The Trufflers

CHAPTER XXIV – THE WILD FAGAN PERSON

AT the flower store in the station he bought a red carnation for his lapel and walked briskly toward the big clock.

A slim girl was there at the inquiry desk, very attractively dressed. His pulse bounded. She turned a forlornly pretty face and he saw that it was Hilda Hansen of Wisconsin.

Their hands met. They wandered off toward the dim corridor where the telephones are.

“It was dear of you to come,” said she rather shyly. “I shall feel better now. I was beginning to think – well, that you didn’t like me very well.”

“Hilda – that’s not fair!” he murmured. Murmured, IF the whole truth were told, rather blithely. For Hilda was pretty. Her soft dependence was the sweetest flattery. Her simple, easily satisfied mind was a relief after certain slightly more desperate adventures. And so, when he said, “I’m sorry you’re going, Hilda. Is it for long?” he spoke as sincerely as is commonly done.

“For good!” she blurted out in reply to this; and the tears came. He took her arm and walked her farther down the corridor. The little story was tumbling out now, helter skelter. Her father had stopped her allowance, ordered her home. She was leaving forever the freedom of dear old Greenwich Village. Naturally Hy kissed her.

He kissed her again, right out on the train platform, with belated passengers elbowing by and porters looking on. It was Hy’s little sacrament of freedom. He could kiss them now – in public – as he chose! For he was fired. No more gloomy old office! No more of the gliding Miss Hardwick! No more of the doctor’s oratory! No more of that damn buzzer!

The thing to do, of course, was to go back and pack up his belongings; but he couldn’t bring himself to it. So he stayed out until lunch time, filling in the odd hour with an eleven o’clock movie show. He lunched expensively and alone at the club, off a porterhouse steak with mushrooms, potatoes “au gratin,” creamed spinach, musty ale in pewter, romaine salad, Camembert cheese with toasted biscuit and black coffee.

When he reentered his office, who should be sitting there but the Worm. Before he could overcome a slight embarrassment and begin the necessary process of telling his story, a heavy crushing step sounded in the corridor, passed the door, went on into the big room in the corner.

The Worm rose abruptly.

“Isn’t that the Walrus?” he asked.

“The same,” said Hy.

“I’ve got to see him. Will you take me in?”

“Oh, sit down! I can tell you more than he can.”

“Perhaps, but at another time.”

Hy emerged from his self-absorption at this point sufficiently to observe that the Worm, usually smiling and calm, was laboring under some excitement.

“All right,” said he, “come along!” And quite light of heart, afraid of nothing now, he led the Worm in and introduced him as, “My friend, Mr. Bates of The ‘Courier.” Then, hearing his telephone ringing again, he hurried back to his own office.

It would be Betty, of course. Well, as far as the office was concerned, it didn’t matter now. She could call! Anybody could call… He picked up the receiver.

“Oh,” he murmured – “hello, Silvia! Wait a moment.” He got up and closed the door. “All right,” he said then. “What is it, little girl?”

“Oh!” said she, “thank God, I’ve found you! Hy, something dreadful has almost happened. It has done such things to my pride! But I knew you wouldn’t want me to turn to any one else for help, would you?”

“Oh, no,” said he, with sudden queer misgivings, “of course not! Not for a minute!”

“I knew you’d feel that way, dear. Are you dreadfully busy? Could you – I know it’s a lot to ask – but could you, for me, dear, run out for five minutes?”

“I will!” said he, with an emphasis aimed as much at himself as at her. “Where are you?”

“I’m talking from the drug store across the street, right near you. I’ll wait outside.”

The misgivings deepened as Hy walked slowly out to the elevator and then out to the street. Hy would have to be classified, in the last analysis, as a city bachelor, a seasoned, hardened city bachelor. The one prospect that instantly and utterly terrifies a hardened city bachelor is that of admitting that another has a moral claim upon him. The essence of bachelordom is the avoidance of personal responsibility. Therefore it was a reserved, rather dignified Hy who crossed the street and joined the supple, big-eyed, conspicuous young woman in the perfect-fitting tailor suit. Another factor in Hy’s mood, perhaps, was that the memory of Hilda Hansen’s soft young lips against his own had not yet wholly died.

