Felix O'Day

Chapter IV

The customary scene took place when Felix, late that afternoon, handed his landlady the overdue rent. Now that the two crisp bills which O'Day owed her lay in her hand, she was ready to pass them back to him if the full payment at all embarrassed him. Indeed, she had never had a more quiet and decent lodger, and she hoped it didn't mean he was “goin' away,” and, if she was rather sharp with him the night before, it was because she had been “that nervous of late.”

But Felix, ignoring her overtures, only shook his head in a good-natured way. He would begin packing at once, and the express wagon would be here at six. She would know it by the white horse which the man was driving. When his trunks were finished he would put them outside his bedroom door, and please not to forget his mackintosh and leather hat-case which he would leave inside the room.

So the packing began. First the sole-leather trunk, from which he had taken the hapless dressing-case the night before, was pulled out and the heavy black tin box hauled into position and unlocked. With the raising of the scarred and dented top a mass of letters and papers came into view, filling the box to the brim—some tied with red tape, others in big envelopes. In a corner lay some photographs—one in a gilt frame, the edge showing clear of the tissue-paper in which it was wrapped. This he took out and studied long and earnestly, his lips tightly pressed together. Retying the paper, he tucked them all back into place, turned the key, shook the box to see that the lock held tight, picked it up with one hand by its side handle, and, throwing open the door, deposited it on the landing outside. Its leather companion was then placed beside it, the hat-case crowning the whole.

Mike's voice was now heard in the narrow front hall. “How fur is it up, mum? Oh, another flight! Begorra, it's as dark as a coal-hole and about as dirty!” This was followed by: “Oh, is that you, sor? How many pieces have you?”

“Only two, Mike; and the mackintosh and hat-case,” answered Felix, who had watched him stumbling up the stairs until his red face was level with the landing. “By the way, mind you don't lose the rubber coat, for, although I never wear an overcoat, this comes in well when it rains.”

“I'll never take me eyes off it. I bet ye niver bought that down on the Bowery from a Johnny-hand-me-down!”

“And, Mike!”

“Yes, sor?”

“Will you please say to Mrs. Cleary that I may not be in to-night before eleven o'clock?”

“Eleven! Why that's the shank o' the evenin' for her, sor. If it was twelve, or after, she'd be up.” Then he bent forward and whispered: “I should think ye would be glad, sor, to get out of this rookery.”

Felix nodded in assent, waited until the leather trunk had been dumped into the wagon, watched Mike remount the stairs until he had reached his landing, helped him to load up the balance of his luggage—the tin box on one shoulder, the coat over the other, the hat-case in the free hand—and then walked back to his empty room. Here he made a thoughtful survey of the dismal place in which he had spent so many months, picked up his blackthorn stick, and, leaving the door ajar, walked slowly down-stairs, his hand on the rail as a guide in the dark.

“And you aren't comin' back, sir?” remarked the landlady, who had listened for his steps.

“That, madame, one never can tell.”

“Well, you are always welcome.”

“Thank you—good-by.”

“Good-by, sir; my husband's out or he would like to shake your hand.”

O'Day bowed slightly and stepped into the street, his stick under his arm, his hands hooked behind his back. That he had no immediate purpose in view was evident from the way he loitered along, stopping to look at the store windows or to scrutinize the passing crowd, each person intent on his or her special business. By the time he had reached Broadway the upper floors of the business buildings were dark, but the windows of the restaurants, cigar shops, and saloons had begun to blaze out and a throng of pleasure seekers to replace that of the shoppers and workers. This aspect of New York appealed to him most. There were fewer people moving about the streets and in less of a hurry, and he could study them the closer.

In a cheap restaurant off Union Square he ate a spare and inexpensive meal, whiled away an hour over the free afternoon papers, went out to watch an audience thronging into one of the smaller theatres, and then boarded a down-town car. When he reached Trinity Church the clock was striking, and, as he often did when here at this hour, he entered the open gate and, making his way among the shadows sat down, on a flat tomb. The gradual transition from the glare and rush of the up-town streets to the sombre stillness of this ancient graveyard always seemed to him like the shifting of films upon a screen, a replacement of the city of the living by the city of the dead. High up in the gloom soared the spire of the old church, its cross lost in shadows. Still higher, their roofs melting into the dusky blue vault, rose the great office-buildings, crowding close as if ready to pounce upon the small space protected only by the sacred ashes of the dead.

