Richard Harding Davis

“ The chauffeur, by profession a criminal, but by birth a human being, chuckled savagely and this time threw in the clutch. With a grinding of gravel the racing-car leaped into the night, its ruby rear lamp winking in farewell, its tiny siren answering the great siren of the prison in jeering notes of joy and victory.
Fred had supposed that at the last moment the younger convict proposed to leap to the running-board, but instead the stranger remained motionless.
Fred shouted impotently after the flying car. In dismay he seized the stranger by the arm. ”

“ Helen took herself seriously to task. She assured herself it was weak-minded to rebel. The summer was coming and Fair Harbor with all its old delights was before her. She compelled herself to take heart, to accept the fact that, after all, the world is a pretty good place, and that to think only of the past, to live only on memories and regrets, was not only cowardly and selfish, but, as Latimer had already decided, did not tend toward efficiency. ”

“ An hour later her car, on its way to Boston, passed through Fair Harbor at a rate of speed that caused her chauffeur to pray between his chattering teeth that the first policeman would save their lives by landing them in jail.
At the wheel, her shoulders thrown forward, her eyes searching the dark places beyond the reach of the leaping head-lights Helen Page raced against time, against the minions of the law, against sudden death, to beat the midnight train out of Boston, to assure the man she loved of the one thing that could make his life worth living. ”

“ At the end of one month he had just enough money to buy him a second-class passage back to New York, and he was as far from Helen as ever.
Often he had read in stories and novels of men who were too poor to marry. And he had laughed at the idea. He had always said that when two people truly love each other it does not matter whether they have money or not. But when in London, with only a five-pound note, and face to face with the actual proposition of asking Helen Carey not only to marry him but to support him, he felt that money counted for more than he had supposed. ”

“ David crossed the tracks and found that on the side of the embankment opposite the shed there was solid ground and what once had been a wharf. He advanced over this cautiously, and as he did so the clouds disappeared, and in the full light of the moon he saw a bayou broadening into a river, and made fast to the decayed and rotting wharf an ocean-going tug. It was from her deck that the man, in lighting his pipe, had shown his face. At the thought of a warm engine-room and the company of his fellow creatures, David's heart leaped with pleasure. He advanced quickly. ”

“ Your generosity to the college is well known. You are recognized all over America as its patron. And he believed that when I refused him an increase in salary it was really you who refused it—and he struck at you through your son. Everybody thinks so. The college is on fire with indignation. And look at the mark he gave Peter! Five! That in itself shows the malice. Five is not a mark, it is an insult! No one, certainly not your brilliant son—look how brilliantly he managed the glee-club and foot-ball tour—is stupid enough to deserve five. No, Doctor Gilman went too far. ”

“ He threw open the breech and gazed impotently at the base of the shell. It was untouched. The ship was ringing with cries of anger, of hate, with rat-like squeaks of fear.
Above the heads of the filibusters a shell screamed and within a hundred feet splashed into a wave.
From his mat in the lee scupper David groaned miserably. He was far removed from any of the greater emotions.
“It's no use!” he protested. “They can't do! It's not connected!”
“WHAT'S not connected?” yelled Carr. He fell upon David. He half-lifted, half-dragged him to his feet. ”

“ Especially are you wrong about the women. They ought to be caged in elevators, but they're not. Instead, they flash past you in the street; they shine upon you from boxes in the theatre; they frown at you from the tops of buses; they smile at you from the cushions of a taxi, across restaurant tables under red candle shades, when you offer them a seat in the subway. ”

“ The ambassador forgot that he was hot and cross. He forgot that he was dusty. His face radiated satisfaction and perspiration. Here at last were people who appreciated him and his high office. And as the mayor helped him into the automobile, and those students who lived in Stillwater welcomed him with strange yells, and the moving-picture machine aimed at him point blank, he beamed with condescension. But inwardly he was ill at ease.
Inwardly he was chastising himself for having, through his ignorance of America, failed to appreciate the importance of the man he had come to honor. ”

