Olin L. Lyman

“ Even as the roar of the presses dies in silence, there is again audible the eternal ticking of the clock, unresting through it all; registering in one breath the death of a day of labor, the birth of another in the next. Always the grim spectre with the scythe stands at the elbows of the men who write the news.
So the Courier's clock ticked on, while the hidden undercurrent of unrest, so patent even to those ignorant of the reason for it, grew in a fierce, irritating tug that was made manifest in disagreeable ways. Harkins' nerves were worn to shreds. ”

“ Disquieting recollections gnawed at Micky's mind. A girl's face, eloquent with horror and disgust, seen as through a mist in the lighted street, confronted his shamed, wakened consciousness, while he writhed inwardly. And, too, his post with the Courier? Had he lost it? How much latitude would they extend to drunkards?
A drunkard! He shuddered at the repellent thought, yet what else was he? What else any man who allowed the infernal appetite to lure him from duty to be performed? Not once but many times had he, O'Byrn, fallen by this standard. ”

“ To the veteran it meant only the inevitable environment of effort. Many such find it difficult to write in the midst of quietude. Of such was Micky, and so it was that, with no scribbling to do, he could lose himself in vague, sad contemplation of moon and stars and black night sky, with the roar of the flood no louder in his unheeding ears than the ripple of a little river through June meadows. It was with a start that he was recalled to earth with a violent slap upon his thin shoulder. He turned, eyes still wool-gathering, to confront Dick. ”

“ But O'Byrn was shrewd. He had learned early that success for the reporter on a daily newspaper depends on his being all things to all men. Tact is the little key that unlocks all doors. A hundred different plans of campaign are needed for a hundred different men, yet every man must be met on a broad and common field of friendliness. Anything short of that curtails the reporter's field of usefulness. One shorter sighted than Micky would perhaps have avoided making Slade's acquaintance in the beginning, on the ground that he was not a respectable person. ”

“ The newspaper spirit had its embodiment in Micky O'Byrn, the tattered knight of the road whose first story electrified the city editor of the Courier. The spirit shone out of the portals of the twinkling Irish eyes, eternally [30] questioning. It reconnoitred the field from the bridge of the nose that twitched with eagerness at the scent of a story, as a pointer snuffs grouse. Within the mouth, that was always distended with an ingratiating smile, dwelt in amity those heavenly twins, guile and blarney. ”

“ Shaughnessy, with a haggard glance at the motionless form on the floor, rose and walked uncertainly to an easy chair. He sat limply, a thin, white hand shading his eyes. He was oblivious to his surroundings, for the tumult of the past pounded in his brain.
The tumult of the past! What a record had been his, this white-faced man with hunted eyes that now stared with a weird, fixed horror back into the past. They saw [206] again another man than the Shaughnessy of vile political power; a younger man, in whom was no repression; the slave of wayward passions which marred lives other than his own. ”

“ On the word of this slip of a girl hung his opportunity for a new and better world; a world for two, two who might work, one for the other,—and climb; a world in which dreams might come true. In a moment it would have all been poured forth in broken, incoherent phrase, the sum of Micky's illumining dream and his desire. But the girl, with the unerring instinct of her sex, divined the situation and in quick alarm frustrated O'Byrn's intention, though very gently. ”

“ In that moment the man started down stairs.
The way to the cafe was through a long, dark passage, at the end of which the dim gas light did not penetrate. In an instant the wily O'Byrn had retreated into this passage, where he flattened against the wall. The sleeve of the waiter brushed his body as that worthy passed on into the cafe. A gust of boisterous talk and tipsy laughter sounded from the saloon as the door was opened. Then it was closed, and Micky, without a second's hesitation, made for the stairs and crept softly up, trusting to luck. ”

“ It was the same mirage, old yet ever young, that flashes in transient glory and fades as often and as miserably before the wistful eyes of the veteran in letters as with the tyro: the dream of an unattainable ideal, which mocks and melts away, a phantom of the sands.
His task completed, Mead brought his masterpiece to the city editor's desk. "The lecture, Mr. Harkins," said he, with a thrill of secret pride. A sense of polished erudition welled strong within him. Harkins might now see what the real thing in literary skill could do with the most prosaic of assignments. ”

“ So, with this greatest gift the Creator can give one of his children, the humorous sense of proportion that can make if need be a joke of futility, Micky would go on to the end, to success or failure; alike with heart uncankered and a laugh on his lips. There would never transpire a misanthropic Micky.
For a long time after O'Byrn's departure, Maisie sat still in the Morris chair, a pensive look on her pretty face, with vague eyes bent dreamily on the flaming wood in the tiny fireplace ”