For some time he sat motionless, listening to the muffled peals of the organ. Then the humiliating events of the last twenty-four hours began crowding in upon his memory: the insolent demands of his landlady; the guarded questions of Kling when he inspected the dressing-case; the look of doubt on both their faces and the changes wrought in their manner and speech when they found he was able to pay his way. Suddenly something which up to that moment he had held at bay gripped him.

“It was money, then, which counted,” he said to himself, forgetting for the moment Kitty's refusal to take it. And if money were so necessary, how long could he earn it? Kling would soon discover how useless he was, and then the tin box, emptied of its contents and the last keepsake pawned or sold, the end would come.

None of these anxieties had ever assailed him before. He had been like a man walking in a dream, his gaze fixed on but one exit, regardless of the dangers besetting his steps. Now the truth confronted him. He had reached the limit of his resources. To hope for much from Kling was idle. Such a situation could not last, nor could he count for long either on the friendship or the sympathy of the big-hearted expressman's wife. She had been absolutely sincere, and so had her husband, but that made it all the more incumbent upon him to preserve his own independence while still pursuing the one object of his life with undiminished effort.

A flood of light from the suddenly opened church-door, followed by a burst of pent-up melody, recalled him to himself. He waited until all was dark again, rose to his feet, passed through the gate and, with a brace of his shoulders and quickened step, walked on into Wall Street.

As he made his way along the deserted thoroughfare, where but a few hours since the very air had been charged with a nervous energy whose slightest vibration was felt the world over, the sombre stillness of the ancient graveyard seemed to have followed him. Save for a private watchman slowly tramping his round and an isolated foot-passenger hurrying to the ferry, no soul but himself was stirring or awake except, perhaps, behind some electric light in a lofty building where a janitor was retiring or, lower down, some belated bookkeeper in search of an error.

Leaving the grim row of tall columns guarding the front of the old custom-house, he turned his steps in the direction of the docks, wheeled sharply to the left, and continued up South Street until he stopped in front of a ship-chandler's store.

Some one was at work inside, for the rays of a lantern shed their light over piles of old cordage and heaps of rusty chains flanking the low entrance.

Picking his way around some barrels of oil, he edged along a line of boxes filled with ship's stuff until he reached an inside office, where, beside a kerosene lamp placed on a small desk littered with papers, sat a man in shirt-sleeves. At the sound of O'Day's step the occupant lifted his head and peered out. The visitor passed through the doorway.

“Good evening, Carlin; I hoped you would still be up. I stopped on the way down or I should have been here earlier.”

A man of sixty, with a ruddy, weather-beaten face set in a half-moon of gray whiskers, the ends tied under his chin, sprang to his feet. “Ah! Is that you, Mr. Felix? I been a-wonderin' where you been a-keepin' yourself. Take this chair; it's more comfortable. I was thinkin' somehow you might come in to-night, and so I took a shy at my bills to have somethin' to do. I suppose”—he stopped, and in a whisper added: “I suppose you haven't heard anything, have you?”

“No; have you?”

“Not a word,” answered the ship-chandler gravely.

“I thought perhaps you might have had a letter,” urged Felix.

“Not a line of any kind,” came the answer, followed by a sidewise movement of the gray head, as if its owner had long since abandoned hope from that quarter.

“Do you think anything is the matter?”

“Nothin', or I should 'a' 'eard. My notion is that Martha kep' on to Toronto with that sick man she nursed on the steamer. Maybe she's got work stiddy and isn't a-goin' to come back.”

“But she would have let you KNOW?” There was a ring of anxiety now, tinged with a certain impatience.

“Perhaps she would, Mr. Felix, and perhaps she wouldn't. Since our mother died Martha gets rather cocky sometimes. Likes to be her own boss and earn her own living. I've often 'eard her say it before I left 'ome, and she HAS earned it, I must say—and she's got to, same as all of us. I suppose you been keepin' it up same as usual—trampin' and lookin'?”

“Yes.” This came as the mere stating of a fact.

“And I suppose there ain't nothin' new—no clew—nothin' you can work on?” The speaker felt assured there was not, but it might be an encouragement to suggest its possibility.

“No, not the slightest clew.”

“Better give it up, Mr. Felix, you're only wastin' your time. Be worse maybe when you do come up agin it.” The ship-chandler was in earnest; every intonation proved it.

O'Day arose from his seat and looked down at his companion. “That is not my way, Carlin, nor is it yours; and I have known you since I was a boy.”

“And you are goin' to keep it up, Mr. Felix?”

“Yes, until I know the end or reach my own.”

“Well, then, God's help go with ye!”