“ It was met by shrieks from two hundred throats, by screams, oaths, prayers, by the sharp jangling of bells, by the blind rush of many men scurrying like rats for a hole to hide in, by the ringing orders of one man. Above the tumult this one voice rose like the warning strokes of a fire-gong, and looking up to the pilot-house from whence the voice came, David saw the barkeeper still in his shirt-sleeves and with his derby hat pushed back behind his ears, with one hand clutching the telegraph to the engine-room, with the other holding the spoke of the wheel. ”

“ That he happened to be that man did not make his sorrow and indignation the less intense; and, indeed, so miserable was he and so miserable were his looks, that his friends on the stage considered sending him a note, offering, if he would take himself out of the front row, to give him back his money at the box office. Sam certainly wished to take himself away; but he did not want to admit that he was miserable, that he had behaved ill, that the presence of Anita Flagg could spoil his evening—could, in the slightest degree affect him. ”

“ Twice, unexpectedly, he had come upon him in a wood road and once on Round Hill where the stranger was pretending to watch the sunset. Jimmie knew people do not climb hills merely to look at sunsets, so he was not deceived. He guessed the man was a German spy seeking gun sites, and secretly vowed to “stalk” him. From that moment, had the stranger known it, he was as good as dead. For a boy scout with badges on his sleeve for “stalking” and “path-finding,” not to boast of others for “gardening” and “cooking,” can outwit any spy. ”

“ We never see flowers in New York except on the women's hats. We never see the women except in cages in the elevators—they spend their lives shooting up and down elevator shafts in department stores, in apartment houses, in office buildings. And we never see children in New York because the janitors won't let the women who live in elevators have children! Don't talk to me! New York's a Little Nemo nightmare. It's a joke. It's an insult!”
“How curious!” said Sam. “Now I see why they took you off the street and made you a city editor. ”

“ Philip assured her; “but I can safely say no one knows his thoughts as well as I. And they are all of you!”
The china shepherdess blushed with happiness, but instantly she shook her head.
“They tell me I must not believe him,” she announced. “They tell me—”
“Never mind what they tell you,” commanded Philip. “Listen to ME. He loves you. Better than ever before, he loves you. All he asks is the chance to tell you so. You cannot help but believe him. Who can look at you, and not believe that he loves you! ”

“ To a statesman, to a financier, such a gift as he possessed would make him a ruler of men. Philip had no desire to be a ruler of men; but he asked himself how could he bend this gift to serve his own? What he most wished was to marry Helen Carey; and, to that end, to possess money. So he must meet men who possessed money, who were making money. ”

“ She wondered if now she held a place even in his thoughts.
At Fair Harbor the two hundred and forty-nine used to joke with her about her politician. Then they considered Latimer of importance only because Helen liked him. Now they discussed him impersonally and over her head, as though she were not present, as a power, an influence, as the leader and exponent of a new idea. They seemed to think she no longer could pretend to any peculiar claim upon him, that now he belonged to all of them.
Older men would say to her: “I hear you know Latimer? What sort of a man is he?” ”

“ It certainly was outrageous that one so glorious must work for her living, and for such a paltry living—forty dollars a month! It was worth that merely to have her sit in the flat where one could look at her; for already he had decided that, when they were married, they would live in a flat—probably in one overlooking Central Park, on Central Park West. He knew of several attractive suites there at thirty-five dollars a week—or, if she preferred the suburbs, he would forsake his beloved New York and return to the country. ”

“ You are always on watch. You never sleep. You are her slave. She says you have a friendly smile. She wrongs you. It is a beseeching, abject, worshipping smile. I am sure when I look at her mine is equally idiotic. In fact, we are in many ways alike. I also am her slave. I also am devoted only to her service. And I never sleep, at least not since I met her.”
From her throne among the pine needles Helen looked up at the sailorman and frowned.
“It is not a happy simile,” she objected. “For one thing, a sailorman has a sweetheart in every port.”
“Wait and see,” said Latimer. ”