He and Silvia walked slowly around the corner. “I don’t know how to tell you,” she said in an unsteady voice. There were tears in her eyes, too. “Hy, it’s awful! It’s my – my furniture!” The tears fell now. She wiped them away. “They say positively they’ll take it away tonight. Every stick. I’ve cried so! I tried to explain that I’m actually rehearsing with Cunningham. Before the end of the month I can take care of it easily. But – ” Hy stopped short, stood on the curb, looked at her. His head was clear and cold as an adding machine. “How much would it take?” said he.

“Oh, Hy.” She was crying again. “Don’t talk in that way – so cold – ”

“I know,” he broke in, “but – ”

“It’s fifty dollars. You see – ”

“I haven’t got it,” said he.

There was a perceptible ring in his voice. She looked at him, puzzled.

“Silvia, dear – I’m fired.”

“Fired? Hy – when?”

“To-day. Chucked out. I haven’t got half of that – to live on, even.”

“Oh, my dear boy, you oughtn’t to live in this careless way, not saving a cent – ”

“Of course I oughtn’t. But I do. That’s me.”

“But what on earth – what reason – ”

“Conduct. I’m a bad one.” He was almost triumphant. “Only last night I was seen leaving a questionable restaurant – where they dance and drink – with a young lady – ”

The tears were not falling now. Miss Silvia So-rana was looking straight at him, thoughtful, even cool.

“Are you telling me the truth, Hy Lowe?”

“The gospel. I’m not even the proletariat. I’m the unemployed.”

“Well,” said she – “well!” And she thought it deliberately out. “Well – I guess you can’t be blamed for that!”

Which impressed Hy later when he thought it over, as a curious remark. They parted shortly after this.

But first she said, “Hy, dear, I don’t like to seem to be leaving you on account of this. It must be dreadfully hard for you.” So they had a soda, sitting in the drug store window. Hy almost smiled, thinking of the madness of it – he and an unmistakable actress, in working hours, here actually in the shadow of grim old Scripture House! And it was nobody’s business! It could hurt nobody! He had not known that freedom would be like this. There was a thrill about it; so deep a thrill that after he had put the sympathetic but plainly hurrying Silvia on an up-town car and had paid for her as she entered, he could not bring himself to return to the office. Even with the Worm up there, wondering what had become of him. Even with all his personal belongings waiting to be cleared from the desk and packed.

He wandered over to Washington Square, his spirit reveling in the lazy June sunshine. He stopped and listened to the untiring hurdy gurdy; threw coins to the little Italian girls dancing on the pavement. He thought of stopping in at the Parisian, ordering a “sirop” and reading or trying to read, those delightfully naughty French weeklies. He knew definitely now that he was out for a good time.

There was a difficulty. It is easier to have a good time when there is a girl about. Really it was rather inopportune that Hilda Hansen had flitted back to Wisconsin. She needed a guardian; still she had been an appealing young thing up there at the Grand Central. But she had gone! And Silvia – well, that little affair had taken an odd and not over-pleasant turn. The pagan person had, plainly, her sophisticated moments. He was glad that he had seen through her. For that matter, you couldn’t ever trust her sort.

Then creeping back into his mind like a pet dog after a beating, hesitant, all fears and doubts of a welcome, came the thought of Betty Deane.

CHAPTER XXV – HE WHO HESITATED

WHERE was Betty, anyway! And why hadn’t she called up the office. It began to seem to him that she might have done that after her little effort of the morning. Hitherto, before that ridiculous marriage of hers, she had always put up with Sue Wilde, over in Tenth Street. Perhaps she was there now. Mental pictures began to form of Betty’s luxuriant blonde beauty. And it was something for a peach like that to leave home and rich husband, come hurrying down to New York and call you up at an ungodly hour in the morning. He remembered suddenly, warmly, the time he had first kissed Betty – over in New Jersey, on a green hillside, of a glowing afternoon. His laziness fell away. Briskly he walked around into Tenth Street and rang Sue’s bell.

