Owen Johnson

“ That's what Bofinger doesn't see, and yet it is the obstacle he ought always to be dreading. Nothing more dangerous than honesty. Why, it is often nothing but an obstinate revulsion of pride in a man who for a whim or a moment resents being counted on as a rascal. That is temperamental honesty, liable at any moment to trip up a case. Then, a man can become honest by terror, or anger, or superstition, or sheer caprice. The truth is, in these days, you can count on no man's dishonesty. So confident am I of this beautiful truth that I prophesy Bo will end a shyster lawyer in a shyster court. ”

“ Crime is in the motive and the scale. When a man steals from hunger or kills for revenge the motive is evident and the guilt apparent. But for ambition, for fame, for supremacy—the motive is human and grandiose. The grand scale precludes the crime! You are right, Bo, you are right there. The million's everything!"
"Yes," Bofinger said pensively, whistling on his fingers, "but to get that first essential million you've got to run some risks."
"Otherwise life would be too easy," LeBeau said with a smile. "The only difficulty to-day is, as you say, to get the first million." ”

“ In measure as this supreme passion dominated Fargus it educated him and, from a first tempestuous upsetting, it calmed him and gave to him the strength of deception, the joy of matching his wits against the woman and a confidence in the ultimate day. His demeanor during the supper at which Bofinger was present surprised him. Forewarned he viewed their adroit maneuvering to develop a quarrel with scorn and amusement. He found in himself another man, the creature of his new purpose, who suffered no longer. But at times the other returned with the intensity of pain. ”

“ Fargus said doubtfully. "A woman has no idea of money, except to spend it and—you know yourself—it ain't easy to refuse one anything—particularly—well—when you're fond of her."
"Say, now, ain't this about it?" Bofinger said, abandoning his stilted accents for an air of rough and confidential understanding. "This is the trouble. You're in love with a pretty woman, a remarkably pretty and charming woman—a whole lot in love. Now she, like a woman, a pretty woman, thinks more of pleasure than you do, wants to be out and seeing and wants to be out and be seen." ”

“ Fargus, clasping his temples in his hands, broke away in terror and, by some instinct avoiding his former direction, turned north, winding and twisting helplessly in the labyrinth of the ill-smelling slums. Still everything was confused, his hatred and his agony. It was always the world which pursued him with its jeers. This obsession possessed him so completely that even the noises of the city, the rumble of truck and carriage, the roar of the Elevated, the screams of the street hawkers, the hum and swish of the crowd, struck his ears as so many delirious taunts. ”

“ Is poverty so lovely that you regret it? And, Sheila, do you think that boiled ham is any more satisfying than a crust? Look at me. I swear I suffer as much on a pittance as you do on nothing. I also, my dear, am hungry for a little bit of the cream. No, you are not one bit more miserable, here in this room, than I; I, who if I had had ten thousand dollars to start with would be worth a million to-day. Do you think a man like me—with my talents, don't suffer too? ”

“ He moved slowly to his end, with that unhuman oriental patience which, allied to the imagination of the American, forms in its rare conjunction characters that death alone can thwart. He knew how to bide his time without, as commonly occurs, the waiting consuming him. At thirty-eight, age when the American reckons his life a success or a failure, he had not lost a whit of his complacency. He had never known youth, he had not therefore been disturbed by its pangs for instant preeminence.
With all that he was approaching forty a shyster lawyer, living on the blackmail he shared with the police. ”

“ I'm never sure of him."
"Well, has he spoken?"
"Of marriage? No—that is, not outright."
"Well, where are you?"
"Why, I am waiting," she said with a shrug. "He makes love to me all the time."
"And I suppose, my clever dear," Bofinger said, taking the opportunity to promote familiarity. "You've made him think you're pining away?"
"I'm no such fool," she answered with an indefinable smile. "Indeed I tell him that I don't care the least bit for him. That if he wants to win my affection he's going to have a hard time, but—" she added with a laugh, "I let him believe that's not entirely impossible." ”