Into the shadows again—past long rows of silent warehouses, with here and there a flickering gas-lamp—until he reached Dover Street. He had still some work to do up-town, and Dover Street would furnish a short cut along the abutment of the great bridge, and so on to the Elevated at Franklin Square.

He was evidently familiar with its narrow, uneven sidewalk, for he swung without hesitation into the gloom and, with hands hooked behind his back, his stick held, as was his custom, close to his armpit, made his way past its shambling hovels and warehouses. Now and then he would pause, following with his eyes the curve of the great steel highway, carried on the stone shoulders of successive arches, the sweep of its lines marked by a procession of lights, its outstretched, interlocked palms gripped close. The memory of certain streets in London came to him—those near its own great bridges, especially the city dump at Black-friars and the begrimed buildings hugging the stone knees of London Bridge, choking up the snakelike alleys and byways leading to the Embankment.

Crossing under the Elevated, he continued along the side of the giant piers and wheeled into a dirt-choked, ill-smelling street, its distant outlet a blaze of electric lights. It was now the dead hour of the twenty-four—the hour before the despatch of the millions of journals, damp from the presses. He was the only human being in sight.

Suddenly, when within a hundred feet of the end of the street, a figure detached itself from a deserted doorway. Felix caught his stick from under his armpit as the man held out a hand.

“Say, I want you to give me the price of a meal.”

Felix tightened his hold on the stick. The words had conveyed a threat.

“This is no place for you to beg. Step out where people can see you.”

“I'm hungry, mister.” He had now taken in the width of O'Day's shoulders and the length of his forearm. He had also seen the stick.

Felix stepped back one pace and slipped his hand down the blackthorn. “Move on, I tell you, where I can look you over—quick!—I mean it.”

“I ain't much to look at.” The threat was out of his voice now. “I ain't eaten nothin' since yisterday, mister, and I got that out of a ash-barrel. I'm up agin it hard. Can't you see I ain't lyin'? You ain't never starved or you'd know. You ain't—” He wavered, his eyes glittering, edged a step nearer, and with a quick lunge made a grab for O'Day's watch.

Felix sidestepped with the agility of a cat, struck straight out from the shoulder, and, with a twist of his fingers in the tramp's neck-cloth, slammed him flat against the wall, where he crouched, gasping for breath. “Oh, that's it, is it?” he said calmly, loosening his hold.

The man raised both hands in supplication. “Don't kill me! Listen to me—I ain't no thief—I'm desperate. When you didn't give me nothin' and I got on to the watch—I got crazy. I'm glad I didn't git it. I been a-walkin' the streets for two weeks lookin' for work. Last night I slep' in a coal-bunker down by the docks, under the bridge, and I was goin' there agin when you come along. I never tried to rob nobody before. Don't run me in—let me go this time. Look into my face; you can see for yourself I'm hungry! I'll never do it agin. Try me, won't you?” His tears were choking him, the elbow of his ragged sleeve pressed to his eyes.

Felix had listened without moving, trying to make up his mind, noting the drawn, haggard face, the staring eyes and dry, fevered lips—all evidences of either hunger or vice, he was uncertain which.

Then gradually, as the man's sobs continued, there stole over him that strange sense of kinship in pain which comes to us at times when confronted with another's agony. The differences between them—the rags of the one and the well-brushed garments of the other, the fact that one skulked with his misery in dark alleys while the other bore his on the open highways—counted as nothing. He and this outcast were bound together by the common need of those who find the struggle overwhelming. Until that moment his own sufferings had absorbed him. Now the throb of the world's pain came to him and sympathies long dormant began to stir.

“Straighten up and let me see your face,” he said at last, intent on the tramp's abject misery. “Out here where the full light can fall on it—that's right! Now tell me about yourself. How long have you been like this?”

The man dragged himself to his feet.

“Ever since I lost my job.” The question had calmed him. There was a note of hope in it.

“What work did you do?”

“I'm a plumber's helper.”

“Work stopped?”

“No, a strike—I wouldn't quit, and they fired me.”

“What happened then?”

“She went away.”

“Who went away?”

“My wife.”

“When?”

“About a month back.”

“Did you beat her?”

“No, there was another man.”

“Younger than you?”

“Yes.”

“How old was she?”

“Eighteen.”

“A girl, then.”

“Yes, if you put it that way. She was all I had.”

“Have you seen her since?”

“No, and I don't want to.”

These questions and answers had followed in rapid succession, Felix searching for the truth and the man trying to give it as best he could.

