George Barr McCutcheon

“ His poor little Nellie!
In one of these strange ever-growing flights of combined self-reproach and self-exaltation he so vividly imagined himself as a rescuer, as an able-bodied defender against all the ills and evils that beset her, that the fancy took the shape of positive determination. He made up his mind to take her off the stage, back to Blakeville, and to an environment so sweet and pure that her life would be one long season of joy and happiness. ”

“ Then, very seriously, she said:—“I don’t know what Harvey would do to you if he caught you with me.”
He stiffened. “Jealous, eh?”
“Wildly!”
“A fire-eater?”
“He’s a perfect devil,” said Nellie, with the straightest face imaginable.
Fairfax smiled in a superior sort of way, flecked the ashes from his cigarette, and leaned back in his chair the better to contemplate the charming creature at his side. He thoroughly approved of jealous husbands. The fellow who isn’t jealous, he argued, is the hardest to trifle with. ”

“ Men whose names you cannot remember. It might be Smith or Brown or Jones, or any of the names you can’t forget if you try, and yet it always escapes you. You know the sort I mean.
Nellie Duluth’s husband was a smallish young man, nice-looking, even kind-looking, with an habitual expression of inquiry in his face, just as if he never quite got used to seeing or being seen. The most expert tailor haberdasher could not have provided him with apparel that really belonged to him. Not that he was awkward or ill-favoured in the matter of figure, but that he lacked individuality. ”

“ He’s a cheap skate. A dime! Wot do you think of that?” He held up the dime Harvey had given him and squinted at it as if it were almost too small to be seen with the naked eye.
Nellie sent “loads” of presents to Phoebe—toys, books, candies, fruits, pretty dresses, a velvet coat, a tiny pair of opera glasses, strings of beads, bracelets, rings—dozens of things calculated to set a child mad with delight. There were pocketbooks, handkerchiefs, squirrel stoles and muffs for each of the servants, a box of cigars for the postman, another for the milkman, and a five-dollar bill for the janitor. ”

“ With a shriek of rage Harvey threw himself at the big man, striking out with all his might. Taken by surprise, Fairfax fell away before the attack, which, though seemingly impotent, was as fierce as that of a wildcat. ”

“ You haven’t earned a dollar in four years. I have it from her, and from others. It is commonly understood that you won’t work, you won’t do a stroke toward supporting the child. You are a leech, a barnacle, a—a—well, a loafer. If you had a drop of real man’s blood in you, you’d get out and earn enough to buy clothes for yourself, at least, and the money for a hair cut or a shoe shine. She has been too good to you, my little man. You can’t blame her for getting tired of it. The great wonder is that she has stood for it so long.”
Words struggled from Harvey’s pallid lips. ”

“ About nine o’clock that morning a man came up and tacked a placard on the door and informed the household that it was in quarantine. Harvey went out and looked at the card. Then he slunk back into Phoebe’s room and sat down, very white and scared.
“Do you think she’ll die?” he asked of the doctor when that gentleman called soon afterward. He was shivering like a leaf.
“Not necessarily,” said the man of medicine, calmly. “Diphtheria isn’t what it used to be.”
“If she dies I’ll jump in the river,” said the little father, bleakly. ”

“ For the love of Heaven, don’t shoot!” yelled Fairfax. Then to the men who were edging away in quest of safety behind the sideboard, china closet, and serving table:—“Why don’t you grab him, you idiots?”
Harvey suddenly realised the danger of his position. He straightened up and jerked the revolver from his pocket, brandishing it in full view of them all.
“Keep back!” he shouted—a most unnecessary command.
Those who could not crowd behind the sideboard made a rush for the butler’s pantry. Feminine shrieks and masculine howls filled the air. Chairs were overturned in the wild rush for safety. ”

“ The other swallowed noisily.
“A lawyer?”
“We represent Miss Duluth. I’ll get down to tacks right away, if you’ll permit me to sit down.” He took a chair.
“Tacks?” queried Harvey, a retrospective grin appearing on his lips. “Gee! I wish I’d thought to put a couple––But, excuse me, I can’t talk without my lawyer being present.”
The visitor stared. “You—do you mean to say you have retained counsel?”
“The best in New York,” lied Harvey.
Buckley gave a sigh of relief. He knew a lie when he heard one.
“I’d suggest that you send the little girl out of the room. We can talk better if we are alone.” ”

“ Fairfax looked him over and suppressed a smile.
“She is quite happy here with you, I suppose,” he said, taking a chair.
“Yes, sir-ree.”
“Does she never long to be with her mother?”
“Well, you see,” said Harvey, apologising for Nellie, “she doesn’t see much of Miss—of her mother these days. I guess she’s got kind of used to being with me. Kids are funny things, you know.”
“She seems to have all the comforts and necessities of life,” said the big man, looking about him with an affectation of approval.
“Everything that I can afford, sir,” said Harvey, blandly. ”

“ Tact calls for tact. The diplomatist is powerless if you begin shooting at him. Nellie did not work this out for herself; she merely wanted to put him in a corner where he would have to stand and get it over with.
Fairfax was disconcerted. He showed it. No one ever presumed to discuss the matter with him. It was a very tender subject. His eyes wavered.
“I like your cheek,” he growled.
“Don’t you like to talk about it?” she inquired, innocently.
“No,” he replied, curtly. “It’s nobody’s business, Miss Duluth.” ”

“ Rachel was plainly amazed when the couple walked into the apartment. The two at once resumed the conversation they had carried on so vigorously in the taxicab on the way up from downtown. Nellie did not remove her hat, sharply commanding Rachel to leave the room.
“No,” she said, “she simply has to go to the convent. She’ll be safe there, no matter how things turn out for you and me, Harve, I insist on that.” ”

