--
also at times to meditate or pray.

How often had Clyde and his sisters and younger brother seen his
mother or father, or both, in conference with some derelict or
semi-repentant soul who had come for advice or aid, most usually
for aid.  And here at times, when his mother's and father's
financial difficulties were greatest, they were to be found
thinking, or as Asa Griffiths was wont helplessly to say at times,
"praying their way out," a rather ineffectual way, as Clyde began
to think later.

And the whole neighborhood was so dreary and run-down that he hated
the thought of living in it, let alone being part of a work that
required constant appeals for aid, as well as constant prayer and
thanksgiving to sustain it.

Mrs. Elvira Griffiths before she had married Asa had been nothing
but an ignorant farm girl, brought up without much thought of
religion of any kind.  But having fallen in love with him, she had
become inoculated with the virus of Evangelism and proselytizing
which dominated him, and had followed him gladly and enthusiastically
in all of his ventures and through all of his vagaries.  Being
rather flattered by the knowledge that she could speak and sing, her
ability to sway and persuade and control people with the "word of
God," as she saw it, she had become more or less pleased with
herself on this account and so persuaded to continue.

Occasionally a small band of people followed the preachers to their
mission, or learning of its existence through their street work,
appeared there later--those odd and mentally disturbed or distrait
souls who are to be found in every place.  And it had been Clyde's
compulsory duty throughout the years when he could not act for
himself to be in attendance at these various meetings.  And always
he had been more irritated than favorably influenced by the types
of men and women who came here--mostly men--down-and-out laborers,
loafers, drunkards, wastrels, the botched and helpless who seemed
to drift in, because they had no other place to go.  And they were
always testifying as to how God or Christ or Divine Grace had
rescued them from this or that predicament--never how they had
rescued any one else.  And always his father and mother were saying
"Amen" and "Glory to God," and singing hymns and afterward taking
up a collection for the legitimate expenses of the hall--
collections which, as he surmised, were little enough--barely
enough to keep the various missions they had conducted in
existence.

The one thing that really interested him in connection with his
parents was the existence somewhere in the east--in a small city
called Lycurgus, near Utica he understood--of an uncle, a brother
of his father's, who was plainly different from all this.  That
uncle--Samuel Griffiths by name--was rich.  In one way and another,
from casual remarks dropped by his parents, Clyde had heard
references to certain things this particular uncle might do for a
person, if he but would; references to the fact that he was a
shrewd, hard business man; that he had a great house and a large
factory in Lycurgus for the manufacture of collars and shirts,
which employed not less than three hundred people; that he had a
son who must be about Clyde's age, and several daughters, two at
least, all of whom must be, as Clyde imagined, living in luxury in
Lycurgus.  News of all this had apparently been brought west in
some way by people who knew Asa and his father and brother.  As
Clyde pictured this uncle, he must be a kind of Croesus, living in
ease and luxury there in the east, while here in the west--Kansas
City--he and his parents and his brother and sisters were living in
the same wretched and hum-drum, hand-to-mouth state that had always
characterized their lives.

But for this--apart from anything he might do for himself, as he
early began to see--there was no remedy.  For at fifteen, and even
a little earlier, Clyde began to understand that his education, as
well as his sisters' and brother's, had been sadly neglected.  And
it would be rather hard for him to overcome this handicap, seeing
that other boys and girls with more money and better homes were
being trained for special kinds of work.  How was one to get a
start under such circumstances?  Already when, at the age of
thirteen, fourteen and fifteen, he began looking in the papers,
which, being too worldly, had never been admitted to his home, he
found that mostly skilled help was wanted, or boys to learn trades
in which at the moment he was not very much interested.  For true
to the standard of the American youth, or the general American
attitude toward life, he felt himself above the type of labor which
was purely manual.  What!  Run a machine, lay bricks, learn to be a
carpenter, or a plasterer, or plumber, when boys no better than
himself were clerks and druggists' assistants and bookkeepers and
assistants in banks and real estate offices and such!  Wasn't it
menial, as miserable as the life he had thus far been leading, to
wear old clothes and get up so early in the morning and do all the
commonplace things such people had to do?

For Clyde was as vain and proud as he was poor.  He was one of
those interesting individuals who looked upon himself as a thing
apart--never quite wholly and indissolubly merged with the family
of which he was a member, and never with any profound obligations
to those who had been responsible for his coming into the world.
On the contrary, he was inclined to study his parents, not too
sharply or bitterly, but with a very fair grasp of their qualities
and capabilities.  And yet, with so much judgment in that
direction, he was never quite able--at least not until he had
reached his sixteenth year--to formulate any policy in regard to
himself, and then only in a rather fumbling and tentative way.

Incidentally by that time the sex lure or appeal had begun to
manifest itself and he was already intensely interested and
troubled by the beauty of the opposite sex, its attractions for him
and his attraction for it.  And, naturally and coincidentally, the
matter of his clothes and his physical appearance had begun to
trouble him not a little--how he looked and how other boys looked.
It was painful to him now to think that his clothes were not right;
that he was not as handsome as he might be, not as interesting.
What a wretched thing it was to be born poor and not to have any
one to do anything for you and not to be able to do so very much
for yourself!

Casual examination of himself in mirrors whenever he found them
tended rather to assure him that he was not so bad-looking--a
straight, well-cut nose, high white forehead, wavy, glossy, black
hair, eyes that were black and rather melancholy at times.  And yet
the fact that his family was the unhappy thing that it was, that he
had never had any real friends, and could not have any, as he saw
it, because of the work and connection of his parents, was now
tending more and more to induce a kind of mental depression or
melancholia which promised not so well for his future.  It served
to make him rebellious and hence lethargic at times.  Because of
his parents, and in spite of his looks, which were really agreeable
and more appealing than most, he was inclined to misinterpret the
interested looks which were cast at him occasionally by young girls
in very different walks of life from him--the contemptuous and yet
rather inviting way in which they looked to see if he were
interested or disinterested, brave or cowardly.

And yet, before he had ever earned any money at all, he had always
told himself that if only he had a better collar, a nicer shirt,
finer shoes, a good suit, a swell overcoat like some boys had!  Oh,
the fine clothes, the handsome homes, the watches, rings, pins that
some boys sported; the dandies many youths of his years already
were!  Some parents of boys of his years actually gave them cars of
their own to ride in.  They were to be seen upon the principal
streets of Kansas City flitting to and fro like flies.  And pretty
girls with them.  And he had nothing.  And he never had had.

And yet the world was so full of so many things to do--so many
people were so happy and so successful.  What was he to do?  Which
way to turn?  What one thing to take up and master--something that
would get him somewhere.  He could not say.  He did not know
exactly.  And these peculiar parents were in no way sufficiently
equipped to advise him.



Chapter 3


One of the things that served to darken Clyde's mood just about the
time when he was seeking some practical solution for himself, to
say nothing of its profoundly disheartening effect on the Griffiths
family as a whole, was the fact that his sister Esta, in whom he
took no little interest (although they really had very little in
common), ran away from home with an actor who happened to be
playing in Kansas City and who took a passing fancy for her.

The truth in regard to Esta was that in spite of her guarded up-
bringing, and the seeming religious and moral fervor which at times
appeared to characterize her, she was just a sensuous, weak girl
who did not by any means know yet what she thought.  Despite the
atmosphere in which she moved, essentially she was not of it.  Like
the large majority of those who profess and daily repeat the dogmas
and creeds of the world, she had come into her practices and
imagined attitude so insensibly from her earliest childhood on,
that up to this time, and even later, she did not know the meaning
of it all.  For the necessity of thought had been obviated by
advice and law, or "revealed" truth, and so long as other theories
or situations and impulses of an external or even internal,
character did not arise to clash with these, she was safe enough.
Once they did, however, it was a foregone conclusion that her
religious notions, not being grounded on any conviction or
temperamental bias of her own, were not likely to withstand the
shock.  So that all the while, and not unlike her brother Clyde,
her thoughts as well as her emotions were wandering here and there--
to love, to comfort--to things which in the main had little, if
anything, to do with any self-abnegating and self-immolating
religious theory.  Within her was a chemism of dreams which somehow
counteracted all they had to say.

Yet she had neither Clyde's force, nor, on the other hand, his
resistance.  She was in the main a drifter, with a vague yearning
toward pretty dresses, hats, shoes, ribbons and the like, and
super-imposed above this, the religious theory or notion that she
should not be.  There were the long bright streets of a morning and
afternoon after school or of an evening.  The charm of certain
girls swinging along together, arms locked, secrets a-whispering,
or that of boys, clownish, yet revealing through their bounding
ridiculous animality the force and meaning of that chemistry and
urge toward mating which lies back of all youthful thought and
action.  And in herself, as from time to time she observed lovers
or flirtation-seekers who lingered at street corners or about
doorways, and who looked at her in a longing and seeking way, there
was a stirring, a nerve plasm palpitation that spoke loudly for all
the seemingly material things of life, not for the thin
pleasantries of heaven.

And the glances drilled her like an invisible ray, for she was
pleasing to look at and was growing more attractive hourly.  And
the moods in others awakened responsive moods in her, those
rearranging chemisms upon which all the morality or immorality of
the world is based.

And then one day, as she was coming home from school, a youth of
that plausible variety known as "masher" engaged her in
conversation, largely because of a look and a mood which seemed to
invite it.  And there was little to stay her, for she was
essentially yielding, if not amorous.  Yet so great had been her
home drilling as to the need of modesty, circumspection, purity and
the like, that on this occasion at least there was no danger of any
immediate lapse.  Only this attack once made, others followed, were
accepted, or not so quickly fled from, and by degrees, these served
to break down that wall of reserve which her home training had
served to erect.  She became secretive and hid her ways from her
parents.

Youths occasionally walked and talked with her in spite of herself.
They demolished that excessive shyness which had been hers, and
which had served to put others aside for a time at least.  She
wished for other contacts--dreamed of some bright, gay, wonderful
love of some kind, with some one.

Finally, after a slow but vigorous internal growth of mood and
desire, there came this actor, one of those vain, handsome, animal
personalities, all clothes and airs, but no morals (no taste, no
courtesy or real tenderness even), but of compelling magnetism, who
was able within the space of one brief week and a few meetings to
completely befuddle and enmesh her so that she was really his to do
with as he wished.  And the truth was that he scarcely cared for
her at all.  To him, dull as he was, she was just another girl--
fairly pretty, obviously sensuous and inexperienced, a silly who
could be taken by a few soft words--a show of seemingly sincere
affection, talk of the opportunity of a broader, freer life on the
road, in other great cities, as his wife.

And yet his words were those of a lover who would be true forever.
All she had to do, as he explained to her, was to come away with
him and be his bride, at once--now.  Delay was so vain when two
such as they had met.  There was difficulty about marriage here,
which he could not explain--it related to friends--but in St. Louis
he had a preacher friend who would wed them.  She was to have new
and better clothes than she had ever known, delicious adventures,
love.  She would travel with him and see the great world.  She
would never need to trouble more about anything save him; and while
it was truth to her--the verbal surety of a genuine passion--to him
it was the most ancient and serviceable type of blarney, often used
before and often successful.

In a single week then, at odd hours, morning, afternoon and night,
this chemic witchery was accomplished.

Coming home rather late one Saturday night in April from a walk
which he had taken about the business heart, in order to escape the
regular Saturday night mission services, Clyde found his mother and
father worried about the whereabouts of Esta.  She had played and
sung as usual at this meeting.  And all had seemed all right with
her.  After the meeting she had gone to her room, saying that she
was not feeling very well and was going to bed early.  But by
eleven o'clock, when Clyde returned, her mother had chanced to look
into her room and discovered that she was not there nor anywhere
about the place.  A certain bareness in connection with the room--
some trinkets and dresses removed, an old and familiar suitcase
gone--had first attracted her mother's attention.  Then the house
search proving that she was not there, Asa had gone outside to look
up and down the street.  She sometimes walked out alone, or sat or
stood in front of the mission during its idle or closed hours.

This search revealing nothing, Clyde and he had walked to a corner,
then along Missouri Avenue.  No Esta.  At twelve they returned and
after that, naturally, the curiosity in regard to her grew
momentarily sharper.

At first they assumed that she might have taken an unexplained walk
somewhere, but as twelve-thirty, and finally one, and one-thirty,
passed, and no Esta, they were about to notify the police, when
Clyde, going into her room, saw a note pinned to the pillow of her
small wooden bed--a missive that had escaped the eye of his mother.
At once he went to it, curious and comprehending, for he had often
wondered in what way, assuming that he ever wished to depart
surreptitiously, he would notify his parents, for he knew they
would never countenance his departure unless they were permitted to
supervise it in every detail.  And now here was Esta missing, and
here was undoubtedly some such communication as he might have left.
He picked it up, eager to read it, but at that moment his mother
came into the room and, seeing it in his hand, exclaimed:  "What's
that?  A note?  Is it from her?"  He surrendered it and she
unfolded it, reading it quickly.  He noted that her strong broad
face, always tanned a reddish brown, blanched as she turned away
toward the outer room.  Her biggish mouth was now set in a firm,
straight line.  Her large, strong hand shook the least bit as it
held the small note aloft.

"Asa!" she called, and then tramping into the next room where he
was, his frizzled grayish hair curling distractedly above his round
head, she said:  "Read this."

Clyde, who had followed, saw him take it a little nervously in his
pudgy hands, his lips, always weak and beginning to crinkle at the
center with age, now working curiously.  Any one who had known his
life's history would have said it was the expression, slightly
emphasized, with which he had received most of the untoward blows
of his life in the past.

"Tst! Tst! Tst!" was the only sound he made at first, a sucking
sound of the tongue and palate--most weak and inadequate, it seemed
to Clyde.  Next there was another "Tst! Tst! Tst!", his head
beginning to shake from side to side.  Then, "Now, what do you
suppose could have caused her to do that?"  Then he turned and
gazed at his wife, who gazed blankly in return.  Then, walking to
and fro, his hands behind him, his short legs taking unconscious
and queerly long steps, his head moving again, he gave vent to
another ineffectual "Tst! Tst! Tst!"

Always the more impressive, Mrs. Griffiths now showed herself
markedly different and more vital in this trying situation, a kind
of irritation or dissatisfaction with life itself, along with an
obvious physical distress, seeming to pass through her like a
visible shadow.  Once her husband had gotten up, she reached out
and took the note, then merely glared at it again, her face set in
hard yet stricken and disturbing lines.  Her manner was that of one
who is intensely disquieted and dissatisfied, one who fingers
savagely at a material knot and yet cannot undo it, one who seeks
restraint and freedom from complaint and yet who would complain
bitterly, angrily.  For behind her were all those years of
religious work and faith, which somehow, in her poorly integrated
conscience, seemed dimly to indicate that she should justly have
been spared this.  Where was her God, her Christ, at this hour when
this obvious evil was being done?  Why had He not acted for her?
How was He to explain this?  His Biblical promises!  His perpetual
guidance!  His declared mercies!

In the face of so great a calamity, it was very hard for her, as
Clyde could see, to get this straightened out, instantly at least.
Although, as Clyde had come to know, it could be done eventually,
of course.  For in some blind, dualistic way both she and Asa
insisted, as do all religionists, in disassociating God from harm
and error and misery, while granting Him nevertheless supreme
control.  They would seek for something else--some malign,
treacherous, deceiving power which, in the face of God's
omniscience and omnipotence, still beguiles and betrays--and find
it eventually in the error and perverseness of the human heart,
which God has made, yet which He does not control, because He does
not want to control it.

At the moment, however, only hurt and rage were with her, and yet
her lips did not twitch as did Asa's, nor did her eyes show that
profound distress which filled his.  Instead she retreated a step
and reexamined the letter, almost angrily, then said to Asa:
"She's run away with some one and she doesn't say--"  Then she
stopped suddenly, remembering the presence of the children--Clyde,
Julia, and Frank, all present and all gazing curiously, intently,
unbelievingly.  "Come in here," she called to her husband, "I want
to talk to you a minute.  You children had better go on to bed.
We'll be out in a minute."

With Asa then she retired quite precipitately to a small room back
of the mission hall.  They heard her click the electric bulb.  Then
their voices were heard in low converse, while Clyde and Julia and
Frank looked at each other, although Frank, being so young--only
ten--could scarcely be said to have comprehended fully.  Even Julia
hardly gathered the full import of it.  But Clyde, because of his
larger contact with life and his mother's statement ("She's run
away with some one"), understood well enough.  Esta had tired of
all this, as had he.  Perhaps there was some one, like one of those
dandies whom he saw on the streets with the prettiest girls, with
whom she had gone.  But where?  And what was he like?  That note
told something, and yet his mother had not let him see it.  She had
taken it away too quickly.  If only he had looked first, silently
and to himself!

"Do you suppose she's run away for good?" he asked Julia dubiously,
the while his parents were out of the room, Julia herself looking
so blank and strange.

"How should I know?" she replied a little irritably, troubled by
her parents' distress and this secretiveness, as well as Esta's
action.  "She never said anything to me.  I should think she'd be
ashamed of herself if she has."

Julia, being colder emotionally than either Esta or Clyde, was more
considerate of her parents in a conventional way, and hence
sorrier.  True, she did not quite gather what it meant, but she
suspected something, for she had talked occasionally with girls,
but in a very guarded and conservative way.  Now, however, it was
more the way in which Esta had chosen to leave, deserting her
parents and her brothers and herself, that caused her to be angry
with her, for why should she go and do anything which would
distress her parents in this dreadful fashion.  It was dreadful.
The air was thick with misery.

And as his parents talked in their little room, Clyde brooded too,
for he was intensely curious about life now.  What was it Esta had
really done?  Was it, as he feared and thought, one of those
dreadful runaway or sexually disagreeable affairs which the boys on
the streets and at school were always slyly talking about?  How
shameful, if that were true!  She might never come back.  She had
gone with some man.  There was something wrong about that, no
doubt, for a girl, anyhow, for all he had ever heard was that all
decent contacts between boys and girls, men and women, led to but
one thing--marriage.  And now Esta, in addition to their other
troubles, had gone and done this.  Certainly this home life of
theirs was pretty dark now, and it would be darker instead of
brighter because of this.

Presently the parents came out, and then Mrs. Griffiths' face, if
still set and constrained, was somehow a little different, less
savage perhaps, more hopelessly resigned.

"Esta's seen fit to leave us, for a little while, anyhow," was all
she said at first, seeing the children waiting curiously.  "Now,
you're not to worry about her at all, or think any more about it.
She'll come back after a while, I'm sure.  She has chosen to go her
own way, for a time, for some reason.  The Lord's will be done."
("Blessed be the name of the Lord!" interpolated Asa.)  "I thought
she was happy here with us, but apparently she wasn't.  She must
see something of the world for herself, I suppose."  (Here Asa put
in another Tst! Tst! Tst!)  "But we mustn't harbor hard thoughts.
That won't do any good now--only thoughts of love and kindness."
Yet she said this with a kind of sternness that somehow belied it--
a click of the voice, as it were.  "We can only hope that she will
soon see how foolish she has been, and unthinking, and come back.
She can't prosper on the course she's going now.  It isn't the
Lord's way or will.  She's too young and she's made a mistake.  But
we can forgive her.  We must.  Our hearts must be kept open, soft
and tender."  She talked as though she were addressing a meeting,
but with a hard, sad, frozen face and voice.  "Now, all of you go
to bed.  We can only pray now, and hope, morning, noon and night,
that no evil will befall her.  I wish she hadn't done that," she
added, quite out of keeping with the rest of her statement and
really not thinking of the children as present at all--just of
Esta.

But Asa!

Such a father, as Clyde often thought, afterwards.

Apart from his own misery, he seemed only to note and be impressed
by the more significant misery of his wife.  During all this, he
had stood foolishly to one side--short, gray, frizzled, inadequate.

"Well, blessed be the name of the Lord," he interpolated from time
to time.  "We must keep our hearts open.  Yes, we mustn't judge.
We must only hope for the best.  Yes, yes!  Praise the Lord--we
must praise the Lord!  Amen!  Oh, yes!  Tst! Tst! Tst!"

"If any one asks where she is," continued Mrs. Griffiths after a
time, quite ignoring her spouse and addressing the children, who
had drawn near her, "we will say that she has gone on a visit to
some of my relatives back in Tonawanda.  That won't be the truth,
exactly, but then we don't know where she is or what the truth is--
and she may come back.  So we must not say or do anything that will
injure her until we know."

"Yes, praise the Lord!" called Asa, feebly.

"So if any one should inquire at any time, until we know, we will
say that."

"Sure," put in Clyde, helpfully, and Julia added, "All right."

Mrs. Griffiths paused and looked firmly and yet apologetically at
her children.  Asa, for his part, emitted another "Tst! Tst! Tst!"
and then the children were waved to bed.

At that, Clyde, who really wanted to know what Esta's letter had
said, but was convinced from long experience that his mother would
not let him know unless she chose, returned to his room again, for
he was tired.  Why didn't they search more if there was hope of
finding her?  Where was she now--at this minute?  On some train
somewhere?  Evidently she didn't want to be found.  She was
probably dissatisfied, just as he was.  Here he was, thinking so
recently of going away somewhere himself, wondering how the family
would take it, and now she had gone before him.  How would that
affect his point of view and action in the future?  Truly, in spite
of his father's and mother's misery, he could not see that her
going was such a calamity, not from the GOING point of view, at any
rate.  It was only another something which hinted that things were
not right here.  Mission work was nothing.  All this religious
emotion and talk was not so much either.  It hadn't saved Esta.
Evidently, like himself, she didn't believe so much in it, either.



Chapter 4


The effect of this particular conclusion was to cause Clyde to
think harder than ever about himself.  And the principal result of
his thinking was that he must do something for himself and soon.
Up to this time the best he had been able to do was to work at such
odd jobs as befall all boys between their twelfth and fifteenth
years: assisting a man who had a paper route during the summer
months of one year, working in the basement of a five-and-ten-cent
store all one summer long, and on Saturdays, for a period during
the winter, opening boxes and unpacking goods, for which he
received the munificent sum of five dollars a week, a sum which at
the time seemed almost a fortune.  He felt himself rich and, in the
face of the opposition of his parents, who were opposed to the
theater and motion pictures also, as being not only worldly, but
sinful, he could occasionally go to one or another of those--in the
gallery--a form of diversion which he had to conceal from his
parents.  Yet that did not deter him.  He felt that he had a right
to go with his own money; also to take his younger brother Frank,
who was glad enough to go with him and say nothing.

Later in the same year, wishing to get out of school because he
already felt himself very much belated in the race, he secured a
place as an assistant to a soda water clerk in one of the cheaper
drug stores of the city, which adjoined a theater and enjoyed not a
little patronage of this sort.  A sign--"Boy Wanted"--since it was
directly on his way to school, first interested him.  Later, in
conversation with the young man whose assistant he was to be, and
from whom he was to learn the trade, assuming that he was
sufficiently willing and facile, he gathered that if he mastered
this art, he might make as much as fifteen and even eighteen
dollars a week.  It was rumored that Stroud's at the corner of 14th
and Baltimore streets paid that much to two of their clerks.  The
particular store to which he was applying paid only twelve, the
standard salary of most places.

But to acquire this art, as he was now informed, required time and
the friendly help of an expert.  If he wished to come here and work
for five to begin with--well, six, then, since his face fell--he
might soon expect to know a great deal about the art of mixing
sweet drinks and decorating a large variety of ice creams with
liquid sweets, thus turning them into sundaes.  For the time being
apprenticeship meant washing and polishing all the machinery and
implements of this particular counter, to say nothing of opening
and sweeping out the store at so early an hour as seven-thirty,
dusting, and delivering such orders as the owner of this drug store
chose to send out by him.  At such idle moments as his immediate
superior--a Mr. Sieberling--twenty, dashing, self-confident,
talkative, was too busy to fill all the orders, he might be called
upon to mix such minor drinks--lemonades, Coca-Colas and the like--
as the trade demanded.

Yet this interesting position, after due consultation with his
mother, he decided to take.  For one thing, it would provide him,
as he suspected, with all the ice-cream sodas he desired, free--an
advantage not to be disregarded.  In the next place, as he saw it
at the time, it was an open door to a trade--something which he
lacked.  Further, and not at all disadvantageously as he saw it,
this store required his presence at night as late as twelve
o'clock, with certain hours off during the day to compensate for
this.  And this took him out of his home at night--out of the ten-
o'clock-boy class at last.  They could not ask him to attend any
meetings save on Sunday, and not even then, since he was supposed
to work Sunday afternoons and evenings.

Next, the clerk who manipulated this particular soda fountain,
quite regularly received passes from the manager of the theater
next door, and into the lobby of which one door to the drug store
gave--a most fascinating connection to Clyde.  It seemed so
interesting to be working for a drug store thus intimately
connected with a theater.

And best of all, as Clyde now found to his pleasure, and yet
despair at times, the place was visited, just before and after the
show on matinee days, by bevies of girls, single and en suite, who
sat at the counter and giggled and chattered and gave their hair
and their complexions last perfecting touches before the mirror.
And Clyde, callow and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and
those of the opposite sex, was never weary of observing the beauty,
the daring, the self-sufficiency and the sweetness of these, as he
saw them.  For the first time in his life, while he busied himself
with washing glasses, filling the ice-cream and syrup containers,
arranging the lemons and oranges in the trays, he had an almost
uninterrupted opportunity of studying these girls at close range.
The wonder of them!  For the most part, they were so well-dressed
and smart-looking--the rings, pins, furs, delightful hats, pretty
shoes they wore.  And so often he overheard them discussing such
interesting things--parties, dances, dinners, the shows they had
seen, the places in or near Kansas City to which they were soon
going, the difference between the styles of this year and last, the
fascination of certain actors and actresses--principally actors--
who were now playing or soon coming to the city.  And to this day,
in his own home he had heard nothing of all this.

And very often one or another of these young beauties was
accompanied by some male in evening suit, dress shirt, high hat,
bow tie, white kid gloves and patent leather shoes, a costume which
at that time Clyde felt to be the last word in all true distinction,
beauty, gallantry and bliss.  To be able to wear such a suit with
such ease and air!  To be able to talk to a girl after the manner
and with the sang-froid of some of these gallants! what a true
measure of achievement!  No good-looking girl, as it then appeared
to him, would have anything to do with him if he did not possess
this standard of equipment.  It was plainly necessary--the thing.
And once he did attain it--was able to wear such clothes as these--
well, then was he not well set upon the path that leads to all the
blisses?  All the joys of life would then most certainly be spread
before him.  The friendly smiles!  The secret handclasps, maybe--an
arm about the waist of some one or another--a kiss--a promise of
marriage--and then, and then!

And all this as a revealing flash after all the years of walking
through the streets with his father and mother to public prayer
meeting, the sitting in chapel and listening to queer and
nondescript individuals--depressing and disconcerting people--
telling how Christ had saved them and what God had done for them.
You bet he would get out of that now.  He would work and save his
money and be somebody.  Decidedly this simple and yet idyllic
compound of the commonplace had all the luster and wonder of a
spiritual transfiguration, the true mirage of the lost and
thirsting and seeking victim of the desert.

However, the trouble with this particular position, as time
speedily proved, was that much as it might teach him of mixing
drinks and how to eventually earn twelve dollars a week, it was no
immediate solvent for the yearnings and ambitions that were already
gnawing at his vitals.  For Albert Sieberling, his immediate
superior, was determined to keep as much of his knowledge, as well
as the most pleasant parts of the tasks, to himself.  And further
he was quite at one with the druggist for whom they worked in
thinking that Clyde, in addition to assisting him about the
fountain, should run such errands as the druggist desired, which
kept Clyde industriously employed for nearly all the hours he was
on duty.

Consequently there was no immediate result to all this.  Clyde
could see no way to dressing better than he did.  Worse, he was
haunted by the fact that he had very little money and very few
contacts and connections--so few that, outside his own home, he was
lonely and not so very much less than lonely there.  The flight of
Esta had thrown a chill over the religious work there, and because,
as yet, she had not returned--the family, as he now heard, was
thinking of breaking up here and moving, for want of a better idea,
to Denver, Colorado.  But Clyde, by now, was convinced that he did
not wish to accompany them.  What was the good of it, he asked
himself?  There would be just another mission there, the same as
this one.

He had always lived at home--in the rooms at the rear of the
mission in Bickel Street, but he hated it.  And since his eleventh
year, during all of which time his family had been residing in
Kansas City, he had been ashamed to bring boy friends to or near
it.  For that reason he had always avoided boy friends, and had
walked and played very much alone--or with his brother and sisters.

But now that he was sixteen and old enough to make his own way, he
ought to be getting out of this.  And yet he was earning almost
nothing--not enough to live on, if he were alone--and he had not as
yet developed sufficient skill or courage to get anything better.

Nevertheless when his parents began to talk of moving to Denver,
and suggested that he might secure work out there, never assuming
for a moment that he would not want to go he began to throw out
hints to the effect that it might he better if he did not.  He
liked Kansas City.  What was the use of changing?  He had a job now
and he might get something better.  But his parents, bethinking
themselves of Esta and the fate that had overtaken her, were not a
little dubious as to the outcome of such early adventuring on his
part alone.  Once they were away, where would he live?  With whom?
What sort of influence would enter his life, who would be at hand
to aid and council and guide him in the straight and narrow path,
as they had done?  It was something to think about.

But spurred by this imminence of Denver, which now daily seemed to
be drawing nearer, and the fact that not long after this Mr.
Sieberling, owing to his too obvious gallantries in connection with
the fair sex, lost his place in the drug store, and Clyde came by a
new and bony and chill superior who did not seem to want him as an
assistant, he decided to quit--not at once, but rather to see, on
such errands as took him out of the store, if he could not find
something else.  Incidentally in so doing, looking here and there,
he one day thought he would speak to the manager of the fountain
which was connected with the leading drug store in the principal
hotel of the city--the latter a great twelve-story affair, which
represented, as he saw it, the quintessence of luxury and ease.
Its windows were always so heavily curtained; the main entrance
(he had never ventured to look beyond that) was a splendiferous
combination of a glass and iron awning, coupled with a marble
corridor lined with palms.  Often he had passed here, wondering
with boyish curiosity what the nature of the life of such a place
might be.  Before its doors, so many taxis and automobiles were
always in waiting.

To-day, being driven by the necessity of doing something for
himself, he entered the drug store which occupied the principal
corner, facing 14th Street at Baltimore, and finding a girl cashier
in a small glass cage near the door, asked of her who was in charge
of the soda fountain.  Interested by his tentative and uncertain
manner, as well as his deep and rather appealing eyes, and
instinctively judging that he was looking for something to do, she
observed:  "Why, Mr. Secor, there, the manager of the store."  She
nodded in the direction of a short, meticulously dressed man of
about thirty-five, who was arranging an especial display of toilet
novelties on the top of a glass case.  Clyde approached him, and
being still very dubious as to how one went about getting anything
in life, and finding him engrossed in what he was doing, stood
first on one foot and then on the other, until at last, sensing
some one was hovering about for something, the man turned:  "Well?"
he queried.

"You don't happen to need a soda fountain helper, do you?"  Clyde
cast at him a glance that said as plain as anything could, "If you
have any such place, I wish you would please give it to me.  I need
it."

"No, no, no," replied this individual, who was blond and vigorous
and by nature a little irritable and contentious.  He was about to
turn away, but seeing a flicker of disappointment and depression
pass over Clyde's face, he turned and added, "Ever work in a place
like this before?"

"No place as fine as this.  No, sir," replied Clyde, rather
fancifully moved by all that was about him.  "I'm working now down
at Mr. Klinkle's store at 7th and Brooklyn, but it isn't anything
like this one and I'd like to get something better if I could."

"Uh," went on his interviewer, rather pleased by the innocent
tribute to the superiority of his store.  "Well, that's reasonable
enough.  But there isn't anything here right now that I could offer
you.  We don't make many changes.  But if you'd like to be a bell-
boy, I can tell you where you might get a place.  They're looking
for an extra boy in the hotel inside there right now.  The captain
of the boys was telling me he was in need of one.  I should think
that would be as good as helping about a soda fountain, any day."

Then seeing Clyde's face suddenly brighten, he added:  "But you
mustn't say that I sent you, because I don't know you.  Just ask
for Mr. Squires inside there, under the stairs, and he can tell you
all about it."

At the mere mention of work in connection with so imposing an
institution as the Green-Davidson, and the possibility of his
getting it, Clyde first stared, felt himself tremble the least bit
with excitement, then thanking his advisor for his kindness, went
direct to a green-marbled doorway which opened from the rear of
this drug-store into the lobby of the hotel.  Once through it, he
beheld a lobby, the like of which, for all his years but because of
the timorous poverty that had restrained him from exploring such a
world, was more arresting, quite, than anything he had seen before.
It was all so lavish.  Under his feet was a checkered black-and-
white marble floor.  Above him a coppered and stained and gilded
ceiling.  And supporting this, a veritable forest of black marble
columns as highly polished as the floor--glassy smooth.  And
between the columns which ranged away toward three separate
entrances, one right, one left and one directly forward toward
Dalrymple Avenue--were lamps, statuary, rugs, palms, chairs,
divans, tete-a-tetes--a prodigal display.  In short it was compact,
of all that gauche luxury of appointment which, as some one once
sarcastically remarked, was intended to supply "exclusiveness to
the masses."  Indeed, for an essential hotel in a great and
successful American commercial city, it was almost too luxurious.
Its rooms and hall and lobbies and restaurants were entirely too
richly furnished, without the saving grace of either simplicity or
necessity.

As Clyde stood, gazing about the lobby, he saw a large company of
people--some women and children, but principally men as he could
see--either walking or standing about and talking or idling in the
chairs, side by side or alone.  And in heavily draped and richly
furnished alcoves where were writing-tables, newspaper files, a
telegraph office, a haberdasher's shop, and a florist's stand, were
other groups.  There was a convention of dentists in the city, not
a few of whom, with their wives and children, were gathered here;
but to Clyde, who was not aware of this nor of the methods and
meanings of conventions, this was the ordinary, everyday appearance
of this hotel.

He gazed about in awe and amazement, then remembering the name of
Squires, he began to look for him in his office "under the stairs."
To his right was a grand double-winged black-and-white staircase
which swung in two separate flights and with wide, generous curves
from the main floor to the one above.  And between these great
flights was evidently the office of the hotel, for there were many
clerks there.  But behind the nearest flight, and close to the wall
through which he had come, was a tall desk, at which stood a young
man of about his own age in a maroon uniform bright with many brass
buttons.  And on his head was a small, round, pill-box cap, which
was cocked jauntily over one ear.  He was busy making entries with
a lead pencil in a book which lay open before him.  Various other
boys about his own age, and uniformed as he was, were seated upon a
long bench near him, or were to be seen darting here and there,
sometimes, returning to this one with a slip of paper or a key or
note of some kind, and then seating themselves upon the bench to
await another call apparently, which seemed to come swiftly enough.
A telephone upon the small desk at which stood the uniformed youth
was almost constantly buzzing, and after ascertaining what was
wanted, this youth struck a small bell before him, or called
"front," to which the first boy on the bench, responded.  Once
called, they went hurrying up one or the other stairs or toward one
of the several entrances or elevators, and almost invariably were
to be seen escorting individuals whose bags and suitcases and
overcoats and golf sticks they carried.  There were others who
disappeared and returned, carrying drinks on trays or some package
or other, which they were taking to one of the rooms above.
Plainly this was the work that he should be called upon to do,
assuming that he would be so fortunate as to connect himself with
such an institution as this.

And it was all so brisk and enlivening that he wished that he might
be so fortunate as to secure a position here.  But would he be?
And where was Mr. Squires?  He approached the youth at the small
desk:  "Do you know where I will find Mr. Squires?" he asked.

"Here he comes now," replied the youth, looking up and examining
Clyde with keen, gray eyes.

Clyde gazed in the direction indicated, and saw approaching a brisk
and dapper and decidedly sophisticated-looking person of perhaps
twenty-nine or thirty years of age.  He was so very slender, keen,
hatchet-faced and well-dressed that Clyde was not only impressed
but overawed at once--a very shrewd and cunning-looking person.
His nose was so long and thin, his eyes so sharp, his lips thin,
and chin pointed.

"Did you see that tall, gray-haired man with the Scotch plaid shawl
who went through here just now?" he paused to say to his assistant
at the desk.  The assistant nodded.  "Well, they tell me that's the
Earl of Landreil.  He just came in this morning with fourteen
trunks and four servants.  Can you beat it!  He's somebody in
Scotland.  That isn't the name he travels under, though, I hear.
He's registered as Mr. Blunt.  Can you beat that English stuff?
They can certainly lay on the class, eh?"

"You said it!" replied his assistant deferentially.

He turned for the first time, glimpsing Clyde, but paying no
attention to him.  His assistant came to Clyde's aid.

"That young fella there is waiting to see you," he explained.

"You want to see me?" queried the captain of the bellhops, turning
to Clyde, and observing his none-too-good clothes, at the same time
making a comprehensive study of him.

"The gentleman in the drug store," began Clyde, who did not quite
like the looks of the man before him, but was determined to present
himself as agreeably as possible, "was saying--that is, he said
that I might ask you if there was any chance here for me as a bell-
boy.  I'm working now at Klinkle's drug store at 7th and Brooklyn,
as a helper, but I'd like to get out of that and he said you might--
that is--he thought you had a place open now."  Clyde was so
flustered and disturbed by the cool, examining eyes of the man
before him that he could scarcely get his breath properly, and
swallowed hard.

For the first time in his life, it occurred to him that if he
wanted to get on he ought to insinuate himself into the good graces
of people--do or say something that would make them like him.  So
now he contrived an eager, ingratiating smile, which he bestowed on
Mr. Squires, and added:  "If you'd like to give me a chance, I'd
try very hard and I'd be very willing."

The man before him merely looked at him coldly, but being the soul
of craft and self-acquisitiveness in a petty way, and rather liking
anybody who had the skill and the will to be diplomatic, he now put
aside an impulse to shake his head negatively, and observed:  "But
you haven't had any training in this work."

"No, sir, but couldn't I pick it up pretty quick if I tried hard?"

"Well, let me see," observed the head of the bell-hops, scratching
his head dubiously.  "I haven't any time to talk to you now.  Come
around Monday afternoon.  I'll see you then."  He turned on his
heel and walked away.

Clyde, left alone in this fashion, and not knowing just what it
meant, stared, wondering.  Was it really true that he had been
invited to come back on Monday?  Could it be possible that--  He
turned and hurried out, thrilling from head to toe.  The idea!  He
had asked this man for a place in the very finest hotel in Kansas
City and he had asked him to come back and see him on Monday.  Gee!
what would that mean?  Could it be possible that he would be
admitted to such a grand world as this--and that so speedily?
Could it really be?



Chapter 5


The imaginative flights of Clyde in connection with all this--his
dreams of what it might mean for him to be connected with so
glorious an institution--can only be suggested.  For his ideas of
luxury were in the main so extreme and mistaken and gauche--mere
wanderings of a repressed and unsatisfied fancy, which as yet had
had nothing but imaginings to feed it.

He went back to his old duties at the drug-store--to his home after
hours in order to eat and sleep--but now for the balance of this
Friday and Saturday and Sunday and Monday until late in the day, he
walked on air, really.  His mind was not on what he was doing, and
several times his superior at the drugstore had to remind him to
"wake-up."  And after hours, instead of going directly home, he
walked north to the corner of 14th and Baltimore, where stood this
great hotel, and looked at it.  There, at midnight even, before
each of the three principal entrances--one facing each of three
streets--was a doorman in a long maroon coat with many buttons and
a high-rimmed and long-visored maroon cap.  And inside, behind
looped and fluted French silk curtains, were the still blazing
lights, the a la carte dining-room and the American grill in the
basement near one corner still open.  And about them were many
taxis and cars.  And there was music always--from somewhere.

After surveying it all this Friday night and again on Saturday and
Sunday morning, he returned on Monday afternoon at the suggestion
of Mr. Squires and was greeted by that individual rather crustily,
for by then he had all but forgotten him.  But seeing that at the
moment he was actually in need of help, and being satisfied that
Clyde might be of service, he led him into his small office under
the stair, where, with a very superior manner and much actual
indifference, he proceeded to question him as to his parentage,
where he lived, at what he had worked before and where, what his
father did for a living--a poser that for Clyde, for he was proud
and so ashamed to admit that his parents conducted a mission and
preached on the streets.  Instead he replied (which was true at
times) that his father canvassed for a washing machine and wringer
company--and on Sundays preached--a religious revelation, which was
not at all displeasing to this master of boys who were inclined to
be anything but home-loving and conservative.  Could he bring a
reference from where he now was?  He could.

Mr. Squires proceeded to explain that this hotel was very strict.
Too many boys, on account of the scenes and the show here, the
contact made with undue luxury to which they were not accustomed--
though these were not the words used by Mr. Squires--were inclined
to lose their heads and go wrong.  He was constantly being forced
to discharge boys who, because they made a little extra money,
didn't know how to conduct themselves.  He must have boys who were
willing, civil, prompt, courteous to everybody.  They must be clean
and neat about their persons and clothes and show up promptly--on
the dot--and in good condition for the work every day.  And any boy
who got to thinking that because he made a little money he could
flirt with anybody or talk back, or go off on parties at night, and
then not show up on time or too tired to be quick and bright,
needn't think that he would be here long.  He would be fired, and
that promptly.  He would not tolerate any nonsense.  That must be
understood now, once and for all.

Clyde nodded assent often and interpolated a few eager "yes, sirs"
and "no, sirs," and assured him at the last that it was the
furtherest thing from his thoughts and temperament to dream of any
such high crimes and misdemeanors as he had outlined.  Mr. Squires
then proceeded to explain that this hotel only paid fifteen dollars
a month and board--at the servant's table in the basement--to any
bell-boy at any time.  But, and this information came as a most
amazing revelation to Clyde, every guest for whom any of these boys
did anything--carried a bag or delivered a pitcher of water or did
anything--gave him a tip, and often quite a liberal one--a dime,
fifteen cents, a quarter, sometimes more.  And these tips, as Mr.
Squires explained, taken all together, averaged from four to six
dollars a day--not less and sometimes more--most amazing pay, as
Clyde now realized.  His heart gave an enormous bound and was near
to suffocating him at the mere mention of so large a sum.  From
four to six dollars!  Why, that was twenty-eight to forty-two
dollars a week!  He could scarcely believe it.  And that in
addition to the fifteen dollars a month and board.  And there was
no charge, as Mr. Squires now explained, for the handsome uniforms
the boys wore.  But it might not be worn or taken out of the place.
His hours, as Mr. Squires now proceeded to explain, would be as
follows:  On Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, he was to
work from six in the morning until noon, and then, with six hours
off, from six in the evening until midnight.  On Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays, he need only work from noon until six,
thus giving him each alternate afternoon or evening to himself.
But all his meals were to be taken outside his working hours and he
was to report promptly in uniform for line-up and inspection by his
superior exactly ten minutes before the regular hours of his work
began at each watch.

As for some other things which were in his mind at the time, Mr.
Squires said nothing.  There were others, as he knew, who would
speak for him.  Instead he went on to add, and then quite
climactically for Clyde at that time, who had been sitting as one
in a daze:  "I suppose you are ready to go to work now, aren't
you?"

"Yes, sir, yes, sir," he replied.

"Very good!"  Then he got up and opened the door which had shut
them in.  "Oscar," he called to a boy seated at the head of the
bell-boy bench, to which a tallish, rather oversized youth in a
tight, neat-looking uniform responded with alacrity.  "Take this
young man here--Clyde Griffiths is your name, isn't it?--up to the
wardrobe on the twelfth and see if Jacobs can find a suit to fit.
But if he can't tell him to alter it by to-morrow.  I think the one
Silsbee wore ought to be about right for him."

Then he turned to his assistant at the desk who was at the moment
looking on.  "I'm giving him a trial, anyhow," he commented.  "Have
one of the boys coach him a little to-night or whenever he starts
in.  Go ahead, Oscar," he called to the boy in charge of Clyde.
"He's green at this stuff, but I think he'll do," he added to his
assistant, as Clyde and Oscar disappeared in the direction of one
of the elevators.  Then he walked off to have Clyde's name entered
upon the payroll.

In the meantime, Clyde, in tow of this new mentor, was listening to
a line of information such as never previously had come to his ears
anywhere.

"You needn't be frightened, if you ain't never worked at anything
like dis before," began this youth, whose last name was Hegglund as
Clyde later learned, and who hailed from Jersey City, New Jersey,
exotic lingo, gestures and all.  He was tall, vigorous, sandy-
haired, freckled, genial and voluble.  They had entered upon an
elevator labeled "employees."  "It ain't so hard.  I got my first
job in Buffalo t'ree years ago and I never knowed a t'ing about it
up to dat time.  All you gotta do is to watch de udders an' see how
dey do, see.  Yu get dat, do you?"

Clyde, whose education was not a little superior to that of his
guide, commented quite sharply in his own mind on the use of such
words as "knowed," and "gotta"--also upon "t'ing," "dat," "udders,"
and so on, but so grateful was he for any courtesy at this time
that he was inclined to forgive his obviously kindly mentor
anything for his geniality.

"Watch whoever's doin' anyt'ing, at first, see, till you git to
know, see.  Dat's de way.  When de bell rings, if you're at de head
of de bench, it's your turn, see, an' you jump up and go quick.
Dey like you to be quick around here, see.  An' whenever you see
any one come in de door or out of an elevator wit a bag, an' you're
at de head of de bench, you jump, wedder de captain rings de bell
or calls 'front' or not.  Sometimes he's busy or ain't lookin' an'
he wants you to do dat, see.  Look sharp, cause if you don't get no
bags, you don't get no tips, see.  Everybody dat has a bag or
anyt'ing has to have it carried for 'em, unless dey won't let you
have it, see.

"But be sure and wait somewhere near de desk for whoever comes in
until dey sign up for a room," he rattled on as they ascended in
the elevator.  "Most every one takes a room.  Den de clerk'll give
you de key an' after dat all you gotta do is to carry up de bags to
de room.  Den all you gotta do is to turn on de lights in de
batroom and closet, if dere is one, so dey'll know where dey are,
see.  An' den raise de curtains in de day time or lower 'em at
night, an' see if dere's towels in de room, so you can tell de maid
if dere ain't, and den if dey don't give you no tip, you gotta go,
only most times, unless you draw a stiff, all you gotta do is hang
back a little--make a stall, see--fumble wit de door-key or try de
transom, see.  Den, if dey're any good, dey'll hand you a tip.  If
dey don't, you're out, dat's all, see.  You can't even look as
dough you was sore, dough--nottin' like dat, see.  Den you come
down an' unless dey wants ice-water or somepin, you're troo, see.
It's back to de bench, quick.  Dere ain't much to it.  Only you
gotta be quick all de time, see, and not let any one get by you
comin' or goin'--dat's de main t'ing.

"An' after dey give you your uniform, an' you go to work, don't
forgit to give de captain a dollar after every watch before you
leave, see--two dollars on de day you has two watches, and a dollar
on de day you has one, see?  Dat's de way it is here.  We work
togedder like dat, an' you gotta do dat if you wanta hold your job.
But dat's all.  After dat all de rest is yours."

Clyde saw.

A part of his twenty-four or thirty-two dollars as he figured it
was going glimmering, apparently--eleven or twelve all told--but
what of it!  Would there not be twelve or fifteen or even more
left?  And there were his meals and his uniform.  Kind Heaven!
What a realization of paradise!  What a consummation of luxury!

Mr. Hegglund of Jersey City escorted him to the twelfth floor and
into a room where they found on guard a wizened and grizzled little
old man of doubtful age and temperament, who forthwith ouffitted
Clyde with a suit that was so near a fit that, without further
orders, it was not deemed necessary to alter it.  And trying on
various caps, there was one that fitted him--a thing that sat most
rakishly over one ear--only, as Hegglund informed him, "You'll have
to get dat hair of yours cut.  Better get it clipped behind.  It's
too long."  And with that Clyde himself had been in mental
agreement before he spoke.  His hair certainly did not look right
in the new cap.  He hated it now.  And going downstairs, and
reporting to Mr. Whipple, Mr. Squires' assistant, the latter had
said:  "Very well.  It fits all right, does it?  Well, then, you go
on here at six.  Report at five-thirty and be here in your uniform
at five-forty-five for inspection."

Whereupon Clyde, being advised by Hegglund to go then and there to
get his uniform and take it to the dressing-room in the basement,
and get his locker from the locker-man, he did so, and then hurried
most nervously out--first to get a hair-cut and afterwards to
report to his family on his great luck.

He was to be a bell-boy in the great Hotel Green-Davidson.  He was
to wear a uniform and a handsome one.  He was to make--but he did
not tell his mother at first what he was to make, truly--but more
than eleven or twelve at first, anyhow, he guessed--he could not be
sure.  For now, all at once, he saw economic independence ahead for
himself, if not for his family, and he did not care to complicate
it with any claims which a confession as to his real salary would
most certainly inspire.  But he did say that he was to have his
meals free--because that meant eating away from home, which was
what he wished.  And in addition he was to live and move always in
the glorious atmosphere of this hotel--not to have to go home ever
before twelve, if he did not wish--to have good clothes--
interesting company, maybe--a good time, gee!

And as he hurried on about his various errands now, it occurred to
him as a final and shrewd and delicious thought that he need not go
home on such nights as he wished to go to a theater or anything
like that.  He could just stay down-town and say he had to work.
And that with free meals and good clothes--think of that!

The mere thought of all this was so astonishing and entrancing that
he could not bring himself to think of it too much.  He must wait
and see.  He must wait and see just how much he would make here in
this perfectly marvelous-marvelous realm.



Chapter 6


And as conditions stood, the extraordinary economic and social
inexperience of the Griffiths--Asa and Elvira--dovetailed all too
neatly with his dreams.  For neither Asa nor Elvira had the least
knowledge of the actual character of the work upon which he was
about to enter, scarcely any more than he did, or what it might
mean to him morally, imaginatively, financially, or in any other
way.  For neither of them had ever stopped in a hotel above the
fourth class in all their days.  Neither one had ever eaten in a
restaurant of a class that catered to other than individuals of
their own low financial level.  That there could be any other forms
of work or contact than those involved in carrying the bags of
guests to and from the door of a hotel to its office, and back
again, for a boy of Clyde's years and temperament, never occurred
to them.  And it was naively assumed by both that the pay for such
work must of necessity be very small anywhere, say five or six
dollars a week, and so actually below Clyde's deserts and his
years.