“ She walked daintily, placing her feet with care. Even to the alert poise of the head and the rapid grace of her movement, everything breathed an air of coquetry and art.
Bofinger, lost in this analysis, continued to laugh, sharing emotion between railing at his stupidity and admiration for the actress who had not neglected a single detail. He thought of the awkward start she had made when Fargus had left, and of the way she had reminded him of the country woman stalking in rubber boots, and recalling such details he followed joyously, scenting success with such an ally. ”

“ The hansom shaved the corner, hung a moment on one wheel and rocked up the street. In Bofinger there were two movements, a physical collapse, as he sank back inertly into the corner, and an acute nervous excitation of the mental faculties which, soaring above the surrender of the body, absorbed in a few minutes, with the compressed energy of so many hours, every detail of his perilous situation. His reflections, jumbled and rapid as a kaleidoscope, ran thus:
"Two thirds gone at a blow, two thirds of a million lost forever by his turning up! How in the devil did he manage it? ”

“ Help me to marry Fargus and I'll give you one thousand dollars."
"One thousand dollars!" he cried uproariously. "You fool, do you know what the old miser is worth? A quarter of a million! Half, half I say!"
She still sought the man in the lawyer and, throwing herself on her knees, cried:
"But that would make me a slave! You can't mean that—you are too young to be so merciless. Make your own terms, say anything reasonable, and it's yours."
"Miss Morissey," he said pompously, "you are mistaken in the person you're addressing. Mr. Bofinger has left the room. You're dealing now with the lawyer. ”

“ The woman, with a cry, flung into the restaurant and barricaded the door.
Then a chill began to shake him, his arm fell inertly, his rage, from utter exhaustion, passed like a fever from him. He turned away and instinctively took up the familiar journey to his old home in the tenements.
"Ah, let me think," he said wearily, striking his damp forehead. The perfidy of Bofinger he had guessed from the first words of his wife. He gradually comprehended what had happened, that the lawyer had gone straight to Sheila and with her had formed a compact which had made her his wife. ”

“ Hence the difficulty of making comprehensible the agony of the seven years' waiting in which Sheila suddenly found herself; as though she had suddenly awakened in the embrace of a dungeon, forgotten and without hope. For man can conceive of the future only in the terms of the past, and if time, when reviewed, has the ironical property of amazing contraction, it has, when anticipated, according to the intensity of the desire, the illimitable power of extension with something of the mysterious cruelty of death, [Pg 232] incessantly multiplied and incessantly possible. ”

“ I adore pleasure as much as ever, but I have no longer the strength. Yes, I must get used to being old. This last year has tired me dreadfully. It's over, money will no longer mean what it could have meant."
"And what will you do with it?" he asked solemnly.
"Me? I may make a splurge for another six months, for it is hard to give up. After which," she added with profound deliberation, "I think I'll devote myself to charity. Therefore, my dear Alonzo, don't tie up with a middle-aged woman when it isn't necessary."
"My dear Sheila," Bofinger said, adopting the same attitude. ”

“ Her wits had deserted her. All her artillery lay in the consciousness of her fascination. As soon as she knew herself loved, she became formidable and arrogant. The unimpressionable glance of the lawyer disarmed her and scattered all her artifices. Obeying an imperious sign from Bofinger, she gathered herself together and said hastily:
"Why—I am sure my husband was quite right, and, indeed, it's no trouble."
"So I said," Fargus put in, his nocturnal face appearing at the door when she believed him above. "Sheila, it's all right, I had something sent over from the restaurant." ”

“ Yet in this violent return to her first agitation there was nothing to suggest grief for another; rather she seemed a prey to the torments of the gambler who, by a sudden upset, sees a fortune elude his fingers, dissipating in the air. She was, at the first glance, of that gay and fragile class who comprehend nothing but pleasure and see pleasure bounded only by the narrow limits of youth, into which they wish to compress all emotions, all desires, and all sensations; who pursue their ideals, palpitating and with bandaged eyes, and are consumed alike by their gratification and their hunger. ”