“ All I know about Cuba is, I once smoked a Cuban cigar and it made me ill.”
“Did Lafayette talk like that?” demanded Emily. “Did he ask what have the American rebels ever done for me?”
“If I were in Lafayette's class,” sighed David, “I wouldn't be selling automatic punches.”
“There's your trouble,” declared Emily “You lack self-confidence. You're too humble, you've got fighting blood and you ought to keep saying to yourself, 'Blood will tell,' and the first thing you know, it WILL tell! You might begin by going into politics in your ward. Or, you could join the militia. ”

“ The stranger exclaimed vigorously. “You're all right!” he whispered. “I won't forget this, or you either. I'll send the money back same time I send the clothes.”
“Exactly!” said Fred.
The wheels of the touring-car crunched on the gravel drive, and Fred slammed to the door, and like a sentry on guard paced before it. After a period which seemed to stretch over many minutes there came from the inside a cautious knocking. With equal caution Fred opened the door of the width of a finger, and put his ear to the crack. ”

“ But before they could reach their hero the courteous Junta forced them back, and cleared a pathway for a young girl. She was travel-worn and pale, her shirt-waist was disgracefully wrinkled, her best hat was a wreck. No one on Broadway would have recognized her as Burdett and Sons' most immaculate and beautiful stenographer.
She dug the shapeless hat into David's shoulder, and clung to him. “David!” she sobbed, “promise me you'll never, never do it again!” ”

“ When Spencer Flagg laid the foundation-stone for the new million-dollar wing he was adding to the Flagg Home for Convalescents, on the hills above Greenwich, the New York REPUBLIC sent Sam Ward to cover the story, and with him Redding to take photographs. It was a crisp, beautiful day in October, full of sunshine and the joy of living, and from the great lawn in front of the Home you could see half over Connecticut and across the waters of the Sound to Oyster Bay. ”

“ I don't know that,” said Sister Anne.
Sam recognized that it was quite absurd that it should be so, but this statement gave him a sense of great elation, a delightful thrill of relief. There was every reason why the girl should not confide in a complete stranger—even to deceive him was quite within her rights; but, though Sam appreciated this, he preferred to be deceived.
“I think you are working too hard,” he said, smiling happily. “I think you ought to have a change. You ought to take a day off! Do they ever give you a day off?” ”

“ In a frock coat he might easily have been mistaken for something even more important than a head-waiter—for a German riding-master, a leader of a Hungarian band, a manager of a Ritz hotel. But he was not above his station. He even assisted the porter in carrying the coats and golf bags of the gentlemen from the car to the coffee-room where, with the intuition of the homing pigeon, the three strangers had, unaided, found their way. As Carl Schultz followed, carrying the dust-coats, a road map fell from the pocket of one of them to the floor. ”

“ For a Spanish gun-boat HAD been crippled and forced to run herself aground by a tug-boat manned by Cuban patriots, and by a single gun served by one man, and that man an American. It was the first sea-fight of the war. Over night a Cuban navy had been born, and into the limelight a cub reporter had projected a new “hero,” a ready-made, warranted-not-to-run, popular idol. ”

“ There was a sound like the whir of a rising partridge, and ahead of him from where it had been hidden, a gray touring-car leaped into the highway. The stranger was at the wheel. Throwing behind it a cloud of dust, the car raced toward Greenwich. Jimmie had time to note only that it bore a Connecticut State license; that in the wheel-ruts the tires printed little V's, like arrow-heads. ”

“ Chancellor Black, the head of Stillwater, was an up-to-date college president. If he did not actually run after money he went where money was, and it was not his habit to be downright rude to those who possessed it. And if any three-thousand-dollar-a-year professor, through a too strict respect for Stillwater's standards of learning, should lose to that institution a half-million-dollar observatory, swimming-pool, or gymnasium, he was the sort of college president, who would see to it that the college lost also the services of that too conscientious instructor. ”