And in view of this, Mrs. Griffiths, who was more practical than
her husband at all times, and who was intensely interested in
Clyde's economic welfare, as well as that of her other children,
was actually wondering why Clyde should of a sudden become so
enthusiastic about changing to this new situation, which, according
to his own story, involved longer hours and not so very much more
pay, if any.  To be sure, he had already suggested that it might
lead to some superior position in the hotel, some clerkship or
other, but he did not know when that would be, and the other had
promised rather definite fulfillment somewhat earlier--as to money,
anyhow.

But seeing him rush in on Monday afternoon and announce that he had
secured the place and that forthwith he must change his tie and
collar and get his hair cut and go back and report, she felt better
about it.  For never before had she seen him so enthusiastic about
anything, and it was something to have him more content with
himself--not so moody, as he was at times.

Yet, the hours which he began to maintain now--from six in the
morning until midnight--with only an occasional early return on
such evenings as he chose to come home when he was not working--and
when he troubled to explain that he had been let off a little
early--together with a certain eager and restless manner--a desire
to be out and away from his home at nearly all such moments as he
was not in bed or dressing or undressing, puzzled his mother and
Asa, also.  The hotel!  The hotel!  He must always hurry off to the
hotel, and all that he had to report was that he liked it ever so
much, and that he was doing all right, he thought.  It was nicer
work than working around a soda fountain, and he might be making
more money pretty soon--he couldn't tell--but as for more than that
he either wouldn't or couldn't say.

And all the time the Griffiths--father and mother--were feeling
that because of the affair in connection with Esta, they should
really be moving away from Kansas City--should go to Denver.  And
now more than ever, Clyde was insisting that he did not want to
leave Kansas City.  They might go, but he had a pretty good job now
and wanted to stick to it.  And if they left, he could get a room
somewhere--and would be all right--a thought which did not appeal
to them at all.

But in the meantime what an enormous change in Clyde's life.
Beginning with that first evening, when at 5:45, he appeared before
Mr. Whipple, his immediate superior, and was approved--not only
because of the fit of his new uniform, but for his general
appearance--the world for him had changed entirely.  Lined up with
seven others in the servants' hall, immediately behind the general
offices in the lobby, and inspected by Mr. Whipple, the squad of
eight marched at the stroke of six through a door that gave into
the lobby on the other side of the staircase from where stood Mr.
Whipple's desk, then about and in front of the general registration
office to the long bench on the other side.  A Mr. Barnes, who
alternated with Mr. Whipple, then took charge of the assistant
captain's desk, and the boys seated themselves--Clyde at the foot--
only to be called swiftly and in turn to perform this, that and the
other service--while the relieved squad of Mr. Whipple was led away
into the rear servants' hall as before, where they disbanded.

"Cling!"

The bell on the room clerk's desk had sounded and the first boy was
going.

"Cling!"  It sounded again and a second boy leaped to his feet.

"Front!"--"Center door!" called Mr. Barnes, and a third boy was
skidding down the long marble floor toward that entrance to seize
the bags of an incoming guest, whose white whiskers and youthful,
bright tweed suit were visible to Clyde's uninitiated eyes a
hundred feet away.  A mysterious and yet sacred vision--a tip!

"Front!"  It was Mr. Barnes calling again.  "See what 913 wants--
ice-water, I guess."  And a fourth boy was gone.

Clyde, steadily moving up along the bench and adjoining Hegglund,
who had been detailed to instruct him a little, was all eyes and
ears and nerves.  He was so tense that he could hardly breathe, and
fidgeted and jerked until finally Hegglund exclaimed:  "Now, don't
get excited.  Just hold your horses will yuh?  You'll be all right.
You're jist like I was when I begun--all noives.  But dat ain't de
way.  Easy's what you gotta be aroun' here.  An' you wants to look
as dough you wasn't seein' nobody nowhere--just lookin' to what ya
got before ya."

"Front!"  Mr. Barnes again.  Clyde was scarcely able to keep his
mind on what Hegglund was saying.  "115 wants some writing paper
and pens."  A fifth boy had gone.

"Where do you get writing paper and pens if they want 'em?"  He
pleaded of his imtructor, as one who was about to die might plead.

"Off'n de key desk, I toldja.  He's to de left over dere.  He'll
give 'em to ya.  An' you gits ice-water in de hall we lined up in
just a minute ago--at dat end over dere, see--you'll see a little
door.  You gotta give dat guy in dere a dime oncet in a while or
he'll get sore."

"Cling!"  The room clerk's bell.  A sixth boy had gone without a
word to supply some order in that direction.

"And now remember," continued Hegglund, seeing that he himself was
next, and cautioning him for the last time, "if dey wants drinks of
any kind, you get 'em in de grill over dere off'n de dining-room.
An' be sure and git de names of de drinks straight or dey'll git
sore.  An' if it's a room you're showing, pull de shades down to-
night and turn on de lights.  An' if it's anyt'ing from de dinin'-
room you gotta see de headwaiter--he gets de tip, see."

"Front!"  He was up and gone.

And Clyde was number one.  And number four was already seating
himself again by his side--but looking shrewdly around to see if
anybody was wanted anywhere.

"Front!"  It was Mr. Barnes.  Clyde was up and before him, grateful
that it was no one coming in with bags, but worried for fear it
might be something that he would not understand or could not do
quickly.

"See what 882 wants."  Clyde was off toward one of the two
elevators marked, "employees," the proper one to use, he thought,
because he had been taken to the twelfth floor that way, but
another boy stepping out from one of the fast passenger elevators
cautioned him as to his mistake.

"Goin' to a room?" he called.  "Use the guest elevators.  Them's
for the servants or anybody with bundles."

Clyde hastened to cover his mistake.  "Eight," he called.  There
being no one else on the elevator with them, the Negro elevator boy
in charge of the car saluted him at once.

"You'se new, ain't you?  I ain't seen you around her befo'."

"Yes, I just came on," replied Clyde.

"Well, you won't hate it here," commented this youth in the most
friendly way.  "No one hates this house, I'll say.  Eight did you
say?"  He stopped the car and Clyde stepped out.  He was too
nervous to think to ask the direction and now began looking at room
numbers, only to decide after a moment that he was in the wrong
corridor.  The soft brown carpet under his feet; the soft, cream-
tinted walls; the snow-white bowl lights in the ceiling--all seemed
to him parts of a perfection and a social superiority which was
almost unbelievable--so remote from all that he had ever known.

And finally, finding 882, he knocked timidly and was greeted after
a moment by a segment of a very stout and vigorous body in a blue
and white striped union suit and a related segment of a round and
florid head in which was set one eye and some wrinkles to one side
of it.

"Here's a dollar bill, son," said the eye seemingly--and now a hand
appeared holding a paper dollar.  It was fat and red.  "You go out
to a haberdasher's and get me a pair of garters--Boston Garters--
silk--and hurry back."

"Yes, sir," replied Clyde, and took the dollar.  The door closed
and he found himself hustling along the hall toward the elevator,
wondering what a haberdasher's was.  As old as he was--seventeen--
the name was new to him.  He had never even heard it before, or
noticed it at least.  If the man had said a "gents' furnishing
store," he would have understood at once, but now here he was told
to go to a haberdasher's and he did not know what it was.  A cold
sweat burst out upon his forehead.  His knees trembled.  The devil!
What would he do now?  Could he ask any one, even Hegglund, and not
seem--

He pushed the elevator button.  The car began to descend.  A
haberdasher.  A haberdasher.  Suddenly a sane thought reached him.
Supposing he didn't know what a haberdasher was?  After all the man
wanted a pair of silk Boston garters.  Where did one get silk
Boston garters--at a store, of course, a place where they sold
things for men.  Certainly.  A gents' furnishing store.  He would
run out to a store.  And on the way down, noting another friendly
Negro in charge, he asked:  "Do you know if there's a gents'
furnishing store anywhere around here?"

"One in the building, captain, right outside the south lobby,"
replied the Negro, and Clyde hurried there, greatly relieved.  Yet
he felt odd and strange in his close-fitting uniform and his
peculiar hat.  All the time he was troubled by the notion that his
small, round, tight-fitting hat might fall off.  And he kept
pressing it furtively and yet firmly down.  And bustling into the
haberdasher's, which was blazing with lights outside, he exclaimed,
"I want to get a pair of Boston silk garters."

"All right, son, here you are," replied a sleek, short man with
bright, bald head, pink face and gold-rimmed glasses.  "For some
one in the hotel, I presume?  Well, we'll make that seventy-five
cents, and here's a dime for you," he remarked as he wrapped up the
package and dropped the dollar in the cash register.  "I always
like to do the right thing by you boys in there because I know you
come to me whenever you can."

Clyde took the dime and the package, not knowing quite what to
think.  The garters must be seventy-five cents--he said so.  Hence
only twenty-five cents need to be returned to the man.  Then the
dime was his.  And now, maybe--would the man really give him
another tip?

He hurried back into the hotel and up to the elevators.  The
strains of a string orchestra somewhere were filling the lobby with
delightful sounds.  People were moving here and there--so well-
dressed, so much at ease, so very different from most of the people
in the streets or anywhere, as he saw it.

An elevator door flew open.  Various guests entered.  Then Clyde
and another bell-boy who gave him an interested glance.  At the
sixth floor the boy departed.  At the eighth Clyde and an old lady
stepped forth.  He hurried to the door of his guest and tapped.
The man opened it, somewhat more fully dressed than before.  He had
on a pair of trousers and was shaving.

"Back, eh," he called.

"Yes, sir," replied Clyde, handing him the package and change.  "He
said it was seventy-five cents."

"He's a damned robber, but you can keep the change, just the same,"
he replied, handing him the quarter and closing the door.  Clyde
stood there, quite spellbound for the fraction of a second.
"Thirty-five cents"--he thought--"thirty-five cents."  And for one
little short errand.  Could that really be the way things went
here?  It couldn't be, really.  It wasn't possible--not always.

And then, his feet sinking in the soft nap of the carpet, his hand
in one pocket clutching the money, he felt as if he could squeal or
laugh out loud.  Why, thirty-five cents--and for a little service
like that.  This man had given him a quarter and the other a dime
and he hadn't done anything at all.

He hurried from the car at the bottom--the strains of the orchestra
once more fascinated him, the wonder of so well-dressed a throng
thrilling him--and made his way to the bench from which he had
first departed.

And following this he had been called to carry the three bags and
two umbrellas of an aged farmer-like couple, who had engaged a
parlor, bedroom and bath on the fifth floor.  En route they kept
looking at him, as he could see, but said nothing.  Yet once in
their room, and after he had promptly turned on the lights near the
door, lowered the blinds and placed the bags upon the bag racks,
the middle-aged and rather awkward husband--a decidedly solemn and
bewhiskered person--studied him and finally observed:  "Young
fella, you seem to be a nice, brisk sort of boy--rather better than
most we've seen so far, I must say."

"I certainly don't think that hotels are any place for boys,"
chirped up the wife of his bosom--a large and rotund person, who by
this time was busily employed inspecting an adjoining room.  "I
certainly wouldn't want any of my boys to work in 'em--the way
people act."

"But here, young man," went on the elder, laying off his overcoat
and fishing in his trousers pocket.  "You go down and get me three
or four evening papers if there are that many and a pitcher of ice-
water, and I'll give you fifteen cents when you get back."

"This hotel's better'n the one in Omaha, Pa," added the wife
sententiously.  "It's got nicer carpets and curtains."

And as green as Clyde was, he could not help smiling secretly.
Openly, however, he preserved a masklike solemnity, seemingly
effacing all facial evidence of thought, and took the change and
went out.  And in a few moments he was back with the ice-water and
all the evening papers and departed smilingly with his fifteen
cents.

But this, in itself, was but a beginning in so far as this
particular evening was concerned, for he was scarcely seated upon
the bench again, before he was called to room 529, only to be sent
to the bar for drinks--two ginger ales and two syphons of soda--and
this by a group of smartly-dressed young men and girls who were
laughing and chattering in the room, one of whom opened the door
just wide enough to instruct him as to what was wanted.  But
because of a mirror over the mantel, he could see the party and one
pretty girl in a white suit and cap, sitting on the edge of a chair
in which reclined a young man who had his arm about her.

Clyde stared, even while pretending not to.  And in his state of
mind, this sight was like looking through the gates of Paradise.
Here were young fellows and girls in this room, not so much older
than himself, laughing and talking and drinking even--not ice-cream
sodas and the like, but such drinks no doubt as his mother and
father were always speaking against as leading to destruction, and
apparently nothing was thought of it.

He bustled down to the bar, and having secured the drinks and a
charge slip, returned--and was paid--a dollar and a half for the
drinks and a quarter for himself.  And once more he had a glimpse
of the appealing scene.  Only now one of the couples was dancing to
a tune sung and whistled by the other two.

But what interested him as much as the visits to and glimpses of
individuals in the different rooms, was the moving panorama of the
main lobby--the character of the clerks behind the main desk--room
clerk, key clerk, mail clerk, cashier and assistant cashier.  And
the various stands about the place--flower stand, news stand, cigar
stand, telegraph office, taxicab office, and all manned by
individuals who seemed to him curiously filled with the atmosphere
of this place.  And then around and between all these walking or
sitting were such imposing men and women, young men and girls all
so fashionably dressed, all so ruddy and contented looking.  And
the cars or other vehicles in which some of them appeared about
dinner time and later.  It was possible for him to see them in the
flare of the lights outside.  The wraps, furs, and other belongings
in which they appeared, or which were often carried by these other
boys and himself across the great lobby and into the cars or the
dining-room or the several elevators.  And they were always of such
gorgeous textures, as Clyde saw them.  Such grandeur.  This, then,
most certainly was what it meant to be rich, to be a person of
consequence in the world--to have money.  It meant that you did
what you pleased.  That other people, like himself, waited upon
you.  That you possessed all of these luxuries.  That you went how,
where and when you pleased.



Chapter 7


And so, of all the influences which might have come to Clyde at
this time, either as an aid or an injury to his development,
perhaps the most dangerous for him, considering his temperament,
was this same Green-Davidson, than which no more materially
affected or gaudy a realm could have been found anywhere between
the two great American mountain ranges.  Its darkened and cushioned
tea-room, so somber and yet tinted so gayly with colored lights,
was an ideal rendezvous, not only for such inexperienced and eager
flappers of the period who were to be taken by a show of luxury,
but also for those more experienced and perhaps a little faded
beauties, who had a thought for their complexions and the
advantages of dim and uncertain lights.  Also, like most hotels of
its kind, it was frequented by a certain type of eager and
ambitious male of not certain age or station in life, who counted
upon his appearance here at least once, if not twice a day, at
certain brisk and interesting hours, to establish for himself the
reputation of man-about-town, or rounder, or man of wealth, or
taste, or attractiveness, or all.

And it was not long after Clyde had begun to work here that he was
informed by these peculiar boys with whom he was associated, one or
more of whom was constantly seated with him upon the "hop-bench,"
as they called it, as to the evidence and presence even here--it
was not long before various examples of the phenomena were pointed
out to him--of a certain type of social pervert, morally
disarranged and socially taboo, who sought to arrest and interest
boys of their type, in order to come into some form of illicit
relationship with them, which at first Clyde could not grasp.  The
mere thought of it made him ill.  And yet some of these boys, as he
was now informed--a certain youth in particular, who was not on the
same watch with him at this time--were supposed to be of the mind
that "fell for it," as one of the other youths phrased it.

And the talk and the palaver that went on in the lobby and the
grill, to say nothing of the restaurants and rooms, were sufficient
to convince any inexperienced and none-too-discerning mind that the
chief business of life for any one with a little money or social
position was to attend a theater, a ball-game in season, or to
dance, motor, entertain friends at dinner, or to travel to New
York, Europe, Chicago, California.  And there had been in the lives
of most of these boys such a lack of anything that approached
comfort or taste, let alone luxury, that not unlike Clyde, they
were inclined to not only exaggerate the import of all that they
saw, but to see in this sudden transition an opportunity to partake
of it all.  Who were these people with money, and what had they
done that they should enjoy so much luxury, where others as good
seemingly as themselves had nothing?  And wherein did these latter
differ so greatly from the successful?  Clyde could not see.  Yet
these thoughts flashed through the minds of every one of these
boys.

At the same time the admiration, to say nothing of the private
overtures of a certain type of woman or girl, who inhibited perhaps
by the social milieu in which she found herself, but having means,
could invade such a region as this, and by wiles and smiles and the
money she possessed, ingratiate herself into the favor of some of
the more attractive of these young men here, was much commented
upon.

Thus a youth named Ratterer--a hall-boy here--sitting beside him
the very next afternoon, seeing a trim, well-formed blonde woman of
about thirty enter with a small dog upon her arm, and much bedecked
with furs, first nudged him and, with a faint motion of the head
indicating her vicinity, whispered, "See her?  There's a swift one.
I'll tell you about her sometime when I have time.  Gee, the things
she don't do!"

"What about her?" asked Clyde, keenly curious, for to him she
seemed exceedingly beautiful, most fascinating.

"Oh, nothing, except she's been in with about eight different men
around here since I've been here.  She fell for Doyle"--another
hall-boy whom by this time Clyde had already observed as being the
quintessence of Chesterfieldian grace and airs and looks, a youth
to imitate--"for a while, but now she's got some one else."

"Really?" inquired Clyde, very much astonished and wondering if
such luck would ever come to him.

"Surest thing you know," went on Ratterer.  "She's a bird that way--
never gets enough.  Her husband, they tell me, has a big lumber
business somewhere over in Kansas, but they don't live together no
more.  She has one of the best suites on the sixth, but she ain't
in it half the time.  The maid told me."

This same Ratterer, who was short and stocky but good-looking and
smiling, was so smooth and bland and generally agreeable that Clyde
was instantly drawn to him and wished to know him better.  And
Ratterer reciprocated that feeling, for he had the notion that
Clyde was innocent and inexperienced and that he would like to do
some little thing for him if he could.

The conversation was interrupted by a service call, and never
resumed about this particular woman, but the effect on Clyde was
sharp.  The woman was pleasing to look upon and exceedingly well-
groomed, her skin clear, her eyes bright.  Could what Ratterer had
been telling him really be true?  She was so pretty.  He sat and
gazed, a vision of something which he did not care to acknowledge
even to himself tingling the roots of his hair.

And then the temperaments and the philosophy of these boys--
Kinsella, short and thick and smooth-faced and a little dull, as
Clyde saw it, but good-looking and virile, and reported to be a
wizard at gambling, who, throughout the first three days at such
times as other matters were not taking his attention, had been good
enough to continue Hegglund's instructions in part.  He was a more
suave, better spoken youth than Hegglund, though not so attractive
as Ratterer, Clyde thought, without the latter's sympathetic
outlook, as Clyde saw it.

And again, there was Doyle--Eddie--whom Clyde found intensely
interesting from the first, and of whom he was not a little
jealous, because he was so very good-looking, so trim of figure,
easy and graceful of gesture, and with so soft and pleasing a
voice.  He went about with an indescribable air which seemed to
ingratiate him instantly with all with whom he came in contact--the
clerks behind the counter no less than the strangers who entered
and asked this or that question of him.  His shoes and collar were
so clean and trim, and his hair cut and brushed and oiled after a
fashion which would have become a moving-picture actor.  From the
first Clyde was utterly fascinated by his taste in the matter of
dress--the neatest of brown suits, caps, with ties and socks to
match.  He should wear a brown-belted coat just like that.  He
should have a brown cap.  And a suit as well cut and attractive.

Similarly, a not unrelated and yet different effect was produced by
that same youth who had first introduced Clyde to the work here--
Hegglund--who was one of the older and more experienced bell-hops,
and of considerable influence with the others because of his genial
and devil-may-care attitude toward everything, outside the exact
line of his hotel duties.  Hegglund was neither as schooled nor as
attractive as some of the others, yet by reason of a most avid and
dynamic disposition--plus a liberality where money and pleasure
were concerned, and a courage, strength and daring which neither
Doyle nor Ratterer nor Kinsella could match--a strength and daring
almost entirely divested of reason at times--he interested and
charmed Clyde immensely.  As he himself related to Clyde, after a
time, he was the son of a Swedish journeyman baker who some years
before in Jersey City had deserted his mother and left her to make
her way as best she could.  In consequence neither Oscar nor his
sister Martha had had any too much education or decent social
experience of any kind.  On the contrary, at the age of fourteen he
had left Jersey City in a box car and had been making his way ever
since as best he could.  And like Clyde, also, he was insanely
eager for all the pleasures which he had imagined he saw swirling
around him, and was for prosecuting adventures in every direction,
lacking, however, the nervous fear of consequence which
characterized Clyde.  Also he had a friend, a youth by the name of
Sparser, somewhat older than himself, who was chauffeur to a
wealthy citizen of Kansas City, and who occasionally managed to
purloin a car and so accommodate Hegglund in the matter of brief
outings here and there; which courtesy, unconventional and
dishonest though it might be, still caused Hegglund to feel that he
was a wonderful fellow and of much more importance than some of
these others, and to lend him in their eyes a luster which had
little of the reality which it suggested to them.

Not being as attractive as Doyle, it was not so easy for him to win
the attention of girls, and those he did succeed in interesting
were not of the same charm or import by any means.  Yet he was
inordinately proud of such contacts as he could effect and not a
little given to boasting in regard to them, a thing which Clyde
took with more faith than would most, being of less experience.
For this reason Hegglund liked Clyde, almost from the very first,
sensing in him perhaps a pleased and willing auditor.

So, finding Clyde on the bench beside him from time to time, he had
proceeded to continue his instructions.  Kansas City was a fine
place to be if you knew how to live.  He had worked in other
cities--Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis--before he came
here, but he had not liked any of them any better, principally--
which was a fact which he did not trouble to point out at the time--
because he had not done as well in those places as he had here.
He had been a dishwasher, car-cleaner, plumber's helper and several
other things before finally, in Buffalo, he had been inducted into
the hotel business.  And then a youth, working there, but who was
now no longer here, had persuaded him to come on to Kansas City.
But here:

"Say--de tips in dis hotel is as big as you'll git anywhere, I know
dat.  An' what's more, dey's nice people workin' here.  You do your
bit by dem and dey'll do right by you.  I been here now over a year
an' I ain't got no complaint.  Dat guy Squires is all right if you
don't cause him no trouble.  He's hard, but he's got to look out
for hisself, too--dat's natural.  But he don't fire nobody unless
he's got a reason.  I know dat, too.  And as for de rest dere's no
trouble.  An' when your work's troo, your time's your own.  Dese
fellows here are good sports, all o' dem.  Dey're no four-flushers
an' no tightwads, eider.  Whenever dere's anyting on--a good time
or sumpin' like dat, dey're on--nearly all of 'em.  An' dey don't
mooch or grouch in case tings don't work out right, neider.  I know
dat, cause I been wit 'em now, lots o' times."

He gave Clyde the impression that these youths were all the best of
friends--close--all but Doyle, who was a little standoffish, but
not coldly so.  "He's got too many women chasin' him, dat's all."
Also that they went here and there together on occasion--to a dance
hall, a dinner, a certain gambling joint down near the river, a
certain pleasure resort--"Kate Sweeney's"--where were some peaches
of girls--and so on and so forth, a world of such information as
had never previously been poured into Clyde's ear, and that set him
meditating, dreaming, doubting, worrying and questioning as to the
wisdom, charm, delight to be found in all this--also the
permissibility of it in so far as he was concerned.  For had he not
been otherwise instructed in regard to all this all his life long?
There was a great thrill and yet a great question involved in all
to which he was now listening so attentively.

Again there was Thomas Ratterer, who was of a type which at first
glance, one would have said, could scarcely prove either inimical
or dangerous to any of the others.  He was not more than five feet
four, plump, with black hair and olive skin, and with an eye that
was as limpid as water and as genial as could be.  He, too, as
Clyde learned after a time, was of a nondescript family, and so had
profited by no social or financial advantages of any kind.  But he
had a way, and was liked by all of these youths--so much so that he
was consulted about nearly everything.  A native of Wichita,
recently moved to Kansas City, he and his sister were the principal
support of a widowed mother.  During their earlier and formative
years, both had seen their very good-natured and sympathetic
mother, of whom they were honestly fond, spurned and abused by a
faithless husband.  There had been times when they were quite
without food.  On more than one occasion they had been ejected for
non-payment of rent.  None too continuously Tommy and his sister
had been maintained in various public schools.  Finally, at the age
of fourteen he had decamped to Kansas City, where he had secured
different odd jobs, until he succeeded in connecting himself with
the Green-Davidson, and was later joined by his mother and sister
who had removed from Wichita to Kansas City to be with him.

But even more than by the luxury of the hotel or these youths, whom
swiftly and yet surely he was beginning to decipher, Clyde was
impressed by the downpour of small change that was tumbling in upon
him and making a small lump in his right-hand pants pocket--dimes,
nickels, quarters and half-dollars even, which increased and
increased even on the first day until by nine o'clock he already
had over four dollars in his pocket, and by twelve, at which hour
he went off duty, he had over six and a half--as much as previously
he had earned in a week.

And of all this, as he then knew, he need only hand Mr. Squires
one--no more, Hegglund had said--and the rest, five dollars and a
half, for one evening's interesting--yes, delightful and
fascinating--work, belonged to himself.  He could scarcely believe
it.  It seemed fantastic, Aladdinish, really.  Nevertheless, at
twelve, exactly, of that first day a gong had sounded somewhere--a
shuffle of feet had been heard and three boys had appeared--one to
take Barnes' place at the desk, the other two to answer calls.  And
at the command of Barnes, the eight who were present were ordered
to rise, right dress and march away.  And in the hall outside, and
just as he was leaving, Clyde approached Mr. Squires and handed him
a dollar in silver.  "That's right," Mr. Squires remarked.  No
more.  Then, Clyde, along with the others, descended to his locker,
changed his clothes and walked out into the darkened streets, a
sense of luck and a sense of responsibility as to future luck so
thrilling him as to make him rather tremulous--giddy, even.

To think that now, at last, he actually had such a place.  To think
that he could earn this much every day, maybe.  He began to walk
toward his home, his first thought being that he must sleep well
and so be fit for his duties in the morning.  But thinking that he
would not need to return to the hotel before 11:30 the next day, he
wandered into an all-night beanery to have a cup of coffee and some
pie.  And now all he was thinking was that he would only need to
work from noon until six, when he should be free until the
following morning at six.  And then he would make more money.
A lot of it to spend on himself.



Chapter 8


The thing that most interested Clyde at first was how, if at all,
he was to keep the major portion of all this money he was making
for himself.  For ever since he had been working and earning money,
it had been assumed that he would contribute a fair portion of all
that he received--at least three-fourths of the smaller salaries he
had received up to this time--toward the upkeep of the home.  But
now, if he announced that he was receiving at least twenty-five
dollars a week and more--and this entirely apart from the salary of
fifteen a month and board--his parents would assuredly expect him
to pay ten or twelve.

But so long had he been haunted by the desire to make himself as
attractive looking as any other well-dressed boy that, now that he
had the opportunity, he could not resist the temptation to equip
himself first and as speedily as possible.  Accordingly, he decided
to say to his mother that all of the tips he received aggregated no
more than a dollar a day.  And, in order to give himself greater
freedom of action in the matter of disposing of his spare time, he
announced that frequently, in addition to the long hours demanded
of him every other day, he was expected to take the place of other
boys who were sick or set to doing other things.  And also, he
explained that the management demanded of all boys that they look
well outside as well as inside the hotel.  He could not long be
seen coming to the hotel in the clothes that he now wore.  Mr.
Squires, he said, had hinted as much.  But, as if to soften the
blow, one of the boys at the hotel had told him of a place where he
could procure quite all the things that he needed on time.

And so unsophisticated was his mother in these matters that she
believed him.

But that was not all.  He was now daily in contact with a type of
youth who, because of his larger experience with the world and with
the luxuries and vices of such a life as this, had already been
inducted into certain forms of libertinism and vice even which up
to this time were entirely foreign to Clyde's knowledge and set him
agape with wonder and at first with even a timorous distaste.
Thus, as Hegglund had pointed out, a certain percentage of this
group, of which Clyde was now one, made common cause in connection
with quite regular adventures which usually followed their monthly
pay night.  These adventures, according to their moods and their
cash at the time, led them usually either to one of two rather
famous and not too respectable all-night restaurants.  In groups,
as he gathered by degrees from hearing them talk, they were pleased
to indulge in occasional late showy suppers with drinks, after
which they were wont to go to either some flashy dance hall of the
downtown section to pick up a girl, or that failing as a source of
group interest, to visit some notorious--or as they would have
deemed it reputed--brothel, very frequently camouflaged as a
boarding house, where for much less than the amount of cash in
their possession they could, as they often boasted, "have any girl
in the house."  And here, of course, because of their known youth,
ignorance, liberality, and uniform geniality and good looks, they
were made much of, as a rule, being made most welcome by the
various madames and girls of these places who sought, for
commercial reasons of course, to interest them to come again.

And so starved had been Clyde's life up to this time and so eager
was he for almost any form of pleasure, that from the first he
listened with all too eager ears to any account of anything that
spelled adventure or pleasure.  Not that he approved of these types
of adventures.  As a matter of fact at first it offended and
depressed him, seeing as he did that it ran counter to all he had
heard and been told to believe these many years.  Nevertheless so
sharp a change and relief from the dreary and repressed work in
which he had been brought up was it, that he could not help
thinking of all this with an itch for the variety and color it
seemed to suggest.  He listened sympathetically and eagerly, even
while at times he was mentally disapproving of what he heard.  And
seeing him so sympathetic and genial, first one and then another of
these youths made overtures to him to go here, there or the other
place--to a show, a restaurant, one of their homes, where a card
game might be indulged in by two or three of them, or even to one
of the shameless houses, contact with which Clyde at first
resolutely refused.  But by degrees, becoming familiar with
Hegglund and Ratterer, both of whom he liked very much, and being
invited by them to a joy-night supper--a "blow-out" as they termed
it, at Frissell's--he decided to go.

"There's going to be another one of our montly blow-outs to-morrow
night, Clyde, around at Frissell's," Ratterer had said to him.
"Don't you want to come along?  You haven't been yet."

By this time, Clyde, having acclimated himself to this caloric
atmosphere, was by no means as dubious as he was at first.  For by
now, in imitation of Doyle, whom he had studied most carefully and
to great advantage, he had outfitted himself with a new brown suit,
cap, overcoat, socks, stickpin and shoes as near like those of his
mentor as possible.  And the costume became him well--excellently
well--so much so that he was far more attractive than he had ever
been in his life, and now, not only his parents, but his younger
brother and sister, were not a little astonished and even amazed by
the change.

How could Clyde have come by all this grandeur so speedily?  How
much could all this that he wore now have cost?  Was he not
hypothecating more of his future earnings for this temporary
grandeur than was really wise?  He might need it in the future.
The other children needed things, too.  And was the moral and
spiritual atmosphere of a place that made him work such long hours
and kept him out so late every day, and for so little pay, just the
place to work?

To all of which, he had replied, rather artfully for him, that it
was all for the best, he was not working too hard.  His clothes
were not too fine, by any means--his mother should see some of the
other boys.  He was not spending too much money.  And, anyhow, he
had a long while in which to pay for all he had bought.

But now, as to this supper.  That was a different matter, even to
him.  How, he asked himself, in case the thing lasted until very
late as was expected, could he explain to his mother and father his
remaining out so very late.  Ratterer had said it might last until
three or four, anyhow, although he might go, of course, any time,
but how would that look, deserting the crowd?  And yet hang it all,
most of them did not live at home as he did, or if they did like
Ratterer, they had parents who didn't mind what they did.  Still, a
late supper like that--was it wise?  All these boys drank and
thought nothing of it--Hegglund, Ratterer, Kinsella, Shiel.  It
must be silly for him to think that there was so much danger in
drinking a little, as they did on these occasions.  On the other
hand it was true that he need not drink unless he wanted to.  He
could go, and if anything was said at home, he would say that he
had to work late.  What difference did it make if he stayed out
late once in a while?  Wasn't he a man now?  Wasn't he making more
money than any one else in the family?  And couldn't he begin to do
as he pleased?

He began to sense the delight of personal freedom--to sniff the air
of personal and delicious romance--and he was not to be held back
by any suggestion which his mother could now make.



Chapter 9


And so the interesting dinner, with Clyde attending, came to pass.
And it was partaken of at Frissell's, as Ratterer had said.  And by
now Clyde, having come to be on genial terms with all of these
youths, was in the gayest of moods about it all.  Think of his new
state in life, anyhow.  Only a few weeks ago he was all alone, not
a boy friend, scarcely a boy acquaintance in the world!  And here
he was, so soon after, going to this fine dinner with this
interesting group.

And true to the illusions of youth, the place appeared far more
interesting than it really was.  It was little more than an
excellent chop-house of the older American order.  Its walls were
hung thick with signed pictures of actors and actresses, together
with playbills of various periods.  And because of the general
excellence of the food, to say nothing of the geniality of its
present manager, it had become the hangout of passing actors,
politicians, local business men, and after them, the generality of
followers who are always drawn by that which presents something a
little different to that with which they are familiar.

And these boys, having heard at one time and another from cab and
taxi drivers that this was one of the best places in town, fixed
upon it for their monthly dinners.  Single plates of anything cost
from sixty cents to a dollar.  Coffee and tea were served in pots
only.  You could get anything you wanted to drink.  To the left of
the main room as you went in was a darker and low-ceilinged room
with a fireplace, to which only men resorted and sat and smoked,
and read papers after dinner, and it was for this room that these
youths reserved their greatest admiration.  Eating here, they
somehow felt older, wiser, more important--real men of the world.
And Ratterer and Hegglund, to whom by now Clyde had become very
much attached, as well as most of the others, were satisfied that
there was not another place in all Kansas City that was really as
good.

And so this day, having drawn their pay at noon, and being off at
six for the night, they gathered outside the hotel at the corner
nearest the drug store at which Clyde had originally applied for
work, and were off in a happy, noisy frame of mind--Hegglund,
Ratterer, Paul Shiel, Davis Higby, another youth, Arthur Kinsella
and Clyde.

"Didja hear de trick de guy from St. Louis pulled on the main
office yesterday?" Hegglund inquired of the crowd generally, as
they started walking.  "Wires last Saturday from St. Louis for a
parlor, bedroom and bat for himself and wife, an' orders flowers
put in de room.  Jimmy, the key clerk, was just tellin' me.  Den he
comes on here and registers himself an' his girl, see, as man and
wife, an', gee, a peach of a lookin' girl, too--I saw 'em.  Listen,
you fellows, cantcha?  Den, on Wednesday, after he's been here tree
days and dey're beginnin' to wonder about him a little--meals sent
to de room and all dat--he comes down and says dat his wife's gotta
go back to St. Louis, and dat he won't need no suite, just one
room, and dat they can transfer his trunk and her bags to de new
room until train time for her.  But de trunk ain't his at all, see,
but hers.  And she ain't goin', don't know nuttin about it.  But he
is.  Den he beats it, see, and leaves her and de trunk in de room.
And widout a bean, see?  Now, dey're holdin' her and her trunk, an'
she's cryin' and wirin' friends, and dere's hell to pay all around.
Can ya beat dat?  An' de flowers, too.  Roses.  An' six different
meals in de room and drinks for him, too."

"Sure, I know the one you mean," exclaimed Paul Shiel.  "I took up
some drinks myself.  I felt there was something phony about that
guy.  He was too smooth and loud-talking.  An' he only comes across
with a dime at that."

"I remember him, too," exclaimed Ratterer.  "He sent me down for
all the Chicago papers Monday an' only give me a dime.  He looked
like a bluff to me."

"Well, dey fell for him up in front, all right."  It was Hegglund
talking.  "An' now dey're tryin' to gouge it outa her.  Can you
beat it?"

"She didn't look to me to be more than eighteen or twenty, if she's
that old," put in Arthur Kinsella, who up to now had said nothing.

"Did you see either of 'em, Clyde?" inquired Ratterer, who was
inclined to favor and foster Clyde and include him in everything.

"No" replied Clyde.  "I must have missed those two.  I don't
remember seeing either of 'em."

"Well, you missed seein' a bird when you missed that one.  Tall,
long black cut-a-way coat, wide, black derby pulled low over his
eyes, pearl-gray spats, too.  I thought he was an English duke or
something at first, the way he walked, and with a cane, too.  All
they gotta do is pull that English stuff, an' talk loud an' order
everybody about an' they get by with it every time."

"That's right," commented Davis Higby.  "That's good stuff, that
English line.  I wouldn't mind pulling some of it myself sometime."

They had now turned two corners, crossed two different streets and,
in group formation, were making their way through the main door of
Frissell's, which gave in on the reflection of lights upon china
and silverware and faces, and the buzz and clatter of a dinner
crowd.  Clyde was enormously impressed.  Never before, apart from
the Green-Davidson, had he been in such a place.  And with such
wise, experienced youths.

They made their way to a group of tables which faced a leather
wall-seat.  The head-waiter, recognizing Ratterer and Hegglund and
Kinsella as old patrons, had two tables put together and butter and
bread and glasses brought.  About these they arranged themselves,
Clyde with Ratterer and Higby occupying the wall seat; Hegglund,
Kinsella and Shiel sitting opposite.

"Now, me for a good old Manhattan, to begin wit'," exclaimed
Hegglund avidly, looking about on the crowd in the room and feeling
that now indeed he was a person.  Of a reddish-tan hue, his eyes
keen and blue, his reddish-brown hair brushed straight up from his
forehead, he seemed not unlike a large and overzealous rooster.

And similarly, Arthur Kinsella, once he was in here, seemed to perk
up and take heart of his present glory.  In a sort of ostentatious
way, he drew back his coat sleeves, seized a bill of fare, and
scanning the drink-list on the back, exclaimed:  "Well, a dry
Martini is good enough for a start."

"Well, I'm going to begin with a Scotch and soda," observed Paul
Shiel, solemnly, examining at the same time the meat orders.

"None of your cocktails for me to-night," insisted Ratterer,
genially, but with a note of reserve in his voice.  "I said I wasn
t going to drink much to-night, and I'm not.  I think a glass of
Rhine wine and seltzer will be about my speed."

"For de love o' Mike, will you listen to dat, now," exclaimed
Hegglund, deprecatingly.  "He's goin' to begin on Rhine wine.  And
him dat likes Manhattans always.  What's gettin' into you all of a
sudden, Tommy?  I t'ought you said you wanted a good time to-
night."

"So I do," replied Ratterer, "but can't I have a good time without
lappin' up everything in the place?  I want to stay sober to-night.
No more call-downs for me in the morning, if I know what I'm about.
I came pretty near not showing up last time."

"That's true, too," exclaimed Arthur Kinsella.  "I don't want to
drink so much I don't know where I'm at, but I'm not going to begin
worrying about it now."

"How about you, Higby?" Hegglund now called to the round-eyed
youth.

"I'm having a Manhattan, too," he replied, and then, looking up at
the waiter who was beside him, added, "How's tricks, Dennis?"

"Oh, I can't complain," replied the waiter.  "They're breakin' all
right for me these days.  How's everything over to the hotel?"

"Fine, fine," replied Higby, cheerfully, studying the bill-of-fare.

"An' you, Griffiths?  What are you goin' to have?" called Hegglund,
for, as master-of-ceremonies, delegated by the others to look after
the orders and pay the bill and tip the waiter, he was now
fulfilling the role.

"Who, me?  Oh, me," exclaimed Clyde, not a little disturbed by this
inquiry, for up to now--this very hour, in fact--he had never
touched anything stronger than coffee or ice-cream soda.  He had
been not a little taken back by the brisk and sophisticated way in
which these youths ordered cocktails and whisky.  Surely he could
not go so far as that, and yet, so well had he known long before
this, from the conversation of these youths, that on such occasions
as this they did drink, that he did not see how he could very well
hold back.  What would they think of him if he didn't drink
something?  For ever since he had been among them, he had been
trying to appear as much of a man of the world as they were.  And
yet back of him, as he could plainly feel, lay all of the years in
which he had been drilled in the "horrors" of drink and evil
companionship.  And even though in his heart this long while he had
secretly rebelled against nearly all the texts and maxims to which
his parents were always alluding, deeply resenting really as
worthless and pointless the ragamuffin crew of wasters and failures
whom they were always seeking to save, still, now he was inclined
to think and hesitate.  Should he or should he not drink?

For the fraction of an instant only, while all these things in him
now spoke, he hesitated, then added:  "Why, I, oh--I think I'll
take Rhine wine and seltzer, too."  It was the easiest and safest
thing to say, as he saw it.  Already the rather temperate and even
innocuous character of Rhine wine and seltzer had been emphasized
by Hegglund and all the others.  And yet Ratterer was taking it--a
thing which made his choice less conspicuous and, as he felt, less
ridiculous.

"Will you listen to dis now?" exclaimed Hegglund, dramatically.
"He says he'll have Rhine wine and seltzer, too.  I see where dis
party breaks up at half-past eight, all right, unless some of de
rest of us do someting."

And Davis Higby, who was far more trenchant and roistering than his
pleasant exterior gave any indication of, turned to Ratterer and
said:  "Whatja want to start this Rhine wine and seltzer stuff for,
so soon, Tom?  Dontcha want us to have any fun at all to-night?"

"Well, I told you why," said Ratterer.  "Besides, the last time I
went down to that joint I had forty bucks when I went in and not a
cent when I came out.  I want to know what's goin' on this time."

"That joint," thought Clyde on hearing it.  Then, after this
supper, when they had all drunk and eaten enough, they were going
down to one of those places called a "joint"--a bad-house, really.
There was no doubt of it--he knew what the word meant.  There would
be women there--bad women--evil women.  And he would be expected--
could he--would he?

For the first time in his life now, he found himself confronted by
a choice as to his desire for the more accurate knowledge of the
one great fascinating mystery that had for so long confronted and
fascinated and baffled and yet frightened him a little.  For,
despite all his many thoughts in regard to all this and women in
general, he had never been in contact with any one of them in this
way.  And now--now--

All of a sudden he felt faint thrills of hot and cold racing up and
down his back and all over him.  His hands and face grew hot and
then became moist--then his cheeks and forehead flamed.  He could
feel them.  Strange, swift, enticing and yet disturbing thoughts
raced in and out of his consciousness.  His hair tingled and he saw
pictures--bacchanalian scenes--which swiftly, and yet in vain, he
sought to put out of his mind.  They would keep coming back.  And
he wanted them to come back.  Yet he did not.  And through it all
he was now a little afraid.  Pshaw!  Had he no courage at all?
These other fellows were not disturbed by the prospects of what was
before them.  They were very gay.  They were already beginning to
laugh and kid one another in regard to certain funny things that
had happened the last time they were all out together.  But what
would his mother think if she knew?  His mother!  He dared not
think of his mother or his father either at this time, and put them
both resolutely out of his mind.

"Oh, say, Kinsella," called Higby.  "Do you remember that little
red head in that Pacific Street joint that wanted you to run away
to Chicago with her?"

"Do I?" replied the amused Kinsella, taking up the Martini that was
just then served him.  "She even wanted me to quit the hotel game
and let her start me in a business of some kind.  'I wouldn't need
to work at all if I stuck by her,' she told me."

"Oh, no, you wouldn't need to work at all, except one way," called
Ratterer.

The waiter put down Clyde's glass of Rhine wine and seltzer beside
him and, interested and intense and troubled and fascinated by all
that he heard, he picked it up, tasted it and, finding it mild and
rather pleasing, drank it all down at once.  And yet so wrought up
were his thoughts that he scarcely realized then that he had drunk
it.

"Good for you," observed Kinsella, in a most cordial tone.  "You
must like that stuff."

"Oh, it's not so bad," said Clyde.

And Hegglund, seeing how swiftly it had gone, and feeling that
Clyde, new to this world and green, needed to be cheered and
strengthened, called to the waiter:  "Here Jerry!  One more of
these, and make it a big one," he whispered behind his hand.

And so the dinner proceeded.  And it was nearly eleven before they
had exhausted the various matters of interest to them--stories of
past affairs, past jobs, past feats of daring.  And by then Clyde
had had considerable time to meditate on all of these youths--and
he was inclined to think that he was not nearly as green as they
thought, or if so, at least shrewder than most of them--of a better
mentality, really.  For who were they and what were their
ambitions?  Hegglund, as he could see, was vain and noisy and
foolish--a person who could be taken in and conciliated by a little
flattery.  And Higby and Kinsella, interesting and attractive boys
both, were still vain of things he could not be proud of--Higby of
knowing a little something about automobiles--he had an uncle in
the business--Kinsella of gambling, rolling dice even.  And as for
Ratterer and Shiel, he could see and had noticed for some time,
that they were content with the bell-hop business--just continuing
in that and nothing more--a thing which he could not believe, even
now, would interest him forever.

At the same time, being confronted by this problem of how soon they
would be wanting to go to a place into which he had never ventured
before, and to be doing things which he had never let himself think
he would do in just this way, he was just a little disturbed.  Had
he not better excuse himself after they got outside, or perhaps,
after starting along with them in whatsoever direction they chose
to go, quietly slip away at some corner and return to his own home?
For had he not already heard that the most dreadful of diseases
were occasionally contracted in just such places--and that men died
miserable deaths later because of low vices begun in this fashion?
He could hear his mother lecturing concerning all this--yet with
scarcely any direct knowledge of any kind.  And yet, as an argument
per contra, here were all of these boys in nowise disturbed by what
was in their minds or moods to do.  On the contrary, they were very
gay over it all and amused--nothing more.

In fact, Ratterer, who was really very fond of Clyde by now, more
because of the way he looked and inquired and listened than because
of anything Clyde did or said, kept nudging him with his elbow now
and then, asking laughingly, "How about it, Clyde?  Going to be
initiated to-night?" and then smiling broadly.  Or finding Clyde
quite still and thinking at times, "They won't do more than bite
you, Clyde."

And Hegglund, taking his cue from Ratterer and occasionally
desisting from his own self-glorifying diatribes, would add:  "You
won't ever be de same, Clyde.  Dey never are.  But we'll all be wid
you in case of trouble."

And Clyde, nervous and irritated, would retort:  "Ah, cut it out,
you two.  Quit kidding.  What's the use of trying to make out that
you know so much more than I do?"

And Ratterer would signal Hegglund with his eyes to let up and
would occasionally whisper to Clyde:  "That's all right, old man,
don't get sore.  You know we were just fooling, that's all."  And
Clyde, very much drawn to Ratterer, would relent and wish he were
not so foolish as to show what he actually was thinking about.

At last, however, by eleven o'clock, they had had their fill of
conversation and food and drink and were ready to depart, Hegglund
leading the way.  And instead of the vulgar and secretive mission
producing a kind of solemnity and mental or moral self-examination
and self-flagellation, they laughed and talked as though there was
nothing but a delicious form of amusement before them.  Indeed,
much to Clyde's disgust and amazement, they now began to reminisce
concerning other ventures into this world--of one particular one
which seemed to amuse them all greatly, and which seemed to concern
some "joint," as they called it, which they had once visited--a
place called "Bettina's."  They had been led there originally by a
certain wild youth by the name of "Pinky" Jones of the staff of
another local hotel.  And this boy and one other by the name of
Birmingham, together with Hegglund, who had become wildly
intoxicated, had there indulged in wild pranks which all but led to
their arrest--pranks which to Clyde, as he listened to them, seemed
scarcely possible to boys of this caliber and cleanly appearance--
pranks so crude and disgusting as to sicken him a little.

"Oh, ho, and de pitcher of water de girl on de second floor doused
on me as I went out," called Hegglund, laughing heartily.

"And the big fat guy on the second floor that came to the door to
see.  Remember?" laughed Kinsella.  "He thought there was a fire or
a riot, I bet."

"And you and that little fat girl, Piggy.  'Member, Ratterer?"
squealed Shiel, laughing and choking as he tried to tell of it.

"And Ratterer's legs all bent under his load.  Yoo-hoo!" yelled
Hegglund.  "And de way de two of 'em finally slid down de steps."

"That was all your fault, Hegglund," called Higby from Kinsella's
side.  "If you hadn't tried that switching stuff we never woulda
got put out."

"I tell you I was drunk," protested Ratterer.  "It was the red-eye
they sold in there."

"And that long, thin guy from Texas with the big mustache, will you
ever forget him, an' the way he laughed?" added Kinsella.  "He
wouldn't help nobody 'gainst us.  'Member?"

"It's a wonder we weren't all thrown in the street or locked up.
Oh, gee, what a night!" reminisced Ratterer.

By now Clyde was faintly dizzy with the nature of these revelations.
"Switchin'."  That could mean but one thing.

And they expected him to share in revels such as these, maybe.  It
could not be.  He was not that sort of person.  What would his
mother and father think if they were to hear of such dreadful
things?  And yet--

Even as they talked, they had reached a certain house in a dark and
rather wide street, the curbs of which for a block or more on
either side were sprinkled with cabs and cars.  And at the corner,
only a little distance away, were some young men standing and
talking.  And over the way, more men.  And not a half a block
farther on, they passed two policemen, idling and conversing.  And
although there was no light visible in any window, nor over any
transom, still, curiously, there was a sense of vivid, radiant
life.  One could feel it in this dark street.  Taxis spun and
honked and two old-time closed carriages still in use rolled here
and there, their curtains drawn.  And doors slammed or opened and
closed.  And now and then a segment of bright inward light pierced
the outward gloom and then disappeared again.  Overhead on this
night were many stars.

Finally, without any comment from any one, Hegglund, accompanied by
Higby and Shiel, marched up the steps of this house and rang the
bell.  Almost instantly the door was opened by a black girl in a
red dress.  "Good evening.  Walk right in, won't you?" was the
affable greeting, and the six, having pushed past her and through
the curtains of heavy velvet, which separated this small area from
the main chambers, Clyde found himself in a bright and rather gaudy
general parlor or reception room, the walls of which were
ornamented with gilt-framed pictures of nude or semi-nude girls and
some very high pier mirrors.  And the floor was covered by a bright
red thick carpet, over which were strewn many gilt chairs.  At the
back, before some very bright red hangings, was a gilded upright
piano.  But of guests or inmates there seemed to be none, other
than the black girl.

"Jest be seated, won't you?  Make yourselves at home.  I'll call
the madam."  And, running upstairs to the left, she began calling:
"Oh, Marie!  Sadie!  Caroline!  They is some young gentlemen in the
parlor."

