41 Stories (19 page)
Authors: O. Henry
Dear Old Pal:
I want you to be at Sullivan's place, in Little Rock, next Wednesday night at nine oâclock. I want you to wind up some little matters for me. And, also, I want to make you a present of my kit of tools. I know you'll be glad to get themâyou couldn't duplicate the lot for a thousand dollars. Say, Billy, I've quit the old businessâa year ago. I've got a nice store. I'm making an honest living, and I'm going to marry the finest girl on earth two weeks from now. It's the only life, Billyâthe straight one. I wouldn't touch a dollar of another man's money now for a million. After I get married I'm going to sell out and go West, where there won't be so much danger of having old scores brought up against me. I tell you, Billy, she's an angel. She believes in me; and I wouldn't do another crooked thing for the whole world. Be sure to be at Sully's, for I must see you. I'll bring along the tools with me.
Your old friend,
Jimmy
On the Monday night after Jimmy wrote this letter, Ben Price jogged unobtrusively into Elmore in a livery buggy. He lounged about town in his quiet way until he found out what he wanted to know. From the drug-store across the street from Spencer's shoe-store he got a good look at Ralph D. Spencer.
“Going to marry the banker's daughter are you, Jimmy?” said Ben to himself, softly. “Well, I don't know!”
The next morning Jimmy took breakfast at the Adamses. He was going to Little Rock that day to order his wedding-suit and buy something nice for Annabel. That would be the first time he had left town since he came to Elmore. It had been more than a year now since those last professional “jobs,” and he thought he could safely venture out.
After breakfast quite a family party went down town togetherâMr. Adams, Annabel, Jimmy, and Annabel's married sister with her two little girls, aged five and nine. They came by the hotel where Jimmy still boarded, and he ran up to his room and brought along his suitcase. Then they went on to the bank. There stood Jimmy's horse and buggy and Dolph Gibson, who was going to drive him over to the railroad station.
All went inside the high, carved oak railings into the banking-roomâJimmy included, for Mr. Adams's future son-in-law was welcome anywhere. The clerks were pleased to be greeted by the good-looking, agreeable young man who was going to marry Miss Annabel. Jimmy set his suitcase down. Annabel, whose heart was bubbling with happiness and lively youth, put on Jimmy's hat and picked up the suitcase. “Wouldn't I make a nice drummer?” said Annabel. “My! Ralph, how heavy it is. Feels like it was full of gold bricks.”
“Lot of nickel-plated shoe-homs in there,” said Jimmy, coolly, “that I'm going to return. Thought I'd save express charges by taking them up. I'm getting awfully economical.”
The Elmore Bank had just put in a new safe and vault. Mr. Adams was very proud of it, and insisted on an inspection by every one. The vault was a small one, but it had a new patented door. It fastened with three solid steel bolts thrown simultaneously with a single handle, and had a time-lock. Mr. Adams beamingly explained its workings to Mr. Spencer, who showed a courteous but not too intelligent interest. The two children, May and Agatha, were delighted by the shining metal and funny clock and knobs.
While they were thus engaged Ben Price sauntered in and leaned on his elbow, looking casually inside between the railings. He told the teller that he didn't want anything; he was just waiting for a man he knew.
Suddenly there was a scream or two from the women, and a commotion. Unperceived by the elders, May, the nine-year-old girl, in a spirit of play, had shut Agatha in the vault. She had then shot the bolts and turned the knob of the combination as she had seen Mr. Adams do.
The old banker sprang to the handle and tugged at it for a moment. “The door can't be opened,” he groaned. “The clock hasn't been wound nor the combination set.”
Agatha's mother screamed again, hysterically.
“Hush!” said Mr. Adams, raising his trembling hand. “All be quiet for a moment, Agatha!” he called as loudly as he could: “Listen to me.” During the following silence they could just hear the faint sound of the child wildly shrieking in the dark vault in a panic of terror.
“My precious darling!” wailed the mother. “She will die of fright! Open the door! Oh, break it open! Can't you men do something?”
