A Dance of Folly and Pleasure: Stories Read online

  Ikey slunk along the bar and gazed, breath-quickened, at his idol.

  How magnificent was Billy McMahan, with his great, smooth, laughing face; his grey eye, shrewd as a chicken hawk’s; his diamond ring, his voice like a bugle call, his prince’s air, his plump and active roll of money, his clarion call to friend and comrade – oh, what a king of men he was! How he obscured his lieutenants, though they themselves loomed large and serious, blue of chin and important of mien, with hands buried deep in the pockets of their short overcoats! But Billy – oh, what small avail are words to paint for you his glory as seen by Ikey Snigglefritz!

  The Café Maginnis rang to the note of victory. The white-coated bartenders threw themselves featfully upon bottle, cork and glass. From a score of clear Havanas the air received its paradox of clouds. The leal and the hopeful shook Billy McMahan’s hand. And there was born suddenly in the worshipful soul of Ikey Snigglefritz an audacious, thrilling impulse.

  He stepped forward into the little cleared space in which majesty moved, and held out his hand.

  Billy McMahan grasped it unhesitatingly, shook it and smiled.

  Made mad now by the gods who were about to destroy him, Ikey threw away his scabbard and charged upon Olympus.

  ‘Have a drink with me, Billy,’ he said familiarly, ‘you and your friends?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do, old man,’ said the great leader, ‘just to keep the ball rolling.’

  The last spark of Ikey’s reason fled.

  ‘Wine,’ he called to the bartender, waving a trembling hand.

  The corks of three bottles were drawn; the champagne bubbled in the long row of glasses set upon the bar. Billy McMahan took his and nodded, with his beaming smile, at Ikey. The lieutenants and satellites took theirs and growled ‘Here’s to you.’ Ikey took his nectar in delirium. All drank.

  Ikey threw his week’s wages in a crumpled roll upon the bar.

  ‘C’rect,’ said the bartender, smoothing the twelve one-dollar notes. The crowd surged around Billy McMahan again. Someone was telling how Brannigan fixed ’em over in the Eleventh. Ikey leaned against the bar a while and then went out.

  He went down Hester Street and up Chrystie, and down Delancey to where he lived. And there his womenfolk, a bibulous mother and three dingy sisters, pounced upon him for his wages. And at his confession they shrieked and objurgated him in the pithy rhetoric of the locality.

  But even as they plucked at him and struck him, Ikey remained in his ecstatic trance of joy. His head was in the clouds; the star was drawing his wagon. Compared with what he had achieved the loss of wages and the bray of women’s tongues were slight affairs.

  He had shaken the hand of Billy McMahan.

  Billy McMahan had a wife, and upon her visiting cards was engraved the name ‘Mrs William Darragh McMahan.’ And there was a certain vexation attendant upon these cards; for, small as they were, there were houses in which they could not be inserted. Billy McMahan was a dictator in politics, a four-walled tower in business, a mogul: dreaded, loved and obeyed among his own people. He was growing rich; the daily papers had a dozen men on his trail to chronicle his every word of wisdom; he had been honoured in caricature holding the Tiger cringing in leash.

  But the heart of Billy was sometimes sore within him. There was a race of men from which he stood apart but that he viewed with the eye of Moses looking over into the Promised Land. He, too, had ideals, even as had Ikey Snigglefritz; and sometimes, hopeless of attaining them, his own solid success was as dust and ashes in his mouth. And Mrs William Darragh McMahan wore a look of discontent upon her plump but pretty face, and the very rustle of her silks seemed a sigh.

  There was a brave and conspicuous assemblage in the dining-saloon of a noted hostelry where Fashion loves to display her charms. At one table sat Billy McMahan and his wife. Mostly silent they were, but the accessories they enjoyed little needed the endorsement of speech. Mrs McMahan’s diamonds were outshone by few in the room. The waiter bore the costliest brands of wine to their table. In evening dress, with an expression of gloom upon his smooth and massive countenance, you would look in vain for a more striking figure than Billy’s.