Betty answered – prettier than ever, a rounded but swaying young creature who said little and that slowly.

“Hello!” she said, “Sue’s out.”

“I don’t want Sue. Came to see you, Betty. I’m fired – out of a job – and while it lasts, hilariously happy. How about a bite at the Parisian?”

So they had humorously early tea at the old French restaurant near the Square. Then Betty went up-town on the bus for a little shopping, and Hy walked, at last, back to the office. They had decided to meet again for dinner.

Scripture House loomed before him – long, dingy, grim in the gay sunshine. He stood motionless on the farther curb, staring at it. Had three years of his life been spent, miserably spent, on a treadmill, in that haunt of hypocrisy? Had he been selling his presumably immortal soul on the instalment plan, at forty-five a week? Or was it a hideous dream? Was he dreaming now?

He shuddered. Then, slowly, he walked across the street, deriding to pack up and get out for good just as swiftly as the thing could be done. He was glad, downright glad, that it was his character that had been so crudely assailed. That let him out. He needn’t be decent – needn’t wait a month to break in a new man – nothing like that! He wondered mildly what the Worm would say, and Peter? It might be necessary to borrow a bit until he could get going again. Though perhaps they would take him back on the old paper until he could find something regular.

The sense of being haunted by a dream grew as he went up in the elevator and walked along the hall. He saw with new eyes the old building he had so long taken for granted – saw the worn hollows in the oak floors, the patched cracks in the plaster; he smelt the old musty odor with new’ repugnance; noted the legends on office doors he passed with a wry smile, the Reverend This and the Reverend That, the Society for the Suppression of Such and Such, the commercially religious Somebody & Company.

He had to will his hand to open the door lettered, “My Brother’s Keeper; Hubbell Harkness Wilde, D. D.” He had to will his feet to carry him within. But once within, he stood motionless and the queerness seized on him, widened his eyes, caught at his breath. For the place was absolutely still. Not a typewriter sounded. Not an argumentative voice floated out over the seven-foot partitions. It was like a dead place – uncanny, awful. For an instant he considered running; wondered fantastically whether his feet would turn to lead and hold him back as feet do in dreams.

But he stood his ground and looked cautiously about. There within the rail, in the corner, the pretty little telephone girl sat motionless at her switchboard, watching him with eyes that stared stupidly out of a white face.

He stepped to her side – tiptoeing in spite of himself – tried to smile, cleared his throat, started at the sound; then whispered, “For Heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?” and patted the girl’s cheek.

Ordinarily she would have dodged away and looked anxiously about in fear of being seen. Now she did nothing of the sort. After a moment she said, also whispering and quite incoherently – “Is Miss Hardwick going to have your room?”

At the sound of her voice and out of sheer nervousness, he gulped. She was alive, at least. He pinched her cheek; and shook his head, rather meaninglessly. Then he braced himself and went on in, wholly unaware that he was still tiptoeing.

Two girl stenographers sat in a coiner, whispering. At sight of him they hushed. He passed on. The other girls were not at their desks, though he thought that most of their hats and coats hung in the farther corner as usual. The office boy was not to be seen. The copy editor and proof-reader was not in her cubby-hole at the end of the corridor. Miss Hardwick’s door was shut; but as he passed he thought he heard a rustle within, and he was certain that he saw the tip of a hat feather over the partition.

He came to his own door. It was ajar. He felt sure he had closed it when he left. It was his regular practise to close it. He stopped short, considering this as if it was a matter of genuine importance. Then it occurred to him that the boy might have been in there with proofs.

Doctor Wilde’s door at the end of the corridor stood open. The seven-foot square mahogany desk, heaped with papers and books, looked natural enough, but the chair behind it was empty.

He tiptoed forward, threw his door open. Then he literally gasped. For there, between the desk and the window, stood the Walrus. He held the nicked editorial shears in his hand – he must have picked them up from the floor – and was in the act of looking from them to the cut ends of the wires by the buzzer.