And at that moment, from a door in the rear, there emerged a tall,
slim and rather pale-faced woman of about thirty-eight or forty--
very erect, very executive, very intelligent and graceful-looking--
diaphanously and yet modestly garbed, who said, with a rather wan
and yet encouraging smile:  "Oh, hello, Oscar, it's you, is it?
And you too, Paul.  Hello!  Hello, Davis!  Just make yourselves at
home anywhere, all of you.  Fannie will be in in a minute.  She'll
bring you something to drink.  I've just hired a new pianist from
St. Joe--a Negro.  Wait'll you hear him.  He's awfully clever."

She returned to the rear and called, "Oh, Sam!"

As she did so, nine girls of varying ages and looks, but none
apparently over twenty-four or five--came trooping down the stairs
at one side in the rear, and garbed as Clyde had never seen any
women dressed anywhere.  And they were all laughing and talking as
they came--evidently very well pleased with themselves and in
nowise ashamed of their appearance, which in some instances was
quite extraordinary, as Clyde saw it, their costumes ranging from
the gayest and flimsiest of boudoir negligees to the somewhat more
sober, if no less revealing, dancing and ballroom gowns.  And they
were of such varied types and sizes and complexions--slim and stout
and medium--tall or short--and dark or light or betwixt.  And,
whatever their ages, all seemed young.  And they smiled so warmly
and enthusiastically.

"Oh, hello, sweetheart!  How are you?  Don't you want to dance with
me?" or "Wouldn't you like something to drink?"



Chapter 10


Prepared as Clyde was to dislike all this, so steeped had he been
in the moods and maxims antipathetic to anything of its kind, still
so innately sensual and romantic was his own disposition and so
starved where sex was concerned, that instead of being sickened, he
was quite fascinated.  The very fleshly sumptuousness of most of
these figures, dull and unromantic as might be the brains that
directed them, interested him for the time being.  After all, here
was beauty of a gross, fleshly character, revealed and purchasable.
And there were no difficulties of mood or inhibitions to overcome
in connection with any of these girls.  One of them, a quite pretty
brunette in a black and red costume with a band of red ribbon
across her forehead, seemed to be decidedly at home with Higby, for
already she was dancing with him in the back room to a jazz melody
most irrationally hammered out upon the piano.

And Ratterer, to Clyde's surprise, was already seated upon one of
the gilt chairs and upon his knees was lounging a tall young girl
with very light hair and blue eyes.  And she was smoking a
cigarette and tapping her gold slippers to the melody of the piano.
It was really quite an amazing and Aladdin-like scene to him.  And
here was Hegglund, before whom was standing a German or
Scandinavian type, plump and pretty, her arms akimbo and her feet
wide apart.  And she was asking--with an upward swell of the voice,
as Clyde could hear:  "You make love to me to-night?"  But
Hegglund, apparently not very much taken with these overtures,
calmly shook his head, after which she went on to Kinsella.

And even as he was looking and thinking, a quite attractive blonde
girl of not less than twenty-four, but who seemed younger to Clyde,
drew up a chair beside him and seating herself, said:  "Don't you
dance?"  He shook his head nervously.  "Want me to show you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't want to try here," he said.

"Oh, it's easy," she continued.  "Come on!"  But since he would
not, though he was rather pleased with her for being agreeable to
him, she added:  "Well, how about something to drink then?"

"Sure," he agreed, gallantly, and forthwith she signaled the young
Negress who had returned as waitress, and in a moment a small table
was put before them and a bottle of whisky with soda on the side--a
sight that so astonished and troubled Clyde that he could scarcely
speak.  He had forty dollars in his pocket, and the cost of drinks
here, as he had heard from the others, would not be less than two
dollars each, but even so, think of him buying drinks for such a
woman at such a price!  And his mother and sisters and brother at
home with scarcely the means to make ends meet.  And yet he bought
and paid for several, feeling all the while that he had let himself
in for a terrifying bit of extravagance, if not an orgy, but now
that he was here, he must go through with it.

And besides, as he now saw, this girl was really pretty.  She had
on a Delft blue evening gown of velvet, with slippers and stockings
to match.  In her ears were blue earrings and her neck and
shoulders and arms were plump and smooth.  The most disturbing
thing about her was that her bodice was cut very low--he dared
scarcely look at her there--and her cheeks and lips were painted--
most assuredly the marks of the scarlet woman.  Yet she did not
seem very aggressive, in fact quite human, and she kept looking
rather interestedly at his deep and dark and nervous eyes.

"You work over at the Green-Davidson, too, don't you?" she asked.

"Yes," replied Clyde trying to appear as if all this were not new
to him--as if he had often been in just such a place as this, amid
such scenes.  "How did you know?"

"Oh, I know Oscar Hegglund," she replied.  "He comes around here
once in a while.  Is he a friend of yours?"

"Yes.  That is, he works over at the hotel with me."

"But you haven't been here before."

"No," said Clyde, swiftly, and yet with a trace of inquiry in his
own mood.  Why should she say he hadn't been here before?

"I thought you hadn't.  I've seen most of these other boys before,
but I never saw you.  You haven't been working over at the hotel
very long, have you?"

"No," said Clyde, a little irritated by this, his eyebrows and the
skin of his forehead rising and falling as he talked--a form of
contraction and expansion that went on involuntarily whenever he
was nervous or thought deeply.  "What of it?"

"Oh, nothing.  I just knew you hadn't.  You don't look very much
like these other boys--you look different."  She smiled oddly and
rather ingratiatingly, a smile and a mood which Clyde failed to
interpret.

"How different?" he inquired, solemnly and contentiously, taking up
a glass and drinking from it.

"I'll bet you one thing," she went on, ignoring his inquiry
entirely.  "You don't care for girls like me very much, do you?"

"Oh, yes, I do, too," he said, evasively.

"Oh, no, you don't either.  I can tell.  But I like you just the
same.  I like your eyes.  You're not like those other fellows.
You're more refined, kinda.  I can tell.  You don't look like
them."

"Oh, I don't know," replied Clyde, very much pleased and flattered,
his forehead wrinkling and clearing as before.  This girl was
certainly not as bad as he thought, maybe.  She was more
intelligent--a little more refined than the others.  Her costume
was not so gross.  And she hadn't thrown herself upon him as had
these others upon Hegglund, Higby, Kinsella and Ratterer.  Nearly
all of the group by now were seated upon chairs or divans about the
room and upon their knees were girls.  And in front of every couple
was a little table with a bottle of whisky upon it.

"Look who's drinking whisky!" called Kinsella to such of the others
as would pay any attention to him, glancing in Clyde's direction.

"Well, you needn't be afraid of me," went on the girl, while Clyde
glanced at her arms and neck, at her too much revealed bosom, which
quite chilled and yet enticed him.  "I haven't been so very long in
this business.  And I wouldn't be here now if it hadn't been for
all the bad luck I've had.  I'd rather live at home with my family
if I could, only they wouldn't have me, now."  She looked rather
solemnly at the floor, thinking mainly of the little inexperienced
dunce Clyde was--so raw and green.  Also of the money she had seen
him take out of his pocket--plainly quite a sum.  Also how really
good-looking he was, not handsome or vigorous, but pleasing.  And
he was thinking at the instant of Esta, as to where she had gone or
was now.  What might have befallen her--who could say?  What might
have been done to her?  Had this girl, by any chance, ever had any
such unfortunate experience as she had had?  He felt a growing, if
somewhat grandiose, sympathy, and looked at her as much as to say:
"You poor thing."  Yet for the moment he would not trust himself to
say anything or make any further inquiries.

"You fellows who come into a place like this always think so hard
of everybody.  I know how you are.  But we're not as bad as you
think."

Clyde's brows knit and smoothed again.  Perhaps she was not as bad
as he thought.  She was a low woman, no doubt--evil but pretty.  In
fact, as he looked about the room from time to time, none of the
girls appealed to him more.  And she thought him better than these
other boys--more refined--she had detected that.  The compliment
stuck.  Presently she was filling his glass for him and urging him
to drink with her.  Another group of young men arrived about then--
and other girls coming out of the mysterious portals at the rear to
greet them--Hegglund and Ratterer and Kinsella and Higby, as he
saw, mysteriously disappeared up that back stairs that was heavily
curtained from the general room.  And as these others came in, this
girl invited him to come and sit upon a divan in the back room
where the lights were dimmer.

And now, seated here, she had drawn very close to him and touched
his hands and finally linking an arm in his and pressing close to
him, inquired if he didn't want to see how pretty some of the rooms
on the second floor were furnished.  And seeing that he was quite
alone now--not one of all the group with whom he had come around to
observe him--and that this girl seemed to lean to him warmly and
sympathetically, he allowed himself to be led up that curtained
back stair and into a small pink and blue furnished room, while he
kept saying to himself that this was an outrageous and dangerous
proceeding on his part, and that it might well end in misery for
him.  He might contract some dreadful disease.  She might charge
him more than he could afford.  He was afraid of her--himself--
everything, really--quite nervous and almost dumb with his several
fears and qualms.  And yet he went, and, the door locked behind
him, this interestingly well-rounded and graceful Venus turned the
moment they were within and held him to her, then calmly, and
before a tall mirror which revealed her fully to herself and him,
began to disrobe.



Chapter 11


The effect of this adventure on Clyde was such as might have been
expected in connection with one so new and strange to such a world
as this.  In spite of all that deep and urgent curiosity and desire
that had eventually led him to that place and caused him to yield,
still, because of the moral precepts with which he had so long been
familiar, and also because of the nervous esthetic inhibitions
which were characteristic of him, he could not but look back upon
all this as decidedly degrading and sinful.  His parents were
probably right when they preached that this was all low and
shameful.  And yet this whole adventure and the world in which it
was laid, once it was all over, was lit with a kind of gross, pagan
beauty or vulgar charm for him.  And until other and more
interesting things had partially effaced it, he could not help
thinking back upon it with considerable interest and pleasure,
even.

In addition he kept telling himself that now, having as much money
as he was making, he could go and do about as he pleased.  He need
not go there any more if he did not want to, but he could go to
other places that might not be as low, maybe--more refined.  He
wouldn't want to go with a crowd like that again.  He would rather
have just one girl somewhere if he could find her--a girl such as
those with whom he had seen Sieberling and Doyle associate.  And
so, despite all of his troublesome thoughts of the night before, he
was thus won quickly over to this new source of pleasure if not its
primary setting.  He must find a free pagan girl of his own
somewhere if he could, like Doyle, and spend his money on her.  And
he could scarcely wait until opportunity should provide him with
the means of gratifying himself in this way.

But more interesting and more to his purpose at the time was the
fact that both Hegglund and Ratterer, in spite of, or possibly
because of, a secret sense of superiority which they detected in
Clyde, were inclined to look upon him with no little interest and
to court him and to include him among all their thoughts of affairs
and pleasures.  Indeed, shortly after his first adventure, Ratterer
invited him to come to his home, where, as Clyde most quickly came
to see, was a life very different from his own.  At the Griffiths'
all was so solemn and reserved, the still moods of those who feel
the pressure of dogma and conviction.  In Ratterer's home, the
reverse of this was nearly true.  The mother and sister with whom
he lived, while not without some moral although no particular
religious convictions, were inclined to view life with a great deal
of generosity or, as a moralist would have seen it, laxity.  There
had never been any keen moral or characterful direction there at
all.  And so it was that Ratterer and his sister Louise, who was
two years younger than himself, now did about as they pleased, and
without thinking very much about it.  But his sister chanced to be
shrewd or individual enough not to wish to cast herself away on
just any one.

The interesting part of all this was that Clyde, in spite of a
certain strain of refinement which caused him to look askance at
most of this, was still fascinated by the crude picture of life and
liberty which it offered.  Among such as these, at least, he could
go, do, be as he had never gone or done or been before.  And
particularly was he pleased and enlightened--or rather dubiously
liberated--in connection with his nervousness and uncertainty in
regard to his charm or fascination for girls of his own years.  For
up to this very time, and in spite of his recent first visit to the
erotic temple to which Hegglund and the others had led him, he was
still convinced that he had no skill with or charm where girls were
concerned.  Their mere proximity or approach was sufficient to
cause him to recede mentally, to chill or palpitate nervously, and
to lose what little natural skill he had for conversation or poised
banter such as other youths possessed.  But now, in his visits to
the home of Ratterer, as he soon discovered, he was to have ample
opportunity to test whether this shyness and uncertainty could be
overcome.

For it was a center for the friends of Ratterer and his sister, who
were more or less of one mood in regard to life.  Dancing, card-
playing, love-making rather open and unashamed, went on there.
Indeed, up to this time, Clyde would not have imagined that a
parent like Mrs. Ratterer could have been as lackadaisical or
indifferent as she was, apparently, to conduct and morals
generally.  He would not have imagined that any mother would have
countenanced the easy camaraderie that existed between the sexes in
Mrs. Ratterer's home.

And very soon, because of several cordial invitations which were
extended to him by Ratterer, he found himself part and parcel of
this group--a group which from one point of view--the ideas held by
its members, the rather wretched English they spoke--he looked down
upon.  From another point of view--the freedom they possessed, the
zest with which they managed to contrive social activities and
exchanges--he was drawn to them.  Because, for the first time,
these permitted him, if he chose, to have a girl of his own, if
only he could summon the courage.  And this, owing to the well-
meant ministrations of Ratterer and his sister and their friends,
he soon sought to accomplish.  Indeed the thing began on the
occasion of his first visit to the Ratterers.

Louise Ratterer worked in a dry-goods store and often came home a
little late for dinner.  On this occasion she did not appear until
seven, and the eating of the family meal was postponed accordingly.
In the meantime, two girl friends of Louise arrived to consult her
in connection with something, and finding her delayed, and Ratterer
and Clyde there, they made themselves at home, rather impressed and
interested by Clyde and his new finery.  For he, at once girl-
hungry and girl-shy, held himself nervously aloof, a manifestation
which they mistook for a conviction of superiority on his part.
And in consequence, arrested by this, they determined to show how
really interesting they were--vamp him--no less.  And he found
their crude briskness and effrontery very appealing--so much so
that he was soon taken by the charms of one, a certain Hortense
Briggs, who, like Louise, was nothing more than a crude shop girl
in one of the large stores, but pretty and dark and self-
appreciative.  And yet from the first, he realized that she was not
a little coarse and vulgar--a very long way removed from the type
of girl he had been imagining in his dreams that he would like to
have.

"Oh, hasn't she come in yet?" announced Hortense, on first being
admitted by Ratterer and seeing Clyde near one of the front
windows, looking out.  "Isn't that too bad?  Well, we'll just have
to wait a little bit if you don't mind"--this last with a switch
and a swagger that plainly said, who would mind having us around?
And forthwith she began to primp and admire herself before a mirror
which surmounted an ocher-colored mantelpiece that graced a
fireless grate in the dining-room.  And her friend, Greta Miller,
added:  "Oh, dear, yes.  I hope you won't make us go before she
comes.  We didn't come to eat.  We thought your dinner would be all
over by now."

"Where do you get that stuff--'put you out'?" replied Ratterer
cynically.  "As though anybody could drive you two outa here if you
didn't want to go.  Sit down and play the victrola or do anything
you like.  Dinner'll soon be ready and Louise'll be here any
minute."  He returned to the dining-room to look at a paper which
he had been reading, after pausing to introduce Clyde.  And the
latter, because of the looks and the airs of these two, felt
suddenly as though he had been cast adrift upon a chartless sea in
an open boat.

"Oh, don't say eat to me!" exclaimed Greta Miller, who was
surveying Clyde calmly as though she were debating with herself
whether he was worth-while game or not, and deciding that he was:
"With all the ice-cream and cake and pie and sandwiches we'll have
to eat yet to-night.  We was just going to warn Louise not to fill
up too much.  Kittie Keane's givin' a birthday party, you know,
Tom, and she'll have a big cake an' everythin'.  You're comin'
down, ain't you, afterwards?" she concluded, with a thought of
Clyde and his possible companionship in mind.

"I wasn't thinkin' of it," calmly observed Ratterer.  "Me and Clyde
was thinkin' of goin' to a show after dinner."

"Oh, how foolish," put in Hortense Briggs, more to attract
attention to herself and take it away from Greta than anything
else.  She was still in front of the mirror, but turned now to cast
a fetching smile on all, particularly Clyde, for whom she fancied
her friend might be angling, "When you could come along and dance.
I call that silly."

"Sure, dancing is all you three ever think of--you and Louise,"
retorted Ratterer.  "It's a wonder you don't give yourselves a rest
once in a while.  I'm on my feet all day an' I like to sit down
once in a while."  He could be most matter-of-fact at times.

"Oh, don't say sit down to me," commented Greta Miller with a lofty
smile and a gliding, dancing motion of her left foot, "with all the
dates we got ahead of us this week.  Oh, gee!"  Her eyes and
eyebrows went up and she clasped her hands dramatically before her.
"It's just terrible, all the dancin' we gotta do yet, this winter,
don't we, Hortense?  Thursday night and Friday night and Saturday
and Sunday nights."  She counted on her fingers most archly.  "Oh,
gee!  It is terrible, really."  She gave Clyde an appealing,
sympathy-seeking smile.  "Guess where we were the other night, Tom.
Louise and Ralph Thorpe and Hortense and Bert Gettler, me and
Willie Bassick--out at Pegrain's on Webster Avenue.  Oh, an' you
oughta seen the crowd out there.  Sam Shaffer and Tillie Burns was
there.  And we danced until four in the morning.  I thought my
knees would break.  I ain't been so tired in I don't know when."

"Oh, gee!" broke in Hortense, seizing her turn and lifting her arms
dramatically.  "I thought I never would get to work the next
morning.  I could just barely see the customers moving around.
And, wasn't my mother fussy!  Gee!  She hasn't gotten over it yet.
She don't mind so much about Saturdays and Sundays, but all these
week nights and when I have to get up the next morning at seven--
gee--how she can pick!"

"An' I don't blame her, either," commented Mrs. Ratterer, who was
just then entering with a plate of potatoes and some bread.  "You
two'll get sick and Louise, too, if you don't get more rest.  I
keep tellin' her she won't be able to keep her place or stand it if
she don't get more sleep.  But she don't pay no more attention to
me than Tom does, and that's just none at all."

"Oh, well, you can't expect a fellow in my line to get in early
always, Ma," was all Ratterer said.  And Hortense Briggs added:
"Gee, I'd die if I had to stay in one night.  You gotta have a
little fun when you work all day."

What an easy household, thought Clyde.  How liberal and indifferent.
And the sexy, gay way in which these two girls posed about.  And
their parents thought nothing of it, evidently.  If only he could
have a girl as pretty as this Hortense Briggs, with her small,
sensuous mouth and her bright hard eyes.

"To bed twice a week early is all I need," announced Greta Miller
archly.  "My father thinks I'm crazy, but more'n that would do me
harm."  She laughed jestingly, and Clyde, in spite of the "we
was'es" and "I seen's," was most vividly impressed.  Here was youth
and geniality and freedom and love of life.

And just then the front door opened and in hurried Louise Ratterer,
a medium-sized, trim, vigorous little girl in a red-lined cape and
a soft blue felt hat pulled over her eyes.  Unlike her brother, she
was brisk and vigorous and more lithe and as pretty as either of
these others.

"Oh, look who's here!" she exclaimed.  "You two birds beat me home,
didnja?  Well, I got stuck to-night on account of some mix-up in my
sales-book.  And I had to go up to the cashier's office.  You bet
it wasn't my fault, though.  They got my writin' wrong," then
noting Clyde for the first time, she announced:  "I bet I know who
this is--Mr. Griffiths.  Tom's talked about you a lot.  I wondered
why he didn't bring you around here before."  And Clyde, very much
flattered, mumbled that he wished he had.

But the two visitors, after conferring with Louise in a small front
bedroom to which they all retired, reappeared presently and because
of strenuous invitations, which were really not needed, decided to
remain.  And Clyde, because of their presence, was now intensely
wrought up and alert--eager to make a pleasing impression and to be
received upon terms of friendship here.  And these three girls,
finding him attractive, were anxious to be agreeable to him, so
much so that for the first time in his life they put him at his
ease with the opposite sex and caused him to find his tongue.

"We was just going to warn you not to eat so much," laughed Greta
Miller, turning to Louise, "and now, see, we are all trying to eat
again."  She laughed heartily.  "And they'll have pies and cakes
and everythin' at Kittie's."

"Oh, gee, and we're supposed to dance, too, on top of all this.
Well, heaven help me, is all I have to say," put in Hortense.

The peculiar sweetness of her mouth, as he saw it, as well as the
way she crinkled it when she smiled, caused Clyde to be quite
beside himself with admiration and pleasure.  She looked quite
delightful--wonderful to him.  Indeed her effect on him made him
swallow quickly and half choke on the coffee he had just taken.  He
laughed and felt irrepressibly gay.

At that moment she turned on him and said:  "See, what I've done to
him now."

"Oh, that ain't all you've done to me," exclaimed Clyde, suddenly
being seized with an inspiration and a flow of thought and courage.
Of a sudden, because of her effect on him, he felt bold and
courageous, albeit a little foolish and added, "Say, I'm gettin'
kinda woozy with all the pretty faces I see around here."

"Oh, gee, you don't want to give yourself away that quick around
here, Clyde," cautioned Ratterer, genially.  "These high-binders'll
be after you to make you take 'em wherever they want to go.  You
better not begin that way."  And, sure enough, Louise Ratterer, not
to be abashed by what her brother had just said, observed:  "You
dance, don't you, Mr. Griffiths?"

"No, I don't," replied Clyde, suddenly brought back to reality by
this inquiry and regretting most violently the handicap this was
likely to prove in this group.  "But you bet I wish I did now," he
added gallantly and almost appealingly, looking first at Hortense
and then at Greta Miller and Louise.  But all pretended not to
notice his preference, although Hortense titillated with her
triumph.  She was not convinced that she was so greatly taken with
him, but it was something to triumph thus easily and handsomely
over these others.  And the others felt it.  "Ain't that too bad?"
she commented, a little indifferently and superiorly now that she
realized that she was his preference.  "You might come along with
us, you and Tom, if you did.  There's goin' to be mostly dancing at
Kittie's."

Clyde began to feel and look crushed at once.  To think that this
girl, to whom of all those here he was most drawn, could dismiss
him and his dreams and desires thus easily, and all because he
couldn't dance.  And his accursed home training was responsible for
all this.  He felt broken and cheated.  What a boob he must seem
not to be able to dance.  And Louise Ratterer looked a little
puzzled and indifferent, too.  But Greta Miller, whom he liked less
than Hortense, came to his rescue with:  "Oh, it ain't so hard to
learn.  I could show you in a few minutes after dinner if you
wanted to.  It's only a few steps you have to know.  And then you
could go, anyhow, if you wanted to."

Clyde was grateful and said so--determined to learn here or
elsewhere at the first opportunity.  Why hadn't he gone to a
dancing school before this, he asked himself.  But the thing that
pained him most was the seeming indifference of Hortense now that
he had made it clear that he liked her.  Perhaps it was that Bert
Gettler, previously mentioned, with whom she had gone to the dance,
who was making it impossible for him to interest her.  So he was
always to be a failure this way.  Oh, gee!

But the moment the dinner was over and while the others were still
talking, the first to put on a dance record and come over with
hands extended was Hortense, who was determined not to be outdone
by her rival in this way.  She was not particularly interested or
fascinated by Clyde, at least not to the extent of troubling about
him as Greta did.  But if her friend was going to attempt a
conquest in this manner, was it not just as well to forestall her?
And so, while Clyde misread her change of attitude to the extent of
thinking that she liked him better than he had thought, she took
him by the hands, thinking at the same time that he was too
bashful.  However, placing his right arm about her waist, his other
clasped in hers at her shoulder, she directed his attention to her
feet and his and began to illustrate the few primary movements of
the dance.  But so eager and grateful was he--almost intense and
ridiculous--she did not like him very much, thought him a little
unsophisticated and too young.  At the same time, there was a charm
about him which caused her to wish to assist him.  And soon he was
moving about with her quite easily--and afterwards with Greta and
then Louise, but wishing always it was Hortense.  And finally he
was pronounced sufficiently skillful to go, if he would.

And now the thought of being near her, being able to dance with her
again, drew him so greatly that, despite the fact that three
youths, among them that same Bert Gettler, appeared on the scene to
escort them, and although he and Ratterer had previously agreed to
go to a theater together, he could not help showing how much he
would prefer to follow those others--so much so that Ratterer
finally agreed to abandon the theater idea.  And soon they were
off, Clyde grieving that he could not walk with Hortense, who was
with Gettler, and hating his rival because of this; but still
attempting to be civil to Louise and Greta, who bestowed sufficient
attention on him to make him feel at ease.  Ratterer, having
noticed his extreme preference and being alone with him for a
moment, said:  "You better not get too stuck on that Hortense
Briggs.  I don't think she's on the level with anybody.  She's got
that fellow Gettler and others.  She'll only work you an' you might
not get anything, either."

But Clyde, in spite of this honest and well-meant caution, was not
to be dissuaded.  On sight, and because of the witchery of a smile,
the magic and vigor of motion and youth, he was completely
infatuated and would have given or done anything for an additional
smile or glance or hand pressure.  And that despite the fact that
he was dealing with a girl who no more knew her own mind than a
moth, and who was just reaching the stage where she was finding it
convenient and profitable to use boys of her own years or a little
older for whatever pleasures or clothes she desired.



The party proved nothing more than one of those ebullitions of the
youthful mating period.  The house of Kittie Keane was little more
than a cottage in a poor street under bare December trees.  But to
Clyde, because of the passion for a pretty face that was suddenly
lit in him, it had the color and the form and gayety of romance
itself.  And the young girls and boys that he met there--girls and
boys of the Ratterer, Hegglund, Hortense stripe--were still of the
very substance and texture of that energy, ease and forwardness
which he would have given his soul to possess.  And curiously
enough, in spite of a certain nervousness on his part, he was by
reason of his new companions made an integral part of the gayeties.

And on this occasion he was destined to view a type of girl and
youth in action such as previously it had not been his fortune or
misfortune, as you will, to see.  There was, for instance, a type
of sensual dancing which Louise and Hortense and Greta indulged in
with the greatest nonchalance and assurance.  At the same time,
many of these youths carried whisky in a hip flask, from which they
not only drank themselves, but gave others to drink--boys and girls
indiscriminately.

And the general hilarity for this reason being not a little added
to, they fell into more intimate relations--spooning with one and
another--Hortense and Louise and Greta included.  Also to
quarreling at times.  And it appeared to be nothing out of the
ordinary, as Clyde saw, for one youth or another to embrace a girl
behind a door, to hold her on his lap in a chair in some secluded
corner, to lie with her on a sofa, whispering intimate and
unquestionably welcome things to her.  And although at no time did
he espy Hortense doing this--still, as he saw, she did not hesitate
to sit on the laps of various boys or to whisper with rivals behind
doors.  And this for a time so discouraged and at the same time
incensed him that he felt he could not and would not have anything
more to do with her--she was too cheap, vulgar, inconsiderate.

At the same time, having partaken of the various drinks offered
him--so as not to seem less worldly wise than the others--until
brought to a state of courage and daring not ordinarily
characteristic of him, he ventured to half plead with and at the
same time half reproach her for her too lax conduct.

"You're a flirt, you are.  You don't care who you jolly, do you?"
This as they were dancing together after one o'clock to the music
of a youth named Wilkens, at the none too toneful piano.  She was
attempting to show him a new step in a genial and yet coquettish
way, and with an amused, sensuous look.

"What do you mean, flirt?  I don't get you."

"Oh, don't you?" replied Clyde, a little crossly and still
attempting to conceal his real mood by a deceptive smile.  "I've
heard about you.  You jolly 'em all."

"Oh, do I?" she replied quite irritably.  "Well, I haven't tried to
jolly you very much, have I?"

"Well, now, don't get mad," he half pleaded and half scolded,
fearing, perhaps, that he had ventured too far and might lose her
entirely now.  "I don't mean anything by it.  You don't deny that
you let a lot of these fellows make love to you.  They seem to like
you, anyway."

"Oh, well, of course they like me, I guess.  I can't help that, can
I?"

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," he blurted boastfully and
passionately.  "I could spend a lot more on you than they could.  I
got it."  He had been thinking only the moment before of fifty-five
dollars in bills that snuggled comfortably in his pocket.

"Oh, I don't know," she retorted, not a little intrigued by this
cash offer, as it were, and at the same time not a little set up in
her mood by the fact that she could thus inflame nearly all youths
in this way.  She was really a little silly, very lightheaded, who
was infatuated by her own charms and looked in every mirror,
admiring her eyes, her hair, her neck, her hands, her figure, and
practising a peculiarly fetching smile.

At the same time, she was not unaffected by the fact that Clyde was
not a little attractive to look upon, although so very green.  She
liked to tease such beginners.  He was a bit of a fool, as she saw
him.  But he was connected with the Green-Davidson, and he was
well-dressed, and no doubt he had all the money he said and would
spend it on her.  Some of those whom she liked best did not have
much money to spend.

"Lots of fellows with money would like to spend it on me."  She
tossed her head and flicked her eyes and repeated her coyest smile.

At once Clyde's countenance darkened.  The witchery of her look was
too much for him.  The skin of his forehead crinkled and then
smoothed out.  His eyes burned lustfully and bitterly, his old
resentment of life and deprivation showing.  No doubt all she said
was true.  There were others who had more and would spend more.  He
was boasting and being ridiculous and she was laughing at him.

After a moment, he added, weakly, "I guess that's right, too.  But
they couldn't want you more than I do."

The uncalculated honesty of it flattered her not a little.  He
wasn't so bad after all.  They were gracefully gliding about as the
music continued.

"Oh, well, I don't flirt everywhere like I do here.  These fellows
and girls all know each other.  We're always going around together.
You mustn't mind what you see here."

She was lying artfully, but it was soothing to him none the less.
"Gee, I'd give anything if you'd only be nice to me," he pleaded,
desperately and yet ecstatically.  "I never saw a girl I'd rather
have than you.  You're swell.  I'm crazy about you.  Why won't you
come out to dinner with me and let me take you to a show
afterwards?  Don't you want to do that, tomorrow night or Sunday?
Those are my two nights off.  I work other nights."

She hesitated at first, for even now she was not so sure that she
wished to continue this contact.  There was Gettler, to say nothing
of several others, all jealous and attentive.  Even though he spent
money on her, she might not wish to bother with him.  He was
already too eager and he might become troublesome.  At the same
time, the natural coquetry of her nature would not permit her to
relinquish him.  He might fall into the hands of Greta or Louise.
In consequence she finally arranged a meeting for the following
Tuesday.  But he could not come to the house, or take her home to-
night--on account of her escort, Mr. Gettler.  But on the following
Tuesday, at six-thirty, near the Green-Davidson.  And he assured
her that they would dine first at Frissell's, and then see "The
Corsair," a musical comedy at Libby's, only two blocks away.



Chapter 12


Now trivial as this contact may seem to some, it was of the utmost
significance to Clyde.  Up to this time he had never seen a girl
with so much charm who would deign to look at him, or so he
imagined.  And now he had found one, and she was pretty and
actually interested sufficiently to accompany him to dinner and to
a show.  It was true, perhaps, that she was a flirt, and not really
sincere with any one, and that maybe at first he could not expect
her to center her attentions on him, but who knew--who could tell?

And true to her promise on the following Tuesday she met him at the
corner of 14th Street and Wyandotte, near the Green-Davidson.  And
so excited and flattered and enraptured was he that he could
scarcely arrange his jumbled thoughts and emotions in any seemly
way.  But to show that he was worthy of her, he had made an almost
exotic toilet--hair pomaded, a butterfly tie, new silk muffler and
silk socks to emphasize his bright brown shoes, purchased
especially for the occasion.

But once he had reencountered Hortense, whether all this was of any
import to her he could not tell.  For, after all, it was her own
appearance, not his, that interested her.  And what was more--a
trick with her--she chose to keep him waiting until nearly seven
o'clock, a delay which brought about in him the deepest dejection
of spirit for the time being.  For supposing, after all, in the
interval, she had decided that she did not care for him and did not
wish to see him any more.  Well, then he would have to do without
her, of course.  But that would prove that he was not interesting
to a girl as pretty as she was, despite all the nice clothes he was
now able to wear and the money he could spend.  He was determined
that, girl or no girl, he would not have one who was not pretty.
Ratterer and Hegglund did not seem to mind whether the girl they
knew was attractive or not, but with him it was a passion.  The
thought of being content with one not so attractive almost
nauseated him.

And yet here he was now, on the street corner in the dark--the
flare of many signs and lights about, hundreds of pedestrians
hurrying hither and thither, the thought of pleasurable intentions
and engagements written upon the faces of many--and he, he alone,
might have to turn and go somewhere else--eat alone, go to a
theater alone, go home alone, and then to work again in the
morning.  He had just about concluded that he was a failure when
out of the crowd, a little distance away, emerged the face and
figure of Hortense.  She was smartly dressed in a black velvet
jacket with a reddish-brown collar and cuffs, and a bulgy, round
tam of the same material with a red leather buckle on the side.
And her cheeks and lips were rouged a little.  And her eyes
sparkled.  And as usual she gave herself all the airs of one very
well content with herself.

"Oh, hello, I'm late, ain't I?  I couldn't help it.  You see, I
forgot I had another appointment with a fella, a friend of mine--
gee, a peach of a boy, too, and it was only at six I remembered
that I had the two dates.  Well, I was in a mess then.  So I had to
do something about one of you.  I was just about to call you up and
make a date for another night, only I remembered you wouldn't be at
your place after six.  Tom never is.  And Charlie always is in his
place till six-thirty, anyhow, sometimes later, and he's a peach of
a fella that way--never grouchy or nothing.  And he was goin' to
take me to the theater and to dinner, too.  He has charge of the
cigar stand over here at the Orphia.  So I called him up.  Well, he
didn't like it so very much.  But I told him I'd make it another
night.  Now, aintcha glad?  Dontcha think I'm pretty nice to you,
disappointin' a good-lookin' fella like Charlie for you?"

She had caught a glimpse of the disturbed and jealous and yet
fearsome look in Clyde's eyes as she talked of another.  And the
thought of making him jealous was a delight to her.  She realized
that he was very much smitten with her.  So she tossed her head and
smiled, falling into step with him as he moved up the street.

"You bet it was nice of you to come," he forced himself to say,
even though the reference to Charlie as a "peach of a fella" seemed
to affect his throat and his heart at the same time.  What chance
had he to hold a girl who was so pretty and self-willed?  "Gee, you
look swell to-night," he went on, forcing himself to talk and
surprising himself a little with his ability to do so.  "I like the
way that hat looks on you, and your coat too."  He looked directly
at her, his eyes lit with admiration, an eager yearning filling
them.  He would have liked to have kissed her--her pretty mouth--
only he did not dare here, or anywhere as yet.

"I don't wonder you have to turn down engagements.  You're pretty
enough.  Don't you want some roses to wear?"  They were passing a
flower store at the moment and the sight of them put the thought of
the gift in his mind.  He had heard Hegglund say that women liked
fellows who did things for them.

"Oh, sure, I would like some roses," she replied, turning into the
place.  "Or maybe some of those violets.  They look pretty.  They
go better with this jacket, I think."

She was pleased to think that Clyde was sporty enough to think of
flowers.  Also that he was saying such nice things about her.  At
the same time she was convinced that he was a boy who had had
little, if anything, to do with girls.  And she preferred youths
and men who were more experienced, not so easily flattered by her--
not so easy to hold.  Yet she could not help thinking that Clyde
was a better type of boy or man than she was accustomed to--more
refined.  And for that reason, in spite of his gaucheness (in her
eyes) she was inclined to tolerate him--to see how he would do.

"Well, these are pretty nifty," she exclaimed, picking up a rather
large bouquet of violets and pinning them on.  "I think I'll wear
these."  And while Clyde paid for them, she posed before the
mirror, adjusting them to her taste.  At last, being satisfied as
to their effect, she turned and exclaimed, "Well, I'm ready," and
took him by the arm.

Clyde, being not a little overawed by her spirit and mannerisms,
was at a loss what else to say for the moment, but he need not have
worried--her chief interest in life was herself.

"Gee, I tell you I had a swift week of it last week.  Out every
night until three.  An' Sunday until nearly morning.  My, that was
some rough party I was to last night, all right.  Ever been down to
Burkett's at Gifford's Ferry?  Oh, a nifty place, all right, right
over the Big Blue at 39th.  Dancing in summer and you can skate
outside when it's frozen in winter or dance on the ice.  An' the
niftiest little orchestra."

Clyde watched the play of her mouth and the brightness of her eyes
and the swiftness of her gestures without thinking so much of what
she said--very little.

"Wallace Trone was along with us--gee, he's a scream of a kid--and
afterwards when we was sittin' down to eat ice cream, he went out
in the kitchen and blacked up an' put on a waiter's apron and coat
and then comes back and serves us.  That's one funny boy.  An' he
did all sorts of funny stuff with the dishes and spoons."  Clyde
sighed because he was by no means as gifted as the gifted Trone.

"An' then, Monday morning, when we all got back it was nearly four,
and I had to get up again at seven.  I was all in.  I coulda
chucked my job, and I woulda, only for the nice people down at the
store and Mr. Beck.  He's the head of my department, you know, and
say, how I do plague that poor man.  I sure am hard on that store.
One day I comes in late after lunch; one of the other girls punched
the clock for me with my key, see, and he was out in the hall and
he saw her, and he says to me afterwards, about two in the
afternoon, 'Say look here, Miss Briggs' (he always calls me Miss
Briggs, 'cause I won't let him call me nothing else.  He'd try to
get fresh if I did), 'that loanin' that key stuff don't go.  Cut
that stuff out now.  This ain't no Follies.'  I had to laugh.  He
does get so sore at times at all of us.  But I put him in his place
just the same.  He's kinda soft on me, you know--he wouldn't fire
me for worlds, not him.  So I says to him, 'See here, Mr. Beck, you
can't talk to me in any such style as that.  I'm not in the habit
of comin' late often.  An' wot's more, this ain't the only place I
can work in K.C.  If I can't be late once in a while without
hearin' about it, you can just send up for my time, that's all,
see.'  I wasn't goin' to let him get away with that stuff.  And
just as I thought, he weakened.  All he says was, 'Well, just the
same, I'm warnin' you.  Next time maybe Mr. Tierney'll see you an'
then you'll get a chance to try some other store, all right.'  He
knew he was bluffing and that I did, too.  I had to laugh.  An' I
saw him laughin' with Mr. Scott about two minutes later.  But, gee,
I certainly do pull some raw stuff around there at times."

By then she and Clyde, with scarcely a word on his part, and much
to his ease and relief, had reached Frissell's.  And for the first
time in his life he had the satisfaction of escorting a girl to a
table in such a place.  Now he really was beginning to have a few
experiences worthy of the name.  He was quite on edge with the
romance of it.  Because of her very high estimate of herself, her
very emphatic picture of herself as one who was intimate with so
many youths and girls who were having a good time, he felt that up
to this hour he had not lived at all.  Swiftly he thought of the
different things she had told him--Burkett's on the Big Blue,
skating and dancing on the ice--Charlie Trone--the young tobacco
clerk with whom she had had the engagement for to-night--Mr. Beck
at the store who was so struck on her that he couldn't bring
himself to fire her.  And as he saw her order whatever she liked,
without any thought of his purse, he contemplated quickly her face,
figure, the shape of her hands, so suggestive always of the
delicacy or roundness of the arm, the swell of her bust, already
very pronounced, the curve of her eyebrows, the rounded appeal of
her smooth cheeks and chin.  There was something also about the
tone of her voice, unctuous, smooth, which somehow appealed to and
disturbed him.  To him it was delicious.  Gee, if he could only
have such a girl all for himself!

And in here, as without, she clattered on about herself, not at all
impressed, apparently, by the fact that she was dining here, a
place that to him had seemed quite remarkable.  When she was not
looking at herself in a mirror, she was studying the bill of fare
and deciding what she liked--lamb with mint jelly--no omelette, no
beef--oh, yes, filet of mignon with mushrooms.  She finally
compromised on that with celery and cauliflower.  And she would
like a cocktail.  Oh, yes, Clyde had heard Hegglund say that no
meal was worth anything without a few drinks, so now he had mildly
suggested a cocktail.  And having secured that and a second, she
seemed warmer and gayer and more gossipy than ever.

But all the while, as Clyde noticed, her attitude in so far as he
was concerned was rather distant--impersonal.  If for so much as a
moment, he ventured to veer the conversation ever so slightly to
themselves, his deep personal interest in her, whether she was
really very deeply concerned about any other youth, she threw him
off by announcing that she liked all the boys, really.  They were
all so lovely--so nice to her.  They had to be.  When they weren't,
she didn't have anything more to do with them.  She "tied a can to
them," as she once expressed it.  Her quick eyes clicked and she
tossed her head defiantly.

And Clyde was captivated by all this.  Her gestures, her poses,
moues and attitudes were sensuous and suggestive.  She seemed to
like to tease, promise, lay herself open to certain charges and
conclusions and then to withhold and pretend that there was nothing
to all of this--that she was very unconscious of anything save the
most reserved thoughts in regard to herself.  In the main, Clyde
was thrilled and nourished by this mere proximity to her.  It was
torture, and yet a sweet kind of torture.  He was full of the most
tantalizing thoughts about how wonderful it would be if only he
were permitted to hold her close, kiss her mouth, bite her, even.
To cover her mouth with his!  To smother her with kisses!  To crush
and pet her pretty figure!  She would look at him at moments with
deliberate, swimming eyes, and he actually felt a little sick and
weak--almost nauseated.  His one dream was that by some process,
either of charm or money, he could make himself interesting to her.

And yet after going with her to the theater and taking her home
again, he could not see that he had made any noticeable progress.
For throughout the performance of "The Corsair" at Libby's,
Hortense, who, because of her uncertain interest in him was really
interested in the play, talked of nothing but similar shows she had
seen, as well as of actors and actresses and what she thought of
them, and what particular youth had taken her.  And Clyde, instead
of leading her in wit and defiance and matching her experiences
with his own, was compelled to content himself with approving of
her.

And all the time she was thinking that she had made another real
conquest.  And because she was no longer virtuous, and she was
convinced that he had some little money to spend, and could be made
to spend it on her, she conceived the notion of being sufficiently
agreeable--nothing more--to hold him, keep him attentive, if
possible, while at the same time she went her own way, enjoying
herself as much as possible with others and getting Clyde to buy
and do such things for her as might fill gaps--when she was not
sufficiently or amusingly enough engaged elsewhere.



Chapter 13


For a period of four months at least this was exactly the way it
worked out.  After meeting her in this fashion, he was devoting not
an inconsiderable portion of his free time to attempting to
interest her to the point where she would take as much interest in
him as she appeared to take in others.  At the same time he could
not tell whether she could be made to entertain a singular
affection for any one.  Nor could he believe that there was only an
innocent camaraderie involved in all this.  Yet she was so enticing
that he was deliriously moved by the thought that if his worst
suspicions were true, she might ultimately favor him.  So
captivated was he by this savor of sensuality and varietism that
was about her, the stigmata of desire manifest in her gestures,
moods, voice, the way she dressed, that he could not think of
relinquishing her.

Rather, he foolishly ran after her.  And seeing this, she put him
off, at times evaded him, compelled him to content himself with
little more than the crumbs of her company, while at the same time
favoring him with descriptions or pictures of other activities and
contacts which made him feel as though he could no longer endure to
merely trail her in this fashion.  It was then he would announce to
himself in anger that he was not going to see her any more.  She
was no good to him, really.  But on seeing her again, a cold
indifference in everything she said and did, his courage failed him
and he could not think of severing the tie.

She was not at all backward at the same time in speaking of things
that she needed or would like to have--little things, at first--a
new powder puff, a lip stick, a box of powder or a bottle of
perfume.  Later, and without having yielded anything more to Clyde
than a few elusive and evasive endearments--intimate and languorous
reclinings in his arms which promised much but always came to
nothing--she made so bold as to indicate to him at different times
and in different ways, purses, blouses, slippers, stockings, a hat,
which she would like to buy if only she had the money.  And he, in
order to hold her favor and properly ingratiate himself, proceeded
to buy them, though at times and because of some other developments
in connection with his family, it pressed him hard to do so.  And
yet, as he was beginning to see toward the end of the fourth month,
he was apparently little farther advanced in her favor than he had
been in the beginning.  In short, he was conducting a feverish and
almost painful pursuit without any definite promise of reward.



In the meantime, in so far as his home ties went, the irritations
and the depressions which were almost inextricably involved with
membership in the Griffiths family were not different from what
they had ever been.  For, following the disappearance of Esta,
there had settled a period of dejection which still endured.  Only,
in so far as Clyde was concerned, it was complicated with a mystery
which was tantalizing and something more--irritating; for when it
came to anything which related to sex in the Griffiths family, no
parents could possibly have been more squeamish.

And especially did this apply to the mystery which had now
surrounded Esta for some time.  She had gone.  She had not
returned.  And so far as Clyde and the others knew, no word of any
kind had been received from her.  However, Clyde had noted that
after the first few weeks of her absence, during which time both
his mother and father had been most intensely wrought up and
troubled, worrying greatly as to her whereabouts and why she did
not write, suddenly they had ceased their worries, and had become
very much more resigned--at least not so tortured by a situation
that previously had seemed to offer no hope whatsoever.  He could
not explain it.  It was quite noticeable, and yet nothing was said.
And then one day a little later, Clyde had occasion to note that
his mother was in communication with some one by mail--something
rare for her.  For so few were her social or business connections
that she rarely received or wrote a letter.

One day, however, very shortly after he had connected himself with
the Green-Davidson, he had come in rather earlier than usual in the
afternoon and found his mother bending over a letter which
evidently had just arrived and which appeared to interest her
greatly.  Also it seemed to be connected with something which
required concealment.  For, on seeing him, she stopped reading at
once, and, flustered and apparently nervous, arose and put the
letter away without commenting in any way upon what she had been
doing.  But Clyde for some reason, intuition perhaps, had the
thought that it might be from Esta.  He was not sure.  And he was
too far away to detect the character of the handwriting.  But
whatever it was, his mother said nothing afterwards concerning it.
She looked as though she did not want him to inquire, and so
reserved were their relations that he would not have thought of
inquiring.  He merely wondered, and then dismissed it partially,
but not entirely, from his mind.

A month or five weeks after this, and just about the time that he
was becoming comparatively well-schooled in his work at the Green-
Davidson, and was beginning to interest himself in Hortense Briggs,
his mother came to him one afternoon with a very peculiar
proposition for her.  Without explaining what it was for, or
indicating directly that now she felt that he might be in a better
position to help her, she called him into the mission hall when he
came in from work and, looking at him rather fixedly and nervously
for her, said:  "You wouldn't know, Clyde, would you, how I could
raise a hundred dollars right away?"

Clyde was so astonished that he could scarcely believe his ears,
for only a few weeks before the mere mention of any sum above four
or five dollars in connection with him would have been preposterous.
His mother knew that.  Yet here she was asking him and apparently
assuming that he might be able to assist her in this way.  And
rightly, for both his clothes and his general air had indicated a
period of better days for him.

At the same time his first thought was, of course, that she had
observed his clothes and goings-on and was convinced that he was
deceiving her about the amount he earned.  And in part this was
true, only so changed was Clyde's manner of late, that his mother
had been compelled to take a very different attitude toward him and
was beginning to be not a little dubious as to her further control
over him.  Recently, or since he had secured this latest place, for
some reason he had seemed to her to have grown wiser, more assured,
less dubious of himself, inclined to go his own way and keep his
own counsel.  And while this had troubled her not a little in one
sense, it rather pleased her in another.  For to see Clyde, who had
always seemed because of his sensitiveness and unrest so much of a
problem to her, developing in this very interesting way was
something; though at times, and in view of his very recent finery,
she had been wondering and troubled as to the nature of the company
he might be keeping.  But since his hours were so long and so
absorbing, and whatever money he made appeared to be going into
clothes, she felt that she had no real reason to complain.  Her one
other thought was that perhaps he was beginning to act a little
selfish--to think too much of his own comfort--and yet in the face
of his long deprivations she could not very well begrudge him any
temporary pleasure, either.

Clyde, not being sure of her real attitude, merely looked at her
and exclaimed:  "Why, where would I get a hundred dollars, Ma?"  He
had visions of his new-found source of wealth being dissipated by
such unheard of and inexplicable demands as this, and distress and
distrust at once showed on his countenance.

"I didn't expect that you could get it all for me," Mrs. Griffiths
suggested tactfully.  "I have a plan to raise the most of it, I
think.  But I did want you to help me try to think how I would
raise the rest.  I didn't want to go to your father with this if I
could help it, and you're getting old enough now to be of some
help."  She looked at Clyde approvingly and interestedly enough.
"Your father is such a poor hand at business," she went on, "and he
gets so worried at times."

She passed a large and weary hand over her face and Clyde was moved
by her predicament, whatever it was.  At the same time, apart from
whether he was willing to part with so much or not, or had it to
give, he was decidedly curious about what all this was for.  A
hundred dollars!  Gee whiz!

After a moment or two, his mother added:  "I'll tell you what I've
been thinking.  I must have a hundred dollars, but I can't tell you
for what now, you nor any one, and you mustn't ask me.  There's an
old gold watch of your father's in my desk and a solid gold ring
and pin of mine.  Those things ought to be worth twenty-five
dollars at least, if they were sold or pawned.  Then there is that
set of solid silver knives and forks and that silver platter and
pitcher in there"--Clyde knew the keepsakes well--"that platter
alone is worth twenty-five dollars.  I believe they ought to bring
at least twenty or twenty-five together.  I was thinking if I could
get you to go to some good pawnshop with them down near where you
work, and then if you would let me have five more a week for a
while" (Clyde's countenance fell)--"I could get a friend of mine--
Mr. Murch who comes here, you know--to advance me enough to make up
the hundred, and then I could pay him back out of what you pay me.
I have about ten dollars myself."

She looked at Clyde as much as to say:  "Now, surely, you won't
desert me in my hour of trouble," and Clyde relaxed, in spite of
the fact that he had been counting upon using quite all that he
earned for himself.  In fact, he agreed to take the trinkets to the
pawnshop, and to advance her five more for the time being until the
difference between whatever the trinkets brought and one hundred
dollars was made up.  And yet in spite of himself, he could not
help resenting this extra strain, for it had only been a very short
time that he had been earning so much.  And here was his mother
demanding more and more, as he saw it--ten dollars a week now.
Always something wrong, thought Clyde, always something needed, and
with no assurance that there would not be more such demands later.