  Four tables away sat alone a tall, slender man, about thirty, with thoughtful, melancholy eyes, a Van Dyke beard and peculiarly white, thin hands. He was dining on filet mignon, dry toast and apollinaris. That man was Cortlandt Van Duyckink, a man worth eighty millions, who inherited and held a sacred seat in the exclusive inner circle of society.

  Billy McMahan spoke to no one around him, because he knew no one. Van Duyckink kept his eyes on his plate because he knew that every eye present was hungry to catch his. He could bestow knighthood and prestige by a nod, and he was chary of creating a too-extensive nobility.

  And then Billy McMahan conceived and accomplished the most startling and audacious act of his life. He rose deliberately and walked over to Cortlandt Van Duyckink’s table and held out his hand.

  ‘Say, Mr Van Duyckink,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard you was talking about starting some reforms among the poor people down in my district. I’m McMahan, you know. Say, now, if that’s straight I’ll do all I can to help you. And what I says goes in that neck of the woods, don’t it? Oh, say, I rather guess it does.’

  Van Duyckink’s rather sombre eyes lighted up. He rose to his lank height and grasped Billy McMahan’s hand.

  ‘Thank you, Mr McMahan,’ he said in his deep, serious tones. ‘I have been thinking of doing some work of that sort. I shall be glad of your assistance. It pleases me to have become acquainted with you.’

  Billy walked back to his seat. His shoulder was tingling from the accolade bestowed by royalty. A hundred eyes were now turned upon him in envy and new admiration. Mrs William Darragh McMahan trembled with ecstasy, so that her diamonds smote the eye almost with pain. And now it was apparent that at many tables there were those who suddenly remembered that they enjoyed Mr McMahan’s acquaintance. He saw smiles and bows about him. He became enveloped in the aura of dizzy greatness. His campaign coolness deserted him.

  ‘Wine for that gang!’ he commanded the waiter, pointing with his finger. ‘Wine over there. Wine to those three gents by that green bush. Tell ’em it’s on me. D—n it! Wine for everybody!’

  The waiter ventured to whisper that it was perhaps inexpedient to carry out the order, in consideration of the dignity of the house and its custom.

  ‘All right,’ said Billy, ‘if it’s against the rules. I wonder if ’twould do to send my friend Van Duyckink a bottle. No? Well, it’ll flow all right at the caffy tonight, just the same. It’ll be rubber boots for anybody who comes in there any time up to 2 a.m.’

  Billy McMahan was happy.

  He had shaken the hand of Cortlandt Van Duyckink.

  The big pale-gray auto with its shining metal work looked out of place moving slowly among the push-carts and trash-heaps on the lower East Side. So did Cortlandt Van Duyckink, with his aristocratic face and white, thin hands, as he steered carefully between the groups of ragged, scurrying youngsters in the streets. And so did Miss Constance Schuyler, with her dim, ascetic beauty, seated at his side.

  ‘Oh, Cortlandt,’ she breathed, ‘isn’t it sad that human beings have to live in such wretchedness and poverty? And you – how noble it is of you to think of them, to give your time and money to improve their condition!’

  Van Duyckink turned his solemn eyes upon her.

  ‘It is little,’ he said sadly, ‘that I can do. The question is a large one, and belongs to society. But even individual effort is not thrown away. Look, Constance! On this street I have arranged to build soup kitchens, where no one who is hungry will be turned away. And down this other street are the old buildings that I shall cause to be torn down, and there erect others in place of those deathtraps of fire and disease.’

  Down Delancey slowly crept the pale-gray auto. Away from it toddled coveys of wondering, tangle-haired, barefooted, unwashed children. It stopped before a crazy brick structure, foul and
awry.

  Van Duyckink alighted to examine at a better perspective one of the leaning walls. Down the steps of the building came a young man who seemed to epitomise its degradation, squalor and infelicity – a narrow-chested, pale, unsavoury young man, puffing at a cigarette.

  Obeying a sudden impulse, Van Duyckink stepped out and warmly grasped the hand of what seemed to him a living rebuke.

  ‘I want to know you people,’ he said sincerely. ‘I am going to help you as much as I can. We shall be friends.’

  As the auto crept carefully away Cortlandt Van Duyckink felt an unaccustomed glow about his heart. He was near to being a happy man

  He had shaken the hand of Ikey Snigglefritz.