With the last answer the man drew a step nearer and, in a voice which was fast getting beyond his control, said: “You know now, don't you? You can see it plain as day how long it takes to make a bum of a man when he's up agin things like that. You—” He paused, listened intently, and sprang back, hugging the wall. “What's that? Somebody comin'! My God! It's a cop! Don't tell him—say you won't tell him—say it! SAY IT!”

Felix gripped his wrist. “Pull yourself together and keep still.”

The officer, who was idly swinging a club as if for companionship along his lonely beat, stopped short. “Any trouble, sir?” he said as soon as he had Felix's outline and bearing clear.

“No, thank you, officer. Only a friend of mine who needs a little looking after. I'll take care of him.”

“All right, sir,” and he passed on down the narrow street.

The man gave a long breath and staggered against the wall. Felix caught him by his trembling shoulders. “Now, brace up. The first thing you need is something to eat. There is a restaurant at the corner. Come with me.”

“They won't let me in.”

“I'll take care of that.”

Felix entered first. “What is there hot this time of night, barkeeper?”

“Frankfurters and beans, boss.”

“Any coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Send a double portion of each to this table,” and he pulled out a chair. “Here's a man who has missed his dinner. Is that enough?” and he laid down a dollar bill—one Kling had given him.

“Forty cents change, boss.”

“Keep it, and see he gets all he wants. And now here,” he said to the tramp, “is another dollar to keep you going,” and with a shift of his stick to his left arm Felix turned on his heel, swung back the door, and was lost in the throng.

Kitty was up and waiting for him when he lifted the hinged wooden flap which provided an entrance for the privileged and, guided by the glow of the kerosene lamp, turned the knob of her kitchen door. She was close to the light, reading, the coffee-pot singing away on the stove, the aroma of its contents filling the room.

“I hope I have not kept you up, Mrs. Cleary. You had my message by Mike, did you not?” he asked in an apologetic tone.

“Yes, I got the message, and I got the trunks; they're up-stairs, and if you had given Mike the keys I'd have 'em unpacked by this time and all ready for you. As to my bein' up—I'm always up, and I got to be. John and Mike is over to Weehawken, and Bobby's been to the circus and just gone to bed, and I've been readin' the mornin' paper—about the only time I get to read it. Will ye sit down and wait till John comes in? Hold on 'til I get ye a cup of hot coffee and—”

“No, Mrs. Cleary. I will go to bed, if you do not mind.”

“Oh, but the coffee will put new life into ye, and—”

“Thanks, but it would be more likely to put it OUT of me if it kept me awake. Can I reach my room this way or must I go outside?”

“Ye can go through this door—wait, I'll go wid ye and show ye about the light and where ye'll find the water. It's dark on the stairs and ye may stumble. I'll go on ahead and turn up the gas in the hall,” she called back, as she mounted the steps and threw wide his room door. “Not much of a place, is it? But ye can get plenty of fresh air, and the bed's not bad. Ye can see for yourself,” and her stout fist sunk into its middle. “And there's your trunks and tin chest, and the hat-box is beside the wash-stand, and the waterproof coat's in the closet. We have breakfast at seven o'clock, and ye'll eat down-stairs wid me and John. And now good night to ye.”

Felix thanked her for her attention in his simple, straightforward way, and, closing the door upon her, dropped into a chair.

The night's experience had been like a sudden awakening. His anxiety over his dwindling finances and his disappointment over Carlin's news had been put to flight by the suffering of the man who had tried to rob him. There were depths, then, to which human suffering might drive a man, depths he himself had never imagined or reached—horrible, deadly depths, without light or hope, benumbing the best in a man, destroying his purposes by slow, insidious stages.

He arose from his chair and began walking up and down the small room, stopping now and then to inspect a bureau drawer or to readjust one of the curtains shading the panes of glass. In the same absent-minded way he drew out one of the trunks, unlocked it, paused now and then with some garment in his hand only to awake again to consciousness and resume his task, pushing the trunk back at last under the bed and continuing his walk about the narrow room, always haunted by the tramp's haggard, hopeless look.

Again he felt the mysterious sense of kinship in pain that wipes away all distinctions. With it, too, there came suddenly another sense—that of an overwhelming compassion out of which new purposes are born to human souls.

The encounter, then, had been both a blessing and a warning. He would now stand guard against the onslaught of his own sorrows while keeping up the fight, and this with renewed vigor. He would earn money, too, since this was so necessary, laboring with his hands, if need be; and he would do it all with a wide-open heart.