He took the trinkets, carried them to the most presentable pawnshop
he could find, and being offered forty-five dollars for the lot,
took it.  This, with his mother's ten, would make fifty-five, and
with forty-five she could borrow from Mr. Murch, would make a
hundred.  Only now, as he saw, it would mean that for nine weeks he
would have to give her ten dollars instead of five.  And that, in
view of his present aspirations to dress, live and enjoy himself in
a way entirely different from what he previously considered
necessary, was by no means a pleasure to contemplate.  Nevertheless
he decided to do it.  After all he owed his mother something.  She
had made many sacrifices for him and the others in days past and he
could not afford to be too selfish.  It was not decent.

But the most enduring thought that now came to him was that if his
mother and father were going to look to him for financial aid, they
should be willing to show him more consideration than had
previously been shown him.  For one thing he ought to be allowed to
come and go with more freedom, in so far as his night hours were
concerned.  And at the same time he was clothing himself and eating
his meals at the hotel, and that was no small item, as he saw it.

However, there was another problem that had soon arisen and it was
this.  Not so long after the matter of the hundred dollars, he
encountered his mother in Montrose Street, one of the poorest
streets which ran north from Bickel, and which consisted entirely
of two unbroken lines of wooden houses and two-story flats and many
unfurnished apartments.  Even the Griffiths, poor as they were,
would have felt themselves demeaned by the thought of having to
dwell in such a street.  His mother was coming down the front steps
of one of the less tatterdemalion houses of this row, a lower front
window of which carried a very conspicuous card which read
"Furnished Rooms."  And then, without turning or seeing Clyde
across the street, she proceeded to another house a few doors away,
which also carried a furnished rooms card and, after surveying the
exterior interestedly, mounted the steps and rang the bell.

Clyde's first impression was that she was seeking the whereabouts
of some individual in whom she was interested and of whose address
she was not certain.  But crossing over to her at about the moment
the proprietress of the house put her head out of the door, he
heard his mother say:  "You have a room for rent?"  "Yes."  "Has it
a bath?"  "No, but there's a bath on the second floor."  "How much
is it a week?"  "Four dollars."  "Could I see it?"  "Yes, just step
in."

Mrs. Griffiths appeared to hesitate while Clyde stood below, not
twenty-five feet away, and looked up at her, waiting for her to
turn and recognize him.  But she stepped in without turning.  And
Clyde gazed after her curiously, for while it was by no means
inconceivable that his mother might be looking for a room for some
one, yet why should she be looking for it in this street when as a
rule she usually dealt with the Salvation Army or the Young Women's
Christian Association.  His first impulse was to wait and inquire
of her what she was doing here, but being interested in several
errands of his own, he went on.

That night, returning to his own home to dress and seeing his
mother in the kitchen, he said to her:  "I saw you this morning,
Ma, in Montrose Street."

"Yes," his mother replied, after a moment, but not before he had
noticed that she had started suddenly as though taken aback by this
information.  She was paring potatoes and looked at him curiously.
"Well, what of it?" she added, calmly, but flushing just the same--
a thing decidedly unusual in connection with her where he was
concerned.  Indeed, that start of surprise interested and arrested
Clyde.

"You were going into a house there--looking for a furnished room, I
guess."

"Yes, I was," replied Mrs. Griffiths, simply enough now.  "I need a
room for some one who is sick and hasn't much money, but it's not
so easy to find either."  She turned away as though she were not
disposed to discuss this any more, and Clyde, while sensing her
mood, apparently, could not resist adding:  "Gee, that's not much
of a street to have a room in."  His new work at the Green-Davidson
had already caused him to think differently of how one should live--
any one.  She did not answer him and he went to his room to change
his clothes.

A month or so after this, coming east on Missouri Avenue late one
evening, he again saw his mother in the near distance coming west.
In the light of one of the small stores which ranged in a row on
this street, he saw that she was carrying a rather heavy old-
fashioned bag, which had long been about the house but had never
been much used by any one.  On sight of him approaching (as he
afterwards decided) she had stopped suddenly and turned into a
hallway of a three-story brick apartment building, and when he came
up to it, he found the outside door was shut.  He opened it, and
saw a flight of steps dimly lit, up which she might have gone.
However, he did not trouble to investigate, for he was uncertain,
once he reached this place, whether she had gone to call on some
one or not, it had all happened so quickly.  But waiting at the
next corner, he finally saw her come out again.  And then to his
increasing curiosity, she appeared to look cautiously about before
proceeding as before.  It was this that caused him to think that
she must have been endeavoring to conceal herself from him.  But
why?

His first impulse was to turn and follow her, so interested was he
by her strange movements.  But he decided later that if she did not
want him to know what she was doing, perhaps it was best that he
should not.  At the same time he was made intensely curious by this
evasive gesture.  Why should his mother not wish him to see her
carrying a bag anywhere?  Evasion and concealment formed no part of
her real disposition (so different from his own).  Almost instantly
his mind proceeded to join this coincidence with the time he had
seen her descending the steps of the rooming house in Montrose
Street, together with the business of the letter he had found her
reading, and the money she had been compelled to raise--the hundred
dollars.  Where could she be going?  What was she hiding?

He speculated on all this, but he could not decide whether it had
any definite connection with him or any member of the family until
about a week later, when, passing along Eleventh near Baltimore, he
thought he saw Esta, or at least a girl so much like her that she
would be taken for her anywhere.  She had the same height, and she
was moving along as Esta used to walk.  Only, now he thought as he
saw her, she looked older.  Yet, so quickly had she come and gone
in the mass of people that he had not been able to make sure.  It
was only a glance, but on the strength of it, he had turned and
sought to catch up with her, but upon reaching the spot she was
gone.  So convinced was he, however, that he had seen her that he
went straight home, and, encountering his mother in the mission,
announced that he was positive he had seen Esta.  She must be back
in Kansas City again.  He could have sworn to it.  He had seen her
near Eleventh and Baltimore, or thought he had.  Had his mother
heard anything from her?

And then curiously enough he observed that his mother's manner was
not exactly what he thought it should have been under the
circumstances.  His own attitude had been one of commingled
astonishment, pleasure, curiosity and sympathy because of the
sudden disappearance and now sudden reappearance of Esta.  Could it
be that his mother had used that hundred dollars to bring her back?
The thought had come to him--why or from where, he could not say.
He wondered.  But if so, why had she not returned to her home, at
least to notify the family of her presence here?

He expected his mother would be as astonished and puzzled as he
was--quick and curious for details.  Instead, she appeared to him
to be obviously confused and taken aback by this information, as
though she was hearing about something that she already knew and
was puzzled as to just what her attitude should be.

"Oh, did you?  Where?  Just now, you say?  At Eleventh and
Baltimore?  Well, isn't that strange?  I must speak to Asa about
this.  It's strange that she wouldn't come here if she is back."
Her eyes, as he saw, instead of looking astonished, looked puzzled,
disturbed.  Her mouth, always the case when she was a little
embarrassed and disconcerted, worked oddly--not only the lips but
the jaw itself.

"Well, well," she added, after a pause.  "That is strange.  Perhaps
it was just some one who looked like her."

But Clyde, watching her out of the corner of his eye, could not
believe that she was as astonished as she pretended.  And,
thereafter, Asa coming in, and Clyde not having as yet departed for
the hotel, he heard them discussing the matter in some strangely
inattentive and unillumined way, as if it was not quite as
startling as it had seemed to him.  And for some time he was not
called in to explain what he had seen.

And then, as if purposely to solve this mystery for him, he
encountered his mother one day passing along Spruce Street, this
time carrying a small basket on her arm.  She had, as he had
noticed of late, taken to going out regularly mornings and
afternoons or evenings.  On this occasion, and long before she had
had an opportunity to see him, he had discerned her peculiarly
heavy figure draped in the old brown coat which she always wore,
and had turned into Myrkel Street and waited for her to pass, a
convenient news stand offering him shelter.  Once she had passed,
he dropped behind her, allowing her to precede him by half a block.
And at Dalrymple, she crossed to Beaudry, which was really a
continuation of Spruce, but not so ugly.  The houses were quite
old--quondam residences of an earlier day, but now turned into
boarding and rooming houses.  Into one of these he saw her enter
and disappear, but before doing so she looked inquiringly about
her.

After she had entered, Clyde approached the house and studied it
with great interest.  What was his mother doing in there?  Who was
it she was going to see?  He could scarcely have explained his
intense curiosity to himself, and yet, since having thought that he
had seen Esta on the street, he had an unconvinced feeling that it
might have something to do with her.  There were the letters, the
one hundred dollars, the furnished room in Montrose Street.

Diagonally across the way from the house in Beaudry Street there
was a large-trunked tree, leafless now in the winter wind, and near
it a telegraph pole, close enough to make a joint shadow with it.
And behind these he was able to stand unseen, and from this vantage
point to observe the several windows, side and front and ground and
second floor.  Through one of the front windows above, he saw his
mother moving about as though she were quite at home there.  And a
moment later, to his astonishment he saw Esta come to one of their
two windows and put a package down on the sill.  She appeared to
have on only a light dressing gown or a wrap drawn about her
shoulders.  He was not mistaken this time.  He actually started as
he realized that it was she, also that his mother was in there with
her.  And yet what had she done that she must come back and hide
away in this manner?  Had her husband, the man she had run away
with, deserted her?

He was so intensely curious that he decided to wait a while outside
here to see if his mother might not come out, and then he himself
would call on Esta.  He wanted so much to see her again--to know
what this mystery was all about.  He waited, thinking how he had
always liked Esta and how strange it was that she should be here,
hiding away in this mysterious way.

After an hour, his mother came out, her basket apparently empty,
for she held it lightly in her hand.  And just as before, she
looked cautiously about her, her face wearing that same stolid and
yet care-stamped expression which it always wore these days--a
cross between an uplifting faith and a troublesome doubt.

Clyde watched her as she proceeded to walk south on Beaudry Street
toward the Mission.  After she was well out of sight, he turned and
entered the house.  Inside, as he had surmised, he found a
collection of furnished rooms, name plates some of which bore the
names of the roomers pasted upon them.  Since he knew that the
southeast front room upstairs contained Esta, he proceeded there
and knocked.  And true enough, a light footstep responded within,
and presently, after some little delay which seemed to suggest some
quick preparation within, the door opened slightly and Esta peeped
out--quizzically at first, then with a little cry of astonishment
and some confusion.  For, as inquiry and caution disappeared, she
realized that she was looking at Clyde.  At once she opened the
door wide.

"Why, Clyde," she called.  "How did you come to find me?  I was
just thinking of you."

Clyde at once put his arms around her and kissed her.  At the
same time he realized, and with a slight sense of shock and
dissatisfaction, that she was considerably changed.  She was
thinner--paler--her eyes almost sunken, and not any better dressed
than when he had seen her last.  She appeared nervous and
depressed.  One of the first thoughts that came to him now was
where her husband was.  Why wasn't he here?  What had become of
him?  As he looked about and at her, he noticed that Esta's look
was one of confusion and uncertainty, not unmixed with a little
satisfaction at seeing him.  Her mouth was partly open because of a
desire to smile and to welcome him, but her eyes showed that she
was contending with a problem.

"I didn't expect you here," she added, quickly, the moment he
released her.  "You didn't see--"  Then she paused, catching
herself at the brink of some information which evidently she didn't
wish to impart.

"Yes, I did, too--I saw Ma," he replied.  "That's how I came to
know you were here.  I saw her coming out just now and I saw you up
here through the window."  (He did not care to confess that he had
been following and watching his mother for an hour.)  "But when did
you get back?" he went on.  "It's a wonder you wouldn't let the
rest of us know something about you.  Gee, you're a dandy, you are--
going away and staying months and never letting any one of us know
anything.  You might have written me a little something, anyhow.
We always got along pretty well, didn't we?"

His glance was quizzical, curious, imperative.  She, for her part,
felt recessive and thence evasive--uncertain, quite, what to think
or say or tell.

She uttered:  "I couldn't think who it might be.  No one comes
here.  But, my, how nice you look, Clyde.  You've got such nice
clothes, now.  And you're getting taller.  Mamma was telling me you
are working at the Green-Davidson."

She looked at him admiringly and he was properly impressed by her
notice of him.  At the same time he could not get his mind off her
condition.  He could not cease looking at her face, her eyes, her
thin-fat body.  And as he looked at her waist and her gaunt face,
he came to a very keen realization that all was not well with her.
She was going to have a child.  And hence the thought recurred to
him--where was her husband--or at any rate, the man she had eloped
with.  Her original note, according to her mother, had said that
she was going to get married.  Yet now he sensed quite clearly that
she was not married.  She was deserted, left in this miserable room
here alone.  He saw it, felt it, understood it.

And he thought at once that this was typical of all that seemed to
occur in his family.  Here he was just getting a start, trying to
be somebody and get along in the world and have a good time.  And
here was Esta, after her first venture in the direction of doing
something for herself, coming to such a finish as this.  It made
him a little sick and resentful.

"How long have you been back, Esta?" he repeated dubiously,
scarcely knowing just what to say now, for now that he was here and
she was as she was he began to scent expense, trouble, distress and
to wish almost that he had not been so curious.  Why need he have
been?  It could only mean that he must help.

"Oh, not so very long, Clyde.  About a month, now, I guess.  Not
more than that."

"I thought so.  I saw you up on Eleventh near Baltimore about a
month ago, didn't I?  Sure I did," he added a little less joyously--
a change that Esta noted.  At the same time she nodded her head
affirmatively.  "I knew I did.  I told Ma so at the time, but she
didn't seem to think so.  She wasn't as surprised as I thought she
would be, though.  I know why, now.  She acted as though she didn't
want me to tell her about it either.  But I knew I wasn't wrong."
He stared at Esta oddly, quite proud of his prescience in this
case.  He paused though, not knowing quite what else to say and
wondering whether what he had just said was of any sense or import.
It didn't seem to suggest any real aid for her.

And she, not quite knowing how to pass over the nature of her
condition, or to confess it, either, was puzzled what to say.
Something had to be done.  For Clyde could see for himself that her
predicament was dreadful.  She could scarcely bear the look of his
inquiring eyes.  And more to extricate herself than her mother, she
finally observed, "Poor Mamma.  You mustn't think it strange of
her, Clyde.  She doesn't know what to do, you see, really.  It's
all my fault, of course.  If I hadn't run away, I wouldn't have
caused her all this trouble.  She has so little to do with and
she's always had such a hard time."  She turned her back to him
suddenly, and her shoulders began to tremble and her sides to
heave.  She put her hands to her face and bent her head low--and
then he knew that she was silently crying.

"Oh, come now, sis," exclaimed Clyde, drawing near to her instantly
and feeling intensely sorry for her at the moment.  "What's the
matter?  What do you want to cry for?  Didn't that man that you
went away with marry you?"

She shook her head negatively and sobbed the more.  And in that
instant there came to Clyde the real psychological as well as
sociological and biological import of his sister's condition.  She
was in trouble, pregnant--and with no money and no husband.  That
was why his mother had been looking for a room.  That was why she
had tried to borrow a hundred dollars from him.  She was ashamed of
Esta and her condition.  She was ashamed of not only what people
outside the family would think, but of what he and Julia and Frank
might think--the effect of Esta's condition upon them perhaps--
because it was not right, unmoral, as people saw it.  And for that
reason she had been trying to conceal it, telling stories about it--
a most amazing and difficult thing for her, no doubt.  And yet,
because of poor luck, she hadn't succeeded very well.

And now he was again confused and puzzled, not only by his sister's
condition and what it meant to him and the other members of the
family here in Kansas City, but also by his mother's disturbed and
somewhat unmoral attitude in regard to deception in this instance.
She had evaded if not actually deceived him in regard to all this,
for she knew Esta was here all the time.  At the same time he was
not inclined to be too unsympathetic in that respect toward her--
far from it.  For such deception in such an instance had to be, no
doubt, even where people were as religious and truthful as his
mother, or so he thought.  You couldn't just let people know.  He
certainly wouldn't want to let people know about Esta, if he could
help it.  What would they think?  What would they say about her and
him?  Wasn't the general state of his family low enough, as it was?
And so, now he stood, staring and puzzled the while Esta cried.
And she realizing that he was puzzled and ashamed, because of her,
cried the more.

"Gee, that is tough," said Clyde, troubled, and yet fairly
sympathetic after a time.  "You wouldn't have run away with him
unless you cared for him though--would you?"  (He was thinking of
himself and Hortense Briggs.)  "I'm sorry for you, Ess.  Sure, I
am, but it won't do you any good to cry about it now, will it?
There's lots of other fellows in the world beside him.  You'll come
out of it all right."

"Oh, I know," sobbed Esta, "but I've been so foolish.  And I've had
such a hard time.  And now I've brought all this trouble on Mamma
and all of you."  She choked and hushed a moment.  "He went off and
left me in a hotel in Pittsburgh without any money," she added.
"And if it hadn't been for Mamma, I don't know what I would have
done.  She sent me a hundred dollars when I wrote her.  I worked
for a while in a restaurant--as long as I could.  I didn't want to
write home and say that he had left me.  I was ashamed to.  But I
didn't know what else to do there toward the last, when I began
feeling so bad."

She began to cry again; and Clyde, realizing all that his mother
had done and sought to do to assist her, felt almost as sorry now
for his mother as he did for Esta--more so, for Esta had her mother
to look after her and his mother had almost no one to help her.

"I can't work yet, because I won't be able to for a while," she
went on.  "And Mamma doesn't want me to come home now because she
doesn't want Julia or Frank or you to know.  And that's right, too,
I know.  Of course it is.  And she hasn't got anything and I
haven't.  And I get so lonely here, sometimes."  Her eyes filled
and she began to choke again.  "And I've been so foolish."

And Clyde felt for the moment as though he could cry too.  For life
was so strange, so hard at times.  See how it had treated him all
these years.  He had had nothing until recently and always wanted
to run away.  But Esta had done so, and see what had befallen her.
And somehow he recalled her between the tall walls of the big
buildings here in the business district, sitting at his father's
little street organ and singing and looking so innocent and good.
Gee, life was tough.  What a rough world it was anyhow.  How queer
things went!

He looked at her and the room, and finally, telling her that she
wouldn't be left alone, and that he would come again, only she
mustn't tell his mother he had been there, and that if she needed
anything she could call on him although he wasn't making so very
much, either--and then went out.  And then, walking toward the
hotel to go to work, he kept dwelling on the thought of how
miserable it all was--how sorry he was that he had followed his
mother, for then he might not have known.  But even so, it would
have come out.  His mother could not have concealed it from him
indefinitely.  She would have asked for more money eventually
maybe.  But what a dog that man was to go off and leave his sister
in a big strange city without a dime.  He puzzled, thinking now of
the girl who had been deserted in the Green-Davidson some months
before with a room and board bill unpaid.  And how comic it had
seemed to him and the other boys at the time--highly colored with a
sensual interest in it.

But this, well, this was his own sister.  A man had thought so
little of his sister as that.  And yet, try as he would, he could
no longer think that it was as terrible as when he heard her crying
in the room.  Here was this brisk, bright city about him running
with people and effort, and this gay hotel in which he worked.
That was not so bad.  Besides there was his own love affair,
Hortense, and pleasures.  There must be some way out for Esta.  She
would get well again and be all right.  But to think of his being
part of a family that was always so poor and so little thought of
that things like this could happen to it--one thing and another--
like street preaching, not being able to pay the rent at times, his
father selling rugs and clocks for a living on the streets--Esta
running away and coming to an end like this.  Gee!



Chapter 14


The result of all this on Clyde was to cause him to think more
specifically on the problem of the sexes than he ever had before,
and by no means in any orthodox way.  For while he condemned his
sister's lover for thus ruthlessly deserting her, still he was not
willing to hold her entirely blameless by any means.  She had gone
off with him.  As he now learned from her, he had been in the city
for a week the year before she ran away with him, and it was then
that he had introduced himself to her.  The following year when he
returned for two weeks, it was she who looked him up, or so Clyde
suspected, at any rate.  And in view of his own interest in and
mood regarding Hortense Briggs, it was not for him to say that
there was anything wrong with the sex relation in itself.

Rather, as he saw it now, the difficulty lay, not in the deed
itself, but in the consequences which followed upon not thinking or
not knowing.  For had Esta known more of the man in whom she was
interested, more of what such a relationship with him meant, she
would not be in her present pathetic plight.  Certainly such girls
as Hortense Briggs, Greta and Louise, would never have allowed
themselves to be put in any such position as Esta.  Or would they?
They were too shrewd.  And by contrast with them in his mind, at
least at this time, she suffered.  She ought, as he saw it, to have
been able to manage better.  And so, by degrees, his attitude
toward her hardened in some measure, though his feeling was not one
of indifference either.

But the one influence that was affecting and troubling and changing
him now was his infatuation for Hortense Briggs--than which no more
agitating influence could have come to a youth of his years and
temperament.  She seemed, after his few contacts with her, to be
really the perfect realization of all that he had previously wished
for in a girl.  She was so bright, vain, engaging, and so truly
pretty.  Her eyes, as they seemed to him, had a kind of dancing
fire in them.  She had a most entrancing way of pursing and parting
her lips and at the same time looking straightly and indifferently
before her, as though she were not thinking of him, which to him
was both flame and fever.  It caused him, actually, to feel weak
and dizzy, at times, cruelly seared in his veins with minute and
wriggling threads of fire, and this could only be described as
conscious lust, a torturesome and yet unescapable thing which yet
in her case he was unable to prosecute beyond embracing and
kissing, a form of reserve and respect in regard to her which she
really resented in the very youths in whom she sought to inspire
it.  The type of boy for whom she really cared and was always
seeking was one who could sweep away all such psuedo-ingenuousness
and superiorities in her and force her, even against herself, to
yield to him.

In fact she was constantly wavering between actual like and dislike
of him.  And in consequence, he was in constant doubt as to where
he stood, a state which was very much relished by her and yet which
was never permitted to become so fixed in his mind as to cause him
to give her up entirely.  After some party or dinner or theater to
which she had permitted him to take her, and throughout which he
had been particularly tactful--not too assertive--she could be as
yielding and enticing in her mood as the most ambitious lover would
have liked.  And this might last until the evening was nearly over,
when suddenly, and at her own door or the room or house of some
girl with whom she was spending the night, she would turn, and
without rhyme or reason, endeavor to dismiss him with a mere
handclasp or a thinly flavored embrace or kiss.  At such times, if
Clyde was foolish enough to endeavor to force her to yield the
favors he craved, she would turn on him with the fury of a spiteful
cat, would tear herself away, developing for the moment, seemingly,
an intense mood of opposition which she could scarcely have
explained to herself.  Its chief mental content appeared to be one
of opposition to being compelled by him to do anything.  And,
because of his infatuation and his weak overtures due to his
inordinate fear of losing her, he would be forced to depart,
usually in a dark and despondent mood.

But so keen was her attraction for him that he could not long
remain away, but must be going about to where most likely he would
encounter her.  Indeed, for the most part these days, and in spite
of the peculiar climax which had eventuated in connection with
Esta, he lived in a keen, sweet and sensual dream in regard to her.
If only she would really come to care for him.  At night, in his
bed at home, he would lie and think of her--her face--the
expressions of her mouth and eyes, the lines of her figure, the
motions of her body in walking or dancing--and she would flicker
before him as upon a screen.  In his dreams, he found her
deliciously near him, pressing against him--her delightful body all
his--and then in the moment of crisis, when seemingly she was about
to yield herself to him completely, he would awake to find her
vanished--an illusion only.

Yet there were several things in connection with her which seemed
to bode success for him.  In the first place, like himself, she was
part of a poor family--the daughter of a machinist and his wife,
who up to this very time had achieved little more than a bare
living.  From her childhood she had had nothing, only such gew-gaws
and fripperies as she could secure for herself by her wits.  And so
low had been her social state until very recently that she had not
been able to come in contact with anything better than butcher and
baker boys--the rather commonplace urchins and small job aspirants
of her vicinity.  Yet even here she had early realized that she
could and should capitalize her looks and charm--and had.  Not a
few of these had even gone so far as to steal in order to get money
to entertain her.

After reaching the age where she was old enough to go to work, and
thus coming in contact with the type of boy and man in whom she was
now interested, she was beginning to see that without yielding
herself too much, but in acting discreetly, she could win a more
interesting equipment than she had before.  Only, so truly sensual
and pleasure-loving was she that she was by no means always willing
to divorce her self-advantages from her pleasures.  On the
contrary, she was often troubled by a desire to like those whom she
sought to use, and per contra, not to obligate herself to those
whom she could not like.

In Clyde's case, liking him but a little, she still could not
resist the desire to use him.  She liked his willingness to buy her
any little thing in which she appeared interested--a bag, a scarf,
a purse, a pair of gloves--anything that she could reasonably ask
or take without obligating herself too much.  And yet from the
first, in her smart, tricky way, she realized that unless she could
bring herself to yield to him--at some time or other offer him the
definite reward which she knew he craved--she could not hold him
indefinitely.

One thought that stirred her more than anything else was that the
way Clyde appeared to be willing to spend his money on her she
might easily get some quite expensive things from him--a pretty and
rather expensive dress, perhaps, or a hat, or even a fur coat such
as was then being shown and worn in the city, to say nothing of
gold earrings, or a wrist watch, all of which she was constantly
and enviously eyeing in the different shop windows.

One day not so long after Clyde's discovery of his sister Esta,
Hortense, walking along Baltimore Street near its junction with
Fifteenth--the smartest portion of the shopping section of the
city--at the noon hour--with Doris Trine, another shop girl in her
department store, saw in the window of one of the smaller and less
exclusive fur stores of the city, a fur jacket of beaver that to
her, viewed from the eye-point of her own particular build,
coloring and temperament, was exactly what she needed to strengthen
mightily her very limited personal wardrobe.  It was not such an
expensive coat, worth possibly a hundred dollars--but fashioned in
such an individual way as to cause her to imagine that, once
invested with it, her own physical charm would register more than
it ever had.

Moved by this thought, she paused and exclaimed:  "Oh, isn't that
just the classiest, darlingest little coat you ever saw!  Oh, do
look at those sleeves, Doris."  She clutched her companion
violently by the arm.  "Lookit the collar.  And the lining!  And
those pockets!  Oh, dear!"  She fairly vibrated with the intensity
of her approval and delight.  "Oh, isn't that just too sweet for
words?  And the very kind of coat I've been thinking of since I
don't know when.  Oh, you pity sing!" she exclaimed, affectedly,
thinking all at once as much of her own pose before the window and
its effect on the passer-by as of the coat before her.  "Oh, if I
could only have 'oo."

She clapped her hands admiringly, while Isadore Rubenstein, the
elderly son of the proprietor, who was standing somewhat out of the
range of her gaze at the moment, noted the gesture and her
enthusiasm and decided forthwith that the coat must be worth at
least twenty-five or fifty dollars more to her, anyhow, in case she
inquired for it.  The firm had been offering it at one hundred.
"Oh, ha!" he grunted.  But being of a sensual and somewhat romantic
turn, he also speculated to himself rather definitely as to the
probable trading value, affectionally speaking, of such a coat.
What, say, would the poverty and vanity of such a pretty girl as
this cause her to yield for such a coat?

In the meantime, however, Hortense, having gloated as long as her
noontime hour would permit, had gone away, still dreaming and
satiating her flaming vanity by thinking of how devastating she
would look in such a coat.  But she had not stopped to ask the
price.  Hence, the next day, feeling that she must look at it once
more, she returned, only this time alone, and yet with no idea of
being able to purchase it herself.  On the contrary, she was only
vaguely revolving the problem of how, assuming that the coat was
sufficiently low in price, she could get it.  At the moment she
could think of no one.  But seeing the coat once more, and also
seeing Mr. Rubenstein, Jr., inside eyeing her in a most
propitiatory and genial manner, she finally ventured in.

"You like the coat, eh?" was Rubenstein's ingratiating comment as
she opened the door.  "Well, that shows you have good taste, I'll
say.  That's one of the nobbiest little coats we've ever had to
show in this store yet.  A real beauty, that.  And how it would
look on such a beautiful girl as you!"  He took it out of the
window and held it up.  "I seen you when you was looking at it
yesterday."  A gleam of greedy admiration was in his eye.

And noting this, and feeling that a remote and yet not wholly
unfriendly air would win her more consideration and courtesy than a
more intimate one, Hortense merely said, "Yes?"

"Yes, indeed.  And I said right away, there's a girl that knows a
really swell coat when she sees it."

The flattering unction soothed, in spite of herself.

"Look at that!  Look at that!" went on Mr. Rubinstein, turning the
coat about and holding it before her.  "Where in Kansas City will
you find anything to equal that today?  Look at this silk lining
here--genuine Mallinson silk--and these slant pockets.  And the
buttons.  You think those things don't make a different-looking
coat?  There ain't another one like it in Kansas City today--not
one.  And there won't be.  We designed it ourselves and we never
repeat our models.  We protect our customers.  But come back here."
(He led the way to a triple mirror at the back.)  "It takes the
right person to wear a coat like this--to get the best effect out
of it.  Let me try it on you."

And by the artificial light Hortense was now privileged to see how
really fetching she did look in it.  She cocked her head and
twisted and turned and buried one small ear in the fur, while Mr.
Rubenstein stood by, eyeing her with not a little admiration and
almost rubbing his hands.

"There now," he continued.  "Look at that.  What do you say to
that, eh?  Didn't I tell you it was the very thing for you?  A find
for you.  A pick-up.  You'll never get another coat like that in
this city.  If you do, I'll make you a present of this one."  He
came very near, extending his plump hands, palms up.

"Well, I must say it does look smart on me," commented Hortense,
her vainglorious soul yearning for it.  "I can wear anything like
this, though."  She twisted and turned the more, forgetting him
entirely and the effect her interest would have on his cost price.
Then she added:  "How much is it?"

"Well, it's really a two-hundred-dollar coat," began Mr. Rubenstein
artfully.  Then noting a shadow of relinquishment pass swiftly over
Hortense's face, he added quickly:  "That sounds like a lot of
money, but of course we don't ask so much for it down here.  One
hundred and fifty is our price.  But if that coat was at Jarek's,
that's what you'd pay for it and more.  We haven't got the location
here and we don't have to pay the high rents.  But it's worth every
cent of two hundred."

"Why, I think that's a terrible price to ask for it, just awful,"
exclaimed Hortense sadly, beginning to remove the coat.  She was
feeling as though life were depriving her of nearly all that was
worth while.  "Why, at Biggs and Beck's they have lots of three-
quarter mink and beaver coats for that much, and classy styles,
too."

"Maybe, maybe.  But not that coat," insisted Mr. Rubenstein
stubbornly.  "Just look at it again.  Look at the collar.  You mean
to say you can find a coat like that up there?  If you can, I'll
buy the coat for you and sell it to you again for a hundred
dollars.  Actually, this is a special coat.  It's copied from one
of the smartest coats that was in New York last summer before the
season opened.  It has class.  You won't find no coat like this
coat."

"Oh, well, just the same, a hundred and fifty dollars is more than
I can pay," commented Hortense dolefully, at the same time slipping
on her old broadcloth jacket with the fur collar and cuffs, and
edging toward the door.

"Wait!  You like the coat?" wisely observed Mr. Rubenstein, after
deciding that even a hundred dollars was too much for her purse,
unless it could be supplemented by some man's.  "It's really a two-
hundred-dollar coat.  I'm telling you that straight.  Our regular
price is one hundred and fifty.  But if you could bring me a
hundred and twenty-five dollars, since you want it so much, well,
I'll let you have it for that.  And that's like finding it.  A
stunning-looking girl like you oughtn't to have no trouble in
finding a dozen fellows who would be glad to buy that coat and give
it to you.  I know I would, if I thought you would be nice to me."

He beamed ingratiatingly up at her, and Hortense, sensing the
nature of the overture and resenting it--from him--drew back
slightly.  At the same time she was not wholly displeased by the
compliment involved.  But she was not coarse enough, as yet, to
feel that just any one should be allowed to give her anything.
Indeed not.  It must be some one she liked, or at least some one
that was enslaved by her.

And yet, even as Mr. Rubenstein spoke, and for some time
afterwards, her mind began running upon possible individuals--
favorites--who, by the necromancy of her charm for them, might be
induced to procure this coat for her.  Charlie Wilkens for
instance--he of the Orphia cigar store--who was most certainly
devoted to her after his fashion, but a fashion, however, which did
not suggest that he might do much for her without getting a good
deal in return.

And then there was Robert Kain, another youth--very tall, very
cheerful and very ambitious in regard to her, who was connected
with one of the local electric company's branch offices, but his
position was not sufficiently lucrative--a mere entry clerk.  Also
he was too saving--always talking about his future.

And again, there was Bert Gettler, the youth who had escorted her
to the dance the night Clyde first met her, but who was little more
than a giddy-headed dancing soul, one not to be relied upon in a
crisis like this.  He was only a shoe salesman, probably twenty
dollars a week, and most careful with his pennies.

But there was Clyde Griffiths, the person who seemed to have real
money and to be willing to spend it on her freely.  So ran her
thoughts swiftly at the time.  But could she now, she asked
herself, offhand, inveigle him into making such an expensive
present as this?  She had not favored him so very much--had for the
most part treated him indifferently.  Hence she was not sure, by
any means.  Nevertheless as she stood there, debating the cost and
the beauty of the coat, the thought of Clyde kept running through
her mind.  And all the while Mr. Rubenstein stood looking at her,
vaguely sensing, after his fashion, the nature of the problem that
was confronting her.

"Well, little girl," he finally observed, "I see you'd like to have
this coat, all right, and I'd like to have you have it, too.  And
now I'll tell you what I'll do, and better than that I can't do,
and wouldn't for nobody else--not a person in this city.  Bring me
a hundred and fifteen dollars any time within the next few days--
Monday or Wednesday or Friday, if the coat is still here, and you
can have it.  I'll do even better.  I'll save it for you.  How's
that?  Until next Wednesday or Friday.  More'n that no one would do
for you, now, would they?"

He smirked and shrugged his shoulders and acted as though he were
indeed doing her a great favor.  And Hortense, going away, felt
that if only--only she could take that coat at one hundred and
fifteen dollars, she would be capturing a marvelous bargain.  Also
that she would be the smartest-dressed girl in Kansas City beyond
the shadow of a doubt.  If only she could in some way get a hundred
and fifteen dollars before next Wednesday, or Friday.



Chapter 15


As Hortense well knew Clyde was pressing more and more hungrily
toward that ultimate condescension on her part, which, though she
would never have admitted it to him, was the privilege of two
others.  They were never together any more without his insisting
upon the real depth of her regard for him.  Why was it, if she
cared for him the least bit, that she refused to do this, that or
the other--would not let him kiss her as much as he wished, would
not let him hold her in his arms as much as he would like.  She was
always keeping dates with other fellows and breaking them or
refusing to make them with him.  What was her exact relationship
toward these others?  Did she really care more for them than she
did for him?  In fact, they were never together anywhere but what
this problem of union was uppermost--and but thinly veiled.

And she liked to think that he was suffering from repressed desire
for her all of the time that she tortured him, and that the power
to allay his suffering lay wholly in her--a sadistic trait which
had for its soil Clyde's own masochistic yearning for her.

However, in the face of her desire for the coat, his stature and
interest for her were beginning to increase.  In spite of the fact
that only the morning before she had informed Clyde, with quite a
flourish, that she could not possibly see him until the following
Monday--that all her intervening nights were taken--nevertheless,
the problem of the coat looming up before her, she now most eagerly
planned to contrive an immediate engagement with him without
appearing too eager.  For by then she had definitely decided to
endeavor to persuade him, if possible, to buy the coat for her.
Only of course, she would have to alter her conduct toward him
radically.  She would have to be much sweeter--more enticing.
Although she did not actually say to herself that now she might
even be willing to yield herself to him, still basically that was
what was in her mind.

For quite a little while she was unable to think how to proceed.
How was she to see him this day, or the next at the very latest?
How should she go about putting before him the need of this gift,
or loan, as she finally worded it to herself?  She might hint that
he could loan her enough to buy the coat and that later she would
pay him back by degrees (yet once in possession of the coat she
well knew that that necessity would never confront her).  Or, if he
did not have so much money on hand at one time, she could suggest
that she might arrange with Mr. Rubenstein for a series of time
payments which could be met by Clyde.  In this connection her mind
suddenly turned and began to consider how she could flatter and
cajole Mr. Rubenstein into letting her have the coat on easy terms.
She recalled that he had said he would be glad to buy the coat for
her if he thought she would be nice to him.

Her first scheme in connection with all this was to suggest to
Louise Ratterer to invite her brother, Clyde and a third youth by
the name of Scull, who was dancing attendance upon Louise, to come
to a certain dance hall that very evening to which she was already
planning to go with the more favored cigar clerk.  Only now she
intended to break that engagement and appear alone with Louise and
Greta and announce that her proposed partner was ill.  That would
give her an opportunity to leave early with Clyde and with him walk
past the Rubenstein store.

But having the temperament of a spider that spins a web for flies,
she foresaw that this might involve the possibility of Louise's
explaining to Clyde or Ratterer that it was Hortense who had
instigated the party.  It might even bring up some accidental
mention of the coat on the part of Clyde to Louise later, which, as
she felt, would never do.  She did not care to let her friends know
how she provided for herself.  In consequence, she decided that it
would not do for her to appeal to Louise nor to Greta in this
fashion.

And she was actually beginning to worry as to how to bring about
this encounter, when Clyde, who chanced to be in the vicinity on
his way home from work, walked into the store where she was
working.  He was seeking for a date on the following Sunday.  And
to his intense delight, Hortense greeted him most cordially with a
most engaging smile and a wave of the hand.  She was busy at the
moment with a customer.  She soon finished, however, and drawing
near, and keeping one eye on her floor-walker who resented callers,
exclaimed:  "I was just thinking about you.  You wasn't thinking
about me, was you?  Trade last."  Then she added, sotto voce,
"Don't act like you are talking to me.  I see our floorwalker over
there."

Arrested by the unusual sweetness in her voice, to say nothing of
the warm smile with which she greeted him, Clyde was enlivened and
heartened at once.  "Was I thinking of you?" he returned gayly.
"Do I ever think of any one else?  Say!  Ratterer says I've got you
on the brain."

"Oh, him," replied Hortense, pouting spitefully and scornfully, for
Ratterer, strangely enough, was one whom she did not interest very
much, and this she knew.  "He thinks he's so smart," she added.  "I
know a lotta girls don't like him."

"Oh, Tom's all right," pleaded Clyde, loyally.  "That's just his
way of talking.  He likes you."

"Oh, no, he don't, either," replied Hortense.  "But I don't want to
talk about him.  Whatcha doin' around six o'clock to-night?"

"Oh, gee!" exclaimed Clyde disappointedly.  "You don't mean to say
you got to-night free, have you?  Well, ain't that tough?  I
thought you were all dated up.  I got to work!"  He actually
sighed, so depressed was he by the thought that she might be
willing to spend the evening with him and he not able to avail
himself of the opportunity, while Hortense, noting his intense
disappointment, was pleased.

"Well, I gotta date, but I don't want to keep it," she went on with
a contemptuous gathering of the lips.  "I don't have to break it.
I would though if you was free."  Clyde's heart began to beat
rapidly with delight.

"Gee, I wish I didn't have to work now," he went on, looking at
her.  "You're sure you couldn't make it to-morrow night?  I'm off
then.  And I was just coming up here to ask you if you didn't want
to go for an automobile ride next Sunday afternoon, maybe.  A
friend of Hegglund's got a car--a Packard--and Sunday we're all
off.  And he wanted me to get a bunch to run out to Excelsior
Springs.  He's a nice fellow" (this because Hortense showed signs
of not being so very much interested).  "You don't know him very
well, but he is.  But say, I can talk to you about that later.  How
about to-morrow night?  I'm off then."

Hortense, who, because of the hovering floor-walker, was pretending
to show Clyde some handkerchiefs, was now thinking how unfortunate
that a whole twenty-four hours must intervene before she could
bring him to view the coat with her--and so have an opportunity to
begin her machinations.  At the same time she pretended that the
proposed meeting for the next night was a very difficult thing to
bring about--more difficult than he could possibly appreciate.  She
even pretended to be somewhat uncertain as to whether she wanted to
do it.

"Just pretend you're examining these handkerchiefs here," she
continued, fearing the floor-walker might interrupt.  "I gotta
nother date for then," she continued thoughtfully, "and I don't
know whether I can break it or not.  Let me see."  She feigned deep
thought.  "Well, I guess I can," she said finally.  "I'll try,
anyhow.  Just for this once.  You be here at Fifteenth and Main at
6.15--no, 6.30's the best you can do, ain't it?--and I'll see if I
can't get there.  I won't promise, but I'll see and I think I can
make it.  Is that all right?"  She gave him one of her sweetest
smiles and Clyde was quite beside himself with satisfaction.  To
think that she would break a date for him, at last.  Her eyes were
warm with favor and her mouth wreathed with a smile.

"Surest thing you know," he exclaimed, voicing the slang of the
hotel boys.  "You bet I'll be there.  Will you do me a favor?"

"What is it?" she asked cautiously.

"Wear that little black hat with the red ribbon under your chin,
will you?  You look so cute in that."

"Oh, you," she laughed.  It was so easy to kid Clyde.  "Yes, I'll
wear it," she added.  "But you gotta go now.  Here comes that old
fish.  I know he's going to kick.  But I don't care.  Six-thirty,
eh?  So long."  She turned to give her attention to a new customer,
an old lady who had been patiently waiting to inquire if she could
tell her where the muslins were sold.  And Clyde, tingling with
pleasure because of this unexpected delight vouchsafed him, made
his way most elatedly to the nearest exit.

He was not made unduly curious because of this sudden favor, and
the next evening, promptly at six-thirty, and in the glow of the
overhanging arc-lights showering their glistening radiance like
rain, she appeared.  As he noted, at once, she had worn the hat he
liked.  Also she was enticingly ebullient and friendly, more so
than at any time he had known her.  Before he had time to say that
she looked pretty, or how pleased he was because she wore that hat,
she began:

"Some favorite you're gettin' to be, I'LL SAY, when I'LL break an
engagement and then wear an old hat I don't like just to please
you.  How do I get that way is what I'd like to know."

He beamed as though he had won a great victory.  Could it be that
at last he might be becoming a favorite with her?

"If you only knew how cute you look in that hat, Hortense, you
wouldn't knock it," he urged admiringly.  "You don't know how sweet
you do look."

"Oh, ho.  In this old thing?" she scoffed.  "You certainly are
easily pleased, I'll say."

"An' your eyes are just like soft, black velvet," he persisted
eagerly.  "They're wonderful."  He was thinking of an alcove in the
Green-Davidson hung with black velvet.

"Gee, you certainly have got 'em to-night," she laughed, teasingly.
"I'll have to do something about you."  Then, before he could make
any reply to this, she went off into an entirely fictional account
of how, having had a previous engagement with a certain alleged
young society man--Tom Keary by name--who was dogging her steps
these days in order to get her to dine and dance, she had only this
evening decided to "ditch" him, preferring Clyde, of course, for
this occasion, anyhow.  And she had called Keary up and told him
that she could not see him to-night--called it all off, as it were.
But just the same, on coming out of the employee's entrance, who
should she see there waiting for her but this same Tom Keary,
dressed to perfection in a bright gray raglan and spats, and with
his closed sedan, too.  And he would have taken her to the Green-
Davidson, if she had wanted to go.  He was a real sport.  But she
didn't.  Not to-night, anyhow.  Yet, if she had not contrived to
avoid him, he would have delayed her.  But she espied him first and
ran the other way.

"And you should have just seen my little feet twinkle up Sargent
and around the corner into Bailey Place," was the way she
narcissistically painted her flight.  And so infatuated was Clyde
by this picture of herself and the wonderful Keary that he accepted
all of her petty fabrications as truth.

And then, as they were walking in the direction of Gaspie's, a
restaurant in Wyandotte near Tenth which quite lately he had
learned was much better than Frissell's, Hortense took occasion to
pause and look in a number of windows, saying as she did so that
she certainly did wish that she could find a little coat that was
becoming to her--that the one she had on was getting worn and that
she must have another soon--a predicament which caused Clyde to
wonder at the time whether she was suggesting to him that he get
her one.  Also whether it might not advance his cause with her if
he were to buy her a little jacket, since she needed it.

But Rubenstein's coming into view on this same side of the street,
its display window properly illuminated and the coat in full view,
Hortense paused as she had planned.

"Oh, do look at that darling little coat there," she began,
ecstatically, as though freshly arrested by the beauty of it, her
whole manner suggesting a first and unspoiled impression.  "Oh,
isn't that the dearest, sweetest, cutest little thing you ever did
see?" she went on, her histrionic powers growing with her desire
for it.  "Oh, just look at the collar, and those sleeves and those
pockets.  Aren't they the snappiest things you ever saw?  Couldn't
I just warm my little hands in those?"  She glanced at Clyde out of
the tail of her eye to see if he was being properly impressed.

And he, aroused by her intense interest, surveyed the coat with not
a little curiosity.  Unquestionably it was a pretty coat--very.
But, gee, what would a coat like that cost, anyhow?  Could it be
that she was trying to interest him in the merits of a coat like
that in order that he might get it for her?  Why, it must be a two-
hundred-dollar coat at least.  He had no idea as to the value of
such things, anyhow.  He certainly couldn't afford a coat like
that.  And especially at this time when his mother was taking a
good portion of his extra cash for Esta.  And yet something in her
manner seemed to bring it to him that that was exactly what she was
thinking.  It chilled and almost numbed him at first.

And yet, as he now told himself sadly, if Hortense wanted it, she
could most certainly find some one who would get it for her--that
young Tom Keary, for instance, whom she had just been describing.
And, worse luck, she was just that kind of a girl.  And if he could
not get it for her, some one else could and she would despise him
for not being able to do such things for her.

To his intense dismay and dissatisfaction she exclaimed:

"Oh, what wouldn't I give for a coat like that!"  She had not
intended at the moment to put the matter so bluntly, for she wanted
to convey the thought that was deepest in her mind to Clyde
tactfully.

And Clyde, inexperienced as he was, and not subtle by any means,
was nevertheless quite able to gather the meaning of that.  It
meant--it meant--for the moment he was not quite willing to
formulate to himself what it did mean.  And now--now--if only he
had the price of that coat.  He could feel that she was thinking of
some one certain way to get the coat.  And yet how was he to manage
it?  How?  If he could only arrange to get this coat for her--if he
only could promise her that he would get it for her by a certain
date, say, if it didn't cost too much, then what?  Did he have the
courage to suggest to her to-night, or to-morrow, say, after he had
learned the price of the coat, that if she would--why then--why
then, well, he would get her the coat or anything else she really
wanted.  Only he must be sure that she was not really fooling him
as she was always doing in smaller ways.  He wouldn't stand for
getting her the coat and then get nothing in return--never!

As he thought of it, he actually thrilled and trembled beside her.
And she, standing there and looking at the coat, was thinking that
unless he had sense enough now to get her this thing and to get
what she meant--how she intended to pay for it--well then, this was
the last.  He need not think she was going to fool around with any
one who couldn't or wouldn't do that much for her.  Never.

They resumed their walk toward Gaspie's.  And throughout the
dinner, she talked of little else--how attractive the coat was, how
wonderful it would look on her.

"Believe me," she said at one point, defiantly, feeling that Clyde
was perhaps uncertain at the moment about his ability to buy it for
her, "I'm going to find some way to get that coat.  I think, maybe,
that Rubenstein store would let me have it on time if I were to go
in there and see him about it, make a big enough payment down.
Another girl out of our store got a coat that way once," she lied
promptly, hoping thus to induce Clyde to assist her with it.  But
Clyde, disturbed by the fear of some extraordinary cost in
connection with it, hesitated to say just what he would do.  He
could not even guess the price of such a thing--it might cost two
or three hundred even--and he feared to obligate himself to do
something which later he might not be able to do.

"You don't know what they might want for that, do you?" he asked,
nervously, at the same time thinking if he made any cash gift to
her at this time without some guarantee on her part, what right
would he have to expect anything more in return than he had ever
received?  He knew how she cajoled him into getting things for her
and then would not even let him kiss her.  He flushed and churned a
little internally with resentment at the thought of how she seemed
to feel that she could play fast and loose with him.  And yet, as
he now recalled, she had just said she would do anything for any
one who would get that coat for her--or nearly that.

"No-o," she hesitated at first, for the moment troubled as to
whether to give the exact price or something higher.  For if she
asked for time, Mr. Rubenstein might want more.  And yet if she
said much more, Clyde might not want to help her.  "But I know it
wouldn't be more than a hundred and twenty-five.  I wouldn't pay
more than that for it."

Clyde heaved a sigh of relief.  After all, it wasn't two or three
hundred.  He began to think now that if she could arrange to make
any reasonable down payment--say, fifty or sixty dollars--he might
manage to bring it together within the next two or three weeks
anyhow.  But if the whole hundred and twenty-five were demanded at
once, Hortense would have to wait, and besides he would have to
know whether he was to be rewarded or not--definitely.

"That's a good idea, Hortense," he exclaimed without, however,
indicating in any way why it appealed to him so much.  "Why don't
you do that?  Why don't you find out first what they want for it,
and how much they want down?  Maybe I could help you with it."

"Oh, won't that be just too wonderful!"  Hortense clapped her
hands.  "Oh, will you?  Oh, won't that be just dandy?  Now I just
know I can get that coat.  I just know they'll let me have it, if I
talk to them right."

She was, as Clyde saw and feared, quite forgetting the fact that he
was the one who was making the coat possible, and now it would be
just as he thought.  The fact that he was paying for it would be
taken for granted.

But a moment later, observing his glum face, she added:  "Oh,
aren't you the sweetest, dearest thing, to help me in this way.
You just bet I won't forget this either.  You just wait and see.
You won't be sorry.  Now you just wait."  Her eyes fairly snapped
with gayety and even generosity toward him.

He might be easy and young, but he wasn't mean, and she would
reward him, too, she now decided.  Just as soon as she got the
coat, which must be in a week or two at the latest, she was going
to be very nice to him--do something for him.  And to emphasize her
own thoughts and convey to him what she really meant, she allowed
her eyes to grow soft and swimming and to dwell on him promisingly--
a bit of romantic acting which caused him to become weak and
nervous.  The gusto of her favor frightened him even a little, for
it suggested, as he fancied, a disturbing vitality which he might
not be able to match.  He felt a little weak before her now--a
little cowardly--in the face of what he assumed her real affection
might mean.