  A Lickpenny Lover

  There were 3,000 girls in the Biggest Store. Masie was one of them. She was eighteen, and a sales lady in the gents’ gloves. Here she became versed in two varieties of human beings – the kind of gents who buy their gloves in department stores and the kind of women who buy gloves for unfortunate gents. Besides this wide knowledge of the human species, Masie had acquired other information. She had listened to the promulgated wisdom of the 2,999 other girls, and had stored it in a brain that was as secretive and wary as that of a Maltese cat. Perhaps Nature, foreseeing that she would lack wise counsellors, had mingled the saving ingredient of shrewdness along with her beauty, as she has endowed the silver fox of the priceless fur above the other animals with cunning.

  For Masie was beautiful. She was a deep-tinted blonde, with the calm poise of a lady who cooks butter-cakes in a window. She stood behind her counter in the Biggest Store; and as you closed your hand over the tape-line for your glove measure you thought of Hebe; and as you looked again you wondered how she had come by Minerva’s eyes.

  When the floor-walker was not looking Masie chewed tutti frutti; when he was looking she gazed up as if at the clouds and smiled wistfully.

  That is the shop-girl smile, and I enjoin you to shun it unless you are well fortified with callosity of the heart, caramels, and a congeniality for the capers of Cupid. This smile belonged to Masie’s recreation hours and not to the store; but the floor-walker must have his own. He is the Shylock of the stores. When he comes nosing around, the bridge of his nose is a tollbridge. It is goo-goo eyes or ‘git’ when he looks toward a pretty girl. Of course, not all floor-walkers are thus. Only a few days ago the papers printed news of one over eighty years of age.

  One day, Irving Carter, painter, millionaire, traveller, poet, automobilist, happened to enter the Biggest Store. It is due to him to add that his visit was not voluntary. Filial duty took him by the collar and dragged him inside, while his mother philandered among the bronze and terracotta statuettes.

  Carter strolled across to the glove counter in order to shoot a few minutes on the wing. His need for gloves was genuine; he had forgotten to bring a pair with him. But his action hardly calls for apology, because he had never heard of glove-counter flirtations.

  As he neared the vicinity of his fate he hesitated, suddenly conscious of this unknown phase of Cupid’s less worthy profession.

  Three or four cheap fellows, sonorously garbed, were leaning over the counters, wrestling with the mediatorial hand-coverings, while giggling girls played vivacious seconds to their lead upon the strident string of coquetry. Carter would have retreated, but he had gone too far. Masie confronted him behind her counter with a questioning look in eyes as coldly, beautifully, warmly blue as the glint of summer sunshine on an iceberg drifting in southern seas.

  And then Irving Carter, painter, millionaire, etc., felt a warm flush rise to this aristocratically pale face. But not from diffidence. The blush was intellectual in origin. He knew in a moment that he stood in the ranks of the ready-made youths who wooed the giggling girls at other counters. Himself leaned against the oaken trysting-place of a cockney Cupid with a desire in his heart for the favour of a glove sales girl. He was no more than Bill and Jack and Mickey. And then he felt a sudden tolerance for them, and an elating, courageous contempt for the conventions upon which he had fed, and an unhesitating determination to have this perfect creature for his own.

  When the gloves were paid for and wrapped Carter lingered for a moment. The dimples at the corners of Masie’s damask mouth deepened. All gentlemen who bought gloves lingered in just that way. She curved an arm, showing like Psyche’s through her shirtwaist sleeve, and rested an elbow upon the showcase edge.

  Carter had never before encountered a situation of which he had not been perfect master. But now he stood far more awkward than Bill or Jack or Mickey. He had no chance of meeting this beautiful girl socially. His mind struggled to recall the nature and habits of shop-girls as he had read or heard of them. Somehow he had received the idea that they sometimes did not insist too strictly upon the regular channels of introduction. His heart beat loudly at the thought of proposing an unconventional meeting with this lovely and virginal being. But the tumult in his heart gave him courage.

  After a few friendly and well-received remarks on general subjects, he laid his card by her hand on the counter.

