Читать книгу The City of Comrades - Basil King - Страница 6

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I don’t know how we got the idea that before we went any farther we should be interviewed by Andy Christian, but I suppose somebody must have told us. We had heard of him, of course. He was, in fact, the master wizard whose incantations were wrecking our institutions. It was a surprise to us, therefore, to see, about nine o’clock, a brisk little elderly man blow in and blow past us—the metaphor is the most expressive I can use—with hardly more recognition than a nod.

“Hello, fellows!” he called out, as he passed through the hall and glanced in at Lovey and me in the sitting-room. “Hello, boys!” he said, casually, through the second door, to the other group, after which he went on his way to talk domestic matters with Mouse in the kitchen.

He seemed a mild-mannered man to have done all the diabolical work we had laid at his door. Neatly dressed in a summery black-and-white check, with a panama hat, he was like any other of the million business men who were on their way to New York offices that morning. It was only when he came back from the kitchen and was in conference with some of the men in the back parlor that I caught in him that look of dead and buried tragedy with which I was to grow so familiar in other members of the club. Superficially he was clean-shaven, round-featured, rubicund, and kindly, with a quirk about the lips and a smile in his twinkling gray eyes that seemed always about to tell you the newest joke. His manner toward Lovey and me, when he came into the front sitting-room, was that of having known us all our lives and of resuming a conversation that only a few minutes before had been broken off.

“Let me see! Your name is—?”

He looked at Lovey as though he knew his name perfectly well, only that for the second it had slipped his memory.

Lovey went forward to the roll-top desk at which Mr. Christian had seated himself, and whispered, confidentially, “My name is Lovey, Your Honor.”

The quirk about the lips seemed to execute a little caper.

“Is that your first name or your second?”

“It’s my only name.”

“You mean that you have another name, but you don’t want to tell it?”

“I mean that if I ’ave another name it ain’t nobody’s business but mine.”

The head of the club was now writing in a ledger, his eye following the movement of his pen.

“I see that you’re a man of decided opinions.”

“I am—begging Your Honor’s parding,” Lovey declared, with dignity.

“That’ll help you in the fight you’re going to put up.” Before Lovey could protest that he wasn’t going to put up no fight the gentle voice went on, “And you seem like a respectable man, too.”

“I’m as respectable as anybody else—at ’eart. I don’t use bad langwidge, nor keep bad company, nor chew, nor spit tobacco juice over nothink, and I keeps myself to myself.”

“All that’ll be a great help to you. What’s been your occupation?”

“’atter.”

As our host was less used to the silent “h” than I, it became necessary for me to say, “Hatter, sir.”

I suppose it was my voice. Christian looked up quickly, studying me with a long, kind, deep regard. Had I been walking two thousand years ago on the hills of Palestine and met Some One on the road, he might have looked at me like that.

The glance fell. Lovey’s interrogation continued.

“And would you like that kind of job again—if we could get it for you—ultimately?”

“I don’t want no job, Your Honor. I can look after myself. I didn’t come in ’ere of my own free will—nor to pass the buck—nor nothink.”

There was an inflection of surprise, perhaps of disapproval in the tone.

“You didn’t come in here of your own free will? I think it’s the first time that’s been said in the history of the club. May I ask how it happened?”

I couldn’t help thinking that I ought to intervene.

“He came in on my account, sir,” I said, getting up and going forward to the desk. “He’s trying to keep me straight.”

“That is, he’ll keep straight if you do?”

“That’s it, sir, exactly.”

He continued to write, speaking without looking up at us.

“Then I can’t think of anything more to your credit, Mr.—Mr. Lovey—is that it?”

“I don’t want no mister, Your Honor—not now I don’t.”

“When a man takes so fine a stand as you’re taking toward this young fellow he’s a mister to me. I respect him and treat him with respect. I see that we’re meant to understand each other and get on together.”

Poor Lovey had nothing to say. The prospect of temptation and fall being removed by his own heroism rendered him both proud and miserable at once.