Nevertheless, he now announced that if the coat did not cost more
than one hundred and twenty-five dollars, that sum to be broken
into one payment of twenty-five dollars down and two additional
sums of fifty dollars each, he could manage it.  And she on her
part replied that she was going the very next day to see about it.
Mr. Rubenstein might be induced to let her have it at once on the
payment of twenty-five dollars down; if not that, then at the end
of the second week, when nearly all would be paid.

And then in real gratitude to Clyde she whispered to him, coming
out of the restaurant and purring like a cat, that she would never
forget this and that he would see--and that she would wear it for
him the very first time.  If he were not working they might go
somewhere to dinner.  Or, if not that, then she would have it
surely in time for the day of the proposed automobile ride which
he, or rather Hegglund, had suggested for the following Sunday, but
which might be postponed.

She suggested that they go to a certain dance hall, and there she
clung to him in the dances in a suggestive way and afterwards
hinted of a mood which made Clyde a little quivery and erratic.

He finally went home, dreaming of the day, satisfied that he would
have no trouble in bringing together the first payment, if it were
so much as fifty, even.  For now, under the spur of this promise,
he proposed to borrow as much as twenty-five from either Ratterer
or Hegglund, and to repay it after the coat was paid for.

But, ah, the beautiful Hortense.  The charm of her, the enormous,
compelling, weakening delight.  And to think that at last, and
soon, she was to be his.  It was, plainly, of such stuff as dreams
are made of--the unbelievable become real.



Chapter 16


True to her promise, the following day Hortense returned to Mr.
Rubenstein, and with all the cunning of her nature placed before
him, with many reservations, the nature of the dilemma which
confronted her.  Could she, by any chance, have the coat for one
hundred and fifteen dollars on an easy payment plan?  Mr.
Rubenstein's head forthwith began to wag a solemn negative.  This
was not an easy payment store.  If he wanted to do business that
way he could charge two hundred for the coat and easily get it.

"But I could pay as much as fifty dollars when I took the coat,"
argued Hortense.

"Very good.  But who is to guarantee that I get the other sixty-
five, and when?"

"Next week twenty-five, and the week after that twenty five and the
next week after that fifteen."

"Of course.  But supposin' the next day after you take the coat an
automobile runs you down and kills you.  Then what?  How do I get
my money?"

Now that was a poser.  And there was really no way that she could
prove that any one would pay for the coat.  And before that there
would have to be all the bother of making out a contract, and
getting some really responsible person--a banker, say--to endorse
it.  No, no, this was not an easy payment house.  This was a cash
house.  That was why the coat was offered to her at one hundred and
fifteen, but not a dollar less.  Not a dollar.

Mr. Rubenstein sighed and talked on.  And finally Hortense asked
him if she could give him seventy-five dollars cash in hand, the
other forty to be paid in one week's time.  Would he let her have
the coat then--to take home with her?

"But a week--a week--what is a week then?" argued Mr. Rubenstein.
"If you can bring me seventy-five next week or to-morrow, and forty
more in another week or ten days, why not wait a week and bring the
whole hundred and fifteen?  Then the coat is yours and no bother.
Leave the coat.  Come back to-morrow and pay me twenty-five or
thirty dollars on account and I take the coat out of the window and
lock it up for you.  No one can even see it then.  In another week
bring me the balance or in two weeks.  Then it is yours."  Mr.
Rubenstein explained the process as though it were a difficult
matter to grasp.

But the argument once made was sound enough.  It really left
Hortense little to argue about.  At the same time it reduced her
spirit not a little.  To think of not being able to take it now.
And yet, once out of the place, her vigor revived.  For, after all,
the time fixed would soon pass and if Clyde performed his part of
the agreement promptly, the coat would be hers.  The important
thing now was to make him give her twenty-five or thirty dollars
wherewith to bind this wonderful agreement.  Only now, because of
the fact that she felt that she needed a new hat to go with the
coat, she decided to say that it cost one hundred and twenty-five
instead of one hundred and fifteen.

And once this conclusion was put before Clyde, he saw it as a very
reasonable arrangement--all things considered--quite a respite from
the feeling of strain that had settled upon him after his last
conversation with Hortense.  For, after all, he had not seen how he
was to raise more than thirty-five dollars this first week anyhow.
The following week would be somewhat easier, for then, as he told
himself, he proposed to borrow twenty or twenty-five from Ratterer
if he could, which, joined with the twenty or twenty-five which his
tips would bring him, would be quite sufficient to meet the second
payment.  The week following he proposed to borrow at least ten or
fifteen from Hegglund--maybe more--and if that did not make up the
required amount to pawn his watch for fifteen dollars, the watch he
had bought for himself a few months before.  It ought to bring that
at least; it cost fifty.

But, he now thought, there was Esta in her wretched room awaiting
the most unhappy result of her one romance.  How was she to make
out, he asked himself, even in the face of the fact that he feared
to be included in the financial problem which Esta as well as the
family presented.  His father was not now, and never had been, of
any real financial service to his mother.  And yet, if the problem
were on this account to be shifted to him, how would he make out?
Why need his father always peddle clocks and rugs and preach on the
streets?  Why couldn't his mother and father give up the mission
idea, anyhow?

But, as he knew, the situation was not to be solved without his
aid.  And the proof of it came toward the end of the second week of
his arrangement with Hortense, when, with fifty dollars in his
pocket, which he was planning to turn over to her on the following
Sunday, his mother, looking into his bedroom where he was dressing,
said:  "I'd like to see you for a minute, Clyde, before you go
out."  He noted she was very grave as she said this.  As a matter
of fact, for several days past, he had been sensing that she was
undergoing a strain of some kind.  At the same time he had been
thinking all this while that with his own resources hypothecated as
they were, he could do nothing.  Or, if he did it meant the loss of
Hortense.  He dared not.

And yet what reasonable excuse could he give his mother for not
helping her a little, considering especially the clothes he wore,
and the manner in which he had been running here and there, always
giving the excuse of working, but probably not deceiving her as
much as he thought.  To be sure, only two months before, he had
obligated himself to pay her ten dollars a week more for five
weeks, and had.  But that only proved to her very likely that he
had so much extra to give, even though he had tried to make it
clear at the time that he was pinching himself to do it.  And yet,
however much he chose to waver in her favor, he could not, with his
desire for Hortense directly confronting him.

He went out into the living-room after a time, and as usual his
mother at once led the way to one of the benches in the mission--
a cheerless, cold room these days.

"I didn't think I'd have to speak to you about this, Clyde, but I
don't see any other way out of it.  I haven't anyone but you to
depend upon now that you're getting to be a man.  But you must
promise not to tell any of the others--Frank or Julia or your
father.  I don't want them to know.  But Esta's back here in Kansas
City and in trouble, and I don't know quite what to do about her.
I have so very little money to do with, and your father's not very
much of a help to me any more."

She passed a weary, reflective hand across her forehead and Clyde
knew what was coming.  His first thought was to pretend that he did
not know that Esta was in the city, since he had been pretending
this way for so long.  But now, suddenly, in the face of his
mother's confession, and the need of pretended surprise on his
part, if he were to keep up the fiction, he said, "Yes, I know."

"You know?" queried his mother, surprised.

"Yes, I know," Clyde repeated.  "I saw you going in that house in
Beaudry Street one morning as I was going along there," he
announced calmly enough now.  "And I saw Esta looking out of the
window afterwards, too.  So I went in after you left."

"How long ago was that?" she asked, more to gain time than anything
else.

"Oh, about five or six weeks ago, I think.  I been around to see
her a coupla times since then, only Esta didn't want me to say
anything about that either."

"Tst! Tst! Tst!" clicked Mrs. Griffiths, with her tongue.  "Then
you know what the trouble is."

"Yes," replied Clyde.

"Well, what is to be will be," she said resignedly.  "You haven't
mentioned it to Frank or Julia, have you?"

"No," replied Clyde, thoughtfully, thinking of what a failure his
mother had made of her attempt to be secretive.  She was no one to
deceive any one, or his father, either.  He thought himself far,
far shrewder.

"Well, you mustn't," cautioned his mother solemnly.  "It isn't best
for them to know, I think.  It's bad enough as it is this way," she
added with a kind of wry twist to her mouth, the while Clyde
thought of himself and Hortense.

"And to think," she added, after a moment, her eyes filling with a
sad, all-enveloping gray mist, "she should have brought all this on
herself and on us.  And when we have so little to do with, as it
is.  And after all the instruction she has had--the training.  'The
way of the transgressor--'"

She shook her head and put her two large hands together and gripped
them firmly, while Clyde stared, thinking of the situation and all
that it might mean to him.

She sat there, quite reduced and bewildered by her own peculiar
part in all this.  She had been as deceiving as any one, really.
And here was Clyde, now, fully informed as to her falsehoods and
strategy, and herself looking foolish and untrue.  But had she not
been trying to save him from all this--him and the others?  And he
was old enough to understand that now.  Yet she now proceeded to
explain why, and to say how dreadful she felt it all to be.  At the
same time, as she also explained, now she was compelled to come to
him for aid in connection with it.

"Esta's about to be very sick," she went on suddenly and stiffly,
not being able, or at least willing, apparently, to look at Clyde
as she said it, and yet determined to be as frank as possible.
"She'll need a doctor very shortly and some one to be with her all
the time when I'm not there.  I must get money somewhere--at least
fifty dollars.  You couldn't get me that much in some way, from
some of your young men friends, could you, just a loan for a few
weeks?  You could pay it back, you know, soon, if you would.  You
wouldn't need to pay me anything for your room until you had."

She looked at Clyde so tensely, so urgently, that he felt quite
shaken by the force of the cogency of the request.  And before he
could add anything to the nervous gloom which shadowed her face,
she added:  "That other money was for her, you know, to bring her
back here after her--her"--she hesitated over the appropriate word
but finally added--"husband left her there in Pittsburgh.  I
suppose she told you that."

"Yes, she did," replied Clyde, heavily and sadly.  For after all,
Esta's condition was plainly critical, which was something that he
had not stopped to meditate on before.

"Gee, Ma," he exclaimed, the thought of the fifty dollars in his
pocket and its intended destination troubling him considerably--the
very sum his mother was seeking.  "I don't know whether I can do
that or not.  I don't know any of the boys down there well enough
for that.  And they don't make any more than I do, either.  I might
borrow a little something, but it won't look very good."  He choked
and swallowed a little, for lying to his mother in this way was not
easy.  In fact, he had never had occasion to lie in connection with
anything so trying--and so despicably.  For here was fifty dollars
in his pocket at the moment, with Hortense on the one hand and his
mother and sister on the other, and the money would solve his
mother's problem as fully as it would Hortense's, and more
respectably.  How terrible it was not to help her.  How could he
refuse her, really?  Nervously he licked his lips and passed a hand
over his brow, for a nervous moisture had broken out upon his face.
He felt strained and mean and incompetent under the circumstances.

"And you haven't any money of your own right now that you could let
me have, have you?" his mother half pleaded.  For there were a
number of things in connection with Esta's condition which required
immediate cash and she had so little.

"No, I haven't, Ma," he said, looking at his mother shamefacedly,
for a moment, then away, and if it had not been that she herself
was so distrait, she might have seen the falsehood on his face.  As
it was, he suffered a pang of commingled self-commiseration and
self-contempt, based on the distress he felt for his mother.  He
could not bring himself to think of losing Hortense.  He must have
her.  And yet his mother looked so lone and so resourceless.  It
was shameful.  He was low, really mean.  Might he not, later, be
punished for a thing like this?

He tried to think of some other way--some way of getting a little
money over and above the fifty that might help.  If only he had a
little more time--a few weeks longer.  If only Hortense had not
brought up this coat idea just now.

"I'll tell you what I might do," he went on, quite foolishly and
dully the while his mother gave vent to a helpless "Tst! Tst! Tst!"
"Will five dollars do you any good?"

"Well, it will be something, anyhow," she replied.  "I can use it."

"Well, I can let you have that much," he said, thinking to replace
it out of his next week's tips and trust to better luck throughout
the week.  "And I'll see what I can do next week.  I might let you
have ten then.  I can't say for sure.  I had to borrow some of that
other money I gave you, and I haven't got through paying for that
yet, and if I come around trying to get more, they'll think--well,
you know how it is."

His mother sighed, thinking of the misery of having to fall back on
her one son thus far.  And just when he was trying to get a start,
too.  What would he think of all this in after years?  What would
he think of her--of Esta--the family?  For, for all his ambition
and courage and desire to be out and doing, Clyde always struck her
as one who was not any too powerful physically or rock-ribbed
morally or mentally.  So far as his nerves and emotions were
concerned, at times he seemed to take after his father more than he
did after her.  And for the most part it was so easy to excite him--
to cause him to show tenseness and strain--as though he were not
so very well fitted for either.  And it was she, because of Esta
and her husband and their joint and unfortunate lives, that was and
had been heaping the greater part of this strain on him.

"Well, if you can't, you can't," she said.  "I must try and think
of some other way."  But she saw no clear way at the moment.



Chapter 17


In connection with the automobile ride suggested and arranged for
the following Sunday by Hegglund through his chauffeur friend, a
change of plan was announced.  The car--an expensive Packard, no
less--could not be had for that day, but must be used by this
Thursday or Friday, or not at all.  For, as had been previously
explained to all, but not with the strictest adherence to the
truth, the car belonged to a certain Mr. Kimbark, an elderly and
very wealthy man who at the time was traveling in Asia.  Also, what
was not true was that this particular youth was not Mr. Kimbark's
chauffeur at all, but rather the rakish, ne'er-do-well son of
Sparser, the superintendent of one of Mr. Kimbark's stock farms.
This son being anxious to pose as something more than the son of a
superintendent of a farm, and as an occasional watchman, having
access to the cars, had decided to take the very finest of them and
ride in it.

It was Hegglund who proposed that he and his hotel friends be
included on some interesting trip.  But since the general
invitation had been given, word had come that within the next few
weeks Mr. Kimbark was likely to return.  And because of this,
Willard Sparser had decided at once that it might be best not to
use the car any more.  He might be taken unawares, perhaps, by Mr.
Kimbark's unexpected arrival.  Laying this difficulty before
Hegglund, who was eager for the trip, the latter had scouted the
idea.  Why not use it once more anyhow?  He had stirred up the
interest of all of his friends in this and now hated to disappoint
them.  The following Friday, between noon and six o'clock, was
fixed upon as the day.  And since Hortense had changed in her plans
she now decided to accompany Clyde, who had been invited, of
course.

But as Hegglund had explained to Ratterer and Higby since it was
being used without the owner's consent, they must meet rather far
out--the men in one of the quiet streets near Seventeenth and West
Prospect, from which point they could proceed to a meeting place
more convenient for the girls, namely, Twentieth and Washington.
From thence they would speed via the west Parkway and the Hannibal
Bridge north and east to Harlem, North Kansas City, Minaville and
so through Liberty and Moseby to Excelsior Springs.  Their chief
objective there was a little inn--the Wigwam--a mile or two this
side of Excelsior which was open the year around.  It was really a
combination of restaurant and dancing parlor and hotel.  A Victrola
and Wurlitzer player-piano furnished the necessary music.  Such
groups as this were not infrequent, and Hegglund as well as Higby,
who had been there on several occasions, described it as dandy.
The food was good and the road to it excellent.  There was a little
river just below it where in the summer time at least there was
rowing and fishing.  In winter some people skated when there was
ice.  To be sure, at this time--January--the road was heavily
packed with snow, but easy to get over, and the scenery fine.
There was a little lake, not so far from Excelsior, at this time of
year also frozen over, and according to Hegglund, who was always
unduly imaginative and high-spirited, they might go there and
skate.

"Will you listen to who's talkin' about skatin' on a trip like
this?" commented Ratterer, rather cynically, for to his way of
thinking this was no occasion for any such side athletics, but for
love-making exclusively.

"Aw, hell, can't a fellow have a funny idea even widout bein'
roasted for it?" retorted the author of the idea.

The only one, apart from Sparser, who suffered any qualms in
connection with all this was Clyde himself.  For to him, from the
first, the fact that the car to be used did not belong to Sparser,
but to his employer, was disturbing, almost irritatingly so.  He
did not like the idea of taking anything that belonged to any one
else, even for temporary use.  Something might happen.  They might
be found out.

"Don't you think it's dangerous for us to be going out in this
car?" he asked of Ratterer a few days before the trip and when he
fully understood the nature of the source of the car.

"Oh, I don't know," replied Ratterer, who being accustomed to such
ideas and devices as this was not much disturbed by them.  "I'm not
taking the car and you're not, are you?  If he wants to take it,
that's his lookout, ain't it?  If he wants me to go, I'll go.  Why
wouldn't I?  All I want is to be brought back here on time.  That's
the only thing that would ever worry me."

And Higby, coming up at the moment, had voiced exactly the same
sentiments.  Yet Clyde remained troubled.  It might not work out
right; he might lose his job through a thing like this.  But so
fascinated was he by the thought of riding in such a fine car with
Hortense and with all these other girls and boys that he could not
resist the temptation to go.

Immediately after noon on the Friday of this particular week the
several participants of the outing were gathered at the points
agreed upon.  Hegglund, Ratterer, Higby and Clyde at Eighteenth and
West Prospect near the railroad yards.  Maida Axelrod, Hegglund's
girl, Lucille Nickolas, a friend of Ratterer's, and Tina Kogel, a
friend of Higby's, also Laura Sipe, another girl who was brought by
Tina Kogel to be introduced to Sparser for the occasion, at
Twentieth and Washington.  Only since Hortense had sent word at the
last moment to Clyde that she had to go out to her house for
something, and that they were to run out to Forty-ninth and
Genesee, where she lived, they did so, but not without grumbling.

The day, a late January one, was inclined to be smoky with lowering
clouds, especially within the environs of Kansas City.  It even
threatened snow at times--a most interesting and picturesque
prospect to those within.  They liked it.

"Oh, gee, I hope it does," Tina Kogel exclaimed when some one
commented on the possibility, and Lucille Nickolas added:  "Oh, I
just love to see it snow at times."  Along the West Bluff Road,
Washington and Second Streets, they finally made their way across
the Hannibal Bridge to Harlem, and from thence along the winding
and hill-sentineled river road to Randolph Heights and Minaville.
And beyond that came Moseby and Liberty, to and through which the
road bed was better, with interesting glimpses of small homesteads
and the bleak snow-covered hills of January.

Clyde, who for all his years in Kansas City had never ventured much
beyond Kansas City, Kansas, on the west or the primitive and
natural woods of Swope Park on the east, nor farther along the
Kansas or Missouri Rivers than Argentine on the one side and
Randolph Heights on the other, was quite fascinated by the idea of
travel which appeared to be suggested by all this--distant travel.
It was all so different from his ordinary routine.  And on this
occasion Hortense was inclined to be very genial and friendly.  She
snuggled down beside him on the seat, and when he, noting that the
others had already drawn their girls to them in affectionate
embraces, put his arm about her and drew her to him, she made no
particular protest.  Instead she looked up and said:  "I'll have to
take my hat off, I guess."  The others laughed.  There was
something about her quick, crisp way which was amusing at times.
Besides she had done her hair in a new way which made her look
decidedly prettier, and she was anxious to have the others see it.

"Can we dance anywhere out here?" she called to the others, without
looking around.

"Surest thing you know," said Higby, who by now had persuaded Tina
Kogel to take her hat off and was holding her close.  "They got a
player-piano and a Victrola out there.  If I'd 'a' thought, I'd 'a'
brought my cornet.  I can play Dixie on that."

The car was speeding at breakneck pace over a snowy white road and
between white fields.  In fact, Sparser, considering himself a
master of car manipulation as well as the real owner of it for the
moment, was attempting to see how fast he could go on such a road.

Dark vignettes of wood went by to right and left.  Fields away,
sentinel hills rose and fell like waves.  A wide-armed scarecrow
fluttering in the wind, its tall decayed hat awry, stood near at
hand in one place.  And from near it a flock of crows rose and
winged direct toward a distant wood lightly penciled against a
foreground of snow.

In the front seat sat Sparser, guiding the car beside Laura Sipe
with the air of one to whom such a magnificent car was a
commonplace thing.  He was really more interested in Hortense, yet
felt it incumbent on him, for the time being, anyhow, to show some
attention to Laura Sipe.  And not to be outdone in gallantry by the
others, he now put one arm about Laura Sipe while he guided the car
with the other, a feat which troubled Clyde, who was still dubious
about the wisdom of taking the car at all.  They might all be
wrecked by such fast driving.  Hortense was only interested by the
fact that Sparser had obviously manifested his interest in her;
that he had to pay some attention to Laura Sipe whether he wanted
to or not.  And when she saw him pull her to him and asked her
grandly if she had done much automobiling about Kansas City, she
merely smiled to herself.

But Ratterer, noting the move, nudged Lucille Nickolas, and she in
turn nudged Higby, in order to attract his attention to the
affectional development ahead.

"Getting comfortable up front there, Willard?" called Ratterer,
genially, in order to make friends with him.

"I'll say I am," replied Sparser, gayly and without turning.  "How
about you, girlie?"

"Oh, I'm all right," Laura Sipe replied.

But Clyde was thinking that of all the girls present none was
really so pretty as Hortense--not nearly.  She had come garbed in a
red and black dress with a very dark red poke bonnet to match.  And
on her left cheek, just below her small rouged mouth, she had
pasted a minute square of black court plaster in imitation of some
picture beauty she had seen.  In fact, before the outing began, she
had been determined to outshine all the others present, and
distinctly she was now feeling that she was succeeding.  And Clyde,
for himself, was agreeing with her.

"You're the cutest thing here," whispered Clyde, hugging her
fondly.

"Gee, but you can pour on the molasses, kid, when you want to," she
called out loud, and the others laughed.  And Clyde flushed
slightly.

Beyond Minaville about six miles the car came to a bend in a hollow
where there was a country store and here Hegglund, Higby and
Ratterer got out to fetch candy, cigarettes and ice cream cones and
ginger ale.  And after that came Liberty, and then several miles
this side of Excelsior Springs, they sighted the Wigwam which was
nothing more than an old two-story farmhouse snuggled against a
rise of ground behind it.  There was, however, adjoining it on one
side a newer and larger one-story addition consisting of the
dining-room, the dance floor, and concealed by a partition at one
end, a bar.  An open fire flickered cheerfully here in a large
fireplace.  Down in a hollow across the road might be seen the
Benton River or creek, now frozen solid.

"There's your river," called Higby cheerfully as he helped Tina
Kogel out of the car, for he was already very much warmed by
several drinks he had taken en route.  They all paused for a moment
to admire the stream, winding away among the trees.  "I wanted dis
bunch to bring dere skates and go down dere," sighed Hegglund, "but
dey wouldn't.  Well, dat's all right."

By then Lucille Nickolas, seeing a flicker of flame reflected in
one of the small windows of the inn, called, "Oh, see, they gotta
fire."

The car was parked, and they all trooped into the inn, and at once
Higby briskly went over and started the large, noisy, clattery,
tinny Nickelodeon with a nickel.  And to rival him, and for a
prank, Hegglund ran to the Victrola which stood in one corner and
put on a record of "The Grizzly Bear," which he found lying there.

At the first sounds of this strain, which they all knew, Tina Kogel
called:  "Oh, let's all dance to that, will you?  Can't you stop
that other old thing?" she added.

"Sure, after it runs down," explained Ratterer, laughingly.  "The
only way to stop that thing is not to feed it any nickels."

But now a waiter coming in, Higby began to inquire what everybody
wanted.  And in the meantime, to show off her charms, Hortense had
taken the center of the floor and was attempting to imitate a
grizzly bear walking on its hind legs, which she could do amusingly
enough--quite gracefully.  And Sparser, seeing her alone in the
center of the floor was anxious to interest her now, followed her
and tried to imitate her motions from behind.  Finding him clever
at it, and anxious to dance, she finally abandoned the imitation
and giving him her arms went one-stepping about the room most
vividly.  At once, Clyde, who was by no means as good a dancer,
became jealous--painfully so.  In his eagerness for her, it seemed
unfair to him that he should be deserted by her so early--at the
very beginning of things.  But she, becoming interested in Sparser,
who seemed more worldly-wise, paid no attention at all to Clyde for
the time being, but went dancing with her new conquest, his
rhythmic skill seeming charmingly to match her own.  And then, not
to be out of it, the others at once chose partners, Hegglund
dancing with Maida, Ratterer with Lucille and Higby with Tina
Kogel.  This left Laura Sipe for Clyde, who did not like her very
much.  She was not as perfect as she might be--a plump, pudgy-faced
girl with inadequate sensual blue eyes--and Clyde, lacking any
exceptional skill, they danced nothing but the conventional one-
step while the others were dipping and lurching and spinning.

In a kind of sick fury, Clyde noticed that Sparser, who was still
with Hortense, was by now holding her close and looking straight
into her eyes.  And she was permitting him.  It gave him a feeling
of lead at the pit of his stomach.  Was it possible she was
beginning to like this young upstart who had this car?  And she had
promised to like him for the present.  It brought to him a sense of
her fickleness--the probability of her real indifference to him.
He wanted to do something--stop dancing and get her away from
Sparser, but there was no use until this particular record ran out.

And then, just at the end of this, the waiter returned with a tray
and put down cocktails, ginger ale and sandwiches upon three small
tables which had been joined together.  All but Sparser and
Hortense quit and came toward it--a fact which Clyde was quick to
note.  She was a heartless flirt!  She really did not care for him
after all.  And after making him think that she did, so recently--
and getting him to help her with that coat.  She could go to the
devil now.  He would show her.  And he waiting for her!  Wasn't
that the limit?  Yet, finally seeing that the others were gathering
about the tables, which had been placed near the fire, Hortense and
Sparser ceased dancing and approached.  Clyde was white and glum.
He stood to one side, seemingly indifferent.  And Laura Sipe, who
had already noted his rage and understood the reason now moved away
from him to join Tina Kogel, to whom she explained why he was so
angry.

And then noting his glumness, Hortense came over, executing a phase
of the "Grizzly" as she did so.

"Gee, wasn't that swell?" she began.  "Gee, how I do love to dance
to music like that!"

"Sure, it's swell for you," returned Clyde, burning with envy and
disappointment.

"Why, what's the trouble?" she asked, in a low and almost injured
tone, pretending not to guess, yet knowing quite well why he was
angry.  "You don't mean to say that you're mad because I danced
with him first, do you?  Oh, how silly!  Why didn't you come over
then and dance with me?  I couldn't refuse to dance with him when
he was right there, could I?"

"Oh, no, of course, you couldn't," replied Clyde sarcastically, and
in a low, tense tone, for he, no more than Hortense, wanted the
others to hear.  "But you didn't have to fall all over him and
dream in his eyes, either, did you?"  He was fairly blazing.  "You
needn't say you didn't, because I saw you."

At this she glanced at him oddly, realizing not only the sharpness
of his mood, but that this was the first time he had shown so much
daring in connection with her.  It must be that he was getting to
feel too sure of her.  She was showing him too much attention.  At
the same time she realized that this was not the time to show him
that she did not care for him as much as she would like to have him
believe, since she wanted the coat, already agreed upon.

"Oh, gee, well, ain't that the limit?" she replied angrily, yet
more because she was irritated by the fact that what he said was
true than anything else.  "If you aren't the grouch.  Well, I can't
help it, if you're going to be as jealous as that.  I didn't do
anything but dance with him just a little.  I didn't think you'd be
mad."  She moved as if to turn away, but realizing that there was
an understanding between them, and that he must be placated if
things were to go on, she drew him by his coat lapels out of the
range of the hearing of the others, who were already looking and
listening, and began.

"Now, see here, you.  Don't go acting like this.  I didn't mean
anything by what I did.  Honest, I didn't.  Anyhow, everybody
dances like that now.  And nobody means anything by it.  Aren't you
goin' to let me be nice to you like I said, or are you?"

And now she looked him coaxingly and winsomely and calculatingly
straight in the eye, as though he were the one person among all
these present whom she really did like.  And deliberately, and of a
purpose, she made a pursy, sensuous mouth--the kind she could make--
and practised a play of the lips that caused them to seem to want
to kiss him--a mouth that tempted him to distraction.

"All right," he said, looking at her weakly and yieldingly.  "I
suppose I am a fool, but I saw what you did, all right.  You know
I'm crazy about you, Hortense--just wild!  I can't help it.  I wish
I could sometimes.  I wish I wouldn't be such a fool."  And he
looked at her and was sad.  And she, realizing her power over him
and how easy it was to bring him around, replied:  "Oh, you--you
don't, either.  I'll kiss you after a while, when the others aren't
looking if you'll be good."  At the same time she was conscious of
the fact that Sparser's eyes were upon her.  Also that he was
intensely drawn to her and that she liked him more than any one she
had recently encountered.



Chapter 18


The climax of the afternoon was reached, however, when after several
more dances and drinks, the small river and its possibilities was
again brought to the attention of all by Hegglund, who, looking out
of one of the windows, suddenly exclaimed:  "What's de matter wit de
ice down dere?  Look at de swell ice.  I dare dis crowd to go down
dere and slide."

They were off pell-mell--Ratterer and Tina Kogel, running hand in
hand, Sparser and Lucille Nickolas, with whom he had just been
dancing, Higby and Laura Sipe, whom he was finding interesting
enough for a change, and Clyde and Hortense.  But once on the ice,
which was nothing more than a narrow, winding stream, blown clean
in places by the wind, and curving among thickets of leafless
trees, the company were more like young satyrs and nymphs of an
older day.  They ran here and there, slipping and sliding--Higby,
Lucille and Maida immediately falling down, but scrambling to their
feet with bursts of laughter.

And Hortense, aided by Clyde at first, minced here and there.  But
soon she began to run and slide, squealing in pretended fear.  And
now, not only Sparser but Higby, and this in spite of Clyde, began
to show Hortense attention.  They joined her in sliding, ran after
her and pretended to try to trip her up, but caught her as she
fell.  And Sparser, taking her by the hand, dragged her, seemingly
in spite of herself and the others, far upstream and about a curve
where they could not be seen.  Determined not to show further
watchfulness or jealousy Clyde remained behind.  But he could not
help feeling that Sparser might be taking this occasion to make a
date, even to kiss her.  She was not incapable of letting him, even
though she might pretend to him that she did not want him to.  It
was agonizing.

In spite of himself, he began to tingle with helpless pain--to
begin to wish that he could see them.  But Hegglund, having called
every one to join hands and crack the whip, he took the hand of
Lucille Nickolas, who was holding on to Hegglund's, and gave his
other free hand to Maida Axelrod, who in turn gave her free hand to
Ratterer.  And Higby and Laura Sipe were about to make up the tail
when Sparser and Hortense came gliding back--he holding her by the
hand.  And they now tacked on at the foot.  Then Hegglund and the
others began running and doubling back and forth until all beyond
Maida had fallen and let go.  And, as Clyde noted, Hortense and
Sparser, in falling, skidded and rolled against each other to the
edge of the shore where were snow and leaves and twigs.  And
Hortense's skirts, becoming awry in some way, moved up to above her
knees.  But instead of showing any embarrassment, as Clyde thought
and wished she might, she sat there for a few moments without shame
and even laughing heartily--and Sparser with her and still holding
her hand.  And Laura Sipe, having fallen in such a way as to trip
Higby, who had fallen across her, they also lay there laughing and
yet in a most suggestive position, as Clyde thought.  He noted,
too, that Laura Sipe's skirts had been worked above her knees.  And
Sparser, now sitting up, was pointing to her pretty legs and
laughing loudly, showing most of his teeth.  And all the others
were emitting peals and squeals of laughter.

"Hang it all!" thought Clyde.  "Why the deuce does he always have
to be hanging about her?  Why didn't he bring a girl of his own if
he wanted to have a good time?  What right have they got to go
where they can't be seen?  And she thinks I think she means nothing
by all this.  She never laughs that heartily with me, you bet.
What does she think I am that she can put that stuff over on me,
anyhow?"  He glowered darkly for the moment, but in spite of his
thoughts the line or whip was soon re-formed and this time with
Lucille Nickolas still holding his hand.  Sparser and Hortense at
the tail end again.  But Hegglund, unconscious of the mood of Clyde
and thinking only of the sport, called:  "Better let some one else
take de end dere, hadn'tcha?"  And feeling the fairness of this,
Ratterer and Maida Axelrod and Clyde and Lucille Nickolas now moved
down with Higby and Laura Sipe and Hortense and Sparser above them.
Only, as Clyde noted, Hortense still held Sparser by the hand, yet
she moved just above him and took his hand, he being to the right,
with Sparser next above to her left, holding her other hand firmly,
which infuriated Clyde.  Why couldn't he stick to Laura Sipe, the
girl brought out here for him?  And Hortense was encouraging him.

He was very sad, and he felt so angry and bitter that he could
scarcely play the game.  He wanted to stop and quarrel with
Sparser.  But so brisk and eager was Hegglund that they were off
before he could even think of doing so.

And then, try as he would, to keep his balance in the face of this,
he and Lucille and Ratterer and Maida Axelrod were thrown down and
spun around on the ice like curling irons.  And Hortense, letting
go of him at the right moment, seemed to prefer deliberately to
hang on to Sparser.  Entangled with these others, Clyde and they
spun across forty feet of smooth, green ice and piled against a
snow bank.  At the finish, as he found, Lucille Nickolas was lying
across his knees face down in such a spanking position that he was
compelled to laugh.  And Maida Axelrod was on her back, next to
Ratterer, her legs straight up in the air; on purpose he thought.
She was too coarse and bold for him.  And there followed, of
course, squeals and guffaws of delight--so loud that they could be
heard for half a mile.  Hegglund, intensely susceptible to humor at
all times, doubled to the knees, slapped his thighs and bawled.
And Sparser opened his big mouth and chortled and grimaced until he
was scarlet.  So infectious was the result that for the time being
Clyde forgot his jealousy.  He too looked and laughed.  But Clyde's
mood had not changed really.  He still felt that she wasn't playing
fair.

At the end of all this playing Lucille Nickolas and Tina Kogel
being tired, dropped out.  And Hortense, also.  Clyde at once left
the group to join her.  Ratterer then followed Lucille.  Then the
others separating, Hegglund pushed Maida Axelrod before him down
stream out of sight around a bend.  Higby, seemingly taking his cue
from this, pulled Tina Kogel up stream, and Ratterer and Lucille,
seeming to see something of interest, struck into a thicket,
laughing and talking as they went.  Even Sparser and Laura, left to
themselves, now wandered off, leaving Clyde and Hortense alone.

And then, as these two wandered toward a fallen log which here
paralleled the stream, she sat down.  But Clyde, smarting from his
fancied wounds, stood silent for the time being, while she, sensing
as much, took him by the belt of his coat and began to pull at him.

"Giddap, horsey," she played.  "Giddap.  My horsey has to skate me
now on the ice."

Clyde looked at her glumly, glowering mentally, and not to be
diverted so easily from the ills which he felt to be his.

"Whadd'ye wanta let that fellow Sparser always hang around you
for?" he demanded.  "I saw you going up the creek there with him a
while ago.  What did he say to you up there?"

"He didn't say anything."

"Oh, no, of course not," he replied cynically and bitterly.  "And
maybe he didn't kiss you, either."

"I should say not," she replied definitely and spitefully, "I'd
like to know what you think I am, anyhow.  I don't let people kiss
me the first time they see me, smarty, and I want you to know it.
I didn't let you, did I?"

"Oh, that's all right, too," answered Clyde; "but you didn't like
me as well as you do him, either."

"Oh, didn't I?  Well, maybe I didn't, but what right have you to
say I like him, anyhow.  I'd like to know if I can't have a little
fun without you watching me all the time.  You make me tired,
that's what you do."  She was quite angry now because of the
proprietary air he appeared to be assuming.

And now Clyde, repulsed and somewhat shaken by this sudden counter
on her part, decided on the instant that perhaps it might be best
for him to modify his tone.  After all, she had never said that she
had really cared for him, even in the face of the implied promise
she had made him.

"Oh, well," he observed glumly after a moment, and not without a
little of sadness in his tone, "I know one thing.  If I let on that
I cared for any one as much as you say you do for me at times, I
wouldn't want to flirt around with others like you are doing out
here."

"Oh, wouldn't you?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"Well, who's flirting anyhow, I'd like to know?"

"You are."

"I'm not either, and I wish you'd just go away and let me alone if
you can't do anything but quarrel with me.  Just because I danced
with him up there in the restaurant, is no reason for you to think
I'm flirting.  Oh, you make me tired, that's what you do,"

"Do I?"

"Yes, you do."

"Well, maybe I better go off and not bother you any more at all
then," he returned, a trace of his mother's courage welling up in
him.

"Well, maybe you had, if that's the way you're going to feel about
me all the time," she answered, and kicked viciously with her toes
at the ice.  But Clyde was beginning to feel that he could not
possibly go through with this--that after all he was too eager
about her--too much at her feet.  He began to weaken and gaze
nervously at her.  And she, thinking of her coat again, decided to
be civil.

"You didn't look in his eyes, did you?" he asked weakly, his
thoughts going back to her dancing with Sparser.

"When?"

"When you were dancing with him?"

"No, I didn't, not that I know of, anyhow.  But supposing I did.
What of it?  I didn't mean anything by it.  Gee, criminy, can't a
person look in anybody's eyes if they want to?"

"In the way you looked in his?  Not if you claim to like anybody
else, I say."  And the skin of Clyde's forehead lifted and sank,
and his eyelids narrowed.  Hortense merely clicked impatiently and
indignantly with her tongue.

"Tst! Tst! Tst!  If you ain't the limit!"

"And a while ago back there on the ice," went on Clyde determinedly
and yet pathetically.  "When you came back from up there, instead
of coming up to where I was you went to the foot of the line with
him.  I saw you.  And you held his hand, too, all the way back.
And then when you fell down, you had to sit there with him holding
your hand.  I'd like to know what you call that if it ain't
flirting.  What else is it?  I'll bet he thinks it is, all right."

"Well, I wasn't flirting with him just the same and I don't care
what you say.  But if you want to have it that way, have it that
way.  I can't stop you.  You're so darn jealous you don't want to
let anybody else do anything, that's all the matter with you.  How
else can you play on the ice if you don't hold hands, I'd like to
know?  Gee, criminy!  What about you and that Lucille Nickolas?  I
saw her laying across your lap and you laughing.  And I didn't
think anything of that.  What do you want me to do--come out here
and sit around like a bump on a log?--follow you around like a
tail?  Or you follow me?  What-a-yuh think I am anyhow?  A nut?"

She was being ragged by Clyde, as she thought, and she didn't like
it.  She was thinking of Sparser who was really more appealing to
her at the time than Clyde.  He was more materialistic, less
romantic, more direct.

He turned and, taking off his cap, rubbed his head gloomily while
Hortense, looking at him, thought first of him and then of Sparser.
Sparser was more manly, not so much of a crybaby.  He wouldn't
stand around and complain this way, you bet.  He'd probably leave
her for good, have nothing more to do with her.  Yet Clyde, after
his fashion, was interesting and useful.  Who else would do for her
what he had?  And at any rate, he was not trying to force her to go
off with him now as these others had gone and as she had feared he
might try to do--ahead of her plan and wish.  This quarrel was
obviating that.

"Now, see here," she said after a time, having decided that it was
best to assuage him and that it was not so hard to manage him after
all.  "Are we goin' t'fight all the time, Clyde?  What's the use,
anyhow?  Whatja want me to come out here for if you just want to
fight with me all the time?  I wouldn't have come if I'd 'a'
thought you were going to do that all day."

She turned and kicked at the ice with the minute toe of her shoes,
and Clyde, always taken by her charm again, put his arms about her,
and crushed her to him, at the same time fumbling at her breasts
and putting his lips to hers and endeavoring to hold and fondle
her.  But now, because of her suddenly developed liking for
Sparser, and partially because of her present mood towards Clyde,
she broke away, a dissatisfaction with herself and him troubling
her.  Why should she let him force her to do anything she did not
feel like doing, just now, anyhow, she now asked herself.  She
hadn't agreed to be as nice to him to-day as he might wish.  Not
yet.  At any rate just now she did not want to be handled in this
way by him, and she would not, regardless of what he might do.  And
Clyde, sensing by now what the true state of her mind in regard to
him must be, stepped back and yet continued to gaze gloomily and
hungrily at her.  And she in turn merely stared at him.

"I thought you said you liked me," he demanded almost savagely now,
realizing that his dreams of a happy outing this day were fading
into nothing.

"Well, I do when you're nice," she replied, slyly and evasively,
seeking some way to avoid complications in connection with her
original promises to him.

"Yes, you do," he grumbled.  "I see how you do.  Why, here we are
out here now and you won't even let me touch you.  I'd like to know
what you meant by all that you said, anyhow."

"Well, what did I say?" she countered, merely to gain time.

"As though you didn't know."

"Oh, well.  But that wasn't to be right away, either, was it?  I
thought we said"--she paused dubiously.

"I know what you said," he went on.  "But I notice now that you
don't like me an' that's all there is to it.  What difference would
it make if you really cared for me whether you were nice to me now
or next week or the week after?  Gee whiz, you'd think it was
something that depended on what I did for you, not whether you
cared for me."  In his pain he was quite intense and courageous.

"That's not so!" she snapped, angrily and bitterly, irritated by
the truth of what he said.  "And I wish you wouldn't say that to
me, either.  I don't care anything about the old coat now, if you
want to know it.  And you can just have your old money back, too,
I don't want it.  And you can just let me alone from now on, too,"
she added.  "I'll get all the coats I want without any help from
you."  At this, she turned and walked away.

But Clyde, now anxious to mollify her as usual, ran after her.
"Don't go, Hortense," he pleaded.  "Wait a minute.  I didn't mean
that either, honest I didn't.  I'm crazy about you.  Honest I am.
Can't you see that?  Oh, gee, don't go now.  I'm not giving you the
money to get something for it.  You can have it for nothing if you
want it that way.  There ain't anybody else in the world like you
to me, and there never has been.  You can have the money for all I
care, all of it.  I don't want it back.  But, gee, I did think you
liked me a little.  Don't you care for me at all, Hortense?"  He
looked cowed and frightened, and she, sensing her mastery over him,
relented a little.

"Of course I do," she announced.  "But just the same, that don't
mean that you can treat me any old way, either.  You don't seem to
understand that a girl can't do everything you want her to do just
when you want her to do it."

"Just what do you mean by that?" asked Clyde, not quite sensing
just what she did mean.  "I don't get you."

"Oh, yes, you do, too."  She could not believe that he did not
know.

"Oh, I guess I know what you're talkin' about.  I know what you're
going to say now," he went on disappointedly.  "That's that old
stuff they all pull.  I know."

He was reciting almost verbatim the words and intonations even of
the other boys at the hotel--Higby, Ratterer, Eddie Doyle--who,
having narrated the nature of such situations to him, and how girls
occasionally lied out of pressing dilemmas in this way, had made
perfectly clear to him what was meant.  And Hortense knew now that
he did know.

"Gee, but you're mean," she said in an assumed hurt way.  "A person
can never tell you anything or expect you to believe it.  Just the
same, it's true, whether you believe it or not."

"Oh, I know how you are," he replied, sadly yet a little loftily,
as though this were an old situation to him.  "You don't like me,
that's all.  I see that now, all right."

"Gee, but you're mean," she persisted, affecting an injured air.
"It's the God's truth.  Believe me or not, I swear it.  Honest it
is."

Clyde stood there.  In the face of this small trick there was
really nothing much to say as he saw it.  He could not force her to
do anything.  If she wanted to lie and pretend, he would have to
pretend to believe her.  And yet a great sadness settled down upon
him.  He was not to win her after all--that was plain.  He turned,
and she, being convinced that he felt that she was lying now, felt
it incumbent upon herself to do something about it--to win him
around to her again.

"Please, Clyde, please," she began now, most artfully, "I mean
that.  Really, I do.  Won't you believe me?  But I will next week,
sure.  Honest, I will.  Won't you believe that?  I meant everything
I said when I said it.  Honest, I did.  I do like you--a lot.
Won't you believe that, too--please?"

And Clyde, thrilled from head to toe by this latest phase of her
artistry, agreed that he would.  And once more he began to smile
and recover his gayety.  And by the time they reached the car, to
which they were all called a few minutes after by Hegglund, because
of the time, and he had held her hand and kissed her often, he was
quite convinced that the dream he had been dreaming was as certain
of fulfillment as anything could be.  Oh, the glory of it when it
should come true!



Chapter 19


For the major portion of the return trip to Kansas City, there was
nothing to mar the very agreeable illusion under which Clyde
rested.  He sat beside Hortense, who leaned her head against his
shoulder.  And although Sparser, who had waited for the others to
step in before taking the wheel, had squeezed her arm and received
an answering and promising look, Clyde had not seen that.

But the hour being late and the admonitions of Hegglund, Ratterer
and Higby being all for speed, and the mood of Sparser, because of
the looks bestowed upon him by Hortense, being the gayest and most
drunken, it was not long before the outlying lamps of the environs
began to show.

For the car was rushed along the road at break-neck speed.  At one
point, however, where one of the eastern trunk lines approached the
city, there was a long and unexpected and disturbing wait at a
grade crossing where two freight trains met and passed.  Farther
in, at North Kansas City, it began to snow, great soft slushy
flakes, feathering down and coating the road surface with a
slippery layer of mud which required more caution than had been
thus far displayed.  It was then half past five.  Ordinarily, an
additional eight minutes at high speed would have served to bring
the car within a block or two of the hotel.  But now, with another
delay near Hannibal Bridge owing to grade crossing, it was twenty
minutes to six before the bridge was crossed and Wyandotte Street
reached.  And already all four of these youths had lost all sense
of the delight of the trip and the pleasure the companionship of
these girls had given them.  For already they were worrying as to
the probability of their reaching the hotel in time.  The smug and
martinetish figure of Mr. Squires loomed before them all.

"Gee, if we don't do better than this," observed Ratterer to Higby,
who was nervously fumbling with his watch, "we're not goin' to make
it.  We'll hardly have time, as it is, to change."

Clyde, hearing him, exclaimed:  "Oh, crickets!  I wish we could
hurry a little.  Gee, I wish now we hadn't come to-day.  It'll be
tough if we don't get there on time."

And Hortense, noting his sudden tenseness and unrest, added:
"Don't you think you'll make it all right?"

"Not this way," he said.  But Hegglund, who had been studying the
flaked air outside, a world that seemed dotted with falling bits of
cotton, called:  "Eh, dere Willard.  We certainly gotta do better
dan dis.  It means de razoo for us if we don't get dere on time."

And Higby, for once stirred out of a gambler-like effrontery and
calm, added:  "We'll walk the plank all right unless we can put up
some good yarn.  Can't anybody think of anything?"  As for Clyde,
he merely sighed nervously.

And then, as though to torture them the more, an unexpected crush
of vehicles appeared at nearly every intersection.  And Sparser,
who was irritated by this particular predicament, was contemplating
with impatience the warning hand of a traffic policeman, which, at
the intersection of Ninth and Wyandotte, had been raised against
him.  "There goes his mit again," he exclaimed.  "What can I do
about that!  I might turn over to Washington, but I don't know
whether we'll save any time by going over there."

A full minute passed before he was signaled to go forward.  Then
swiftly he swung the car to the right and three blocks over into
Washington Street.

But here the conditions were no better.  Two heavy lines of traffic
moved in opposite directions.  And at each succeeding corner
several precious moments were lost as the cross-traffic went by.
Then the car would tear on to the next corner, weaving its way in
and out as best it could.

At Fifteenth and Washington, Clyde exclaimed to Ratterer:  "How
would it do if we got out at Seventeenth and walked over?"

"You won't save any time if I can turn over there," called Sparser.
"I can get over there quicker than you can."

He crowded the other cars for every inch of available space.  At
Sixteenth and Washington, seeing what he considered a fairly clear
block to the left, he turned the car and tore along that
thoroughfare to as far as Wyandotte once more.  Just as he neared
the corner and was about to turn at high speed, swinging in close
to the curb to do so, a little girl of about nine, who was running
toward the crossing, jumped directly in front of the moving
machine.  And because there was no opportunity given him to turn
and avoid her, she was struck and dragged a number of feet before
the machine could be halted.  At the same time, there arose
piercing screams from at least half a dozen women, and shouts from
as many men who had witnessed the accident.

Instantly they all rushed toward the child, who had been thrown
under and passed over by the wheels.  And Sparser, looking out and
seeing them gathering about the fallen figure, was seized with an
uninterpretable mental panic which conjured up the police, jail,
his father, the owner of the car, severe punishment in many forms.
And though by now all the others in the car were up and giving vent
to anguished exclamations such as "Oh, God!  He hit a little girl";
"Oh, gee, he's killed a kid!" "Oh, mercy!" "Oh, Lord!" "Oh,
heavens, what'll we do now?" he turned and exclaimed:  "Jesus, the
cops!  I gotta get outa this with this car."

And, without consulting the others, who were still half standing,
but almost speechless with fear, he shot the lever into first,
second and then high, and giving the engine all the gas it would
endure, sped with it to the next corner beyond.

But there, as at the other corners in this vicinity, a policeman
was stationed, and having already seen some commotion at the corner
west of him, had already started to leave his post in order to
ascertain what it was.  As he did so, cries of "Stop that car"--
"Stop that car"--reached his ears.  And a man, running toward the
sedan from the scene of the accident, pointed to it, and called:
"Stop that car, stop that car.  They've killed a child."

Then gathering what was meant, he turned toward the car, putting
his police whistle to his mouth as he did so.  But Sparser, having
by this time heard the cries and seen the policeman leaving, dashed
swiftly past him into Seventeenth Street, along which he sped at
almost forty miles an hour, grazing the hub of a truck in one
instance, scraping the fender of an automobile in another, and
missing by inches and quarter inches vehicles or pedestrians, while
those behind him in the car were for the most part sitting bolt
upright and tense, their eyes wide, their hands clenched, their
faces and lips set--or, as in the case of Hortense and Lucille
Nickolas and Tina Kogel, giving voice to repeated, "Oh, Gods!" "Oh,
what's going to happen now?"

But the police and those who had started to pursue were not to be
outdone so quickly.  Unable to make out the license plate number
and seeing from the first motions of the car that it had no
intention of stopping, the officer blew a loud and long blast on
his police whistle.  And the policeman at the next corner seeing
the car speed by and realizing what it meant, blew on his whistle,
then stopped, and springing on the running board of a passing
touring car ordered it to give chase.  And at this, seeing what was
amiss or awind, three other cars, driven by adventurous spirits,
joined in the chase, all honking loudly as they came.