“There isn't a man nearer than Little Rock who can open that door,” said Mr. Adams, in a shaky voice. “My God! Spencer, what shall we do? That childâshe can't stand it long in there. There isn't enough air, and, besides, she'll go into convulsions from fright.”
Agatha's mother, frantic now, beat the door of the vault with her hands. Somebody wildly suggested dynamite. Annabel turned to Jimmy, her large eyes full of anguish, but not yet despairing. To a woman nothing seems quite impossible to the powers of the man she worships.
“Can't you do something, Ralphâ
try
, won't you?”
try
, won't you?”
He looked at her with a queer, soft smile on his lips and in his keen eyes.
“Annabel,” he said, “give me that rose you are wearing, will you?”
Hardly believing that she heard him aright, she unpinned the bud from the bosom of her dress, and placed it in his hand. Jimmy stuffed it into his vest-pocket, threw off his coat and pulled up his shirt-sleeves. With that act Ralph D. Spencer passed away and Jimmy Valentine took his place.
“Get away from the door, all of you,” he commanded, shortly.
He set his suitcase on the table, and opened it out flat. From that time on he seemed to be unconscious of the presence of any one else. He laid out the shining, queer implements swiftly and orderly, whistling softly to himself as he always did when at work. In a deep silence and immovable, the others watched him as if under a spell.
In a minute Jimmy's pet drill was biting smoothly into the steel door. In ten minutesâbreaking his own burglarious recordâhe threw back the bolts and opened the door.
Agatha, almost collapsed, but safe, was gathered into her mother's arms.
Jimmy Valentine put on his coat, and walked outside the railings toward the front door. As he went he thought he heard a far-away voice that he once knew call “Ralph!” But he never hesitated.
At the door a big man stood somewhat in his way.
“Hello, Ben!” said Jimmy, still with his strange smile. “Got around at last, have you? Well, let's go. I don't know that it makes much difference, now.”
And then Ben Price acted rather strangely.
“Guess you're mistaken, Mr. Spencer,” he said. “Don't believe I recognize you. Your buggy's waiting for you, ain't it?”
And Ben Price turned and strolled down the street.
The Higher Pragmatism
Where to go for wisdom has become a question of serious import. The ancients are discredited; Plato is boiler-plate; Aristotle is tottering; Marcus Aurelius is reeling; Ãsop has been copyrighted by Indiana; Solomon is too solemn; you couldn't get anything out of Epictetus with a pick.
The ant, which for many years served as a model of intelligence and industry in the school-readers, has been proven to be a doddering idiot and a waster of time and effort. The owl to-day is hooted at. Chautauqua conventions have abandoned culture and adopted diabolo. Graybeards give glowing testimonials to the venders of patent hair-restorers. There are typographical errors in the almanacs published by the daily newspapers. College professors have becomeâ
But there shall be no personalities.
To sit in classes, to delve into the encyclopedia or the past-performances page, will not make us wise. As the poet says, “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.” Wisdom is due, which, while we know it not, soaks into us, refreshes us, and makes us grow. Knowledge is a strong stream of water turned on us through a hose. It disturbs our roots.
Then, let us rather gather wisdom. But how to do so requires knowledge. If we know a thing, we know it; but very often we are not wise to it that we are wise, andâ
But let's go on with the story.
Â
II Once upon a time I found a ten-cent magazine lying on a bench in a little city park. Anyhow, that was the amount he asked me for when I sat on the bench next to him. He was a musty, dingy, and tattered magazine, with some queer stories bound in him, I was sure. He turned out to be a scrap-book.
“I am a newspaper reporter,” I said to him, to try him. “I have been detailed to write up some of the experiences of the unfortunate ones who spend their evenings in this park. May I ask you to what you attribute your downfall inâ”
I was interrupted by a laugh from my purchaseâa laugh so rusty and unpractised that I was sure it had been his first for many a day.
“Oh, no, no,” said he. “You ain't a reporter. Reporters don't talk that way. They pretend to be one of us, and say they've just got on the blind baggage from St. Louis. I can tell a reporter on sight. Us park bums get to be fine judges of human nature. We sit here all day and watch the people go by. I can size up anybody who walks past my bench in a way that would surprise you.”