Hy’s overcharged nervous system leaped for the nearest outlet. “I cut the damn things myself,” he said, “this morning.”

The Walrus turned toward him an ashen face.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “I didn’t know they were objectionable to you.”

“I’ve hated them for three years,” said Hy.

“You should have spoken. It is better to speak of things.”

“Speak nothing!” Hy sputtered. “I stood a fine chance.”

“You know,” observed Doctor Wilde, as if he had not heard – his voice was husky and curiously weak – “we were interrupted this morning. You were wrong in imagining that a resignation was necessary. You jumped at that conclusion. I should say that you were unnecessarily touchy.”

“But my character – ”

“I repeat, it seems to me that you were unnecessarily touchy. A man must not be too sensitive. He should be strong to take as well as give blows. Your actions, it seemed to me, perhaps wrongly, were a blow to me, to the prestige of this establishment. You must understand, Mr. Lowe, that in this life that we all must live” – absently he looked about to see if Miss Hardwick’s pencil was poised to render imperishable the thought that he was about to put into words, caught himself, brushed a limp hand (with the shears in them) across his eyes, then went on with an effort – “I will say further that when we spoke this morning I had not seen the dummy for the issue of July tenth. Now I don’t mind telling you that I regard that as a good dummy. You have there caught my ideas of sound make-up better than ever before. And I have – ”

“But my character – ”

“ – and I have just written instructions to Mr. Hennessy to make a change in your salary beginning with next Saturday’s envelope. You are now doing the work of a full managing editor. Your income should be sufficient to enable you to support the position with reasonable dignity. Hereafter you will draw sixty dollars a week.”

He moved toward the door. He seemed suddenly a really old man, grayer of hair and skin, more bent, less certain of his footing.

“Here!” cried Hy, sputtering in uncontrollable excitement, “those are my shears.”

“Ah, so they are. I did not notice.” And the Walrus came back, laid them carefully on the desk: then walked out, entered his own room, closed the dour.

Hy shut his door, stood for a moment by the desk, sank, an inert figure, into his chair. His eyes focused on the old alpaca coat, stuffed into the waste basket. He took it out; spread it on the desk and stared at the ink stains. “I can have it cleaned,” he thought. Suddenly he pressed two shaking hands to his throbbing head.

“My God!” he muttered, aloud. “What did I say to him. What didn’t I say to him? I’m a loon! I’m a nut! This is the asylum!”

He stiffened up; sat there for a moment, wildeyed. He reached down and pinched his thigh, hard. He sprang up and paced the room. He wheeled suddenly, craftily, on the silent buzzer, there on the partition. So far all right – the wires were cut!

He saw the shears lying on the desk; pounced on them and feverishly examined the blades. One was nicked.

So far, so good. But the supreme test remained. He plunged out into the silent corridor, hesitated, stood wrestling with the devils within him, conquered them and white as all the ghosts tapped at Doctor Wilde’s door, opened it a crack, stuck in his head, and said:

“How much did you say it was to be, Doctor?”

The Walrus compressed his lips, and then drew a deep breath that was not unlike a sigh. “The figure I mentioned,” he replied, “was sixty dollars a week. If that is satisfactory to you.”

Hy considered this. “On the whole,” he said finally, “considering everything, I will agree to that.”

At ten minutes past midnight Hy let himself into the rooms. One gas jet was burning dimly in the studio. As he stood on the threshold he could just make out the long figure of the Worm half reclining in the Morris chair by a wide-open window, attired in the striped pajamas of the morning. From one elevated foot dangled a slipper of Chinese straw. He was smoking his old brier.

“Hello!” said Hy cheerfully.

Silence. Then, “Hello!” replied the Worm.

Hy tossed his hat on the couch-bed of the absent Peter, then came and stood by the open window, thrust hands deep into trousers packets, sniffed the mild evening air, gazed benevolently on the trees, lights and little moving figures of the Square. Then he lit a cigarette.

“Great night, my son!” said he.

The Worm lowered his pipe, looked up with sudden sharp interest, studied the gay young person standing so buoyantly there before him; then replaced the pipe and smoked on in silence.