But the Packard had far more speed in it than any of its pursuers,
and although for the first few blocks of the pursuit there were
cries of "Stop that car!" "Stop that car!" still, owing to the much
greater speed of the car, these soon died away, giving place to the
long wild shrieks of distant horns in full cry.

Sparser by now having won a fair lead and realizing that a straight
course was the least baffling to pursue, turned swiftly into McGee,
a comparatively quiet thoroughfare along which he tore for a few
blocks to the wide and winding Gillham Parkway, whose course was
southward.  But having followed that at terrific speed for a short
distance, he again--at Thirty-first--decided to turn--the houses in
the distance confusing him and the suburban country to the north
seeming to offer the best opportunity for evading his pursuers.
And so now he swung the car to the left into that thoroughfare, his
thought here being that amid these comparatively quiet streets it
was possible to wind in and out and so shake off pursuit--at least
long enough to drop his passengers somewhere and return the car to
the garage.

And this he would have been able to do had it not been for the fact
that in turning into one of the more outlying streets of this
region, where there were scarcely any houses and no pedestrians
visible, he decided to turn off his lights, the better to conceal
the whereabouts of the car.  Then, still speeding east, north, and
east and south by turns, he finally dashed into one street where,
after a few hundred feet, the pavement suddenly ended.  But because
another cross street was visible a hundred feet or so further on,
and he imagined that by turning into that he might find a paved
thoroughfare again, he sped on and then swung sharply to the left,
only to crash roughly into a pile of paving stones left by a
contractor who was preparing to pave the way.  In the absence of
lights he had failed to distinguish this.  And diagonally opposite
to these, lengthwise of a prospective sidewalk, had been laid a
pile of lumber for a house.

Striking the edge of the paving stones at high speed, he caromed,
and all but upsetting the car, made directly for the lumber pile
opposite, into which he crashed.  Only instead of striking it head
on, the car struck one end, causing it to give way and spread out,
but only sufficiently to permit the right wheels to mount high upon
it and so throw the car completely over onto its left side in the
grass and snow beyond the walk.  Then there, amid a crash of glass
and the impacts of their own bodies, the occupants were thrown down
in a heap, forward and to the left.

What happened afterwards is more or less of a mystery and a matter
of confusion, not only to Clyde, but to all the others.  For
Sparser and Laura Sipe, being in front, were dashed against the
wind-shield and the roof and knocked senseless, Sparser, having his
shoulder, hip and left knee wrenched in such a way as to make it
necessary to let him lie in the car as he was until an ambulance
arrived.  He could not possibly be lifted out through the door,
which was in the roof as the car now lay.  And in the second seat,
Clyde, being nearest the door to the left and next to him Hortense,
Lucille Nickolas and Ratterer, was pinioned under and yet not
crushed by their combined weights.  For Hortense in falling had
been thrown completely over him on her side against the roof, which
was now the left wall.  And Lucille, next above her, fell in such a
way as to lie across Clyde's shoulders only, while Ratterer, now
topmost of the four, had, in falling, been thrown over the seat in
front of him.  But grasping the steering wheel in front of him as
he fell, the same having been wrenched from Sparser's hands, he had
broken his fall in part by clinging to it.  But even so, his face
and hands were cut and bruised and his shoulder, arm and hip
slightly wrenched, yet not sufficiently to prevent his being of
assistance to the others.  For at once, realizing the plight of the
others as well as his own, and stirred by their screams, Ratterer
was moved to draw himself up and out through the top or side door
which he now succeeded in opening, scrambling over the others to
reach it.

Once out, he climbed upon the chassis beam of the toppled car, and,
reaching down, caught hold of the struggling and moaning Lucille,
who like the others was trying to climb up but could not.  And
exerting all his strength and exclaiming, "Be still, now, honey, I
gotcha.  You're all right, I'll getcha out," he lifted her to a
sitting position on the side of the door, then down in the snow,
where he placed her and where she sat crying and feeling her arms
and her head.  And after her he helped Hortense, her left cheek and
forehead and both hands badly bruised and bleeding, but not
seriously, although she did not know that at the time.  She was
whimpering and shivering and shaking--a nervous chill having
succeeded the dazed and almost unconscious state which had followed
the first crash.

At that moment, Clyde, lifting his bewildered head above the side
door of the car, his left cheek, shoulder and arm bruised, but not
otherwise injured, was thinking that he too must get out of this as
quickly as possible.  A child had been killed; a car stolen and
wrecked; his job was most certainly lost; the police were in
pursuit and might even find them there at any minute.  And below
him in the car was Sparser, prone where he fell, but already being
looked to by Ratterer.  And beside him Laura Sipe, also unconscious.
He felt called upon to do something--to assist Ratterer, who was
reaching down and trying to lay hold of Laura Sipe without injuring
her.  But so confused were his thoughts that he would have stood
there without helping any one had it not been for Ratterer, who
called most irritably, "Give us a hand here, Clyde, will you?  Let's
see if we can get her out.  She's fainted."  And Clyde, turning now
instead of trying to climb out, began to seek to lift her from
within, standing on the broken glass window of the side beneath his
feet and attempting to draw her body back and up off the body of
Sparser.  But this was not possible.  She was too limp--too heavy.
He could only draw her back--off the body of Sparser--and then let
her rest there, between the second and first seats on the car's
side.

But, meanwhile, at the back Hegglund, being nearest the top and
only slightly stunned, had managed to reach the door nearest him
and throw it back.  Thus, by reason of his athletic body, he was
able to draw himself up and out, saying as he did so:  "Oh, Jesus,
what a finish!  Oh, Christ, dis is de limit!  Oh, Jesus, we better
beat it outa dis before de cops git here."

At the same time, however, seeing the others below him and hearing
their cries, he could not contemplate anything so desperate as
desertion.  Instead, once out, he turned and making out Maida below
him, exclaimed:  "Here, for Christ's sake, gimme your hand.  We
gotta get outa dis and dam quick, I tell ya."  Then turning from
Maida, who for the moment was feeling her wounded and aching head,
he mounted the top chassis beam again and, reaching down, caught
hold of Tina Kogel, who, only stunned, was trying to push herself
to a sitting position while resting heavily on top of Higby.  But
he, relieved of the weight of the others, was already kneeling, and
feeling his head and face with his hands.

"Gimme your hand, Dave," called Hegglund.  "Hurry!  For Christ's
sake!  We ain't got no time to lose around here.  Are ya hurt?
Christ, we gotta git outa here, I tellya.  I see a guy comin'
acrost dere now an' I doughno wedder he's a cop or not."  He
started to lay hold of Higby's left hand, but as he did so Higby
repulsed him.

"Huh, uh," he exclaimed.  "Don't pull.  I'm all right.  I'll get
out by myself.  Help the others."  And standing up, his head above
the level of the door, he began to look about within the car for
something on which to place his foot.  The back cushion having
fallen out and forward, he got his foot on that and raised himself
up to the door level on which he sat and drew out his leg.  Then
looking about, and seeing Hegglund attempting to assist Ratterer
and Clyde with Sparser, he went to their aid.

Outside, some odd and confusing incidents had already occurred.
For Hortense, who had been lifted out before Clyde, and had
suddenly begun to feel her face, had as suddenly realized that her
left cheek and forehead were not only scraped but bleeding.  And
being seized by the notion that her beauty might have been
permanently marred by this accident, she was at once thrown into a
state of selfish panic which caused her to become completely
oblivious, not only to the misery and injury of the others, but to
the danger of discovery by the police, the injury to the child, the
wreck of this expensive car--in fact everything but herself and the
probability or possibility that her beauty had been destroyed.  She
began to whimper on the instant and wave her hands up and down.
"Oh, goodness, goodness, goodness!" she exclaimed desperately.
"Oh, how dreadful!  Oh, how terrible!  Oh, my face is all cut."
And feeling an urgent compulsion to do something about it, she
suddenly set off (and without a word to any one and while Clyde was
still inside helping Ratterer) south along 35th Street, toward the
city where were lights and more populated streets.  Her one thought
was to reach her own home as speedily as possible in order that she
might do something for herself.

Of Clyde, Sparser, Ratterer and the other girls--she really thought
nothing.  What were they now?  It was only intermittently and
between thoughts of her marred beauty that she could even bring
herself to think of the injured child--the horror of which as well
as the pursuit by the police, maybe, the fact that the car did not
belong to Sparser or that it was wrecked, and that they were all
liable to arrest in consequence, affecting her but slightly.  Her
one thought in regard to Clyde was that he was the one who had
invited her to this ill-fated journey--hence that he was to blame,
really.  Those beastly boys--to think they should have gotten her
into this and then didn't have brains enough to manage better.

The other girls, apart from Laura Sipe, were not seriously injured--
any of them.  They were more frightened than anything else, but
now that this had happened they were in a panic, lest they be
overtaken by the police, arrested, exposed and punished.  And
accordingly they stood about, exclaiming "Oh, gee, hurry, can't
you?  Oh, dear, we ought all of us to get away from here.  Oh, it's
all so terrible."  Until at last Hegglund exclaimed:  "For Christ's
sake, keep quiet, cantcha?  We're doing de best we can, cantcha
see?  You'll have de cops down on us in a minute as it is."

And then, as if in answer to his comment, a lone suburbanite who
lived some four blocks from the scene across the fields and who,
hearing the crash and the cries in the night, had ambled across to
see what the trouble was, now drew near and stood curiously looking
at the stricken group and the car.

"Had an accident, eh?" he exclaimed, genially enough.  "Any one
badly hurt?  Gee, that's too bad.  And that's a swell car, too.
Can I help any?"

Clyde, hearing him talk and looking out and not seeing Hortense
anywhere, and not being able to do more for Sparser than stretch
him in the bottom of the car, glanced agonizingly about.  For the
thought of the police and their certain pursuit was strong upon
him.  He must get out of this.  He must not be caught here.  Think
of what would happen to him if he were caught--how he would be
disgraced and punished probably--all his fine world stripped from
him before he could say a word really.  His mother would hear--Mr.
Squires--everybody.  Most certainly he would go to jail.  Oh, how
terrible that thought was--grinding really like a macerating wheel
to his flesh.  They could do nothing more for Sparser, and they
only laid themselves open to being caught by lingering.  So asking,
"Where'd Miss Briggs go?" he now began to climb out, then started
looking about the dark and snowy fields for her.  His thought was
that he would first assist her to wherever she might desire to go.

But just then in the distance was heard the horns and the hum of at
least two motorcycles speeding swiftly in the direction of this
very spot.  For already the wife of the suburbanite, on hearing the
crash and the cries in the distance, had telephoned the police that
an accident had occurred here.  And now the suburbanite was
explaining:  "That's them.  I told the wife to telephone for an
ambulance."  And hearing this, all these others now began to run,
for they all realized what that meant.  And in addition, looking
across the fields one could see the lights of these approaching
machines.  They reached Thirty-first and Cleveland together.  Then
one turned south toward this very spot, along Cleveland Avenue.
And the other continued east on Thirty-first, reconnoitering for
the accident.

"Beat it, for God's sake, all of youse," whispered Hegglund,
excitedly.  "Scatter!"  And forthwith, seizing Maida Axelrod by the
hand, he started to run east along Thirty-fifth Street, in which
the car then lay--along the outlying eastern suburbs.  But after a
moment, deciding that that would not do either, that it would be
too easy to pursue him along a street, he cut northeast, directly
across the open fields and away from the city.

And now, Clyde, as suddenly sensing what capture would mean--how
all his fine thoughts of pleasure would most certainly end in
disgrace and probably prison, began running also.  Only in his
case, instead of following Hegglund or any of the others, he turned
south along Cleveland Avenue toward the southern limits of the
city.  But like Hegglund, realizing that that meant an easy avenue
of pursuit for any one who chose to follow, he too took to the open
fields.  Only instead of running away from the city as before, he
now turned southwest and ran toward those streets which lay to the
south of Fortieth.  Only much open space being before him before he
should reach them, and a clump of bushes showing in the near
distance, and the light of the motorcycle already sweeping the road
behind him, he ran to that and for the moment dropped behind it.

Only Sparser and Laura Sipe were left within the car, she at that
moment beginning to recover consciousness.  And the visiting
stranger, much astounded, was left standing outside.

"Why, the very idea!" he suddenly said to himself.  "They must have
stolen that car.  It couldn't have belonged to them at all."

And just then the first motorcycle reaching the scene, Clyde from
his not too distant hiding place was able to overhear.  "Well, you
didn't get away with it after all, did you?  You thought you were
pretty slick, but you didn't make it.  You're the one we want, and
what's become of the rest of the gang, eh?  Where are they, eh?"

And hearing the suburbanite declare quite definitely that he had
nothing to do with it, that the real occupants of the car had but
then run away and might yet be caught if the police wished, Clyde,
who was still within earshot of what was being said, began crawling
upon his hands and knees at first in the snow south, south and
west, always toward some of those distant streets which, lamplit
and faintly glowing, he saw to the southwest of him, and among
which presently, if he were not captured, he hoped to hide--to lose
himself and so escape--if the fates were only kind--the misery and
the punishment and the unending dissatisfaction and disappointment
which now, most definitely, it all represented to him.





BOOK TWO




Chapter 1


The home of Samuel Griffiths in Lycurgus, New York, a city of some
twenty-five thousand inhabitants midway between Utica and Albany.
Near the dinner hour and by degrees the family assembling for its
customary meal.  On this occasion the preparations were of a more
elaborate nature than usual, owing to the fact that for the past
four days Mr. Samuel Griffiths, the husband and father, had been
absent attending a conference of shirt and collar manufacturers in
Chicago, price-cutting by upstart rivals in the west having
necessitated compromise and adjustment by those who manufactured in
the east.  He was but now returned and had telephoned earlier in
the afternoon that he had arrived, and was going to his office in
the factory where he would remain until dinner time.

Being long accustomed to the ways of a practical and convinced man
who believed in himself and considered his judgment and his
decision sound--almost final--for the most part, anyhow, Mrs.
Griffiths thought nothing of this.  He would appear and greet her
in due order.

Knowing that he preferred leg of lamb above many other things,
after due word with Mrs. Truesdale, her homely but useful
housekeeper, she ordered lamb.  And the appropriate vegetables and
dessert having been decided upon, she gave herself over to thoughts
of her eldest daughter Myra, who, having graduated from Smith
College several years before, was still unmarried.  And the reason
for this, as Mrs. Griffiths well understood, though she was never
quite willing to admit it openly, was that Myra was not very good
looking.  Her nose was too long, her eyes too close-set, her chin
not sufficiently rounded to give her a girlish and pleasing
appearance.  For the most part she seemed too thoughtful and
studious--as a rule not interested in the ordinary social life of
that city.  Neither did she possess that savoir faire, let alone
that peculiar appeal for men, that characterized some girls even
when they were not pretty.  As her mother saw it, she was really
too critical and too intellectual, having a mind that was rather
above the world in which she found herself.

Brought up amid comparative luxury, without having to worry about
any of the rough details of making a living, she had been
confronted, nevertheless, by the difficulties of making her own way
in the matter of social favor and love--two objectives which,
without beauty or charm, were about as difficult as the attaining
to extreme wealth by a beggar.  And the fact that for twelve years
now--ever since she had been fourteen--she had seen the lives of
other youths and maidens in this small world in which she moved
passing gayly enough, while hers was more or less confined to
reading, music, the business of keeping as neatly and attractively
arrayed as possible, and of going to visit friends in the hope of
possibly encountering somewhere, somehow, the one temperament who
would be interested in her, had saddened, if not exactly soured
her.  And that despite the fact that the material comfort of her
parents and herself was exceptional.

Just now she had gone through her mother's room to her own, looking
as though she were not very much interested in anything.  Her
mother had been trying to think of something to suggest that would
take her out of herself, when the younger daughter, Bella, fresh
from a passing visit to the home of the Finchleys, wealthy
neighbors where she had stopped on her way from the Snedeker
School, burst in upon her.

Contrasted with her sister, who was tall and dark and rather
sallow, Bella, though shorter, was far more gracefully and
vigorously formed.  She had thick brown--almost black--hair, a
brown and olive complexion tinted with red, and eyes brown and
genial, that blazed with an eager, seeking light.  In addition to
her sound and lithe physique, she possessed vitality and animation.
Her arms and legs were graceful and active.  Plainly she was given
to liking things as she found them--enjoying life as it was--and
hence, unlike her sister, she was unusually attractive to men and
boys--to men and women, old and young--a fact which her mother and
father well knew.  No danger of any lack of marriage offers for her
when the time came.  As her mother saw it, too many youths and men
were already buzzing around, and so posing the question of a proper
husband for her.  Already she had displayed a tendency to become
thick and fast friends, not only with the scions of the older and
more conservative families who constituted the ultra-respectable
element of the city, but also, and this was more to her mother's
distaste, with the sons and daughters of some of those later and
hence socially less important families of the region--the sons and
daughters of manufacturers of bacon, canning jars, vacuum cleaners,
wooden and wicker ware, and typewriters, who constituted a solid
enough financial element in the city, but who made up what might be
considered the "fast set" in the local life.

In Mrs. Griffiths' opinion, there was too much dancing, cabareting,
automobiling to one city and another, without due social
supervision.  Yet, as a contrast to her sister, Myra, what a
relief.  It was only from the point of view of proper surveillance,
or until she was safely and religiously married, that Mrs.
Griffiths troubled or even objected to most of her present contacts
and yearnings and gayeties.  She desired to protect her.

"Now, where have you been?" she demanded, as her daughter burst
into the room, throwing down her books and drawing near to the open
fire that burned there.

"Just think, Mamma," began Bella most unconcernedly and almost
irrelevantly.  "The Finchleys are going to give up their place out
at Greenwood Lake this coming summer and go up to Twelfth Lake near
Pine Point.  They're going to build a new bungalow up there.  And
Sondra says that this time it's going to be right down at the
water's edge--not away from it, as it is out here.  And they're
going to have a great big verandah with a hardwood floor.  And a
boathouse big enough for a thirty-foot electric launch that Mr.
Finchley is going to buy for Stuart.  Won't that be wonderful?  And
she says that if you will let me, that I can come up there for all
summer long, or for as long as I like.  And Gil, too, if he will.
It's just across the lake from the Emery Lodge, you know, and the
East Gate Hotel.  And the Phants' place, you know, the Phants of
Utica, is just below theirs near Sharon.  Isn't that just
wonderful?  Won't that be great?  I wish you and Dad would make up
your minds to build up there now sometime, Mamma.  It looks to me
now as though nearly everybody that's worth anything down here is
moving up there."

She talked so fast and swung about so, looking now at the open fire
burning in the grate, then out of the two high windows that
commanded the front lawn and a full view of Wykeagy Avenue, lit by
the electric lights in the winter dusk, that her mother had no
opportunity to insert any comment until this was over.  However,
she managed to observe:  "Yes?  Well, what about the Anthonys and
the Nicholsons and the Taylors?  I haven't heard of their leaving
Greenwood yet."

"Oh, I know, not the Anthonys or the Nicholsons or the Taylors.
Who expects them to move?  They're too old fashioned.  They're not
the kind that would move anywhere, are they?  No one thinks they
are.  Just the same Greenwood isn't like Twelfth Lake.  You know
that yourself.  And all the people that are anybody down on the
South Shore are going up there for sure.  The Cranstons next year,
Sondra says.  And after that, I bet the Harriets will go, too."

"The Cranstons and the Harriets and the Finchleys and Sondra,"
commented her mother, half amused and half irritated.  "The
Cranstons and you and Bertine and Sondra--that's all I hear these
days."  For the Cranstons, and the Finchleys, despite a certain
amount of local success in connection with this newer and faster
set, were, much more than any of the others, the subject of
considerable unfavorable comment.  They were the people who, having
moved the Cranston Wickwire Company from Albany, and the Finchley
Electric Sweeper from Buffalo, and built large factories on the
south bank of the Mohawk River, to say nothing of new and grandiose
houses in Wykeagy Avenue and summer cottages at Greenwood, some
twenty miles northwest, were setting a rather showy, and hence
disagreeable, pace to all of the wealthy residents of this region.
They were given to wearing the smartest clothes, to the latest
novelties in cars and entertainments, and constituted a problem to
those who with less means considered their position and their
equipment about as fixed and interesting and attractive as such
things might well be.  The Cranstons and the Finchleys were in the
main a thorn in the flesh of the remainder of the elite of
Lycurgus--too showy and too aggressive.

"How often have I told you that I don't want you to have so much to
do with Bertine or that Letta Harriet or her brother either?
They're too forward.  They run around and talk and show off too
much.  And your father feels the same as I do in regard to them.
As for Sondra Finchley, if she expects to go with Bertine and you,
too, then you're not going to go with her either much longer.
Besides I'm not sure that your father approves of your going
anywhere without some one to accompany you.  You're not old enough
yet.  And as for your going to Twelfth Lake to the Finchleys, well,
unless we all go together, there'll be no going there, either."
And now Mrs. Griffiths, who leaned more to the manner and tactics
of the older, if not less affluent families, stared complainingly
at her daughter.

Nevertheless Bella was no more abashed that she was irritated by
this.  On the contrary she knew her mother and knew that she was
fond of her; also that she was intrigued by her physical charm as
well as her assured local social success as much as was her father,
who considered her perfection itself and could be swayed by her
least, as well as her much practised, smile.

"Not old enough, not old enough," commented Bella reproachfully.
"Will you listen?  I'll be eighteen in July.  I'd like to know when
you and Papa are going to think I'm old enough to go anywhere
without you both.  Wherever you two go, I have to go, and wherever
I want to go, you two have to go, too."

"Bella," censured her mother.  Then after a moment's silence, in
which her daughter stood there impatiently, she added, "Of course,
what else would you have us do?  When you are twenty-one or two, if
you are not married by then, it will be time enough to think of
going off by yourself.  But at your age, you shouldn't be thinking
of any such thing."  Bella cocked her pretty head, for at the
moment the side door downstairs was thrown open, and Gilbert
Griffiths, the only son of this family and who very much in face
and build, if not in manner or lack of force, resembled Clyde, his
western cousin, entered and ascended.

He was at this time a vigorous, self-centered and vain youth of
twenty-three who, in contrast with his two sisters, seemed much
sterner and far more practical.  Also, probably much more
intelligent and aggressive in a business way--a field in which
neither of the two girls took the slightest interest.  He was brisk
in manner and impatient.  He considered that his social position
was perfectly secure, and was utterly scornful of anything but
commercial success.  Yet despite this he was really deeply
interested in the movements of the local society, of which he
considered himself and his family the most important part.  Always
conscious of the dignity and social standing of his family in this
community, he regulated his action and speech accordingly.
Ordinarily he struck the passing observer as rather sharp and
arrogant, neither as youthful or as playful as his years might have
warranted.  Still he was young, attractive and interesting.  He had
a sharp, if not brilliant, tongue in his head--a gift at times for
making crisp and cynical remarks.  On account of his family and
position he was considered also the most desirable of all the young
eligible bachelors in Lycurgus.  Nevertheless he was so much
interested in himself that he scarcely found room in his cosmos for
a keen and really intelligent understanding of anyone else.

Hearing him ascend from below and enter his room, which was at the
rear of the house next to hers, Bella at once left her mother's
room, and coming to the door, called:  "Oh, Gil, can I come in?"

"Sure."  He was whistling briskly and already, in view of some
entertainment somewhere, preparing to change to evening clothes.

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere, for dinner.  To the Wynants afterwards."

"Oh, Constance to be sure."

"No, not Constance, to be sure.  Where do you get that stuff?"

"As though I didn't know."

"Lay off.  Is that what you came in here for?"

"No, that isn't what I came in here for.  What do you think?  The
Finchleys are going to build a place up at Twelfth Lake next
summer, right on the lake, next to the Phants, and Mr. Finchley's
going to buy Stuart a thirty-foot launch and build a boathouse with
a sun-parlor right over the water to hold it.  Won't that be swell,
huh?"

"Don't say 'swell.'  And don't say 'huh.'  Can't you learn to cut
out the slang?  You talk like a factory girl.  Is that all they
teach you over at that school?"

"Listen to who's talking about cutting out slang.  How about
yourself?  You set a fine example around here, I notice."

"Well, I'm five years older than you are.  Besides I'm a man.  You
don't notice Myra using any of that stuff."

"Oh, Myra.  But don't let's talk about that.  Only think of that
new house they're going to build and the fine time they're going to
have up there next summer.  Don't you wish we could move up there,
too?  We could if we wanted to--if Papa and Mamma would agree to
it."

"Oh, I don't know that it would be so wonderful," replied her
brother, who was really very much interested just the same.  "There
are other places besides Twelfth Lake."

"Who said there weren't?  But not for the people that we know
around here.  Where else do the best people from Albany and Utica
go but there now, I'd like to know.  It's going to become a regular
center, Sondra says, with all the finest houses along the west
shore.  Just the same, the Cranstons, the Lamberts, and the
Harriets are going to move up there pretty soon, too," Bella added
most definitely and defiantly.  "That won't leave so many out at
Greenwood Lake, nor the very best people, either, even if the
Anthonys and Nicholsons do stay here."

"Who says the Cranstons are going up there?" asked Gilbert, now
very much interested.

"Why, Sondra!"

"Who told her?"

"Bertine."

"Gee, they're getting gayer and gayer," commented her brother oddly
and a little enviously.  "Pretty soon Lycurgus'll be too small to
hold 'em."  He jerked at a bow tie he was attempting to center and
grimaced oddly as his tight neck-band pinched him slightly.

For although Gilbert had recently entered into the collar and shirt
industry with his father as general supervisor of manufacturing,
and with every prospect of managing and controlling the entire
business eventually, still he was jealous of young Grant Cranston,
a youth of his own age, very appealing and attractive physically,
who was really more daring with and more attractive to the girls of
the younger set.  Cranston seemed to be satisfied that it was
possible to combine a certain amount of social pleasure with
working for his father with which Gilbert did not agree.  In fact,
young Griffiths would have preferred, had it been possible, so to
charge young Cranston with looseness, only thus far the latter had
managed to keep himself well within the bounds of sobriety.  And
the Cranston Wickwire Company was plainly forging ahead as one of
the leading industries of Lycurgus.

"Well," he added, after a moment, "they're spreading out faster
than I would if I had their business.  They're not the richest
people in the world, either."  Just the same he was thinking that,
unlike himself and his parents, the Cranstons were really more
daring if not socially more avid of life.  He envied them.

"And what's more," added Bella interestedly, "the Finchleys are to
have a dance floor over the boathouse.  And Sondra says that Stuart
was hoping that you would come up there and spend a lot of time
this summer."

"Oh, did he?" replied Gilbert, a little enviously and sarcastically.
"You mean he said he was hoping you would come up and spend a lot of
time.  I'll be working this summer."

"He didn't say anything of the kind, smarty.  Besides it wouldn't
hurt us any if we did go up there.  There's nothing much out at
Greenwood any more that I can see.  A lot of old hen parties."

"Is that so?  Mother would like to hear that."

"And you'll tell her, of course"

"Oh, no, I won't either.  But I don't think we're going to follow
the Finchleys or the Cranstons up to Twelfth Lake just yet, either.
You can go up there if you want, if Dad'll let you."

Just then the lower door clicked again, and Bella, forgetting her
quarrel with her brother, ran down to greet her father.



Chapter 2


The head of the Lycurgus branch of the Griffiths, as contrasted
with the father of the Kansas City family, was most arresting.
Unlike his shorter and more confused brother of the Door of Hope,
whom he had not even seen for thirty years, he was a little above
the average in height, very well-knit, although comparatively
slender, shrewd of eye, and incisive both as to manner and speech.
Long used to contending for himself, and having come by effort as
well as results to know that he was above the average in acumen and
commercial ability, he was inclined at times to be a bit intolerant
of those who were not.  He was not ungenerous or unpleasant in
manner, but always striving to maintain a calm and judicial air.
And he told himself by way of excuse for his mannerisms that he was
merely accepting himself at the value that others placed upon him
and all those who, like himself, were successful.

Having arrived in Lycurgus about twenty-five years before with some
capital and a determination to invest in a new collar enterprise
which had been proposed to him, he had succeeded thereafter beyond
his wildest expectations.  And naturally he was vain about it.  His
family at this time--twenty-five years later--unquestionably
occupied one of the best, as well as the most tastefully
constructed residences in Lycurgus.  They were also esteemed as
among the few best families of this region--being, if not the
oldest, at least among the most conservative, respectable and
successful in Lycurgus.  His two younger children, if not the
eldest, were much to the front socially in the younger and gayer
set and so far nothing had happened to weaken or darken his
prestige.

On returning from Chicago on this particular day, after having
concluded several agreements there which spelled trade harmony and
prosperity for at least one year, he was inclined to feel very much
at ease and on good terms with the world.  Nothing had occurred to
mar his trip.  In his absence the Griffiths Collar and Shirt
Company had gone on as though he had been present.  Trade orders at
the moment were large.

Now as he entered his own door he threw down a heavy bag and
fashionably made coat and turned to see what he rather expected--
Bella hurrying toward him.  Indeed she was his pet, the most
pleasing and different and artistic thing, as he saw it, that all
his years had brought to him--youth, health, gayety, intelligence
and affection--all in the shape of a pretty daughter.

"Oh, Daddy," she called most sweetly and enticingly as she saw him
enter.  "Is that you?"

"Yes.  At least it feels a little like me at the present moment.
How's my baby girl?"  And he opened his arms and received the
bounding form of his last born.  "There's a good, strong, healthy
girl, I'll say," he announced as he withdrew his affectionate lips
from hers.  "And how's the bad girl been behaving herself since I
left?  No fibbing this time."

"Oh, just fine, Daddy.  You can ask any one.  I couldn't be
better."

"And your mother?"

"She's all right, Daddy.  She's up in her room.  I don't think she
heard you come in."

"And Myra?  Is she back from Albany yet?"

"Yes.  She's in her room.  I heard her playing just now.  I just
got in myself a little while ago."

"Ay, hai.  Gadding about again.  I know you."  He held up a genial
forefinger, warningly, while Bella swung onto one of his arms and
kept pace with him up the stairs to the floor above.

"Oh, no, I wasn't either, now," she cooed shrewdly and sweetly.
"Just see how you pick on me, Daddy.  I was only over with Sondra
for a little while.  And what do you think, Daddy?  They're going
to give up the place at Greenwood and build a big handsome bungalow
up on Twelfth Lake right away.  And Mr. Finchley's going to buy a
big electric launch for Stuart and they're going to live up there
next summer, maybe all the time, from May until October.  And so
are the Cranstons, maybe."

Mr. Griffiths, long used to his younger daughter's wiles, was
interested at the moment not so much by the thought that she wished
to convey--that Twelfth Lake was more desirable, socially than
Greenwood--as he was by the fact that the Finchleys were able to
make this sudden and rather heavy expenditure for social reasons
only.

Instead of answering Bella he went on upstairs and into his wife's
room.  He kissed Mrs. Griffiths, looked in upon Myra, who came to
the door to embrace him, and spoke of the successful nature of the
trip.  One could see by the way he embraced his wife that there was
an agreeable understanding between them--no disharmony--by the way
he greeted Myra that if he did not exactly sympathize with her
temperament and point of view, at least he included her within the
largess of his affection.

As they were talking Mrs. Truesdale announced that dinner was
ready, and Gilbert, having completed his toilet, now entered.

"I say, Dad," he called, "I have an interesting thing I want to see
you about in the morning.  Can I?"

"All right, I'll be there.  Come in about noon."

"Come on all, or the dinner will be getting cold," admonished Mrs.
Griffiths earnestly, and forthwith Gilbert turned and went down,
followed by Griffiths, who still had Bella on his arm.  And after
him came Mrs. Griffiths and Myra, who now emerged from her room and
joined them.

Once seated at the table, the family forthwith began discussing
topics of current local interest.  For Bella, who was the family's
chief source of gossip, gathering the most of it from the Snedeker
School, through which all the social news appeared to percolate
most swiftly, suddenly announced:  "What do you think, Mamma?
Rosetta Nicholson, that niece of Mrs. Disston Nicholson, who was
over here last summer from Albany--you know, she came over the
night of the Alumnae Garden Party on our lawn--you remember--the
young girl with the yellow hair and squinty blue eyes--her father
owns that big wholesale grocery over there--well, she's engaged to
that Herbert Tickham of Utica, who was visiting Mrs. Lambert last
summer.  You don't remember him, but I do.  He was tall and dark
and sorta awkward, and awfully pale, but very handsome--oh, a
regular movie hero."

"There you go, Mrs. Griffiths," interjected Gilbert shrewdly and
cynically to his mother.  "A delegation from the Misses Snedeker's
Select School sneaks off to the movies to brush up on heroes from
time to time."

Griffiths senior suddenly observed:  "I had a curious experience in
Chicago this time, something I think the rest of you will be
interested in."  He was thinking of an accidental encounter two
days before in Chicago between himself and the eldest son, as it
proved to be, of his younger brother Asa.  Also of a conclusion he
had come to in regard to him.

"Oh, what is it, Daddy?" pleaded Bella at once.  "Do tell me about
it."

"Spin the big news, Dad," added Gilbert, who, because of the favor
of his father, felt very free and close to him always.

"Well, while I was in Chicago at the Union League Club, I met a
young man who is related to us, a cousin of you three children, by
the way, the eldest son of my brother Asa, who is out in Denver
now, I understand.  I haven't seen or heard from him in thirty
years."  He paused and mused dubiously.

"Not the one who is a preacher somewhere, Daddy?" inquired Bella,
looking up.

"Yes, the preacher.  At least I understand he was for a while after
he left home.  But his son tells me he has given that up now.  He's
connected with something in Denver--a hotel, I think."

"But what's his son like?" interrogated Bella, who only knew such
well groomed and ostensibly conservative youths and men as her
present social status and supervision permitted, and in consequence
was intensely interested.  The son of a western hotel proprietor!

"A cousin?  How old is he?" asked Gilbert instantly, curious as to
his character and situation and ability.

"Well, he's a very interesting young man, I think," continued
Griffiths tentatively and somewhat dubiously, since up to this hour
he had not truly made up his mind about Clyde.  "He's quite good-
looking and well-mannered, too--about your own age, I should say,
Gil, and looks a lot like you--very much so--same eyes and mouth
and chin."  He looked at his son examiningly.  "He's a little bit
taller, if anything, and looks a little thinner, though I don't
believe he really is."

At the thought of a cousin who looked like him--possibly as
attractive in every way as himself--and bearing his own name,
Gilbert chilled and bristled slightly.  For here in Lycurgus, up to
this time, he was well and favourably known as the only son and
heir presumptive to the managerial control of his father's
business, and to at least a third of the estate, if not more.  And
now, if by any chance it should come to light that there was a
relative, a cousin of his own years and one who looked and acted
like him, even--he bridled at the thought.  Forthwith (a psychic
reaction which he did not understand and could not very well
control) he decided that he did not like him--could not like him.

"What's he doing now?" he asked in a curt and rather sour tone,
though he attempted to avoid the latter element in his voice.

"Well, he hasn't much of a job, I must say," smiled Samuel
Griffiths, meditatively.  "He's only a bell-hop in the Union League
Club in Chicago, at present, but a very pleasant and gentlemanly
sort of a boy, I will say.  I was quite taken with him.  In fact,
because he told me there wasn't much opportunity for advancement
where he was, and that he would like to get into something where
there was more chance to do something and be somebody, I told him
that if he wanted to come on here and try his luck with us, we
might do a little something for him--give him a chance to show what
he could do, at least."

He had not intended to set forth at once the fact that he became
interested in his nephew to this extent, but--rather to wait and
thrash it out at different times with both his wife and son, but
the occasion having seemed to offer itself, he had spoken.  And now
that he had, he felt rather glad of it, for because Clyde so much
resembled Gilbert he did want to do a little something for him.

But Gilbert bristled and chilled, the while Bella and Myra, if not
Mrs. Griffiths, who favored her only son in everything--even to
preferring him to be without a blood relation or other rival of any
kind, rather warmed to the idea.  A cousin who was a Griffiths and
good-looking and about Gilbert's age--and who, as their father
reported, was rather pleasant and well-mannered--that pleased Bella
and Myra while Mrs. Griffiths, noting Gilbert's face darken, was
not so moved.  He would not like him.  But out of respect for her
husband's authority and general ability in all things, she now
remained silent.  But not so, Bella.

"Oh, you're going to give him a place, are you, Dad?" she
commented.  "That's interesting.  I hope he's better-looking than
the rest of our cousins."

"Bella," chided Mrs. Griffiths, while Myra, recalling a gauche
uncle and cousin who had come on from Vermont several years before
to visit them a few days, smiled wisely.  At the same time Gilbert,
deeply irritated, was mentally fighting against the idea.  He could
not see it at all.  "Of course we're not turning away applicants
who want to come in and learn the business right along now, as it
is," he said sharply.

"Oh, I know," replied his father, "but not cousins and nephews
exactly.  Besides he looks very intelligent and ambitious to me.
It wouldn't do any great harm if we let at least one of our
relatives come here and show what he can do.  I can't see why we
shouldn't employ him as well as another."

"I don't believe Gil likes the idea of any other fellow in Lycurgus
having the same name and looking like him," suggested Bella, slyly,
and with a certain touch of malice due to the fact that her brother
was always criticizing her.

"Oh, what rot!" Gilbert snapped irritably.  "Why don't you make a
sensible remark once in a while?  What do I care whether he has the
same name or not--or looks like me, either?"  His expression at the
moment was particularly sour.

"Gilbert!" pleaded his mother, reprovingly.  "How can you talk so?
And to your sister, too?"

"Well, I don't want to do anything in connection with this young
man if it's going to cause any hard feelings here," went on
Griffiths senior.  "All I know is that his father was never very
practical and I doubt if Clyde has ever had a real chance."  (His
son winced at this friendly and familiar use of his cousin's first
name.)  "My only idea in bringing him on here was to give him a
start.  I haven't the faintest idea whether he would make good or
not.  He might and again he might not.  If he didn't--"  He threw
up one hand as much as to say, "If he doesn't, we will have to toss
him aside, of course."

"Well, I think that's very kind of you, father," observed Mrs.
Griffiths, pleasantly and diplomatically.  "I hope he proves
satisfactory."

"And there's another thing," added Griffiths wisely and sententiously.
"I don't expect this young man, so long as he is in my employ and
just because he's a nephew of mine, to be treated differently to any
other employee in the factory.  He's coming here to work--not play.
And while he is here, trying, I don't expect any of you to pay him
any social attention--not the slightest.  He's not the sort of boy
anyhow, that would want to put himself on us--at least he didn't
impress me that way, and he wouldn't be coming down here with any
notion that he was to be placed on an equal footing with any of us.
That would be silly.  Later on, if he proves that he is really worth
while, able to take care of himself, knows his place and keeps it,
and any of you wanted to show him any little attention, well, then
it will be time enough to see, but not before then."

By then, the maid, Amanda, assistant to Mrs. Truesdale, was taking
away the dinner plates and preparing to serve the dessert.  But as
Mr. Griffiths rarely ate dessert, and usually chose this period,
unless company was present, to look after certain stock and banking
matters which he kept in a small desk in the library, he now pushed
back his chair, arose, excusing himself to his family, and walked
into the library adjoining.  The others remained.

"I would like to see what he's like, wouldn't you?" Myra asked her
mother.

"Yes.  And I do hope he measures up to all of your father's
expectations.  He will not feel right if he doesn't."

"I can't get this," observed Gilbert, "bringing people on now when
we can hardly take care of those we have.  And besides, imagine
what the bunch around here will say if they find out that our
cousin was only a bell-hop before coming here!"

"Oh, well, they won't have to know that, will they?" said Myra.

"Oh, won't they?  Well, what's to prevent him from speaking about
it--unless we tell him not to--or some one coming along who has
seen him there."  His eyes snapped viciously.  "At any rate, I hope
he doesn't.  It certainly wouldn't do us any good around here."

And Bella added, "I hope he's not dull as Uncle Allen's two boys.
They're the most uninteresting boys I ever did see."

"Bella," cautioned her mother once more.



Chapter 3


The Clyde whom Samuel Griffiths described as having met at the
Union League Club in Chicago, was a somewhat modified version of
the one who had fled from Kansas City three years before.  He was
now twenty, a little taller and more firmly but scarcely any more
robustly built, and considerably more experienced, of course.  For
since leaving his home and work in Kansas City and coming in
contact with some rough usage in the world--humble tasks, wretched
rooms, no intimates to speak of, plus the compulsion to make his
own way as best he might--he had developed a kind of self-reliance
and smoothness of address such as one would scarcely have credited
him with three years before.  There was about him now, although he
was not nearly so smartly dressed as when he left Kansas City, a
kind of conscious gentility of manner which pleased, even though it
did not at first arrest attention.  Also, and this was considerably
different from the Clyde who had crept away from Kansas City in a
box car, he had much more of an air of caution and reserve.

For ever since he had fled from Kansas City, and by one humble
device and another forced to make his way, he had been coming to
the conclusion that on himself alone depended his future.  His
family, as he now definitely sensed, could do nothing for him.
They were too impractical and too poor--his mother, father, Esta,
all of them.

At the same time, in spite of all their difficulties, he could not
now help but feel drawn to them, his mother in particular, and the
old home life that had surrounded him as a boy--his brother and
sisters, Esta included, since she, too, as he now saw it, had been
brought no lower than he by circumstances over which she probably
had no more control.  And often, his thoughts and mood had gone
back with a definite and disconcerting pang because of the way in
which he had treated his mother as well as the way in which his
career in Kansas City had been suddenly interrupted--his loss of
Hortense Briggs--a severe blow; the troubles that had come to him
since; the trouble that must have come to his mother and Esta
because of him.

On reaching St. Louis two days later after his flight, and after
having been most painfully bundled out into the snow a hundred
miles from Kansas City in the gray of a winter morning, and at the
same time relieved of his watch and overcoat by two brakemen who
had found him hiding in the car, he had picked up a Kansas City
paper--The Star--only to realize that his worst fear in regard to
all that had occurred had come true.  For there, under a two-column
head, and with fully a column and a half of reading matter below,
was the full story of all that had happened: a little girl, the
eleven-year-old daughter of a well-to-do Kansas City family,
knocked down and almost instantly killed--she had died an hour
later; Sparser and Miss Sipe in a hospital and under arrest at the
same time, guarded by a policeman sitting in the hospital awaiting
their recovery; a splendid car very seriously damaged; Sparser's
father, in the absence of the owner of the car for whom he worked,
at once incensed and made terribly unhappy by the folly and seeming
criminality and recklessness of his son.

But what was worse, the unfortunate Sparser had already been
charged with larceny and homicide, and wishing, no doubt, to
minimize his own share in this grave catastrophe, had not only
revealed the names of all who were with him in the car--the youths
in particular and their hotel address--but had charged that they
along with him were equally guilty, since they had urged him to
make speed at the time and against his will--a claim which was true
enough, as Clyde knew.  And Mr. Squires, on being interviewed at
the hotel, had furnished the police and the newspapers with the
names of their parents and their home addresses.

This last was the sharpest blow of all.  For there followed
disturbing pictures of how their respective parents or relatives
had taken it on being informed of their sins.  Mrs. Ratterer, Tom's
mother, had cried and declared her boy was a good boy, and had not
meant to do any harm, she was sure.  And Mrs. Hegglund--Oscar's
devoted but aged mother--had said that there was not a more honest
or generous soul and that he must have been drinking.  And at his
own home--The Star had described his mother as standing, pale, very
startled and very distressed, clasping and unclasping her hands and
looking as though she were scarcely able to grasp what was meant,
unwilling to believe that her son had been one of the party and
assuring all that he would most certainly return soon and explain
all, and that there must be some mistake.

However, he had not returned.  Nor had he heard anything more after
that.  For, owing to his fear of the police, as well as of his
mother--her sorrowful, hopeless eyes, he had not written for
months, and then a letter to his mother only to say that he was
well and that she must not worry.  He gave neither name nor
address.  Later, after that he had wandered on, essaying one small
job and another, in St. Louis, Peoria, Chicago, Milwaukee--
dishwashing in a restaurant, soda-clerking in a small outlying
drug-store, attempting to learn to be a shoe clerk, a grocer's
clerk, and what not; and being discharged and laid off and quitting
because he did not like it.  He had sent her ten dollars once--
another time five, having, as he felt, that much to spare.  After
nearly a year and a half he had decided that the search must have
lessened, his own part in the crime being forgotten, possibly, or
by then not deemed sufficiently important to pursue--and when he
was once more making a moderate living as the driver of a delivery
wagon in Chicago, a job that paid him fifteen dollars a week, he
resolved that he would write his mother, because now he could say
that he had a decent place and had conducted himself respectably
for a long time, although not under his own name.

And so at that time, living in a hall bedroom on the West Side of
Chicago--Paulina Street--he had written his mother the following
letter:


DEAR MOTHER:

Are you still in Kansas City?  I wish you would write and tell me.
I would so like to hear from you again and to write you again, too,
if you really want me to.  Honestly I do, Ma.  I have been so
lonely here.  Only be careful and don't let any one know where I am
yet.  It won't do any good and might do a lot of harm just when I
am trying so hard to get a start again.  I didn't do anything wrong
that time, myself.  Really I didn't, although the papers said so--
just went along.  But I was afraid they would punish me for
something that I didn't do.  I just couldn't come back then.  I
wasn't to blame and then I was afraid of what you and father might
think.  But they invited me, Ma.  I didn't tell him to go any
faster or to take that car like he said.  He took it himself and
invited me and the others to go along.  Maybe we were all to blame
for running down that little girl, but we didn't mean to.  None of
us.  And I have been so terribly sorry ever since.  Think of all
the trouble I have caused you!  And just at the time when you most
needed me.  Gee!  Mother, I hope you can forgive me.  Can you?

I keep wondering how you are.  And Esta and Julia and Frank and
Father.  I wish I knew where you are and what you are doing.  You
know how I feel about you, don't you, Ma?  I've got a lot more
sense now, anyhow, I see things different than I used to.  I want
to do something in this world.  I want to be successful.  I have
only a fair place now, not as good as I had in K. C., but fair, and
not in the same line.  But I want something better, though I don't
want to go back in the hotel business either if I can help it.
It's not so very good for a young man like me--too high-flying, I
guess.  You see I know a lot more than I did back there.  They like
me all right where I am, but I got to get on in this world.
Besides I am not really making more than my expenses here now, just
my room and board and clothes but I am trying to save a little in
order to get into some line where I can work up and learn
something.  A person has to have a line of some kind these days.
I see that now.

Won't you write me and tell me how you all are and what you are
doing?  I'd like to know.  Give my love to Frank and Julia and
Father and Esta, if they are all still there.  I love you just the
same and I guess you care for me a little, anyhow, don't you?  I
won't sign my real name, because it may be dangerous yet (I haven't
been using it since I left K. C.)  But I'll give you my other one,
which I'm going to leave off pretty soon and take up my old one.
Wish I could do it now, but I'm afraid to yet.  You can address me,
if you will, as

HARRY TENET,

General Delivery, Chicago

I'll call for it in a few days.  I sign this way so as not to cause
you or me any more trouble, see?  But as soon as I feel more sure
that this other thing has blown over, I'll use my own name again
sure.

Lovingly,

YOUR SON.


He drew a line where his real name should be and underneath wrote
"you know" and mailed the letter.

Following that, because his mother had been anxious about him all
this time and wondering where he was, he soon received a letter,
postmarked Denver, which surprised him very much, for he had
expected to hear from her as still in Kansas City.


DEAR SON:

I was surprised and so glad to get my boy's letter and to know that
you were alive and safe.  I had hoped and prayed that you would
return to the straight and narrow path--the only path that will
ever lead you to success and happiness of any kind, and that God
would let me hear from you as safe and well and working somewhere
and doing well.  And now he has rewarded my prayers.  I knew he
would.  Blessed be His holy name.

Not that I blame you altogether for all that terrible trouble you
got into and bringing so much suffering and disgrace on yourself
and us--for well I know how the devil tempts and pursues all of us
mortals and particularly just such a child as you.  Oh, my son, if
you only knew how you must be on your guard to avoid these
pitfalls.  And you have such a long road ahead of you.  Will you be
ever watchful and try always to cling to the teachings of our
Saviour that your mother has always tried to impress upon the minds
and hearts of all you dear children?  Will you stop and listen to
the voice of our Lord that is ever with us, guiding our footsteps
safely up the rocky path that leads to a heaven more beautiful than
we can ever imagine here?  Promise me, my child, that you will hold
fast to all your early teachings and always bear in mind that
"right is might," and my boy, never, never, take a drink of any
kind no matter who offers it to you.  There is where the devil
reigns in all his glory and is ever ready to triumph over the weak
one.  Remember always what I have told you so often "Strong drink
is raging and wine is a mocker," and it is my earnest prayer that
these words will ring in your ears every time you are tempted--for
I am sure now that that was perhaps the real cause of that terrible
accident.

I suffered terribly over that, Clyde, and just at the time when I
had such a dreadful ordeal to face with Esta.  I almost lost her.
She had such an awful time.  The poor child paid dearly for her
sin.  We had to go in debt so deep and it took so long to work it
out--but finally we did and now things are not as bad as they were,
quite.

As you see, we are now in Denver.  We have a mission of our own
here now with housing quarters for all of us.  Besides we have a
few rooms to rent which Esta, and you know she is now Mrs. Nixon,
of course, takes care of.  She has a fine little boy who reminds
your father and me of you so much when you were a baby.  He does
little things that are you all over again so many times that we
almost feel that you are with us again--as you were.  It is
comforting, too, sometimes.

Frank and Julie have grown so and are quite a help to me.  Frank
has a paper route and earns a little money which helps.  Esta wants
to keep them in school just as long as we can.

Your father is not very well, but of course, he is getting older,
and he does the best he can.

I am awful glad, Clyde, that you are trying so hard to better
yourself in every way and last night your father was saying again
that your uncle, Samuel Griffiths, of Lycurgus, is so rich and
successful and I thought that maybe if you wrote him and asked him
to give you something there so that you could learn the business,
perhaps he would.  I don't see why he wouldn't.  After all you are
his nephew.  You know he has a great collar business there in
Lycurgus and he is very rich, so they say.  Why don't you write him
and see?  Somehow I feel that perhaps he would find a place for you
and then you would have something sure to work for.  Let me know if
you do and what he says.

