CHAPTER XI.—ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE WORLD.
Seth’s first impressions of the World, gathered when he found himself and his valise alone on the sidewalk of one of Tecumseh’s chief streets, were distinctly gloomy.
Other passengers who had left the train here, and in whose throng he had been borne along thus far, started off briskly in various directions once they reached the busy thoroughfare, elbowing their way through the horde of clamorous hotel porters much as one might push through a clump of obstructing bushes. He had firmly fixed in his mind the cardinal rule of traveling countrymen, that these shouting runners were brigands intent upon robbing him, and he was clear in his resolution to give them no hold upon him, not even by so much as a civil expression of countenance. He said “No, thank you!” sternly to at least a dozen solicitations, so it seemed to him, and walked away steadily, fearful that their practised eyes had detected in him an utter stranger, and intent only upon proving to them that he knew where he was going. When at last it seemed likely that they were no longer watching him, he stopped, put his bag down in a door way, and looked about.
It was half-past six of a summer afternoon (for a failure to make connections had prolonged the sixty-mile journey over eight hours), and the sun, still high, beat down the whole length of the street with an oppressive glare and heat. The buildings on both sides, as far as eye could reach, were of brick, flat-topped, irregular in height, and covered with flaring signs. There was no tree, nor any green thing, in sight.
Past him in a ceaseless stream, and all in one direction, moved a swarm of humanity—laborers and artisans with dinner-pails, sprucely dressed narrow-chested clerks and book-keepers, and bold faced factory-girls in dowdy clothes and boots run down at the heels—a bewildering, chattering procession. No one of all this throng glanced at him, or paid the slightest attention to him, until one merry girl, spying his forlorn visage, grinned and called out with a humorous drawl “Hop-pick—ers!” and then danced off with her laughing companions, one of whom said, “Aw, come off! You’re rushin’ the season. Hop’s ain’t ripe yet.”
Seth felt deeply humiliated at this. He had been vaguely musing upon the general impudence of his coming to this strange city to teach its people daily on all subjects, from government down, while he did not even know how to gracefully get his bag off the street. This incident added the element of wounded self-pride to his discomfort—for even casual passers-by were evidently able to tell by his appearance that he was a farmer. Strange! neither Albert nor John had told him anything calculated to serve him in this dilemma. They had warned him plentifully as to what not to do. Indeed his head was full of negative information, of pit-falls to avoid, temptations to guard against. But on the affirmative side it was all a blank. John had, it was true, advised him to get board with some quiet family, but if there were any representatives of such quiet families in the crowd surging past, how was he to know them?
While he tormented himself with this perplexing problem, two clerks came out of the store next to which he stood, to pull up the awning and prepare for night. A tall young man, with his hands deep in his trouser’s pockets, and a flat straw hat much on one side of his head, sauntered across the street to them, and was greeted familiarly.
“Well, Tom,” shouted one of these clerks, “you just everlastingly gave it to that snide show to-night. Wasn’t it a scorcher, though?”
The young man with the straw hat put on a satisfied smile: “That’s the only way to do it,” he said lightly. “The sooner these fakirs understand that they can’t play Tecumseh people for chumps, the better. If the Chronicle keeps on pounding ’em, they’ll begin to give us a wide berth. Their advance agent thought he could fix me by opening a pint bottle of champagne. That may work in Hornellsville, but when he gets to-night’s Chronicle I fancy he’ll twig that it doesn’t go down here.”
“Oh, by the way, Tom,” said the other clerk, in a low tone of voice, “my sister’s engaged to Billy Peters. I don’t know that she wants to have it given away, that is, names, and everything, but you might kind o’ hint at it. It would please the old folks, I think—you know father’s taken the Chronicle for the last twenty years.”
“I know” said Tom, producing an old envelope from a side pocket and making some dashes on it with a pencil—“the regulation gag: ‘It is rumored that a rising young hat-dealer will shortly lead to the altar one of the bright, particular social stars of Brewery street ’ eh? Something like that?”
“Yes, that’s it. You know how to fix it so that everybody’ll know who is meant. Be around at Menzel’s to-night?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll look in. The beer’s been fearfully flat there, though, this last carload. So long, boys!”—and Tom moved down the street while the clerks re-entered the store.