“ Through a quiet street leading toward Mulberry Avenue walked a man, haggard of face, misty of eye. He was a small man, almost a youth, of meagre frame and rather pronounced garb. He carried a rusty satchel, grimy and battered, like the scarred veteran of a long and strenuous campaign.
Now he was passing a dusky corner; one he had good cause to remember, but his thoughts were far away. So he failed to associate the low, two-story building with the significant words of the scared woman, frowsy and unkempt, who clattered down the stairs and across the walk, halting and startling him. ”

“ Mechanically the man on the wharf rose to his feet, standing with hands in his coat pockets, watching the soaring gulls. Like the wind they flew, straight out to the rose and gray and beyond, white specks swallowed in the mists of distance. Even yet the eyes of the man's mind followed them, atoms that swooped triumphantly into the teeth of stinging winds; atoms fiercely clamorous, mad with the mere ecstasy of life, with wild, aimless wandering, the zest of battle with wind and wave.
O'Byrn drew a long, shuddering breath. ”

“ With Micky it was different. To resist a craving which never really slumbered meant real effort and unceasing vigilance. To succumb meant usually an unrecking debauch of days, while the little red devil worked its sweet will with him, to finally leave him spent and shaken, a temporary sodden wreck. This was the grim enemy, coupled with an unreasoning love of roving, that had made him, rarely talented as he was, a shifting vagrant of the news. It had landed him, ragged and unkempt, at the door of the Courier office. ”

“ With which characteristic bit of philosophy, Shaughnessy stretched his arms and yawned. The others rose, the conference having been closed, and lighting fresh cigars, left the office. Shaughnessy was left alone. He leaned back lazily in his office chair, his thin hands clasped behind his head, his expressionless eyes watching the smoke that curled upward leisurely from the tip of his cigar. His white face would hold no more of immobility when he should lie dead. ”

“ More of tenderness; more potent impulses to kindliness; free-flowing charity toward all. For, in the beatific dawn of love, is a summons for the best in poor, dross-ridden human nature to arise; and, at least temporarily, the happy lover radiates peace and good will toward all mankind.
So Micky, sauntering thoughtfully along, continued superfluously to reflect upon his irreverence to the poor old man,—who probably had not minded it half as much as O'Byrn did,—until the recurrent thoughts of Maisie banished the incident from his mind. ”

“ Gentlemen, it is with pleasure that I nominate for the mayoralty of this city a man known to you all for years, for years the trusted, honored servant of our people; a man of achievement, of renown, of probity, of independence, of superb ability; a man who, under God, will rule for righteousness' sake and wear no man's collar; in a word, that distinguished jurist and gentleman, Judge Rufus Atwell Boynton! ”

“ The old, old prayer of agony, of deadly fear, wrung at the last from lips which perhaps had long ceased to frame that Awful Name except in blasphemy; the cry of the ages; the wail of the wicked as it is the hope of the blessed; the cry of despair which rends the throat of the pariah when face to face with Death.
What was it? Ah! Shaughnessy knew; while his face went gray, while he gasped for breath, while his hands sought and pressed convulsively his breast, through which throbbed swift, keen stabs of exquisite pain. ”

“ Stearns was soon busy.
"Just ran out for lunch," came from him in muffled tones. "I'm up to my neck in that golf game you didn't have time to do," he told Glenwood with a reproachful glance. "It's got me wingin'."
There were strange gurglings from Micky, grown suddenly wild-eyed. "Fatty, Fatty!" he moaned. "Did you say 'game?'"
"Sure he did!" answered Dick truculently. "What's the matter with it, you little ape? I play it."
Micky dissolved in simulated sobs. "He plays it!" he groaned. "Oh, why was he ever born, Eliza? Better never have been born than born a slave!" ”

“ MICKY MICHAEL O'BYRN, picturesquely Irish, so his name appeared on the payroll, but from the cases to the press room they called him Micky. Mike would have been a misfit, for its tang suggests a burly, bull-necked son of Erin with fists like hams and a brogue of gravy-like thickness, a boisterous, beefy, big-hearted broth of a boy of blows and budge. Micky had the Irish heart, but he was short on fists and beef and possessed the mere ghost of a brogue. ”

“ Glenwood's was the absolutely perfect mechanism of the normal. Tough fibred, richly endowed in mental, moral and physical equipment from long generations of right livers, how different was his lot from O'Byrn's, cursed at the outset with a vicious appetite which had been fostered from the beginning by the man who had bequeathed it; hampered, too, with an indifferent physique that rendered the more hopeless the boy's struggles with his mastering vice. True, after all, mused Micky bitterly, that men are created equal in only limited senses. ”

“ The pot having apostrophized the kettle, Micky felt easier, though the thought of Ryan was productive of [116] inward profanity through all of that singularly tedious and empty evening.
There ensued a miserable week for Micky, though it was a fortunate one for the Courier. Misery produces a wide diversity of results, depending upon the makeup of the afflicted subject. The one it can render absolutely useless to the needs of the workaday grind. The other, beneath its bitter lash, becomes a human dynamo, plunging into the nepenthe of toil. ”