“Well,” I said, “go on and tell me. How do you size me up?”
“I should say,” said the student of human nature with unpardonable hesitation, “that you was, say, in the contracting businessâor maybe worked in a storeâor was a sign-painter. You stopped in the park to finish your cigar, and thought you'd get a little free monologue out of me. Still, you might be a plasterer or a lawyerâit's getting kind of dark, you see. And your wife won't let you smoke at home.”
I frowned gloomily.
“But, judging again,” went on the reader of men, “I'd say you ain't got a wife.”
“No,” said I, rising restlessly. “No, no, no, I ain't. But I
will
have, by the arrows of Cupid. That is ifâ”
will
have, by the arrows of Cupid. That is ifâ”
My voice must have trailed away and muffled itself in uncertainty and despair.
“I see you have a story yourself,” said the dusty vagrantâimprudently, it seemed to me. “Suppose you take your dime back and spin your yarn for me. I'm interested myself in the ups and downs of unfortunate ones who spend their evenings in the park.”
Somehow, that amused me. I looked at the frowsy derelict with more interest. I did have a story. Why not tell it to him? I had told none of my friends. I had always been a reserved and bottled-up man. It was psychical timidity or sensitivenessâperhaps both. And I smiled to myself in wonder when I felt an impulse to confide in this stranger and vagabond.
“Jack,” said I.
“Mack,” said he.
“Mack,” said I, “I'll tell you.”
“Do you want the dime back in advance?” said he. I handed him a dollar.
“The dime,” said I, “was the price of listening to your story.”
“Right on the point of the jaw,” said he. “Go on.”
And then, incredible as it may seem to the lovers in the world who confide their sorrows only to the night wind and the gibbous moon, I laid bare my secret to that wreck of all things that you would have supposed to be in sympathy with love.
I told him of the days and weeks and months that I had spent in adoring Mildred Telfair. I spoke of my despair, my grievious days and wakeful nights, my dwindling hopes and distress of mind. I even pictured to this night-prowler her beauty and dignity, the great sway she had in society, and the magnificence of her life as the elder daughter of an ancient race whose pride overbalanced the dollars of the city's millionaires.
“Why don't you cop the lady out?” asked Mack, bringing me down to earth and dialect again.
I explained to him that my worth was so small, my income so minute, and my fears so large that I hadn't the courage to speak to her of my worship. I told him that in her presence I could only blush and stammer, and that she looked upon me with a wonderful, maddening smile of amusement.
“She kind of moves in the professional class, don't she?” asked Mack.
“The Telfair familyâ” I began, haughtily.
“I mean professional beauty,” said my hearer.
“She is greatly and widely admired,” I answered, cautiously.
“Any sisters?”
“One.”
“You know any more girls?”
“Why, several,” I answered. “And a few others.”
“Say,” said Mack, “tell me one thingâcan you hand out the dope to other girls? Can you chin âem and make matinée eyes at 'em and squeeze âem? You know what I mean. You're just shy when it comes to this particular dameâthe professional beautyâain't that right?”
“In a way you have outlined the situation with approximate truth,” I admitted.
“I thought so,” said Mack, grimly. “Now, that reminds me of my own case. I'll tell you about it.”
I was indignant, but concealed it. What was this loafer's case or anybody's case compared with mine? Besides, I had given him a dollar and ten cents.
“Feel my muscle,” said my companion, suddenly flexing his biceps. I did so mechanically. The fellows in gyms are always asking you to do that. His arm was as hard as cast-iron.
“Four years ago,” said Mack, “I could lick any man in New York outside of the professional ring. Your case and mine is just the same. I come from the West Sideâbetween Thirtieth and Fourteenthâand I won't give the number on the door. I was a scrapper when I was ten, and when I was twenty no amateur in the city could stand up four rounds with me. 'S a fact. You know Bill McCarty? No? He managed the smokers for some of them swell clubs. Well, I knocked out everything Bill brought up before me. I was a middle-weight, but could train down to a welter when necessary. I boxed all over the West Side at bouts and benefits and private entertainments, and was never put out once.
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