When the writing was finished the kind eyes were again lifted toward me. Though the inspection was so mild, it pierced me through and through. It still seemed to cover me as he said: “You needn’t tell me your real name if you don’t want to—but in general we prefer it.”

“I’ll tell anything you ask me, sir. My name is Frank Melbury.” In order to conceal nothing, I added, “As a matter of fact, it’s Francis Worsley Melbury Melbury; but I use it in the shortened form I’ve given you.”

“Thanks. You’re English?”

“I’m a Canadian. My father is Sir Edward Melbury, of Montreal.”

“Married?”

“No, sir. Single.”

“And you have a profession?”

“Architect.”

“Have you worked at that profession here in New York?”

I gave him the names of the offices in which from time to time I had found employment.

“And would you like to work at it again?”

“I should, sir.”

“As a matter of fact, we have a number of architects, not exactly in the club, but friendly toward it, and on intimate terms with us. I’ll introduce you to some of them when—when you get on your feet. How old are you? Thirty?”

“Thirty-one.”

For some two minutes he went on writing.

“How long since you’ve been drinking?”

“My last drink was three days ago.”

“And how long since you’ve been actually drunk?”

“About a week.”

“And before that?”

“It was pretty nearly all the time.”

“It’s a great advantage to you to come to us sober. It means that you know what you’re doing and are to some extent counting the cost. Men will take any kind of vow when they’re”—his glance traveled involuntarily to the back room—“when they’re coming off a spree. The difficulty is to make them keep their promises when they’ve got over the worst of it. In your case—”

“I’ve got a motive, sir.”

“Then so much the better.”

I turned to Lovey.

“Lovey, would you mind stepping into the next room? There’s something I want to speak about privately.”

“If it’s to let me in for worse, sonny—”

“No, it won’t let you in for anything. It’s only got to do with me.”

“Then I don’t pry into no secrets,” he said, as he moved away reluctantly; “only, when fellas is buddies together—”

“I’ve a confession to make,” I continued, when Lovey was out of earshot. “Last night I—”

“Hold on! Is it necessary for you to tell me this or not?”

I had to reflect.

“It’s only necessary in that I want you to know the worst of me.”

“But I’m not sure that we need to know that. It often happens that a man does better in keeping his secrets in his own soul and shouldering the full weight of their responsibility. Isn’t it enough for us to know of you what we see?”

“I don’t know that I can judge of that.”

“Then tell me this: What you were going to say—is it anything for which you could be arrested?”

“It’s nothing for which I shall be arrested.”

“But it’s an offense against the law?”

I nodded.

“And what renders you immune?”

“The fact that—that the person most concerned has—has forgiven it.”

“Man or woman?”

“Woman.”

His eyes wandered along the cornice as he thought the matter out. I saw then that they were wonderfully clear gray eyes, not so much beautiful as perfect—perfect in their finish as to edge and eyelash, but perfect most of all because of their expression of benignity.

“I don’t believe I should give that away,” he said, at last; “not now, at any rate. If you want to tell me later—” He changed the subject abruptly by saying, “Is that the only shirt you’ve got?”

I told him I had two or three clean ones in my trunk, but that that was held by my last landlord.

“How much did you owe him?”

I produced a soiled and crumpled bill. He looked it over.

“We’ll send and pay the bill, and get your trunk.”

The generosity almost took my breath away.

“Oh, but—”

“We should be only advancing the money,” he explained; “and we should look to you to pay us back when you can. It’s quite a usual procedure with us, because it happens in perhaps six of our cases out of ten. I don’t have to point out to you,” he continued, with a smile, “what I’m always obliged to underscore with chaps like those in there, that if you don’t make good what we spend on your account the loss comes not on well-disposed charitable people who give of their abundance, but on poor men who steal from their own penury. The very breakfast you ate this morning was paid for in the main by fellows who are earning from twelve to twenty-five dollars a week, and have families to support besides.”