“ On settling into his seat his arms sprawled over the desk, bracing the weight of the head and shoulders on the elbows, while from the mass the eyes, vacant and magnetic, conveyed to Bofinger for the thousandth time the impression of an immense spider in the center of its web.
Physical deformity has an extreme effect on human nature. Either it produces an heroic and resigned optimism, or it forms, by divesting them of the passions which shackle men, characters of implacable selfishness, who are strong because they were born weak and know no pity because nature has shown them none. ”

“ It is rare in the secret life of the city that they who live by preying on society are not themselves preyed upon. Alonzo Bofinger for a long while had been in the clutches of Sammamon, the money-lender. Without his aid he could never have maintained Sheila through her period of waiting. But, to obtain the necessary loans, he had been forced to take him into his entire confidence, paying, of course, the penalty in the usorious rates Sammamon greedily imposed. ”

“ The friend was a newsboy, the mother a pedler, and the woman a waitress in a restaurant on the wharves. Society, which regards honor, virtue, and faith, and the capability of sorrow, peculiar to itself, can see nothing but the ridiculous in such tragedies. To the frail boy, however, with his misanthropic bent, these three trials changed the complexion of the sky and brought a rage against humanity, and with it an abiding, vindictive purpose to treat it always as an enemy. ”

“ Now she said to herself that she had yet two years into which to crowd all the defeated longings of her youth. She flung madly into the vanities of luxury. She dismissed her maid of all work and installed a cook and waitress. She made a bundle, so to speak, of all her furnishings; replacing the carpets with oriental rugs, introducing into the dining-room a magnificent sideboard spread with silver. As for the parlor and bedroom, within six months they retained not an object of those treasures which had once seemed to her so luxurious and whose purchase had cost Fargus such pangs. ”

“ He sauntered over to Washington Square where, yielding to the pleasure of the spring and his own good humor, he installed himself on a shady bench, buying a newspaper in an automatic seeking for some reason to be idling there. The foliage was complete, yet with the zest of its youth still on it. The fountain in the center flung its spray against the rich green background. Gardeners were setting out the flower beds. The chirp of sparrows and the glee of children blended together in the stirring of the leaves. The air was fragrant and gentle, good to breathe. ”

“ Bofinger rose and the two disappeared through one of the glass doors.
"The man who succeeds," said LeBeau, speaking to Groll, "is he who studies the conditions that may turn an honest man to dishonesty, and those that bring a rascal to repentance. The important thing is not to fix the price of each man. Not at all. The thing is to use rogues not as rogues, but as rogues in whom is the fatal impulse to honesty."
"Hello, that's an idea," said Ganzler. ”

“ Ganzler laughed uneasily; LeBeau, forgetting his theme, watched her retreat. From behind, she showed a pleasing figure and the movements of a young girl.
"Take the other side," Bofinger said, returning to his perch. "Every man is more or less dishonest. Admit that proposition."
"It is debatable," said LeBeau, whose eyes still followed the woman.
"We graft or allow grafting—and what's the difference?" Bofinger pursued contemptuously. "A man who touches society the way we do has got no illusions I can tell you. Do you know how I could live if I wanted to—without its costing me a cent? ”

“ It's second nature, you know. Seeing is believing, and holding is better. I'm made to risk nothing, to act as though I suspected everything. It ain't personal, Sheila—I can't help it."
She bit her lip and, driven to desperation, said angrily:
"But I don't want to marry you!"
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not in love with you."
"Were you with Fargus?" he said quietly. "It was a question of interest, wasn't it? Well, marry me and it'll be to your interest too. Such a man as I am, knowing the secret ways and who ain't squeamish, only needs capital. Knowledge without capital is what makes the shyster." ”