“ A small yellow envelope was thrust beneath the portal, the woman's footsteps receded down the stairs. Inside his room stood O'Byrn with his splitting head between shaking hands, his bloodshot eyes closing in sheer physical misery. The meagre form in the flamboyant pajamas winced perceptibly as stabs of cruel pain continued to pierce Micky's temples. The freckled face went gray as the overwrought stomach writhed in sickening nausea. ”

“ The sun is needed to brighten the gray old world; why is it so often behind a cloud? "Poor little girl!" murmured Micky, the tears starting to his eyes. Why, only last Friday night she had been the picture of health and happiness, and they had sat side by side on the little sofa and talked of their modest plans. [139] Yes, and he had run into the store the next day and chatted with her for a moment. And now she lay sick and helpless at home. A great wave of tenderness suffused O'Byrn's warm Irish heart. ”

“ Eider dat or—" and his swollen fist fanned the acrid air an inch from Micky's nose.
Micky's keen Irish eyes weighed the ruffianly odds. A weaker spirit would have temporized or lied. However, Micky was a man. His answer left nothing to be arbitrated. It was a mere suggestion, but it held finality.
"You go to hell!" he said. The next instant his eyes, strangely distended, saw curious vivid, whirling flashes of crimson and orange and violet. His tongue, curled fantastically, writhed outward like an ant eater's. His slender hands tore futilely at brutal, strangling fists clenched upon his throat. ”

“ It would be a pitifully checkered fight, but whatever the issue,—even should the world, which never understands, write him down a wreck at the end,—a few who knew him best, and understood, would know that Micky tried. Who will question, in a world where so many drift, that in the simple will to try lies victory? ”

“ Everywhere men were rushing like mad and Harkins helped them rush the more. His orders were snapped with the venom of a cracking whip lash, accompanied by black frowns that caused backs to bend and fingers to fly the more, or legs to hurry the faster, as his behest might be. It became a drive, a dizzy whirl of effort, torn with conflicting sights and sounds. There materialized hurrying figures, sharp orders, the jingle of telephone bells, the slamming of [190] doors, the sleet-like rattle of typewriters, the soft rush of many pencils and the crackle of paper ”

“ Harkins quizzically looked him over. He was uniquely worth the trouble. A battered cap, tipped rakishly over one ear, topped a mat of curly red hair of the peculiar bricky hue that hisses a sibilant Celtic brogue in whilom wind-stirrings. Beneath a broad forehead there danced and rioted two Irish eyes, pale blue pools in an environing forest of freckles. Nature had been generous with mouths when he transpired and had given him enough for two. ”

“ If, indeed, he had not lost his post with the Courier, it was due to the fortunate interruption of a spree that might otherwise have lasted a week. O'Byrn's soul went out in gratitude to Dick. Even though it should prove that he had lost both his place and his lady, it was a melancholy pleasure to Micky to have sobered so soon. He [110] thought with deep self-disgust of prior orgies; of wild days and wilder nights, piling deliriously upon each other while sleep was unknown, a stranger to be banished; when all things loomed distorted, unreal, through a red haze. ”

“ In his eyes blazed the old, restless light, the wild will-o'-the-wisp which lures the born wanderer the wide world over in erratic flight till set o' sun. His tired brain, his sick heart, alike craved the old nepenthe of unrest.
Reborn of the whispered message of wide-flung tides, the sight of the screaming gulls, the old longing of his nature sought vent in a strident inward cry. Once more, bringing the sharp, exquisite pain he feared, yet loved, the lash came hurtling out of the unknown, driving him on to new scenes that all too soon were old, to dream houses built on crumbling sands. ”

“ He grinned joyfully at her. "Talk some more like that, Maisie," he urged her. "You sound like yourself. Oh, we'll have you on your pins in no time."
"You bet!" She smiled back at him. "Oh, I hadn't ought to complain, I know. Others are having it worse than me. There's poor Julia Orr, worked in the store with me once. She died yesterday—"
"Don't, Maisie!" His voice was unsteady. "Don't speak of dying—anybody! I can't stand it! I hate the thought of it!"
"Why, Micky!" Her blue eyes were solemn. "We all die, don't we? You've known it almost since you were born. You've got to get used to it." ”

“ Micky had jumped in his chair at the onslaught, spilling cigar ashes over his noisy shirt bosom. "Short of what?" he demanded with sarcasm, blowing the ashes into Stearns' rubicund face. "Fatty, have you got 'em again?"
"Got nothin'," retorted Fatty, rubbing an ashy eye. "They'll never beat it, never," he murmured, more to himself than to Micky, with a slow shake of his fat head. "Not on your pajamas! They can't touch him."
"Cut it out, Fatty," exhorted Micky with concern. "Quit the pill cookin' stunt or it'll land you in the dip-house for sure. Why, you spit when you talk now! ”