I want to hear from you often, Clyde.  Please write and let us know
all about you and how you are getting along.  Won't you?  Of course
we love you as much as ever, and will do our best always to try to
guide you right.  We want you to succeed more than you know, but we
also want you to be a good boy, and live a clean, righteous life,
for, my son, what matter it if a man gaineth the whole world and
loseth his own soul?

Write your mother, Clyde, and bear in mind that her love is always
with you--guiding you--pleading with you to do right in the name of
the Lord.

Affectionately,

MOTHER.


And so it was that Clyde had begun to think of his uncle Samuel and
his great business long before he encountered him.  He had also
experienced an enormous relief in learning that his parents were no
longer in the same financial difficulties they were when he left,
and safely housed in a hotel, or at least a lodging house, probably
connected with this new mission.

Then two months after he had received his mother's first letter and
while he was deciding almost every day that he must do something,
and that forthwith, he chanced one day to deliver to the Union
League Club on Jackson Boulevard a package of ties and handkerchiefs
which some visitor to Chicago had purchased at the store, for which
he worked.  Upon entering, who should he come in contact with but
Ratterer in the uniform of a club employee.  He was in charge of
inquiry and packages at the door.  Although neither he nor Ratterer
quite grasped immediately the fact that they were confronting one
another again, after a moment Ratterer had exclaimed:  "Clyde!"  And
then seizing him by an arm, he added enthusiastically and yet
cautiously in a very low tone:  "Well, of all things!  The devil!
Whaddya know?  Put 'er there.  Where do you come from anyhow?"  And
Clyde, equally excited, exclaimed, "Well, by jing, if it ain't Tom.
Whaddya know?  You working here?"

Ratterer, who (like Clyde) had for the moment quite forgotten the
troublesome secret which lay between them, added:  "That's right.
Surest thing you know.  Been here for nearly a year, now."  Then
with a sudden pull at Clyde's arm, as much as to say, "Silence!" he
drew Clyde to one side, out of the hearing of the youth to whom he
had been talking as Clyde came in, and added:  "Ssh!  I'm working
here under my own name, but I'd rather not let 'em know I'm from
K. C., see.  I'm supposed to be from Cleveland."

And with that he once more pressed Clyde's arm genially and looked
him over.  And Clyde, equally moved, added:  "Sure.  That's all
right.  I'm glad you were able to connect.  My name's Tenet, Harry
Tenet.  Don't forget that."  And both were radiantly happy because
of old times' sake.

But Ratterer, noticing Clyde's delivery uniform, observed:
"Driving a delivery, eh?  Gee, that's funny.  You driving a
delivery.  Imagine.  That kills me.  What do you want to do that
for?"  Then seeing from Clyde's expression that his reference to
his present position might not be the most pleasing thing in the
world, since Clyde at once observed:  "Well, I've been up against
it, sorta," he added:  "But say, I want to see you.  Where are you
living?"  (Clyde told him.)  "That's all right.  I get off here at
six.  Why not drop around after you're through work.  Or, I'll tell
you--suppose we meet at--well, how about Henrici's on Randolph
Street?  Is that all right?  At seven, say.  I get off at six and I
can be over there by then if you can."

Clyde, who was happy to the point of ecstasy in meeting Ratterer
again, nodded a cheerful assent.

He boarded his wagon and continued his deliveries, yet for the rest
of the afternoon his mind was on this approaching meeting with
Ratterer.  And at five-thirty he hurried to his barn and then to
his boarding house on the west side, where he donned his street
clothes, then hastened to Henrici's.  He had not been standing on
the corner a minute before Ratterer appeared, very genial and
friendly and dressed, if anything, more neatly than ever.

"Gee, it's good to have a look at you, old socks!" he began.  "Do
you know you're the only one of that bunch that I've seen since I
left K. C.?  That's right.  My sister wrote me after we left home
that no one seemed to know what became of either Higby or Heggie,
or you, either.  They sent that fellow Sparser up for a year--did
you hear that?  Tough, eh?  But not so much for killing the little
girl, but for taking the car and running it without a license and
not stopping when signaled.  That's what they got him for.  But
say,"--he lowered his voice most significantly at this point--
"we'da got that if they'd got us.  Oh, gee, I was scared.  And
run?"  And once more he began to laugh, but rather hysterically at
that.  "What a wallop, eh?  An' us leavin' him and that girl in the
car.  Oh, say.  Tough, what?  Just what else could a fellow do,
though?  No need of all of us going up, eh?  What was her name?
Laura Sipe.  An' you cut out before I saw you, even.  And that
little Briggs girl of yours did, too.  Did you go home with her?"

Clyde shook his head negatively.

"I should say I didn't," he exclaimed.

"Well, where did you go then?" he asked.

Clyde told him.  And after he had set forth a full picture of his
own wayfarings, Ratterer returned with:  "Gee, you didn't know that
that little Briggs girl left with a guy from out there for New York
right after that, did you?  Some fellow who worked in a cigar
store, so Louise told me.  She saw her afterwards just before she
left with a new fur coat and all."  (Clyde winced sadly.)  "Gee,
but you were a sucker to fool around with her.  She didn't care for
you or nobody.  But you was pretty much gone on her, I guess, eh?"
And he grinned at Clyde amusedly, and chucked him under the arm, in
his old teasing way.

But in regard to himself, he proceeded to unfold a tale of only
modest adventure, which was very different from the one Clyde had
narrated, a tale which had less of nerves and worry and more of a
sturdy courage and faith in his own luck and possibilities.  And
finally he had "caught on" to this, because, as he phrased it, "you
can always get something in Chi."

And here he had been ever since--"very quiet, of course," but no
one had ever said a word to him.

And forthwith, he began to explain that just at present there
wasn't anything in the Union League, but that he would talk to Mr.
Haley who was superintendent of the club--and that if Clyde wanted
to, and Mr. Haley knew of anything, he would try and find out if
there was an opening anywhere, or likely to be, and if so, Clyde
could slip into it.

"But can that worry stuff," he said to Clyde toward the end of the
evening.  "It don't get you nothing."

And then only two days after this most encouraging conversation,
and while Clyde was still debating whether he would resign his job,
resume his true name and canvass the various hotels in search of
work, a note came to his room, brought by one of the bell-boys of
the Union League which read:  "See Mr. Lightall at the Great
Northern before noon to-morrow.  There's a vacancy over there.  It
ain't the very best, but it'll get you something better later."

And accordingly Clyde, after telephoning his department manager
that he was ill and would not be able to work that day, made his
way to this hotel in his very best clothes.  And on the strength of
what references he could give, was allowed to go to work; and much
to his relief under his own name.  Also, to his gratification, his
salary was fixed at twenty dollars a month, meals included.  But
the tips, as he now learned, aggregated not more than ten a week--
yet that, counting meals was far more than he was now getting as he
comforted himself; and so much easier work, even if it did take him
back into the old line, where he still feared to be seen and
arrested.

It was not so very long after this--not more than three months--
before a vacancy occurred in the Union League staff.  Ratterer,
having some time before established himself as day assistant to the
club staff captain, and being on good terms with him, was able to
say to the latter that he knew exactly the man for the place--Clyde
Griffiths--then employed at the Great Northern.  And accordingly,
Clyde was sent for, and being carefully coached beforehand by
Ratterer as to how to approach his new superior, and what to say,
he was given the place.

And here, very different from the Great Northern and superior from
a social and material point of view, as Clyde saw it, to even the
Green-Davidson, he was able once more to view at close range a type
of life that most affected, unfortunately, his bump of position and
distinction.  For to this club from day to day came or went such a
company of seemingly mentally and socially worldly elect as he had
never seen anywhere before, the self-integrated and self-centered
from not only all of the states of his native land but from all
countries and continents.  American politicians from the north,
south, east, west--the principal politicians and bosses, or alleged
statesmen of their particular regions--surgeons, scientists,
arrived physicians, generals, literary and social figures, not only
from America but from the world over.

Here also, a fact which impressed and even startled his sense of
curiosity and awe, even--there was no faintest trace of that sex
element which had characterized most of the phases of life to be
seen in the Green-Davidson, and more recently the Great Northern.
In fact, in so far as he could remember, had seemed to run through
and motivate nearly, if not quite all of the phases of life that he
had thus far contacted.  But here was no sex--no trace of it.  No
women were admitted to this club.  These various distinguished
individuals came and went, singly as a rule, and with the noiseless
vigor and reserve that characterizes the ultra successful.  They
often ate alone, conferred in pairs and groups, noiselessly--read
their papers or books, or went here and there in swiftly driven
automobiles--but for the most part seemed to be unaware of, or at
least unaffected by, that element of passion, which, to his
immature mind up to this time, had seemed to propel and disarrange
so many things in those lesser worlds with which up to now he had
been identified.

Probably one could not attain to or retain one's place in so
remarkable a world as this unless one were indifferent to sex, a
disgraceful passion, of course.  And hence in the presence or under
the eyes of such people one had to act and seem as though such
thoughts as from time to time swayed one were far from one's mind.

After he had worked here a little while, under the influence of
this organization and various personalities who came here, he had
taken on a most gentlemanly and reserved air.  When he was within
the precincts of the club itself, he felt himself different from
what he really was--more subdued, less romantic, more practical,
certain that if he tried now, imitated the soberer people of the
world, and those only, that some day he might succeed, if not
greatly, at least much better than he had thus far.  And who knows?
What if he worked very steadily and made only the right sort of
contacts and conducted himself with the greatest care here, one of
these very remarkable men whom he saw entering or departing from
here might take a fancy to him and offer him a connection with
something important somewhere, such as he had never had before, and
that might lift him into a world such as he had never known.

For to say the truth, Clyde had a soul that was not destined to
grow up.  He lacked decidedly that mental clarity and inner
directing application that in so many permits them to sort out from
the facts and avenues of life the particular thing or things that
make for their direct advancement.



Chapter 4


However, as he now fancied, it was because he lacked an education
that he had done so poorly.  Because of those various moves from
city to city in his early youth, he had never been permitted to
collect such a sum of practical training in any field as would
permit him, so he thought, to aspire to the great worlds of which
these men appeared to be a part.  Yet his soul now yearned for
this.  The people who lived in fine houses, who stopped at great
hotels, and had men like Mr. Squires, and the manager of the bell-
hops here, to wait on them and arrange for their comfort.  And he
was still a bell-hop.  And close to twenty-one.  At times it made
him very sad.  He wished and wished that he could get into some
work where he could rise and be somebody--not always remain a bell-
hop, as at times he feared he might.

About the time that he reached this conclusion in regard to himself
and was meditating on some way to improve and safeguard his future,
his uncle, Samuel Griffiths, arrived in Chicago.  And having
connections here which made a card to this club an obvious
civility, he came directly to it and for several days was about the
place conferring with individuals who came to see him, or hurrying
to and fro to meet people and visit concerns whom he deemed it
important to see.

And it was not an hour after he arrived before Ratterer, who had
charge of the pegboard at the door by day and who had but a moment
before finished posting the name of this uncle on the board,
signaled to Clyde, who came over.

"Didn't you say you had an uncle or something by the name of
Griffiths in the collar business somewhere in New York State?"

"Sure," replied Clyde.  "Samuel Griffiths.  He has a big collar
factory in Lycurgus.  That's his ad you see in all the papers and
that's his fire sign over there on Michigan Avenue."

"Would you know him if you saw him?"

"No," replied Clyde.  "I never saw him in all my life."

"I'll bet anything it's the same fellow," commented Ratterer,
consulting a small registry slip that had been handed him.  "Looka
here--Samuel Griffiths, Lycurgus, N. Y.  That's probably the same
guy, eh?"

"Surest thing you know," added Clyde, very much interested and even
excited, for this was the identical uncle about whom he had been
thinking so long.

"He just went through here a few minutes ago," went on Ratterer.
"Devoy took his bags up to K.  Swell-looking man, too.  You better
keep your eye open and take a look at him when he comes down again.
Maybe it's your uncle.  He's only medium tall and kinda thin.
Wears a small gray mustache and a pearl gray hat.  Good-lookin'.
I'll point him out to you.  If it is your uncle you better shine up
to him.  Maybe he'll do somepin' for you--give you a collar or
two," he added, laughing.

Clyde laughed too as though he very much appreciated this joke,
although in reality he was flustered.  His uncle Samuel!  And in
this club!  Well, then this was his opportunity to introduce
himself to his uncle.  He had intended writing him before ever he
secured this place, but now he was here in this club and might
speak to him if he chose.

But hold!  What would his uncle think of him, supposing he chose to
introduce himself?  For he was a bell-boy again and acting in that
capacity in this club.  What, for instance, might be his uncle's
attitude toward boys who worked as bell-boys, particularly at his--
Clyde's--years.  For he was over twenty now, and getting to be
pretty old for a bell-boy, that is, if one ever intended to be
anything else.  A man of his wealth and high position might look on
bell-hopping as menial, particularly bell-boys who chanced to be
related to him.  He might not wish to have anything to do with him--
might not even wish him to address him in any way.  It was in this
state that he remained for fully twenty-four hours after he knew
that his uncle had arrived at this club.

The following afternoon, however, after he had seen him at least
half a dozen times and had been able to formulate the most
agreeable impressions of him, since his uncle appeared to be so
very quick, alert, incisive--so very different from his father in
every way, and so rich and respected by every one here--he began to
wonder, to fear even at times, whether he was going to let this
remarkable opportunity slip.  For after all, his uncle did not look
to him to be at all unkindly--quite the reverse--very pleasant.
And when, at the suggestion of Ratterer, he had gone to his uncle's
room to secure a letter which was to be sent by special messenger,
his uncle had scarcely looked at him, but instead had handed him
the letter and half a dollar.  "See that a boy takes that right
away and keep the money for yourself," he had remarked.

Clyde's excitement was so great at the moment that he wondered that
his uncle did not guess that he was his nephew.  But plainly he did
not.  And he went away a little crest-fallen.

Later some half dozen letters for his uncle having been put in the
key-box, Ratterer called Clyde's attention to them.  "If you want
to run in on him again, here's your chance.  Take those up to him.
He's in his room, I think."  And Clyde, after some hesitation, had
finally taken the letters and gone to his uncle's suite once more.

His uncle was writing at the time and merely called:  "Come!"  Then
Clyde, entering and smiling rather enigmatically, observed:
"Here's some mail for you, Mr. Griffiths."

"Thank you very much, my son," replied his uncle and proceeded to
finger his vest pocket for change.  but Clyde, seizing this
opportunity, exclaimed:  "Oh, no, I don't want anything for that."
And then before his uncle could say anything more, although he
proceeded to hold out some silver to him, he added:  "I believe I'm
related to you, Mr. Griffiths.  You're Mr. Samuel Griffiths of the
Griffiths Collar Company of Lycurgus, aren't you?"

"Yes, I have a little something to do with it, I believe.  Who are
you?" returned his uncle, looking at him sharply.

"My name's Clyde Griffiths.  My father, Asa Griffiths, is your
brother, I believe."

At the mention of this particular brother, who, to the knowledge of
all the members of this family, was distinctly not a success
materially, the face of Samuel Griffiths clouded the least trifle.
For the mention of Asa brought rather unpleasingly before him the
stocky and decidedly not well-groomed figure of his younger
brother, whom he had not seen in so many years.  His most recent
distinct picture of him was as a young man of about Clyde's age
about his father's house near Bertwick, Vermont.  But how
different!  Clyde's father was then short, fat and poorly knit
mentally as well as physically--oleaginous and a bit mushy, as it
were.  His chin was not firm, his eyes a pale watery blue, and his
hair frizzled.  Whereas this son of his was neat, alert, good-
looking and seemingly well-mannered and intelligent, as most bell-
hops were inclined to be as he noted.  And he liked him.

However, Samuel Griffiths, who along with his elder brother Allen
had inherited the bulk of his father's moderate property, and this
because of Joseph Griffiths' prejudice against his youngest son,
had always felt that perhaps an injustice had been done Asa.  For
Asa, not having proved very practical or intelligent, his father
had first attempted to drive and then later ignore him, and finally
had turned him out at about Clyde's age, and had afterward left the
bulk of his property, some thirty thousand dollars, to these two
elder brothers, share and share alike--willing Asa but a petty
thousand.

It was this thought in connection with this younger brother that
now caused him to stare at Clyde rather curiously.  For Clyde, as
he could see, was in no way like the younger brother who had been
harried from his father's home so many years before.  Rather he was
more like his own son, Gilbert, whom, as he now saw he resembled.
Also in spite of all of Clyde's fears he was obviously impressed by
the fact that he should have any kind of place in this interesting
club.  For to Samuel Griffiths, who was more than less confined to
the limited activities and environment of Lycurgus, the character
and standing of this particular club was to be respected.  And
those young men who served the guests of such an institution as
this, were, in the main, possessed of efficient and unobtrusive
manners.  Therefore to see Clyde standing before him in his neat
gray and black uniform and with the air of one whose social manners
at least were excellent, caused him to think favorably of him.

"You don't tell me!" he exclaimed interestedly.  "So you're Asa's
son.  I do declare!  Well, now, this is a surprise.  You see I
haven't seen or heard from your father in at least--well, say,
twenty-five or six years, anyhow.  The last time I did hear from
him he was living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I think, or here.  He
isn't here now, I presume."

"Oh, no, sir," replied Clyde, who was glad to be able to say this.
"The family live in Denver.  I'm here all alone."

"Your father and mother are living, I presume."

"Yes, sir.  They're both alive."

"Still connected with religious work, is he--your father?"

"Well, yes, sir," answered Clyde, a little dubiously, for he was
still convinced that the form of religious work his father essayed
was of all forms the poorest and most inconsequential socially.
"Only the church he has now," he went on, "has a lodging house
connected with it.  About forty rooms, I believe.  He and my mother
run that and the mission too."

"Oh, I see."

He was so anxious to make a better impression on his uncle than the
situation seemed to warrant that he was quite willing to exaggerate
a little.

"Well, I'm glad they're doing so well," continued Samuel Griffiths,
rather impressed with the trim and vigorous appearance of Clyde.
"You like this kind of work, I suppose?"

"Well, not exactly.  No, Mr. Griffiths, I don't," replied Clyde
quickly, alive at once to the possibilities of this query.  "It
pays well enough.  But I don't like the way you have to make the
money you get here.  It isn't my idea of a salary at all.  But I
got in this because I didn't have a chance to study any particular
work or get in with some company where there was a real chance to
work up and make something of myself.  My mother wanted me to write
you once and ask whether there was any chance in your company for
me to begin and work up, but I was afraid maybe that you might not
like that exactly, and so I never did."

He paused, smiling, and yet with an inquiring look in his eye.

His uncle looked solemnly at him for a moment, pleased by his looks
and his general manner of approach in this instance, and then
replied:  "Well, that is very interesting.  You should have
written, if you wanted to--"  Then, as was his custom in all
matters, he cautiously paused.  Clyde noted that he was hesitating
to encourage him.

"I don't suppose there is anything in your company that you would
let me do?" he ventured boldly, after a moment.

Samuel Griffiths merely stared at him thoughtfully.  He liked and
he did not like this direct request.  However, Clyde appeared at
least a very adaptable person for the purpose.  He seemed bright
and ambitious--so much like his own son, and he might readily fit
into some department as head or assistant under his son, once he
had acquired a knowledge of the various manufacturing processes.
At any rate he might let him try it.  There could be no real harm
in that.  Besides, there was his younger brother, to whom, perhaps,
both he and his older brother Allen owed some form of obligation,
if not exactly restitution.

"Well," he said, after a moment, "that is something I would have to
think over a little.  I wouldn't be able to say, offhand, whether
there is or not.  We wouldn't be able to pay you as much as you
make here to begin with," he warned.

"Oh, that's all right," exclaimed Clyde, who was far more
fascinated by the thought of connecting himself with his uncle than
anything else.  "I wouldn't expect very much until I was able to
earn it, of course."

"Besides, it might be that you would find that you didn't like the
collar business once you got into it, or we might find we didn't
like you.  Not every one is suited to it by a long way."

"Well, all you'd have to do then would be to discharge me," assured
Clyde.  "I've always thought I would be, though, ever since I heard
of you and your big company."

This last remark pleased Samuel Griffiths.  Plainly he and his
achievements had stood in the nature of an ideal to this youth.

"Very well," he said.  "I won't be able to give any more time to
this now.  But I'll be here for a day or two more, anyhow, and I'll
think it over.  It may be that I will be able to do something for
you.  I can't say now."  And he turned quite abruptly to his
letters.

And Clyde, feeling that he had made as good an impression as could
be expected under the circumstances and that something might come
of it, thanked him profusely and beat a hasty retreat.

The next day, having thought it over and deciding that Clyde,
because of his briskness and intelligence, was likely to prove as
useful as another, Samuel Griffiths, after due deliberation as to
the situation at home, informed Clyde that in case any small
opening in the home factory occurred he would be glad to notify
him.  But he would not even go so far as to guarantee him that an
opening would immediately be forthcoming.  He must wait.

Accordingly Clyde was left to speculate as to how soon, if ever, a
place in his uncle's factory would be made for him.

In the meanwhile Samuel Griffiths had returned to Lycurgus.  And
after a later conference with his son, he decided that Clyde might
be inducted into the very bottom of the business at least--the
basement of the Griffiths plant, where the shrinking of all fabrics
used in connection with the manufacture of collars was brought
about, and where beginners in this industry who really desired to
acquire the technique of it were placed, for it was his idea that
Clyde by degrees was to be taught the business from top to bottom.
And since he must support himself in some form not absolutely
incompatible with the standing of the Griffiths family here in
Lycurgus, it was decided to pay him the munificent sum of fifteen
dollars to begin.

For while Samuel Griffiths, as well as his son Gilbert, realized
that this was small pay (not for an ordinary apprentice but for
Clyde, since he was a relative) yet so inclined were both toward
the practical rather than the charitable in connection with all
those who worked for them, that the nearer the beginner in this
factory was to the clear mark of necessity and compulsion, the
better.  Neither could tolerate the socialistic theory relative to
capitalistic exploitation.  As both saw it, there had to be higher
and higher social orders to which the lower social classes could
aspire.  One had to have castes.  One was foolishly interfering
with and disrupting necessary and unavoidable social standards when
one tried to unduly favor any one--even a relative.  It was
necessary when dealing with the classes and intelligences below
one, commercially or financially, to handle them according to the
standards to which they were accustomed.  And the best of these
standards were those which held these lower individuals to a clear
realization of how difficult it was to come by money--to an
understanding of how very necessary it was for all who were engaged
in what both considered the only really important constructive work
of the world--that of material manufacture--to understand how very
essential it was to be drilled, and that sharply and systematically,
in all the details and processes which comprise that constructive
work.  And so to become inured to a narrow and abstemious life in so
doing.  It was good for their characters.  It informed and
strengthened the minds and spirits of those who were destined to
rise.  And those who were not should be kept right where they were.

Accordingly, about a week after that, the nature of Clyde's work
having been finally decided upon, a letter was dispatched to him to
Chicago by Samuel Griffiths himself in which he set forth that if
he chose he might present himself any time now within the next few
weeks.  But he must give due notice in writing of at least ten days
in advance of his appearance in order that he might be properly
arranged for.  And upon his arrival he was to seek out Mr. Gilbert
Griffiths at the office of the mill, who would look after him.

And upon receipt of this Clyde was very much thrilled and at once
wrote to his mother that he had actually secured a place with his
uncle and was going to Lycurgus.  Also that he was going to try to
achieve a real success now.  Whereupon she wrote him a long letter,
urging him to be, oh, so careful of his conduct and associates.
Bad companionship was at the root of nearly all of the errors and
failures that befell an ambitious youth such as he.  If he would
only avoid evil-minded or foolish and headstrong boys and girls,
all would be well.  It was so easy for a young man of his looks and
character to be led astray by an evil woman.  He had seen what had
befallen him in Kansas City.  But now he was still young and he was
going to work for a man who was very rich and who could do so much
for him, if he would.  And he was to write her frequently as to the
outcome of his efforts here.

And so, after having notified his uncle as he had requested, Clyde
finally took his departure for Lycurgus.  But on his arrival there,
since his original notification from his uncle had called for no
special hour at which to call at the factory, he did not go at
once, but instead sought out the important hotel of Lycurgus, the
Lycurgus House.

Then finding himself with ample time on his hands, and very curious
about the character of this city in which he was to work, and his
uncle's position in it, he set forth to look it over, his thought
being that once he reported and began work he might not soon have
the time again.  He now ambled out into Central Avenue, the very
heart of Lycurgus, which in this section was crossed by several
business streets, which together with Central Avenue for a few
blocks on either side, appeared to constitute the business center--
all there was to the life and gayety of Lycurgus.



Chapter 5


But once in this and walking about, how different it all seemed to
the world to which so recently he had been accustomed.  For here,
as he had thus far seen, all was on a so much smaller scale.  The
depot, from which only a half hour before he had stepped down, was
so small and dull, untroubled, as he could plainly see, by much
traffic.  And the factory section which lay opposite the small
city--across the Mohawk--was little more than a red and gray
assemblage of buildings with here and there a smokestack projecting
upward, and connected with the city by two bridges--a half dozen
blocks apart--one of them directly at this depot, a wide traffic
bridge across which traveled a car-line following the curves of
Central Avenue, dotted here and there with stores and small homes.

But Central Avenue was quite alive with traffic, pedestrians and
automobiles.  Opposite diagonally from the hotel, which contained a
series of wide plate-glass windows, behind which were many chairs
interspersed with palms and pillars, was the dry-goods emporium of
Stark and Company, a considerable affair, four stories in height,
and of white brick, and at least a hundred feet long, the various
windows of which seemed bright and interesting, crowded with as
smart models as might be seen anywhere.  Also there were other
large concerns, a second hotel, various automobile showrooms, a
moving picture theater.

He found himself ambling on and on until suddenly he was out of the
business district again and in touch with a wide and tree-shaded
thoroughfare of residences, the houses of which, each and every
one, appeared to possess more room space, lawn space, general ease
and repose and dignity even than any with which he had ever been in
contact.  In short, as he sensed it from this brief inspection of
its very central portion, it seemed a very exceptional, if small
city street--rich, luxurious even.  So many imposing wrought-iron
fences, flower-bordered walks, grouped trees and bushes, expensive
and handsome automobiles either beneath porte-cocheres within or
speeding along the broad thoroughfare without.  And in some
neighboring shops--those nearest Central Avenue and the business
heart where this wide and handsome thoroughfare began, were to be
seen such expensive-looking and apparently smart displays of the
things that might well interest people of means and comfort--
motors, jewels, lingerie, leather goods and furniture.

But where now did his uncle and his family live?  In which house?
What street?  Was it larger and finer than any of these he had seen
in this street?

He must return at once, he decided, and report to his uncle.  He
must look up the factory address, probably in that region beyond
the river, and go over there and see him.  What would he say, how
act, what would his uncle set him to doing?  What would his cousin
Gilbert be like?  What would he be likely to think of him?  In his
last letter his uncle had mentioned his son Gilbert.  He retraced
his steps along Central Avenue to the depot and found himself
quickly before the walls of the very large concern he was seeking.
It was of red brick, six stories high--almost a thousand feet long.
It was nearly all windows--at least that portion which had been
most recently added and which was devoted to collars.  An older
section, as Clyde later learned, was connected with the newer
building by various bridges.  And the south walls of both these two
structures, being built at the water's edge, paralleled the Mohawk.
There were also, as he now found, various entrances along River
Street, a hundred feet or more apart--and each one, guarded by an
employee in uniform--entrances numbered one, two and three--which
were labeled "for employees only"--an entrance numbered four which
read "office"--and entrances five and six appeared to be devoted to
freight receipts and shipments.

Clyde made his way to the office portion and finding no one to
hinder him, passed through two sets of swinging doors and found
himself in the presence of a telephone girl seated at a telephone
desk behind a railing, in which was set a small gate--the only
entrance to the main office apparently.  And this she guarded.
She was short, fat, thirty-five and unattractive.

"Well?" she called as Clyde appeared.

"I want to see Mr. Gilbert Griffiths," Clyde began a little
nervously.

"What about?"

"Well, you see, I'm his cousin.  Clyde Griffiths is my name.  I
have a letter here from my uncle, Mr. Samuel Griffiths.  He'll see
me, I think."

As he laid the letter before her, he noticed that her quite severe
and decidedly indifferent expression changed and became not so much
friendly as awed.  For obviously she was very much impressed not
only by the information but his looks, and began to examine him
slyly and curiously.

"I'll see if he's in," she replied much more civilly, and plugging
at the same time a switch which led to Mr. Gilbert Griffiths'
private office.  Word coming back to her apparently that Mr.
Gilbert Griffiths was busy at the moment and could not be
disturbed, she called back:  "It's Mr. Gilbert's cousin, Mr. Clyde
Griffiths.  He has a letter from Mr. Samuel Griffiths."  Then she
said to Clyde:  "Won't you sit down?  I'm sure Mr. Gilbert
Griffiths will see you in a moment.  He's busy just now."

And Clyde, noting the unusual deference paid him--a form of
deference that never in his life before had been offered him--was
strangely moved by it.  To think that he should be a full cousin to
this wealthy and influential family!  This enormous factory!  So
long and wide and high--as he had seen--six stories.  And walking
along the opposite side of the river just now, he had seen through
several open windows whole rooms full of girls and women hard at
work.  And he had been thrilled in spite of himself.  For somehow
the high red walls of the building suggested energy and very
material success, a type of success that was almost without flaw,
as he saw it.

He looked at the gray plaster walls of this outer waiting chamber--
at some lettering on the inner door which read:  "The Griffiths
Collar & Shirt Company, Inc.  Samuel Griffiths, Pres.  Gilbert
Griffiths, Sec'y."--and wondered what it was all like inside--what
Gilbert Griffiths would be like--cold or genial, friendly or
unfriendly.

And then, as he sat there meditating, the woman suddenly turned to
him and observed:  "You can go in now.  Mr. Gilbert Griffiths'
office is at the extreme rear of this floor, over toward the river.
Any one of the clerks inside will show you."

She half rose as if to open the door for him, but Clyde, sensing
the intent, brushed by her.  "That's all right.  Thanks," he said
most warmly, and opening the glass-plated door he gazed upon a room
housing many over a hundred employees--chiefly young men and young
women.  And all were apparently intent on their duties before them.
Most of them had green shades over their eyes.  Quite all of them
had on short alpaca office coats or sleeve protectors over their
shirt sleeves.  Nearly all of the young women wore clean and
attractive gingham dresses or office slips.  And all about this
central space, which was partitionless and supported by round white
columns, were offices labeled with the names of the various minor
officials and executives of the company--Mr. Smillie, Mr. Latch,
Mr. Gotboy, Mr. Burkey.

Since the telephone girl had said that Mr. Gilbert Griffiths was at
the extreme rear, Clyde, without much hesitation, made his way
along the railed-off aisle to that quarter, where upon a half-open
door he read:  "Mr. Gilbert Griffiths, Sec'y."  He paused,
uncertain whether to walk in or not, and then proceeded to tap.  At
once a sharp, penetrating voice called:  "Come," and he entered and
faced a youth who looked, if anything, smaller and a little older
and certainly much colder and shrewder than himself--such a youth,
in short, as Clyde would have liked to imagine himself to be--
trained in an executive sense, apparently authoritative and
efficient.  He was dressed, as Clyde noted at once, in a bright
gray suit of a very pronounced pattern, for it was once more
approaching spring.  His hair, of a lighter shade than Clyde's, was
brushed and glazed most smoothly back from his temples and
forehead, and his eyes, which Clyde, from the moment he had opened
the door had felt drilling him, were of a clear, liquid, grayish-
green blue.  He had on a pair of large horn-rimmed glasses which he
wore at his desk only, and the eyes that peered through them went
over Clyde swiftly and notatively, from his shoes to the round
brown felt hat which he carried in his hand.

"You're my cousin, I believe," he commented, rather icily, as Clyde
came forward and stopped--a thin and certainly not very favorable
smile playing about his lips.

"Yes, I am," replied Clyde, reduced and confused by this calm and
rather freezing reception.  On the instant, as he now saw, he could
not possibly have the same regard and esteem for this cousin, as he
could and did have for his uncle, whose very great ability had
erected this important industry.  Rather, deep down in himself he
felt that this young man, an heir and nothing more to this great
industry, was taking to himself airs and superiorities which, but
for his father's skill before him, would not have been possible.

At the same time so groundless and insignificant were his claims to
any consideration here, and so grateful was he for anything that
might be done for him, that he felt heavily obligated already and
tried to smile his best and most ingratiating smile.  Yet Gilbert
Griffiths at once appeared to take this as a bit of presumption
which ought not to be tolerated in a mere cousin, and particularly
one who was seeking a favor of him and his father.

However, since his father had troubled to interest himself in him
and had given him no alternative, he continued his wry smile and
mental examination, the while he said:  "We thought you would be
showing up to-day or to-morrow.  Did you have a pleasant trip?"

"Oh, yes, very," replied Clyde, a little confused by this inquiry.

"So you think you'd like to learn something about the manufacture
of collars, do you?"  Tone and manner were infiltrated by the
utmost condescension.

"I would certainly like to learn something that would give me a
chance to work up, have some future in it," replied Clyde, genially
and with a desire to placate his young cousin as much as possible.

"Well, my father was telling me of his talk with you in Chicago.
From what he told me I gather that you haven't had much practical
experience of any kind.  You don't know how to keep books, do you?"

"No, I don't," replied Clyde a little regretfully.

"And you're not a stenographer or anything like that?"

"No, sir, I'm not."

Most sharply, as Clyde said this, he felt that he was dreadfully
lacking in every training.  And now Gilbert Griffiths looked at him
as though he were rather a hopeless proposition indeed from the
viewpoint of this concern.

"Well, the best thing to do with you, I think," he went on, as
though before this his father had not indicated to him exactly what
was to be done in this case, "is to start you in the shrinking
room.  That's where the manufacturing end of this business begins,
and you might as well be learning that from the ground up.
Afterwards, when we see how you do down there, we can tell a little
better what to do with you.  If you had any office training it
might be possible to use you up here."  (Clyde's face fell at this
and Gilbert noticed it.  It pleased him.)  "But it's just as well
to learn the practical side of the business, whatever you do," he
added rather coldly, not that he desired to comfort Clyde any but
merely to be saying it as a fact.  And seeing that Clyde said
nothing, he continued:  "The best thing, I presume, before you try
to do anything around here is for you to get settled somewhere.
You haven't taken a room anywhere yet, have you?"

"No, I just came in on the noon train," replied Clyde.  "I was a
little dirty and so I just went up to the hotel to brush up a
little.  I thought I'd look for a place afterwards."

"Well, that's right.  Only don't look for any place.  I'll have our
superintendent see that you're directed to a good boarding house.
He knows more about the town than you do."  His thought here was
that after all Clyde was a full cousin and that it wouldn't do to
have him live just anywhere.  At the same time, he was greatly
concerned lest Clyde get the notion that the family was very much
concerned as to where he did live, which most certainly it was NOT,
as he saw it.  His final feeling was that he could easily place and
control Clyde in such a way as to make him not very important to
any one in any way--his father, the family, all the people who
worked here.

He reached for a button on his desk and pressed it.  A trim girl,
very severe and reserved in a green gingham dress, appeared.

"Ask Mr. Whiggam to come here."

She disappeared and presently there entered a medium-sized and
nervous, yet moderately stout, man who looked as though he were
under a great strain.  He was about forty years of age--repressed
and noncommittal--and looked curiously and suspiciously about as
though wondering what new trouble impended.  His head, as Clyde at
once noticed, appeared chronically to incline forward, while at the
same time he lifted his eyes as though actually he would prefer not
to look up.

"Whiggam," began young Griffiths authoritatively, "this is Clyde
Griffiths, a cousin of ours.  You remember I spoke to you about
him."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, he's to be put in the shrinking department for the present.
You can show him what he's to do.  Afterwards you had better have
Mrs. Braley show him where he can get a room."  (All this had been
talked over and fixed upon the week before by Gilbert and Whiggam,
but now he gave it the ring of an original suggestion.)  "And you'd
better give his name in to the timekeeper as beginning to-morrow
morning, see?"

"Yes, sir," bowed Whiggam deferentially.  "Is that all?"

"Yes, that's all," concluded Gilbert smartly.  "You go with
Whiggam, Mr. Griffiths.  He'll tell you what to do."

Whiggam turned.  "If you'll just come with me, Mr. Griffiths," he
observed deferentially, as Clyde could see--and that for all of his
cousin's apparently condescending attitude--and marched out with
Clyde at his heels.  And young Gilbert as briskly turned to his own
desk, but at the same time shaking his head.  His feeling at the
moment was that mentally Clyde was not above a good bell-boy in a
city hotel probably.  Else why should he come on here in this way.
"I wonder what he thinks he's going to do here," he continued to
think, "where he thinks he's going to get?"

And Clyde, as he followed Mr. Whiggam, was thinking what a
wonderful place Mr. Gilbert Griffiths enjoyed.  No doubt he came
and went as he chose--arrived at the office late, departed early,
and somewhere in this very interesting city dwelt with his parents
and sisters in a very fine house--of course.  And yet here he was--
Gilbert's own cousin, and the nephew of his wealthy uncle, being
escorted to work in a very minor department of this great concern.

Nevertheless, once they were out of the sight and hearing of Mr.
Gilbert Griffiths, he was somewhat diverted from this mood by the
sights and sounds of the great manufactory itself.  For here on
this very same floor, but beyond the immense office room through
which he had passed, was another much larger room filled with rows
of bins, facing aisles not more than five feet wide, and
containing, as Clyde could see, enormous quantities of collars
boxed in small paper boxes, according to sizes.  These bins were
either being refilled by stock boys who brought more boxed collars
from the boxing room in large wooden trucks, or were being as
rapidly emptied by order clerks who, trundling small box trucks in
front of them, were filling orders from duplicate check lists which
they carried in their hands.

"Never worked in a collar factory before, Mr. Griffiths, I
presume?" commented Mr. Whiggam with somewhat more spirit, once he
was out of the presence of Gilbert Griffiths.  Clyde noticed at
once the Mr. Griffiths.

"Oh, no," he replied quickly.  "I never worked at anything like
this before."

"Expect to learn all about the manufacturing end of the game in the
course of time, though, I suppose."  He was walking briskly along
one of the long aisles as he spoke, but Clyde noticed that he shot
sly glances in every direction.

"I'd like to," he answered.

"Well, there's a little more to it than some people think, although
you often hear there isn't very much to learn."  He opened another
door, crossed a gloomy hall and entered still another room which,
filled with bins as was the other, was piled high in every bin with
bolts of white cloth.

"You might as well know a little about this as long as you re going
to begin in the shrinking room.  This is the stuff from which the
collars are cut, the collars and the lining.  They are called webs.
Each of these bolts is a web.  We take these down in the basement
and shrink them because they can't be used this way.  If they are,
the collars would shrink after they were cut.  But you'll see.  We
tub them and then dry them afterwards."

He marched solemnly on and Clyde sensed once more that this man was
not looking upon him as an ordinary employee by any means.  His MR.
Griffiths, his supposition to the effect that Clyde was to learn
all about the manufacturing end of the business, as well as his
condescension in explaining about these webs of cloth, had already
convinced Clyde that he was looked upon as one to whom some slight
homage at least must be paid.

He followed Mr. Whiggam, curious as to the significance of this,
and soon found himself in an enormous basement which had been
reached by descending a flight of steps at the end of a third hall.
Here, by the help of four long rows of incandescent lamps, he
discerned row after row of porcelain tubs or troughs, lengthwise of
the room, and end to end, which reached from one exterior wall to
the other.  And in these, under steaming hot water apparently, were
any quantity of those same webs he had just seen upstairs, soaking.
And near-by, north and south of these tubs, and paralleling them
for the length of this room, all of a hundred and fifty feet in
length, were enormous drying racks or moving skeleton platforms,
boxed, top and bottom and sides, with hot steam pipes, between
which on rolls, but festooned in such a fashion as to take
advantage of these pipes, above, below and on either side, were
more of these webs, but unwound and wet and draped as described,
yet moving along slowly on these rolls from the east end of the
room to the west.  This movement, as Clyde could see, was
accompanied by an enormous rattle and clatter of ratchet arms which
automatically shook and moved these lengths of cloth forward from
east to west.  And as they moved they dried, and were then
automatically re-wound at the west end of these racks into bolt
form once more upon a wooden spool and then lifted off by a youth
whose duty it was to "take" from these moving platforms.  One
youth, as Clyde saw, "took" from two of these tracks at the west
end, while at the east end another youth of about his own years
"fed."  That is, he took bolts of this now partially shrunk yet
still wet cloth and attaching one end of it to some moving hooks,
saw that it slowly and properly unwound and fed itself over the
drying racks for the entire length of these tracks.  As fast as it
had gone the way of all webs, another was attached.

Between each two rows of tubs in the center of the room were
enormous whirling separators or dryers, into which these webs of
cloth, as they came from the tubs in which they had been shrinking
for twenty-four hours, were piled and as much water as possible
centrifugally extracted before they were spread out on the drying
racks.

Primarily little more than this mere physical aspect of the room
was grasped by Clyde--its noise, its heat, its steam, the energy
with which a dozen men and boys were busying themselves with
various processes.  They were, without exception, clothed only in
armless undershirts, a pair of old trousers belted in at the waist,
and with canvas-topped and rubber-soled sneakers on their bare
feet.  The water and the general dampness and the heat of the room
seemed obviously to necessitate some such dressing as this.

"This is the shrinking room," observed Mr. Whiggam, as they
entered.  "It isn't as nice as some of the others, but it's where
the manufacturing process begins.  Kemerer!" he called.

A short, stocky, full-chested man, with a pate, full face and
white, strong-looking arms, dressed in a pair of dirty and wrinkled
trousers and an armless flannel shirt, now appeared.  Like Whiggam
in the presence of Gilbert, he appeared to be very much overawed in
the presence of Whiggam.

"This is Clyde Griffiths, the cousin of Gilbert Griffiths.  I spoke
to you about him last week, you remember?"

"Yes, sir."

"He's to begin down here.  He'll show up in the morning."

"Yes, sir."

"Better put his name down on your check list.  He'll begin at the
usual hour."

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Whiggam, as Clyde noticed, held his head higher and spoke more
directly and authoritatively than at any time so far.  He seemed to
be master, not underling, now.

"Seven-thirty is the time every one goes to work here in the
morning," went on Mr. Whiggam to Clyde informatively, "but they all
ring in a little earlier--about seven-twenty or so, so as to have
time to change their clothes and get to the machines.

"Now, if you want to," he added, "Mr. Kemerer can show you what
you'll have to do to-morrow before you leave today.  It might save
a little time.  Or, you can leave it until then if you want to.  It
don't make any difference to me.  Only, if you'll come back to the
telephone girl at the main entrance about five-thirty I'll have
Mrs. Braley there for you.  She's to show you about your room, I
believe.  I won't be there myself, but you just ask the telephone
girl for her.  She'll know."  He turned and added, "Well, I'll
leave you now."

He lowered his head and started to go away just as Clyde began.
"Well, I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Whiggam."  Instead of
answering, he waved one fishy hand slightly upward and was gone--
down between the tubs toward the west door.  And at once Mr.
Kemerer--still nervous and overawed apparently--began.

"Oh, that's all right about what you have to do, Mr. Griffiths.
I'll just let you bring down webs on the floor above to begin with
to-morrow.  But if you've got any old clothes, you'd better put 'em
on.  A suit like that wouldn't last long here."  He eyed Clyde's
very neat, if inexpensive suit, in an odd way.  His manner quite
like that of Mr. Whiggam before him, was a mixture of uncertainty
and a very small authority here in Clyde's case--of extreme respect
and yet some private doubt, which only time might resolve.
Obviously it was no small thing to be a Griffiths here, even if one
were a cousin and possibly not as welcome to one's powerful
relatives as one might be.

At first sight, and considering what his general dreams in
connection with this industry were, Clyde was inclined to rebel.
For the type of youth and man he saw here were in his estimation
and at first glance rather below the type of individuals he hoped
to find here--individuals neither so intelligent nor alert as those
employed by the Union League and the Green-Davidson by a long
distance.  And still worse he felt them to be much more subdued and
sly and ignorant--mere clocks, really.  And their eyes, as he
entered with Mr. Whiggam, while they pretended not to be looking,
were very well aware, as Clyde could feel, of all that was going
on.  Indeed, he and Mr. Whiggam were the center of all their secret
looks.  At the same time, their spare and practical manner of
dressing struck dead at one blow any thought of refinement in
connection with the work in here.  How unfortunate that his lack of
training would not permit his being put to office work or something
like that upstairs.

He walked with Mr. Kemerer, who troubled to say that these were
the tubs in which the webs were shrunk over night--these the
centrifugal dryers--these the rack dryers.  Then he was told that
he could go.  And by then it was only three o'clock.

He made his way out of the nearest door and once outside he
congratulated himself on being connected with this great company,
while at the same time wondering whether he was going to prove
satisfactory to Mr. Kemerer and Mr. Whiggam.  Supposing he didn't.
Or supposing he couldn't stand all this?  It was pretty rough.
Well, if worst came to worst, as he now thought, he could go back
to Chicago, or on to New York, maybe, and get work.

But why hadn't Samuel Griffiths had the graciousness to receive and
welcome him?  Why had that young Gilbert Griffiths smiled so
cynically?  And what sort of a woman was this Mrs. Braley?  Had he
done wisely to come on here?  Would this family do anything for him
now that he was here?

It was thus that, strolling west along River Street on which were a
number of other kinds of factories, and then north through a few
other streets that held more factories--tinware, wickwire, a big
vacuum carpet cleaning plant, a rug manufacturing company, and the
like--that he came finally upon a miserable slum, the like of
which, small as it was, he had not seen outside of Chicago or
Kansas City.  He was so irritated and depressed by the poverty and
social angularity and crudeness of it--all spelling but one thing,
social misery, to him--that he at once retraced his steps and
recrossing the Mohawk by a bridge farther west soon found himself
in an area which was very different indeed--a region once more of
just such homes as he had been admiring before he left for the
factory.  And walking still farther south, he came upon that same
wide and tree-lined avenue--which he had seen before--the exterior
appearance of which alone identified it as the principal residence
thoroughfare of Lycurgus.  It was so very broad and well-paved and
lined by such an arresting company of houses.  At once he was very
much alive to the personnel of this street, for it came to him
immediately that it must be in this street very likely that his
uncle Samuel lived.  The houses were nearly all of French, Italian
or English design, and excellent period copies at that, although he
did not know it.

Impressed by their beauty and spaciousness, however, he walked
along, now looking at one and another, and wondering which, if any,
of these was occupied by his uncle, and deeply impressed by the
significance of so much wealth.  How superior and condescending his
cousin Gilbert must feel, walking out of some such place as this in
the morning.

Then pausing before one which, because of trees, walks, newly-
groomed if bloomless flower beds, a large garage at the rear, a
large fountain to the left of the house as he faced it, in the
center of which was a boy holding a swan in his arms, and to the
right of the house one lone cast iron stag pursued by some cast
iron dogs, he felt especially impelled to admire, and charmed by
the dignity of this place, which was a modified form of old
English, he now inquired of a stranger who was passing--a middle-
aged man of a rather shabby working type, "Whose house is that,
mister?" and the man replied:  "Why, that's Samuel Griffiths'
residence.  He's the man who owns the big collar factory over the
river."

At once Clyde straightened up, as though dashed with cold water.
His uncle's!  His residence!  Then that was one of his automobiles
standing before the garage at the rear there.  And there was
another visible through the open door of the garage.

Indeed in his immature and really psychically unilluminated mind it
suddenly evoked a mood which was as of roses, perfumes, lights and
music.  The beauty!  The ease!  What member of his own immediate
family had ever even dreamed that his uncle lived thus!  The
grandeur!  And his own parents so wretched--so poor, preaching on
the streets of Kansas City and no doubt Denver.  Conducting a
mission!  And although thus far no single member of this family
other than his chill cousin had troubled to meet him, and that at
the factory only, and although he had been so indifferently
assigned to the menial type of work that he had, still he was
elated and uplifted.  For, after all, was he not a Griffiths, a
full cousin as well as a full nephew to the two very important men
who lived here, and now working for them in some capacity at least?
And must not that spell a future of some sort, better than any he
had known as yet?  For consider who the Griffiths were here, as
opposed to "who" the Griffiths were in Kansas City, say--or Denver.
The enormous difference!  A thing to be as carefully concealed as
possible.  At the same time, he was immediately reduced again, for
supposing the Griffiths here--his uncle or his cousin or some
friend or agent of theirs--should now investigate his parents and
his past?  Heavens!  The matter of that slain child in Kansas City!
His parents' miserable makeshift life!  Esta!  At once his face
fell, his dreams being so thickly clouded over.  If they should
guess!  If they should sense!

Oh, the devil--who was he anyway?  And what did he really amount
to?  What could he hope for from such a great world as this really,
once they knew why he had troubled to come here?

A little disgusted and depressed he turned to retrace his steps,
for all at once he felt himself very much of a nobody.



Chapter 6


The room which Clyde secured this same day with the aid of Mrs.
Braley, was in Thorpe Street, a thoroughfare enormously removed in
quality if not in distance from that in which his uncle resided.
Indeed the difference was sufficient to decidedly qualify his
mounting notions of himself as one who, after all, was connected
with him.  The commonplace brown or gray or tan colored houses,
rather smoked or decayed, which fronted it--the leafless and winter
harried trees which in spite of smoke and dust seemed to give
promise of the newer life so near at hand--the leaves and flowers
of May.  Yet as he walked into it with Mrs. Braley, many drab and
commonplace figures of men and girls, and elderly spinsters
resembling Mrs. Braley in kind, were making their way home from the
several factories beyond the river.  And at the door Mrs. Braley
and himself were received by a none-too-polished woman in a clean
gingham apron over a dark brown dress, who led the way to a second
floor room, not too small or uncomfortably furnished--which she
assured him he could have for four dollars without board or seven
and one-half dollars with--a proposition which, seeing that he was
advised by Mrs. Braley that this was somewhat better than he would
get in most places for the same amount, he decided to take.  And
here, after thanking Mrs. Braley, he decided to remain--later
sitting down to dinner with a small group of mill-town store and
factory employees, such as partially he had been accustomed to in
Paulina Street in Chicago, before moving to the better atmosphere
of the Union League.  And after dinner he made his way out into the
principal thoroughfares of Lycurgus, only to observe such a crowd
of nondescript mill-workers as, judging these streets by day, he
would not have fancied swarmed here by night--girls and boys, men
and women of various nationalities, and types--Americans, Poles,
Hungarians, French, English--and for the most part--if not entirely
touched with a peculiar something--ignorance or thickness of mind
or body, or with a certain lack of taste and alertness or daring,
which seemed to mark them one and all as of the basement world
which he had seen only this afternoon.  Yet in some streets and
stores, particularly those nearer Wykeagy Avenue, a better type of
girl and young man who might have been and no doubt were of the
various office groups of the different companies over the river--
neat and active.