I hung my head, trying to stammer out a promise of making good.

“You see those boys in there? There are five of them, and two will probably stick to us. That’s about the proportion we keep permanently of all who come in. I don’t know which two they will be—you never can tell. Perhaps it will be the piano-mover and the Scotchman; perhaps the man they call Headlights and the Irishman; perhaps the little chap and some other one of them. But whichever they are they’ll chip in for the sake of the new ones we shall reclaim, and take on themselves the burden of the work.”

The thought that for the comforts I had enjoyed that morning I was dependent on the sacrifice of men who had hardly enough for their own children made me redden with a shame I think he understood.

“Their generosity is wonderful,” he went on, quietly; “and I tell it to a man like you only because you can appreciate how wonderful it is. It’s the fact that so much heart’s blood goes into this work that makes it so living. These fellows love to give. They love to have you take the little they can offer. You never had a meal at your own father’s table that was laid before you more ungrudgingly than the one you ate this morning. The men who provide it are doing humble work all over the city, all over the country—because we’re scattered pretty far and wide. And every stroke of a hammer, and every stitch of a needle, and every tap on a typewriter, and every thrust of a shovel, and every dig of a pick, and every minute of the time by which they scrape together the pennies and the quarters and the dollars they send in to us is a prayer for you. I suppose you know what prayer really is?”

His glance was now that of inquiry.

“I’d like to have you tell me, sir,” I answered, humbly.

He smiled again.

“Well, it isn’t giving information to a wise and loving Father as to what He had better do for us. It’s in trying to carry out the law of His being in doing things for others. That isn’t all of it, by any means; but it’s a starting-point. Spender tells me that that nice fellow Pyncheon brought you in. Well, then, every glass of soda-water Pyncheon draws is in its way a prayer for you, because the boy’s heart is full of you. Prayer is action—only it’s kind action.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, with an effort to control the tremor of my voice; “I think I understand you.”

“You yourself will be praying all through this week, in your very effort to buck up. You’ll be praying in helping that poor man Lovey to do the same. In his own purblind way—of course I understand his type and what you’re trying to do for him—he’ll be praying, too. Prayer is living—only, living in the right way.” He said, suddenly, “I suppose you rather dread the week.”

“Well, I do—rather—sir.”

“Then I’ll tell you what will make it easier—what will make it pass quickly and turn it into a splendid memory.” He nodded again toward the back room. “Chum up with these fellows. You wouldn’t, of course, be condescending to them—”

“It’s for them to be condescending to me.”

He surprised me by saying: “Perhaps it is. You know best. But here we try to get on a broad, simple, human footing in which we don’t make comparisons. But you get what I mean. The simplest, kindliest approach is the best approach. Just make it a point to be white with them, as I’m sure they’ve been white with you.”

I said I had never been more touched in my life than by the small kindnesses of the past two hours.

“That’s the idea. If you keep on the watch to show the same sort of thing it will not only make the time pass, but it will brace you up mentally and spiritually. You see, they’re only children. Fundamentally you’re only a child yourself. We’re all only children, Frank. Some one says that women grow up, but that men never do. Well, I don’t know about women, but I’ve had a good deal to do with men—and I’ve never found anything but boys. Now you can spoil boys by too much indulgence, but you can’t spoil them by too much love.”

He stopped abruptly, because he saw what was happening to me.

The next thing I knew was his arm across my shoulders, which were shaking as if I was in convulsions.

“That’s all right, old boy,” I heard him whisper in my ear. “Just go up to the bath-room and lock the door and have it out. It’ll do you good. The fellows in there won’t notice you, because lots of them go through the same thing themselves.” Still with his arm across my shoulders he steered me toward the hall. “There you are! You’ll be better when you come down. We’re just boys together, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Only, when you see other fellows come in through the week—we have two or three new ones every day—you’ll bear with them, won’t you? And help them to take a brace.”

He was still patting me tenderly on the back as with head bowed and shoulders heaving I began to stumble up-stairs.