“ An abrupt demand of 162 courtesy urged him to raise his hand to doff his hat in the presence of ladies. Twenty terrified eyes watched the movement as if ten lives hung on the result thereof. Half of the guests were standing, the other half too petrified to move. A husband is a thing to strike terror to the heart, believe me, no matter how trivial he may be, especially an unexpected husband.
“Go away, Harvey!” cried Nellie, placing Fairfax between herself and the intruder. ”

“ I’m not very keen about dying. I hate dead things; don’t you? Now about Phoebe. She’s been pining for you all these months. She doesn’t like Mr. Fairfax, and he’s not very strong for her. To be perfectly honest, he doesn’t want her about. She’s not his, and he hasn’t much use for anything 236 or anybody that doesn’t belong to him. I’ve got so that I can’t stand it, Harvey. The poor little kiddie is so miserably unhappy, and I’m not strong enough to get out and work for her as I used to. I would if I could. I think Fairfax is sick of the whole thing. ”

“ Rachel rang for the elevator and he departed, amiably doffing his hat to her as he dropped to the floor below.
At one of the popular corner tables in the big café a party of men and women were seated, seven or eight in all. Nellie Duluth had her back toward the other tables in the room. It was a bit of modesty that she always affected. She did not like being stared at. ”

“ Acting on the purely unselfish motive that Nellie would be upset by the news, he kept the truth from her, and she went on singing and dancing without so much as a word to distress her. Two Sundays passed; her own lamentable illness kept her away from the little house in Tarrytown.
“If we tell her about Phoebe,” said Harvey to Bridget and Annie, “she’ll go all to pieces. Her heart may stop, like as not. Besides, she’d insist on coming out and taking care of her, and that would be fatal to the show. She’s never had diphtheria. She’d be sure to catch it. It goes very hard with grown people.” ”

“ Phoebe was pouting when she came in, but the sight of her father caused her to set up a shriek of glee.
“What fun, daddy!” she cried. “Now we’ll never need Bridget again. I don’t like her. You will be our cook, won’t you?”
Annie’s sarcastic laugh annoyed him.
“I used to do all the cooking when the Owl Club went camping,” he announced, entirely for Annie’s benefit.
“In Blakeville?” asked Annie, with a grin.
“Yes, in Blakeville,” he exploded, almost dropping the cigarette from his lips into the skillet. His blue eyes flashed ominously. Annie, unused to the turning of the worm, caught her breath. ”

“ Davis if given the time.
Letting the midweek matinée slip by, he made the plunge on a Thursday. She was to leave New York on Sunday morning; that much he knew from the daily newspapers, which teemed with Nellie’s breakdown and its lamentable consequences. It would be at least a year, the papers said, before she could resume her career on the stage. He searched the columns daily for his own name, always expecting to see himself in type little less conspicuous than that accorded to her, and stigmatised as a brute, an inebriate, a loafer. It was all the same to him—brute, soak, or loafer. ”

“ Fairfax drew a chair up closer, however, and lowered his voice.
“You’ve got a price. Men of your type always have. I told Nellie I would see you to-day. I’ll be plain with you. She’s tired of you, of this miserable attachment. You are impossible. That’s settled. We won’t go into that. Now I’m here, man to man, to find out how much you will take and agree to a separation.”
Harvey stiffened. ”

“ When he came to the theatre, the newsboys were waiting for the audience to appear. He was surrounded by a mob of boys and men shouting the extras.
“Is the show out?” he asked one of them.
“No, sir!” shouted the boy, eagerly. “Shall I call up your automobile, mister!”
“No, thank you,” said Harvey through his chattering teeth. For a moment he felt distinctly 141 proud and important. So shrewd a judge of humanity as a New York “newsy” had taken him to be a man of parts. For awhile he had been distressed by the fear, almost the conviction, that he was regarded by all New York as a “jay.” ”

“ But no one was there. He was alone in the little hall. And yet something was there. He could feel it, though he could not see it; something sinister that caused him to shiver. His tense fingers relaxed their grip on the revolver. Strangely the vague thing that disturbed him departed in a flash and he felt himself alone once more. It was very odd, thought he.
Rachel came to the door. She started back in surprise, aye, alarm, when she saw the little man in the big ulster. A look of consternation sprang into her black eyes. ”

“ Not a hand was lifted, not a breath was drawn. For half a second his finger clung to the trigger without pressing it. Then he lowered the weapon.
“I guess I better go out in the hall, where 170 the elevator is,” he said. “Don’t follow me. Stay where you are. You needn’t worry.”
“I’ll bet you ten dollars you don’t do it,” said Fairfax, loudly, as he came to his feet.
“I don’t want your dirty money, blast you,” exclaimed Harvey, without thinking. “Good-by, Nellie. Be good to Phoebe. Tell ’em out in Blakeville that I—oh, tell ’em anything you like. I don’t give a rap!” ”

“ He was so full of glee when he opened the door to admit the packers that they neglected, in their astonishment, to growl at him for keeping them standing in the cold for fifteen or twenty minutes.
“Thought maybe you’d gone and done it,” said the foreman. “Took poison or turned on the gas, or something. You was mighty blue yesterday, Mr.—Mr. Duluth.”
With the arrival of the van he set off to pay the bills due the tradespeople in town, returning before noon with all the receipts, and something like $20 left over. The world did not look so dark and dreary to him now. ”

“ Now she was the feature in the big, musical comedy success, “Up in the Air” and had New York at her feet. The critics admitted that she saved the “piece” in spite of composer and librettist. Some one is always doing that very thing for the poor wretches, Heaven pity them.
Nellie was not only pretty and sprightly, but as clever as they make them. She never drew the short straw. She had a brain that was quite as active as her feet. It was not a very big brain; for that matter, her feet were tiny. ”