And Clyde, walking to and fro, from eight until ten, when as though
by pre-arrangement, the crowd in the more congested streets seemed
suddenly to fade away, leaving them quite vacant.  And throughout
this time contrasting it all with Chicago and Kansas City.  (What
would Ratterer think if he could see him now--his uncle's great
house and factory?)  And perhaps because of its smallness, liking
it--the Lycurgus Hotel, neat and bright and with a brisk local life
seeming to center about it.  And the post-office and a handsomely
spired church, together with an old and interesting graveyard,
cheek by jowl with an automobile salesroom.  And a new moving
picture theater just around the corner in a side street.  And
various boys and girls, men and women, walking here and there, some
of them flirting as Clyde could see.  And with a suggestion somehow
hovering over it all of hope and zest and youth--the hope and zest
and youth that is at the bottom of all the constructive energy of
the world everywhere.  And finally returning to his room in Thorpe
Street with the conclusion that he did like the place and would
like to stay here.  That beautiful Wykeagy Avenue!  His uncle's
great factory!  The many pretty and eager girls he had seen
hurrying to and fro!



In the meantime, in so far as Gilbert Griffiths was concerned, and
in the absence of his father, who was in New York at the time (a
fact which Clyde did not know and of which Gilbert did not trouble
to inform him) he had conveyed to his mother and sisters that he
had met Clyde, and if he were not the dullest, certainly he was not
the most interesting person in the world, either.  Encountering
Myra, as he first entered at five-thirty, the same day that Clyde
had appeared, he troubled to observe:  "Well, that Chicago cousin
of ours blew in to-day."

"Yes!" commented Myra.  "What's he like?"  The fact that her father
had described Clyde as gentlemanly and intelligent had interested
her, although knowing Lycurgus and the nature of the mill life here
and its opportunities for those who worked in factories such as her
father owned, she had wondered why Clyde had bothered to come.

"Well, I can't see that he's so much," replied Gilbert.  "He's
fairly intelligent and not bad-looking, but he admits that he's
never had any business training of any kind.  He's like all those
young fellows who work for hotels.  He thinks clothes are the whole
thing, I guess.  He had on a light brown suit and a brown tie and
hat to match and brown shoes.  His tie was too bright and he had on
one of those bright pink striped shirts like they used to wear
three or four years ago.  Besides his clothes aren't cut right.  I
didn't want to say anything because he's just come on, and we don't
know whether he'll hold out or not.  But if he does, and he's going
to pose around as a relative of ours, he'd better tone down, or I'd
advise the governor to have a few words with him.  Outside of that
I guess he'll do well enough in one of the departments after a
while, as foreman or something.  He might even be made into a
salesman later on, I suppose.  But what he sees in all that to make
it worth while to come here is more than I can guess.  As a matter
of fact, I don't think the governor made it clear to him just how
few the chances are here for any one who isn't really a wizard or
something."

He stood with his back to the large open fireplace.

"Oh, well, you know what Mother was saying the other day about his
father.  She thinks Daddy feels that he's never had a chance in
some way.  He'll probably do something for him whether he wants to
keep him in the mill or not.  She told me that she thought that Dad
felt that his father hadn't been treated just right by their
father."

Myra paused, and Gilbert, who had had this same hint from his
mother before now, chose to ignore the implication of it.

"Oh, well, it's not my funeral," he went on.  "If the governor
wants to keep him on here whether he's fitted for anything special
or not, that's his look-out.  Only he's the one that's always
talking about efficiency in every department and cutting and
keeping out dead timber."

Meeting his mother and Bella later, he volunteered the same news
and much the same ideas.  Mrs. Griffiths sighed; for after all, in
a place like Lycurgus and established as they were, any one related
to them and having their name ought to be most circumspect and have
careful manners and taste and judgment.  It was not wise for her
husband to bring on any one who was not all of that and more.

On the other hand, Bella was by no means satisfied with the
accuracy of her brother's picture of Clyde.  She did not know
Clyde, but she did know Gilbert, and as she knew he could decide
very swiftly that this or that person was lacking in almost every
way, when, as a matter of fact, they might not be at all as she saw
it.

"Oh, well," she finally observed, after hearing Gilbert comment on
more of Clyde's peculiarities at dinner, "if Daddy wants him, I
presume he'll keep him, or do something with him eventually."  At
which Gilbert winced internally for this was a direct slap at his
assumed authority in the mill under his father, which authority he
was eager to make more and more effective in every direction, as
his younger sister well knew.

In the meanwhile on the following morning, Clyde, returning to the
mill, found that the name, or appearance, or both perhaps--his
resemblance to Mr. Gilbert Griffiths--was of some peculiar
advantage to him which he could not quite sufficiently estimate at
present.  For on reaching number one entrance, the doorman on guard
there looked as though startled.

"Oh, you're Mr. Clyde Griffiths?" he queried.  "You're goin' to
work under Mr. Kemerer?  Yes, I know.  Well, that man there will
have your key," and he pointed to a stodgy, stuffy old man whom
later Clyde came to know as "Old Jeff," the time-clock guard, who,
at a stand farther along this same hall, furnished and reclaimed
all keys between seven-thirty and seven-forty.

When Clyde approached him and said:  "My name's Clyde Griffiths and
I'm to work downstairs with Mr. Kemerer," he too started and then
said:  "Sure, that's right.  Yes, sir.  Here you are, Mr.
Griffiths.  Mr. Kemerer spoke to me about you yesterday.  Number
seventy-one is to be yours.  I'm giving you Mr. Duveny's old key."
When Clyde had gone down the stairs into the shrinking department,
he turned to the doorman who had drawn near and exclaimed:  "Don't
it beat all how much that fellow looks like Mr. Gilbert Griffiths?
Why, he's almost his spittin' image.  What is he, do you suppose, a
brother or a cousin, or what?"

"Don't ask me," replied the doorman.  "I never saw him before.  But
he's certainly related to the family all right.  When I seen him
first, I thought it was Mr. Gilbert.  I was just about to tip my
hat to him when I saw it wasn't."

And in the shrinking room when he entered, as on the day before, he
found Kemerer as respectful and evasive as ever.  For, like Whiggam
before him, Kemerer had not as yet been able to decide what Clyde's
true position with this company was likely to be.  For, as Whiggam
had informed Kemerer the day before, Mr. Gilbert had said no least
thing which tended to make Mr. Whiggam believe that things were to
be made especially easy for him, nor yet hard, either.  On the
contrary, Mr. Gilbert had said:  "He's to be treated like all the
other employees as to time and work.  No different."  Yet in
introducing Clyde he had said:  "This is my cousin, and he's going
to try to learn this business," which would indicate that as time
went on Clyde was to be transferred from department to department
until he had surveyed the entire manufacturing end of the business.

Whiggam, for this reason, after Clyde had gone, whispered to
Kemerer as well as to several others, that Clyde might readily
prove to be some one who was a protege of the chief--and therefore
they determined to "watch their step," at least until they knew
what his standing here was to be.  And Clyde, noticing this, was
quite set up by it, for he could not help but feel that this in
itself, and apart from whatever his cousin Gilbert might either
think or wish to do, might easily presage some favor on the part of
his uncle that might lead to some good for him.  So when Kemerer
proceeded to explain to him that he was not to think that the work
was so very hard or that there was so very much to do for the
present, Clyde took it with a slight air of condescension.  And in
consequence Kemerer was all the more respectful.

"Just hang up your hat and coat over there in one of those
lockers," he proceeded mildly and ingratiatingly even.  "Then you
can take one of those crate trucks back there and go up to the next
floor and bring down some webs.  They'll show you where to get
them."

The days that followed were diverting and yet troublesome enough to
Clyde, who to begin with was puzzled and disturbed at times by the
peculiar social and workaday worlds and position in which he found
himself.  For one thing, those by whom now he found himself
immediately surrounded at the factory were not such individuals as
he would ordinarily select for companions--far below bell-boys or
drivers or clerks anywhere.  They were, one and all, as he could
now clearly see, meaty or stodgy mentally and physically.  They
wore such clothes as only the most common laborers would wear--such
clothes as are usually worn by those who count their personal
appearance among the least of their troubles--their work and their
heavy material existence being all.  In addition, not knowing just
what Clyde was, or what his coming might mean to their separate and
individual positions, they were inclined to be dubious and
suspicious.

After a week or two, however, coming to understand that Clyde was a
nephew of the president, a cousin of the secretary of the company,
and hence not likely to remain here long in any menial capacity,
they grew more friendly, but inclined in the face of the sense of
subserviency which this inspired in them, to become jealous and
suspicious of him in another way.  For, after all, Clyde was not
one of them, and under such circumstances could not be.  He might
smile and be civil enough--yet he would always be in touch with
those who were above them, would he not--or so they thought.  He
was, as they saw it, part of the rich and superior class and every
poor man knew what that meant.  The poor must stand together
everywhere.

For his part, however, and sitting about for the first few days in
this particular room eating his lunch, he wondered how these men
could interest themselves in what were to him such dull and
uninteresting items--the quality of the cloth that was coming down
in the webs--some minute flaws in the matter of weight or weave--
the last twenty webs hadn't looked so closely shrunk as the
preceding sixteen; or the Cranston Wickwire Company was not
carrying as many men as it had the month before--or the Anthony
Woodenware Company had posted a notice that the Saturday half-
holiday would not begin before June first this year as opposed to
the middle of May last year.  They all appeared to be lost in the
humdrum and routine of their work.

In consequence his mind went back to happier scenes.  He wished at
times he were back in Chicago or Kansas City.  He though of
Ratterer, Hegglund, Higby, Louise Ratterer, Larry Doyle, Mr.
Squires, Hortense--all of the young and thoughtless company of
which he had been a part, and wondered what they were doing.  What
had become of Hortense?  She had got that fur coat after all--
probably from that cigar clerk and then had gone away with him
after she had protested so much feeling for him--the little beast.
After she had gotten all that money out of him.  The mere thought
of her and all that she might have meant to him if things had not
turned as they had, made him a little sick at times.  To whom was
she being nice now?  How had she found things since leaving Kansas
City?  And what would she think if she saw him here now or knew of
his present high connections?  Gee!  That would cool her a little.
But she would not think much of his present position.  That was
true.  But she might respect him more if she could see his uncle
and his cousin and this factory and their big house.  It would be
like her then to try to be nice to him.  Well, he would show her,
if he ever ran into her again--snub her, of course, as no doubt he
very well could by then.



Chapter 7


In so far as his life at Mrs. Cuppy's went, he was not so very
happily placed there, either.  For that was but a commonplace
rooming and boarding house, which drew to it, at best, such
conservative mill and business types as looked on work and their
wages, and the notions of the middle class religious world of
Lycurgus as most essential to the order and well being of the
world.  From the point of view of entertainment or gayety, it was
in the main a very dull place.

At the same time, because of the presence of one Walter Dillard--a
brainless sprig who had recently come here from Fonda, it was not
wholly devoid of interest for Clyde.  The latter--a youth of about
Clyde's own age and equally ambitious socially--but without Clyde's
tact or discrimination anent the governing facts of life, was
connected with the men's furnishing department of Stark and
Company.  He was spry, avid, attractive enough physically, with
very light hair, a very light and feeble mustache, and the delicate
airs and ways of a small town Beau Brummell.  Never having had any
social standing or the use of any means whatsoever--his father
having been a small town dry goods merchant before him, who had
failed--he was, because of some atavistic spur or fillip in his own
blood, most anxious to attain some sort of social position.

But failing that so far, he was interested in and envious of those
who had it--much more so than Clyde, even.  The glory and activity
of the leading families of this particular city had enormous weight
with him--the Nicholsons, the Starks, the Harriets, Griffiths,
Finchleys, et cetera.  And learning a few days after Clyde's
arrival of his somewhat left-handed connection with this world, he
was most definitely interested.  What?  A Griffiths!  The nephew of
the rich Samuel Griffiths of Lycurgus!  And in this boarding house!
Beside him at this table!  At once his interest rose to where he
decided that he must cultivate this stranger as speedily as
possible.  Here was a real social opportunity knocking at his very
door--a connecting link to one of the very best families!  And
besides was he not young, attractive and probably ambitious like
himself--a fellow to play around with if one could?  He proceeded
at once to make overtures to Clyde.  It seemed almost too good to
be true.

In consequence he was quick to suggest a walk, the fact that there
was a certain movie just on at the Mohawk, which was excellent--
very snappy.  Didn't Clyde want to go?  And because of his
neatness, smartness--a touch of something that was far from humdrum
or the heavy practicality of the mill and the remainder of this
boarding house world, Clyde was inclined to fall in with him.

But, as he now thought, here were his great relatives and he must
watch his step here.  Who knew but that he might be making a great
mistake in holding such free and easy contacts as this.  The
Griffiths--as well as the entire world of which they were a part--
as he guessed from the general manner of all those who even
contacted him, must be very removed from the commonalty here.  More
by instinct than reason, he was inclined to stand off and look very
superior--more so since those, including this very youth on whom he
practised this seemed to respect him the more.  And although upon
eager--and even--after its fashion, supplicating request, he now
went with this youth--still he went cautiously.  And his aloof and
condescending manner Dillard at once translated as "class" and
"connection."  And to think he had met him in this dull, dubby
boarding house here.  And on his arrival--at the very inception of
his career here.

And so his manner was that of the sycophant--although he had a
better position and was earning more money than Clyde was at this
time, twenty-two dollars a week.

"I suppose you'll be spending a good deal of your time with your
relatives and friends here," he volunteered on the occasion of
their first walk together, and after he had extracted as much
information as Clyde cared to impart, which was almost nothing,
while he volunteered a few, most decidedly furbished bits from his
own history.  His father owned a dry goods store NOW.  He had come
over here to study other methods, et cetera.  He had an uncle here--
connected with Stark and Company.  He had met a few--not so many
as yet--nice people here, since he hadn't been here so very long
himself--four months all told.

But Clyde's relatives!

"Say your uncle must be worth over a million, isn't he?  They say
he is.  Those houses in Wykeagy Avenue are certainly the cats'.
You won't see anything finer in Albany or Utica or Rochester
either.  Are you Samuel Griffiths' own nephew?  You don't say!
Well, that'll certainly mean a lot to you here.  I wish I had a
connection like that.  You bet I'd make it count."

He beamed on Clyde eagerly and hopefully, and through him Clyde
sensed even more how really important this blood relation was.
Only think how much it meant to this strange youth.

"Oh, I don't know," replied Clyde dubiously, and yet very much
flattered by this assumption of intimacy.  "I came on to learn the
collar business, you know.  Not to play about very much.  My uncle
wants me to stick to that, pretty much."

"Sure, sure.  I know how that is," replied Dillard, "that's the way
my uncle feels about me, too.  He wants me to stick close to the
work here and not play about very much.  He's the buyer for Stark
and Company, you know.  But still a man can't work all the time,
either.  He's got to have a little fun."

"Yes, that's right," said Clyde--for the first time in his life a
little condescendingly.

They walked along in silence for a few moments.  Then:

"Do you dance?"

"Yes," answered Clyde.

"Well, so do I.  There are a lot of cheap dance halls around here,
but I never go to any of those.  You can't do it and keep in with
the nice people.  This is an awfully close town that way, they say.
The best people won't have anything to do with you unless you go
with the right crowd.  It's the same way up at Fonda.  You have to
'belong' or you can't go out anywhere at all.  And that's right, I
guess.  But still there are a lot of nice girls here that a fellow
can go with--girls of right nice families--not in society, of
course--but still, they're not talked about, see.  And they're not
so slow, either.  Pretty hot stuff, some of them.  And you don't
have to marry any of 'em, either."  Clyde began to think of him as
perhaps a little too lusty for his new life here, maybe.  At the
same time he liked him some.  "By the way," went on Dillard, "what
are you doing next Sunday afternoon?"

"Well, nothing in particular, that I know of just now," replied
Clyde, sensing a new problem here.  "I don't know just what I may
have to do by then, but I don't know of anything now."

"Well, how'd you like to come with me, if you're not too busy.
I've come to know quite a few girls since I've been here.  Nice
ones.  I can take you out and introduce you to my uncle's family,
if you like.  They're nice people.  And afterwards--I know two
girls we can go and see--peaches.  One of 'em did work in the
store, but she don't now--she's not doing anything now.  The other
is her pal.  They have a Victrola and they can dance.  I know it
isn't the thing to dance here on Sundays but no one need know
anything about that.  The girls' parents don't mind.  Afterwards we
might take 'em to a movie or something--if you want to--not any of
those things down near the mill district but one of the better
ones--see?"

There formulated itself in Clyde's mind the question as to what, in
regard to just such proposals as this, his course here was to be.
In Chicago, and recently--because of what happened in Kansas City--
he had sought to be as retiring and cautious as possible.  For--
after that and while connected with the club, he had been taken
with the fancy of trying to live up to the ideals with which the
seemingly stern face of that institution had inspired him--
conservatism--hard work--saving one's money--looking neat and
gentlemanly.  It was such an Eveless paradise, that.

In spite of his quiet surroundings here, however, the very air of
the city seemed to suggest some such relaxation as this youth was
now suggesting--a form of diversion that was probably innocent
enough but still connected with girls and their entertainment--
there were so many of them here, as he could see.  These streets,
after dinner, here, were so alive with good-looking girls, and
young men, too.  But what might his new found relatives think of
him in case he was seen stepping about in the manner and spirit
which this youth's suggestions seemed to imply?  Hadn't he just
said that this was an awfully close town and that everybody knew
nearly everything about everybody else?  He paused in doubt.  He
must decide now.  And then, being lonely and hungry for
companionship, he replied:

"Yes,--well--I think that's all right."  But he added a little
dubiously:  "Of course my relatives here--"

"Oh, sure, that's all right," replied Dillard smartly.  "You have
to be careful, of course.  Well, so do I."  If he could only go
around with a Griffiths, even if he was new around here and didn't
know many people--wouldn't it reflect a lot of credit on him?  It
most certainly would--did already, as he saw it.

And forthwith he offered to buy Clyde some cigarettes--a soda--
anything he liked.  But Clyde, still feeling very strange and
uncertain, excused himself, after a time, because this youth with
his complacent worship of society and position, annoyed him a
little, and made his way back to his room.  He had promised his
mother a letter and he thought he had better go back and write it,
and incidentally to think a little on the wisdom of this new
contact.



Chapter 8


Nevertheless, the next day being a Saturday and half holiday the
year round in this concern, Mr. Whiggam came through with the pay
envelopes.

"Here you are, Mr. Griffiths," he said, as though he were
especially impressed with Clyde's position.

Clyde, taking it, was rather pleased with this mistering, and going
back toward his locker, promptly tore it open and pocketed the
money.  After that, taking his hat and coat, he wandered off in the
direction of his room, where he had his lunch.  But, being very
lonely, and Dillard not being present because he had to work, he
decided upon a trolley ride to Gloversville, which was a city of
some twenty thousand inhabitants and reported to be as active, if
not as beautiful, as Lycurgus.  And that trip amused and interested
him because it took him into a city very different form Lycurgus in
its social texture.

But the next day--Sunday--he spent idly in Lycurgus, wandering
about by himself.  For, as it turned out, Dillard was compelled to
return to Fonda for some reason and could not fulfill the Sunday
understanding.  Encountering Clyde, however, on Monday evening, he
announced that on the following Wednesday evening, in the basement
of the Diggby Avenue Congregational Church, there was to be held a
social with refreshments.  And according to young Dillard, at least
this promised to prove worth while.

"We can just go out there," was the way he put it to Clyde, and
buzz the girls a little.  I want you to meet my uncle and aunt.
They're nice people all right.  And so are the girls.  They're no
slouches.  Then we can edge out afterwards, about ten, see, and go
around to either Zella or Rita's place.  Rita has more good records
over at her place, but Zella has the nicest place to dance.  By the
way, you didn't chance to bring along your dress suit with you, did
you?" he inquired.  For having already inspected Clyde's room,
which was above his own on the third floor, in Clyde's absence and
having discovered that he had only a dress suit case and no trunk,
and apparently no dress suit anywhere, he had decided that in spite
of Clyde's father conducting a hotel and Clyde having worked in the
Union League Club in Chicago, he must be very indifferent to social
equipment.  Or, if not, must be endeavoring to make his own way on
some character-building plan without help from any one.  This was
not to his liking, exactly.  A man should never neglect these
social essentials.  Nevertheless, Clyde was a Griffiths and that
was enough to cause him to overlook nearly anything, for the
present anyhow.

"No, I didn't," replied Clyde, who was not exactly sure as to the
value of this adventure--even yet--in spite of his own loneliness,--
"but I intend to get one."  He had already thought since coming
here of his lack in this respect, and was thinking of taking at
least thirty-five of his more recently hard-earned savings and
indulging in a suit of this kind.

Dillard buzzed on about the fact that while Zella Shuman's family
wasn't rich--they owned the house they lived in--still she went
with a lot of nice girls here, too.  So did Rita Dickerman.
Zella's father owned a little cottage upon Eckert Lake, near Fonda.
When next summer came--and with it the holidays and pleasant week-
ends, he and Clyde, supposing that Clyde liked Rita, might go up
there some time for a visit, for Rita and Zella were inseparable
almost.  And they were pretty, too.  "Zella's dark and Rita's
light," he added enthusiastically.

Clyde was interested by the fact that the girls were pretty and
that out of a clear sky and in the face of his present loneliness,
he was being made so much of by this Dillard.  But, was it wise for
him to become very much involved with him?  That was the question--
for, after all, he really knew nothing of him.  And he gathered
from Dillard's manner, his flighty enthusiasm for the occasion,
that he was far more interested in the girls as girls--a certain
freedom or concealed looseness that characterized them--than he was
in the social phase of the world which they represented.  And
wasn't that what brought about his downfall in Kansas City?  Here
in Lycurgus, of all places, he was least likely to forget it--
aspiring to something better as he now did.

None-the-less, at eight-thirty on the following Wednesday evening--
they were off, Clyde full of eager anticipation.  And by nine
o'clock they were in the midst of one of those semi-religious,
semi-social and semi-emotional church affairs, the object of which
was to raise money for the church--the general service of which was
to furnish an occasion for gossip among the elders, criticism and a
certain amount of enthusiastic, if disguised courtship and
flirtation among the younger members.  There were booths for the
sale of quite everything from pies, cakes and ice cream to laces,
dolls and knickknacks of every description, supplied by the members
and parted with for the benefit of the church.  The Reverend Peter
Isreals, the minister, and his wife were present.  Also Dillard's
uncle and aunt, a pair of brisk and yet uninteresting people whom
Clyde could sense were of no importance socially here.  They were
too genial and altogether social in the specific neighborhood
sense, although Grover Wilson, being a buyer for Stark and Company,
endeavored to assume a serious and important air at times.

He was an undersized and stocky man who did not seem to know how to
dress very well or could not afford it.  In contrast to his
nephew's almost immaculate garb, his own suit was far from perfect-
fitting.  It was unpressed and slightly soiled.  And his tie the
same.  He had a habit of rubbing his hands in a clerkly fashion, of
wrinkling his brows and scratching the back of his head at times,
as though something he was about to say had cost him great thought
and was of the utmost importance.  Whereas, nothing that he
uttered, as even Clyde could see, was of the slightest importance.

And so, too, with the stout and large Mrs. Wilson, who stood beside
him while he was attempting to rise to the importance of Clyde.
She merely beamed a fatty beam.  She was almost ponderous, and
pink, with a tendency to a double chin.  She smiled and smiled,
largely because she was naturally genial and on her good behavior
here, but incidentally because Clyde was who he was.  For as Clyde
himself could see, Walter Dillard had lost no time in impressing
his relatives with the fact that he was a Griffiths.  Also that he
had encountered and made a friend of him and that he was now
chaperoning him locally.

"Walter has been telling us that you have just come on here to work
for your uncle.  You're at Mrs. Cuppy's now, I understand.  I don't
know her but I've always heard she keeps such a nice, refined
place.  Mr. Parsley, who lives here with her, used to go to school
with me.  But I don't see much of him any more.  Did you meet him
yet?"

"No, I didn't," said Clyde in return.

"Well, you know, we expected you last Sunday to dinner, only Walter
had to go home.  But you must come soon.  Any time at all.  I would
love to have you."  She beamed and her small grayish brown eyes
twinkled.

Clyde could see that because of the fame of his uncle he was looked
upon as a social find, really.  And so it was with the remainder of
this company, old and young--the Rev. Peter Isreals and his wife;
Mr. Micah Bumpus, a local vendor of printing inks, and his wife and
son; Mr. and Mrs. Maximilian Pick, Mr. Pick being a wholesale and
retail dealer in hay, grain and feed; Mr. Witness, a florist, and
Mrs. Throop, a local real estate dealer.  All knew Samuel Griffiths
and his family by reputation and it seemed not a little interesting
and strange to all of them that Clyde, a real nephew of so rich a
man, should be here in their midst.  The only trouble with this was
that Clyde's manner was very soft and not as impressive as it
should be--not so aggressive and contemptuous.  And most of them
were of that type of mind that respects insolence even where it
pretends to condemn it.

In so far as the young girls were concerned, it was even more
noticeable.  For Dillard was making this important relationship of
Clyde's perfectly plain to every one.  "This is Clyde Griffiths,
the nephew of Samuel Griffiths, Mr. Gilbert Griffiths' cousin, you
know.  He's just come on here to study the collar business in his
uncle's factory."  And Clyde, who realized how shallow was this
pretense, was still not a little pleased and impressed by the
effect of it all.  This Dillard's effrontery.  The brassy way in
which, because of Clyde, he presumed to patronize these people.  On
this occasion, he kept guiding Clyde here and there, refusing for
the most part to leave him alone for an instant.  In fact he was
determined that all whom he knew and liked among the girls and
young men should know who and what Clyde was and that he was
presenting him.  Also that those whom he did not like should see as
little of him as possible--not be introduced at all.  "She don't
amount to anything.  Her father only keeps a small garage here.  I
wouldn't bother with her if I were you." Or, "He isn't much around
here.  Just a clerk in our store."  At the same time, in regard to
some others, he was all smiles and compliments, or at worst
apologetic for their social lacks.

And then he was introduced to Zella Shuman and Rita Dickerman, who,
for reasons of their own, not the least among which was a desire to
appear a little wise and more sophisticated than the others here,
came a little late.  And it was true, as Clyde was to find out
afterwards, that they were different, too--less simple and
restricted than quite all of the girls whom Dillard had thus far
introduced him to.  They were not as sound religiously and morally
as were these others.  And as even Clyde noted on meeting them,
they were as keen for as close an approach to pagan pleasure
without admitting it to themselves, as it was possible to be and
not be marked for what they were.  And in consequence, there was
something in their manner, the very spirit of the introduction,
which struck him as different from the tone of the rest of this
church group--not exactly morally or religiously unhealthy but
rather much freer, less repressed, less reserved than were these
others.

"Oh, so you're Mr. Clyde Griffiths," observed Zella Shuman.  "My,
you look a lot like your cousin, don't you?  I see him driving down
Central Avenue ever so often.  Walter has been telling us all about
you.  Do you like Lycurgus?"

The way she said "Walter," together with something intimate and
possessive in the tone of her voice, caused Clyde to feel at once
that she must feel rather closer to and freer with Dillard than he
himself had indicated.  A small scarlet bow of velvet ribbon at her
throat, two small garnet earrings in her ears, a very trim and
tight-fitting black dress, with a heavily flounced skirt, seemed to
indicate that she was not opposed to showing her figure, and prized
it, a mood which except for a demure and rather retiring poise
which she affected, would most certainly have excited comment in
such a place as this.

Rita Dickerman, on the other hand, was lush and blonde, with pink
cheeks, light chestnut hair, and bluish gray eyes.  Lacking the
aggressive smartness which characterized Zella Shuman, she still
radiated a certain something which to Clyde seemed to harmonize
with the liberal if secret mood of her friend.  Her manner, as
Clyde could see, while much less suggestive of masked bravado was
yielding and to him designedly so, as well as naturally provocative.
It had been arranged that she was to intrigue him. Very much
fascinated by Zella Shuman and in tow of her, they were inseparable.
And when Clyde was introduced to her, she beamed upon him in a
melting and sensuous way which troubled him not a little.  For here
in Lycurgus, as he was telling himself at the time, he must be very
careful with whom he became familiar.  And yet, unfortunately, as in
the case of Hortense Briggs, she evoked thoughts of intimacy,
however unproblematic or distant, which troubled him.  But he must
be careful.  It was just such a free attitude as this suggested by
Dillard as well as these girls' manners that had gotten him into
trouble before.

"Now we'll just have a little ice cream and cake," suggested
Dillard, after the few preliminary remarks were over, "and then we
can get out of here.  You two had better go around together and
hand out a few hellos.  Then we can meet at the ice cream booth.
After that, if you say so, we'll leave, eh?  What do you say?"

He looked at Zella Shuman as much as to say:  "You know what is the
best thing to do," and she smiled and replied:

"That's right.  We can't leave right away.  I see my cousin Mary
over there.  And Mother.  And Fred Bruckner.  Rita and I'll just go
around by ourselves for a while and then we'll meet you, see."  And
Rita Dickerman forthwith bestowed upon Clyde an intimate and
possessive smile.

After about twenty minutes of drifting and browsing, Dillard
received some signal from Zella, and he and Clyde paused near the
ice cream booth with its chairs in the center of the room.  In a
few moments they were casually joined by Zella and Rita, with whom
they had some ice cream and cake.  And then, being free of all
obligations and as some of the others were beginning to depart,
Dillard observed:  "Let's beat it.  We can go over to your place,
can't we?"

"Sure, sure," whispered Zella, and together they made their way to
the coat room.  Clyde was still so dubious as to the wisdom of all
this that he was inclined to be a little silent.  He did not know
whether he was fascinated by Rita or not.  But once out in the
street out of view of the church and the homing amusement seekers,
he and Rita found themselves together, Zella and Dillard having
walked on ahead.  And although Clyde had taken her arm, as he
thought fit, she maneuvered it free and laid a warm and caressing
hand on his elbow.  And she nudged quite close to him, shoulder to
shoulder, and half leaning on him, began pattering of the life of
Lycurgus.

There was something very furry and caressing about her voice now.
Clyde liked it.  There was something heavy and languorous about her
body, a kind of ray or electron that intrigued and lured him in
spite of himself.  He felt that he would like to caress her arm and
might if he wished--that he might even put his arm around her
waist, and so soon.  Yet here he was, a Griffiths, he was shrewd
enough to think--a Lycurgus Griffiths--and that was what now made a
difference--that made all those girls at this church social seem so
much more interested in him and so friendly.  Yet in spite of this
thought, he did squeeze her arm ever so slightly and without
reproach or comment from her.

And once in the Shuman home, which was a large old-fashioned square
frame house with a square cupola, very retired among some trees and
a lawn, they made themselves at home in a general living room which
was much more handsomely furnished than any home with which Clyde
had been identified heretofore.  Dillard at once began sorting the
records, with which he seemed most familiar, and to pull two rather
large rugs out of the way, revealing a smooth, hardwood floor.

"There's one thing about this house and these trees and these soft-
toned needles," he commented for Clyde's benefit, of course, since
he was still under the impression that Clyde might be and probably
was a very shrewd person who was watching his every move here.
"You can't hear a note of this Victrola out in the street, can you,
Zell?  Nor upstairs, either, really, not with the soft needles.
We've played it down here and danced to it several times, until
three and four in the morning and they didn't even know it
upstairs, did they, Zell?"

"That's right.  But then Father's a little hard of hearing.  And
Mother don't hear anything, either, when she gets in her room and
gets to reading.  But it is hard to hear at that."

"Why do people object so to dancing here?" asked Clyde.

"Oh, they don't--not the factory people--not at all," put in
Dillard, "but most of the church people do.  My uncle and aunt do.
And nearly everyone else we met at the church to-night, except Zell
and Rita."  He gave them a most approving and encouraging glance.
"And they're too broadminded to let a little thing like that bother
them.  Ain't that right, Zell?"

This young girl, who was very much fascinated by him, laughed and
nodded, "You bet, that's right.  I can't see any harm in it."

"Nor me, either," put in Rita, "nor my father and mother.  Only
they don't like to say anything about it or make me feel that they
want me to do too much of it."

Dillard by then had started a piece entitled "Brown Eyes" and
immediately Clyde and Rita and Dillard and Zella began to dance,
and Clyde found himself insensibly drifting into a kind of intimacy
with this girl which boded he could scarcely say what.  She danced
so warmly and enthusiastically--a kind of weaving and swaying
motion which suggested all sorts of repressed enthusiasms.  And her
lips were at once wreathed with a kind of lyric smile which
suggested a kind of hunger for this thing.  And she was very
pretty, more so dancing and smiling than at any other time.

"She is delicious," thought Clyde, "even if she is a little soft.
Any fellow would do almost as well as me, but she likes me because
she thinks I'm somebody."  And almost at the same moment she
observed:  "Isn't it just too gorgeous?  And you're such a good
dancer, Mr. Griffiths."

"Oh, no," he replied, smiling into her eyes, "you're the one that's
the dancer.  I can dance because you're dancing with me."

He could feel now that her arms were large and soft, her bosom full
for one so young.  Exhilarated by dancing, she was quite
intoxicating, her gestures almost provoking.

"Now we'll put on 'The Love Boat,'" called Dillard the moment
"Brown Eyes" was ended, "and you and Zella can dance together and
Rita and I will have a spin, eh, Rita?"

He was so fascinated by his own skill as a dancer, however, as well
as his natural joy in the art, that he could scarcely wait to begin
another, but must take Rita by the arms before putting on another
record, gliding here and there, doing steps and executing figures
which Clyde could not possibly achieve and which at once
established Dillard as the superior dancer.  Then, having done so,
he called to Clyde to put on "The Love Boat."

But as Clyde could see after dancing with Zella once, this was
planned to be a happy companionship of two mutually mated couples
who would not interfere with each other in any way, but rather
would aid each other in their various schemes to enjoy one
another's society.  For while Zella danced with Clyde, and danced
well and talked to him much, all the while he could feel that she
was interested in Dillard and Dillard only and would prefer to be
with him.  For, after a few dances, and while he and Rita lounged
on a settee and talked, Zella and Dillard left the room to go to
the kitchen for a drink.  Only, as Clyde observed, they stayed much
longer than any single drink would have required.

And similarly, during this interval, it seemed as though it was
intended even, by Rita, that he and she should draw closer to one
another.  For, finding the conversation on the settee lagging for a
moment, she got up and apropos of nothing--no music and no words--
motioned him to dance some more with her.  She had danced certain
steps with Dillard which she pretended to show Clyde.  But because
of their nature, these brought her and Clyde into closer contact
than before--very much so.  And standing so close together and
showing Clyde by elbow and arm how to do, her face and cheek came
very close to him--too much for his own strength of will and
purpose.  He pressed his cheek to hers and she turned smiling and
encouraging eyes upon him.  On the instant, his self-possession was
gone and he kissed her lips.  And then again--and again.  And
instead of withdrawing them, as he thought she might, she let him--
remained just as she was in order that he might kiss her more.

And suddenly now, as he felt this yielding of her warm body so
close to him, and the pressure of her lips in response to his own,
he realized that he had let himself in for a relationship which
might not be so very easy to modify or escape.  Also that it would
be a very difficult thing for him to resist, since he now liked her
and obviously she liked him.



Chapter 9


Apart from the momentary thrill and zest of this, the effect was to
throw Clyde, as before, speculatively back upon the problem of his
proper course here.  For here was this girl, and she was
approaching him in this direct and suggestive way.  And so soon
after telling himself and his mother that his course was to be so
different here--no such approaches or relationships as had brought
on his downfall in Kansas City.  And yet--and yet--

He was sorely tempted now, for in his contact with Rita he had the
feeling that she was expecting him to suggest a further step--and
soon.  But just how and where?  Not in connection with this large,
strange house.  There were other rooms apart from the kitchen to
which Dillard and Zella had ostensibly departed.  But even so, such
a relationship once established!  What then?  Would he not be
expected to continue it, or let himself in for possible complications
in case he did not?  He danced with and fondled her in a daring and
aggressive fashion, yet thinking as he did so, "But this is not
what I should be doing either, is it?  This is Lycurgus.  I am a
Griffiths, here.  I know how these people feel toward me--their
parents even.  Do I really care for her?  Is there not something
about her quick and easy availability which, if not exactly
dangerous in so far as my future here is concerned, is not quite
satisfactory--too quickly intimate?"  He was experiencing a
sensation not unrelated to his mood in connection with the lupanar
in Kansas City--attracted and yet repulsed.  He could do no more
than kiss and fondle her here in a somewhat restrained way until at
last Dillard and Zella returned, whereupon the same degree of
intimacy was no longer possible.

A clock somewhere striking two, it suddenly occurred to Rita that
she must be going--her parents would object to her staying out so
late.  And since Diliard gave no evidence of deserting Zella, it
followed, of course, that Clyde was to see her home, a pleasure
that now had been allayed by a vague suggestion of disappointment
or failure on the part of both.  He had not risen to her
expectations, he thought.  Obviously he lacked the courage yet to
follow up the proffer of her favors, was the way she explained it
to herself.

At her own door, not so far distant, and with a conversation which
was still tinctured with intimations of some future occasions which
might prove more favorable, her attitude was decidedly encouraging,
even here.  They parted, but with Clyde still saying to himself
that this new relationship was developing much too swiftly.  He was
not sure that he should undertake a relationship such as this here--
so soon, anyhow.  Where now were all his fine decisions made
before coming here?  What was he going to decide?  And yet because
of the sensual warmth and magnetism of Rita, he was irritated by
his resolution and his inability to proceed as he otherwise might.

Two things which eventually decided him in regard to this came
quite close together.  One related to the attitude of the Griffiths
themselves, which, apart from that of Gilbert, was not one of
opposition or complete indifference, so much as it was a failure on
the part of Samuel Griffiths in the first instance and the others
largely because of him to grasp the rather anomalous, if not
exactly lonely position in which Clyde would find himself here
unless the family chose to show him at least some little courtesy
or advise him cordially from time to time.  Yet Samuel Griffiths,
being always very much pressed for time, had scarcely given Clyde a
thought during the first month, at least.  He was here, properly
placed, as he heard, would be properly looked after in the future,--
what more, just now, at least?

And so for all of five weeks before any action of any kind was
taken, and with Gilbert Griffiths comforted thereby, Clyde was
allowed to drift along in his basement world wondering what was
being intended in connection with himself.  The attitude of others,
including Dillard and these girls, finally made his position here
seem strange.

However, about a month after Clyde had arrived, and principally
because Gilbert seemed so content to say nothing regarding him, the
elder Griffiths inquired one day:

"Well, what about your cousin?  How's he doing by now?"  And
Gilbert, only a little worried as to what this might bode, replied,
"Oh, he's all right.  I started him off in the shrinking room.  Is
that all right?"

"Yes, I think so.  That's as good a place as any for him to begin,
I believe.  But what do you think of him by now?"

"Oh," answered Gilbert very conservatively and decidedly
independently--a trait for which his father had always admired him--
"Not so much.  He's all right, I guess.  He may work out.  But he
does not strike me as a fellow who would ever make much of a stir
in this game.  He hasn't had much of an education of any kind, you
know.  Any one can see that.  Besides, he's not so very aggressive
or energetic-looking.  Too soft, I think.  Still I don't want to
knock him.  He may be all right.  You like him and I may be wrong.
But I can't help but think that his real idea in coming here is
that you'll do more for him than you would for someone else, just
because he is related to you."

"Oh, you think he does.  Well, if he does, he's wrong."  But at the
same time, he added, and that with a bantering smile:  "He may not
be as impractical as you think, though.  He hasn't been here long
enough for us to really tell, has he?  He didn't strike me that way
in Chicago.  Besides there are a lot of little corners into which
he might fit, aren't there, without any great waste, even if he
isn't the most talented fellow in the world?  If he's content to
take a small job in life, that's his business.  I can't prevent
that.  But at any rate, I don't want him sent away yet, anyhow, and
I don't want him put on piece work.  It wouldn't look right.  After
all, he is related to us.  Just let him drift along for a little
while and see what he does for himself."

"All right, governor," replied his son, who was hoping that his
father would absent-mindedly let him stay where he was--in the
lowest of all the positions the factory had to offer.

But, now, and to his dissatisfaction, Samuel Griffiths proceeded to
add, "We'll have to have him out to the house for dinner pretty
soon, won't we?  I have thought of that but I haven't been able to
attend to it before.  I should have spoken to Mother about it
before this.  He hasn't been out yet, has he?"

"No, sir, not that I know of," replied Gilbert dourly.  He did not
like this at all, but was too tactful to show his opposition just
here.  "We've been waiting for you to say something about it, I
suppose."

"Very well," went on Samuel, "you'd better find out where he's
stopping and have him out.  Next Sunday wouldn't be a bad time, if
we haven't anything else on."  Noting a flicker of doubt or
disapproval in his son's eyes, he added:  "After all, Gil, he's my
nephew and your cousin, and we can't afford to ignore him entirely.
That wouldn't be right, you know, either.  You'd better speak to
your mother to-night, or I will, and arrange it."  He closed the
drawer of a desk in which he had been looking for certain papers,
got up and took down his hat and coat and left the office.

In consequence of this discussion, an invitation was sent to Clyde
for the following Sunday at six-thirty to appear and participate in
a Griffiths family meal.  On Sunday at one-thirty was served the
important family dinner to which usually was invited one or another
of the various local or visiting friends of the family.  At six-
thirty nearly all of these guests had departed, and sometimes one
or two of the Griffiths themselves, the cold collation served being
partaken of by Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths and Myra--Bella and Gilbert
usually having appointments elsewhere.

On this occasion, however, as Mrs. Griffiths and Myra and Bella
decided in conference, they would all be present with the exception
of Gilbert, who, because of his opposition as well as another
appointment, explained that he would stop in for only a moment
before leaving.  Thus Clyde as Gilbert was pleased to note would be
received and entertained without the likelihood of contacts,
introductions and explanations to such of their more important
connections who might chance to stop in during the afternoon.  They
would also have an opportunity to study him for themselves and see
what they really did think without committing themselves in any
way.

But in the meantime in connection with Dillard, Rita and Zella
there had been a development which, because of the problem it had
posed, was to be affected by this very decision on the part of the
Griffiths.  For following the evening at the Shuman home, and
because, in spite of Clyde's hesitation at the time, all three
including Rita herself, were still convinced that he must or would
be smitten with her charms, there had been various hints, as well
as finally a direct invitation or proposition on the part of
Dillard to the effect that because of the camaraderie which had
been established between himself and Clyde and these two girls,
they make a week-end trip somewhere--preferably to Utica or Albany.
The girls would go, of course.  He could fix that through Zella
with Rita for Clyde if he had any doubts or fears as to whether it
could be negotiated or not.  "You know she likes you.  Zell was
telling me the other day that she said she thought you were the
candy.  Some ladies' man, eh?"  And he nudged Clyde genially and
intimately,--a proceeding in this newer and grander world in which
he now found himself,--and considering who he was here, was not as
appealing to Clyde as it otherwise might have been.  These fellows
who were so pushing where they thought a fellow amounted to
something more than they did!  He could tell.

At the same time, the proposition he was now offering--as thrilling
and intriguing as it might be from one point of view--was likely to
cause him endless trouble--was it not?  In the first place he had
no money--only fifteen dollars a week here so far--and if he was
going to be expected to indulge in such expensive outings as these,
why, of course, he could not manage.  Carfare, meals, a hotel bill,
maybe an automobile ride or two.  And after that he would be in
close contact with this Rita whom he scarcely knew.  And might she
not take it on herself to become intimate here in Lycurgus, maybe--
expect him to call on her regularly--and go places--and then--well,
gee--supposing the Griffiths--his cousin Gilbert, heard of or saw
this.  Hadn't Zella said that she saw him often on the street here
and there in Lycurgus?  And wouldn't they be likely to encounter
him somewhere--sometime--when they were all together?  And wouldn't
that fix him as being intimate with just another store clerk like
Dillard who didn't amount to so much after all?  It might even mean
the end of his career here!  Who could tell what it might lead to?

He coughed and made various excuses.  Just now he had a lot of work
to do.  Besides--a venture like that--he would have to see first.
His relatives, you know.  Besides next Sunday and the Sunday after,
some extra work in connection with the factory was going to hold
him in Lycurgus.  After that time he would see.  Actually, in his
wavering way--and various disturbing thoughts as to Rita's charm
returning to him at moments, he was wondering if it was not
desirable--his other decision to the contrary notwithstanding, to
skimp himself as much as possible over two or three weeks and so go
anyhow.  He had been saving something toward a new dress suit and
collapsible silk hat.  Might he not use some of that--even though
he knew the plan to be all wrong?

The fair, plump, sensuous Rita!

But then, not at that very moment--but in the interim following,
the invitation from the Griffiths.  Returning from his work one
evening very tired and still cogitating this gay adventure proposed
by Dillard, he found lying on the table in his room a note written
on very heavy and handsome paper which had been delivered by one of
the servants of the Griffiths in his absence.  It was all the more
arresting to him because on the flap of the envelope was embossed
in high relief the initials "E. G."  He at once tore it open and
eagerly read:


"MY DEAR NEPHEW:

"Since your arrival my husband has been away most of the time, and
although we have wished to have you with us before, we have thought
it best to await his leisure.  He is freer now and we will be very
glad if you can find it convenient to come to supper with us at six
o'clock next Sunday.  We dine very informally--just ourselves--so
in case you can or cannot come, you need not bother to write or
telephone.  And you need not dress for this occasion either.  But
come if you can.  We will be happy to see you.

"Sincerely, your aunt,

"ELIZABETH GRIFFITHS"


On reading this Clyde, who, during all this silence and the
prosecution of a task in the shrinking room which was so eminently
distasteful to him, was being more and more weighed upon by the
thought that possibly, after all, this quest of his was going to
prove a vain one and that he was going to be excluded from any real
contact with his great relatives, was most romantically and hence
impractically heartened.  For only see--here was this grandiose
letter with its "very happy to see you," which seemed to indicate
that perhaps, after all, they did not think so badly of him.  Mr.
Samuel Griffiths had been away all the time.  That was it.  Now he
would get to see his aunt and cousins and the inside of that great
house.  It must be very wonderful.  They might even take him up
after this--who could tell?  But how remarkable that he should be
taken up now, just when he had about decided that they would not.

And forthwith his interest in, as well as his weakness for, Rita,
if not Zella and Dillard began to evaporate.  What!  Mix with
people so far below him--a Griffiths--in the social scale here and
at the cost of endangering his connection with that important
family.  Never!  It was a great mistake.  Didn't this letter coming
just at this time prove it?  And fortunately--(how fortunately!)--
he had had the good sense not to let himself in for anything as
yet.  And so now, without much trouble, and because, most likely
from now on it would prove necessary for him so to do he could
gradually eliminate himself from this contact with Dillard--move
away from Mrs. Cuppy's--if necessary, or say that his uncle had
cautioned him--anything, but not go with this crowd any more, just
the same.  It wouldn't do.  It would endanger his prospects in
connection with this new development.  And instead of troubling
over Rita and Utica now, he began to formulate for himself once
more the essential nature of the private life of the Griffiths, the
fascinating places they must go, the interesting people with whom
they must be in contact.  And at once he began to think of the need
of a dress suit, or at least a tuxedo and trousers.  Accordingly
the next morning, he gained permission from Mr. Kemerer to leave at
eleven and not return before one, and in that time he managed to
find coat, trousers and a pair of patent leather shoes, as well as
a white silk muffler for the money he had already saved.  And so
arrayed he felt himself safe.  He must make a good impression.

And for the entire time between then and Sunday evening, instead of
thinking of Rita or Dillard or Zella any more, he was thinking of
this opportunity.  Plainly it was an event to be admitted to the
presence of such magnificence.

The only drawback to all this, as he well sensed now, was this same
Gilbert Griffiths, who surveyed him always whenever he met him
anywhere with such hard, cold eyes.  He might be there, and then he
would probably assume that superior attitude, to make him feel his
inferior position, if he could--and Clyde had the weakness at times
of admitting to himself that he could.  And no doubt, if he (Clyde)
sought to carry himself with too much of an air in the presence of
this family, Gilbert most likely would seek to take it out of him
in some way later in connection with the work in the factory.  He
might see to it, for instance, that his father heard only
unfavorable things about him.  And, of course, if he were retained
in this wretched shrinking room, and given no show of any kind, how
could he expect to get anywhere or be anybody?  It was just his
luck that on arriving here he should find this same Gilbert looking
almost like him and being so opposed to him for obviously no reason
at all.

However, despite all his doubts, he decided to make the best of
this opportunity, and accordingly on Sunday evening at six set out
for the Griffiths' residence, his nerves decidedly taut because of
the ordeal before him.  And when he reached the main gate, a large,
arched wrought iron affair which gave in on a wide, winding brick
walk which led to the front entrance, he lifted the heavy latch
which held the large iron gates in place, with almost a quaking
sense of adventure.  And as he approached along the walk, he felt
as though he might well be the object of observant and critical
eyes.  Perhaps Mr. Samuel or Mr. Gilbert Griffiths or one or the
other of the two sisters was looking at him now from one of those
heavily curtained windows.  On the lower floor several lights
glowed with a soft and inviting radiance.

This mood, however, was brief.  For soon the door was opened by a
servant who took his coat and invited him into the very large
living room, which was very impressive.  To Clyde, even after the
Green-Davidson and the Union League, it seemed a very beautiful
room.  It contained so many handsome pieces of furniture and such
rich rugs and hangings.  A fire burned in the large, high fireplace
before which was circled a number of divans and chairs.  There were
lamps, a tall clock, a great table.  No one was in the room at the
moment, but presently as Clyde fidgeted and looked about he heard a
rustling of silk to the rear, where a great staircase descended
from the rooms above.  And from there he saw Mrs. Griffiths
approaching him, a bland and angular and faded-looking woman.  But
her walk was brisk, her manner courteous,