“Oh, come!” cried Hy, after a bit. “Buck up! Be a live young newspaper man!”

“I’m not a newspaper man,’” replied the Worm.

“You’re not a – you were this afternoon.”

“True.”

“Say, my son, what were you around for today?”

The pipe came down again. “You mean to say you don’t know?”

“Not a thing. Except that the place went absolutely on the fritz. I thought I had ‘em.”

“I don’t wonder,” muttered Henry Bates.

“And the Walrus raised me fifteen bucks per. Just like that!”

“He raised you?”

“Yes, my child.” Hy came around, sat on the desk, dangled his legs.

“Then,” observed the Worm, “he certainly thinks you know.”

“Elucidate! Elucidate!”

The Worm knocked the ashes from his pipe; turned the warm bowl around and around in his hand. “Our paper – I should say The Courier– . has a story on Doctor Wilde – a charge that he has misappropriated missionary funds. They sent me up to-day to ask if he would consent to an accounting.”

Hy whistled.

“The amount is put roughly at a million dollars. I didn’t care much about the assignment.”

“I should think not.”

“I’m fond of Sue. But it was my job. When I told him what I was there for, he ran me out of his office, locked the door and shouted through the transom that he had a bottle of poison in his desk and would take it if I wouldn’t agree to suppress the story. As if he’d planned exactly that scene for years.”

“Aha,” cried Hy – “melodrama.”

“Precisely. Melodrama. It was unpleasant.”

“You accepted the gentleman’s proposition, I take it.”

“I dislike murders.”

Hy, considering this, stiffened up. “Say,” he cried, “what’s the paper going to do about it?”

“I saw the assistant city editor this evening at the Parisian bar. He tells me they have decided to drop the story. But they dropped me first.” He looked shrewdly at Hy. “So don’t worry. You can count on your raise.”

Hy’s cigarette had gone out. He looked at it, tossed it out the window, lit a fresh one.

“Of course,” said he, “a fellow likes to know where he gets off.”

“Or at least that he is off,” said the Worm, and went to bed.

Hy let him go. A dreamy expression came into his eyes. As he threw off coat and waistcoat and started unbuttoning his collar, he hummed softly:

He embraced an imaginary young woman – a blonde who was slow of speech and luxurious in movements – and danced slowly, rather gracefully across the room.

All was right with the world!

CHAPTER XXVI – ENTER MARIA TONIFETTI

THOUGH there is no known specific for heartache, there are palliatives. One such Peter Ericson Mann found in the head barber’s chair at the strictly sanitary shop of Manus. The necessity, during all the spring months, of avoiding this shop had irked Peter; for he was given to worry in the matter of bacteria. And he could not himself shave his thin and tender skin without irritating it to the point of eruption.

The shop of Marius was in the basement of that most interesting of New York restaurants, the Parisian. The place is wholly French, from the large trees out front and in their shade the sleepy victorias always waiting at the curb to the Looeys and Sharlses and Gastongs that serve you within. It is there a distinction to be known of the maître d’hôtel, an achievement to nod to the proprietor.

Greenwich Village, when in funds, dines, lunches, breakfasts at the Parisian. Upper West Side, when seeking the quaintly foreign dissociated from squalor, dines there. Upper West Side always goes up the wide front steps and through the busy little office into the airy eating rooms with full length hinged windows. There is music here; a switchboard youth who giftedly blends slang with argot; even, it has been reported, an interior fountain. Greenwich Village now and again ascends those wide front steps; but more often frequents the basement where is neither fountain nor music, merely chairs, tables and ineffable food; these latter in three or four small rooms which you may enter from the Avenue, directly under the steps, or from the side street through the bar. The corner room, nearest the bar, is a haunt of such newspaper men as live in the neighborhood. Also in the basement is a rather obscure and crooked passage extending from the bar past the small rooms and the barber shop of Marius to the equally obscure and crooked stairway that leads by way of telephone booths and a passage to the little office hallway and the upper restaurant. The whole, apparently, was arranged with the mechanics of French farce uppermost in the mind of the architect.