  ‘Will you please pardon me,’ he said, ‘if I seem too bold; but I earnestly hope you will allow me the pleasure of seeing you again. There is my name; I assure you that it is with the greatest respect that I ask the favour of becoming one of your fr— acquaintances. May I not hope for the privilege?’

  Masie knew men – especially men who buy gloves. Without hesitation she looked him frankly and smilingly in the eyes, and said: ‘Sure. I guess you’re all right. I don’t usually go out with strange gentlemen, though. It ain’t quite ladylike. When should you want to see me again?’

  ‘As soon as I may,’ said Carter. ‘If you would allow me to call at your home, I —’

  Masie laughed musically. ‘Oh, gee, no!’ she said emphatically. ‘If you could see our flat once! There’s five of us in three rooms. I’d just like to see ma’s face if I was to bring a gentleman friend there!’

  ‘Anywhere, then,’ said the enamoured Carter, ‘that will be convenient to you.’

  ‘Say,’ suggested Masie, with a bright-idea look in her peach-blow face, ‘I guess Thursday night will about suit me. Suppose you come to the corner of Eighth Avenue and Forty-Eighth Street at 7.30. I live right near the corner. But I’ve got to be back home by eleven. Ma never lets me stay out after eleven.’

  Carter promised gratefully to keep the tryst and then hastened to his mother, who was looking about for him to ratify her purchase of a bronze Diana.

  A sales girl, with small eyes and an obtuse nose, strolled near Masie, with a friendly leer.

  ‘Did you make a hit with his nobs, Masie?’ she asked familiarly.

  ‘The gentleman asked permission to call,’ answered Masie, with the grand air, as she slipped Carter’s card into the bosom of her waist.

  ‘Permission to call!’ echoed small eyes, with a snigger. ‘Did he say anything about dinner in the Waldorf and a spin in his auto afterward?’

  ‘Oh, cheese it!’ said Masie wearily. ‘You’ve been used to swell things, I don’t think. You’ve had a swelled head ever since that hose-cart driver took you out to a chop suey joint. No, he never mentioned the Waldorf; but there’s a Fifth Avenue address on his card, and if he buys the supper you can bet your life there won’t be no pigtail on the waiter what takes the order.’

  As Carter glided away from the Biggest Store with his mother in his electric runabout, he bit his lip with a dull pain at his heart. He knew that love had come to him for the first time in all the twenty-nine years of his life. And that the object of it should make so readily an appointment with him at a street corner, though it was a step toward his desires, tortured him with misgivings.

  Carter did not know the shop-girl. He did not know that her home is often either a scarcely habitable, tiny room or a domicile filled to overflowing with kith and kin. The street corner is her parlour, the park is her drawing-room, the avenue is her garden walk; yet for the most part she is as invio
late mistress of herself in them as is my lady inside her tapestried chamber.

  One evening at dusk, two weeks after their first meeting, Carter and Masie strolled arm-in-arm into a little, dimly lit park. They found a bench, tree-shadowed and secluded, and sat there.

  For the first time his arm stole gently around her. Her golden-bronze head slid restfully against his shoulder.

  ‘Gee!’ sighed Masie thankfully. ‘Why didn’t you ever think of that before?’

  ‘Masie,’ said Carter earnestly, ‘you surely know that I love you. I ask you sincerely to marry me. You know me well enough by this time to have no doubts of me. I want you, and I must have you. I care nothing for the difference in our stations.’

  ‘What is the difference?’ asked Masie curiously.

  ‘Well, there isn’t any,’ said Carter, quickly, ‘except in the minds of foolish people. It is in my power to give you a life of luxury. My social position is beyond dispute, and my means are ample.’

  ‘They all say that,’ remarked Masie. ‘It’s the kid they all give you. I suppose you really work in a delicatessen or follow the races. I ain’t as green as I look.’

  ‘I can furnish you all the proofs you want,’ said Carter gently. ‘And I want you, Masie. I loved you the first day I saw you.’

  ‘They all do,’ said Masie, with an amused laugh, ‘to hear ’em talk. If I could meet a man that got stuck on me the third time he’d seen me I think I’d get mashed on him.’

  ‘Please don’t say such things,’ pleaded Carter. ‘Listen to me, dear. Ever since I first looked into your eyes you have been the only woman in the world for me.’