Seth followed him eagerly, and touched him on the shoulder, saying:
“I beg your pardon, sir, but I heard you mention the Chronicle just now. I would be much obliged if you could tell me where the office is.”
The young man turned, looked Seth over and said, affably enough:
“Certainly. But you’ll find it shut up. The book-keeper’s gone home.” Then he added, as by a happy afterthought: “If you want to pay a weekly subscription, though, I can take it, just as well as not.”
“No,” answered Seth, “I’ve come to work on the Chronicle.”
“Oh—printer? I guess some of the fellows are there still, throwing in their cases. If you like, I’ll show you.”
Seth replied, with some embarrassment, “No, I’m not a printer. I’ve come to be—to be—an editor.”
Tom’s manner changed in a twinkling from civility to extreme cordiality.
“Oh—ho! you’re the new man from Thessaly, eh? Jack Fairchild’s brother! By Jove! How are you, anyway? When did you get in? Where are you stopping?”
“I’m not stopping anywhere—unless it be this stairway here,” Seth replied, pointing to his carpetbag with a smile, for his companion’s cheerfulness was infectious. “I came in half an hour ago, and I scarcely knew where to go, or what to do first. I gather that you are connected with the Chronicle.”
“Well, I should remark!” said Tom, taking the bag up as he spoke. “Come along. We’ll have some supper down at Bismarck’s, and leave your grip there for the evening. We can call for it on our way home. You’ll stop with me to-night, you know. It ain’t a particularly fly place, but we’ll manage all right, I guess. And how’s Jack?”
In the delight of finding so genial a colleague, one, too, who had known and worked with his brother, Seth’s heart rose, as they walked down the street again. He had been more than a little dismayed at the prospect of meeting these unknown writers whose genius radiated in the columns of the Chronicle, and in whose company he was henceforth to labor. Especially had he been nervous lest he should not speak with sufficient correctness, and should shock their fastidious ears with idioms insensibly acquired in the back-country. It was a great relief to find that this gentleman was so easy in his conversation, not to say colloquial.
They stopped presently at a broad open door, flanked by wide windows, in which were displayed a variety of bright-tinted play bills, and two huge pictures of a goat confidently butting a small barrel. There was a steep pile of these little, dark-colored barrels on the sidewalk at the curb, from which came a curious smell of resin. As they entered, Seth discovered that this odor belonged to the whole place.
The interior was dark and, to the country youth’s eyes, unexpectedly vast. The floor was sprinkled with gray sand. An infinitude of small, circular oak tables, each surrounded with chairs, stretched out in every direction into the distant gloom. Away at the farther end of the place, somebody was banging furiously on a piano. In the middle distance, three elderly men sat smoking long pipes and playing dominoes, silently, save for the sharp clatter of the pieces. Nearer, three other men, seated about a table, were all roaring in German at the top of their lungs, pounding with their glasses on the resounding wood, and making the most excited and menacing gestures. While Seth stared at them, expecting momentarily to see the altercation develop into blows, he felt himself clutched by the arm, and heard Tom say:
“Bismarck, this is Mr. Fairchild, a new Chronicle man. You must use him as well as you do me.”
Seth turned and found himself shaking hands with an old German monstrous in girth, and at once fierce and comical in aspect, with short, upright gray hair, a huge yellowish-white moustache, and little piggish blue eyes nearly hidden from view by the wave of fat which rendered his great purple face as featureless as the bottom of a platter.
“Who effer vas Misder Vott’s frent, den you bed he owens dis whole houwus,” this stout gentleman wheezed out, smiling warmly, and releasing Seth’s hand to indicate, with a sweeping gesture of his pudgy paw, the extent of Seth’s new and figurative possessions.
On the invitation of the host they all took seats, and a lean, wolfish-faced young man named “Ow-goost,” who shuffled along pushing his big slippers on the floor, brought three tall foaming glasses of dark-brown beer. Seth did not care for beer, and had always, in a general way, avoided saloons and drink, but of course, under these circumstances, it would be ridiculous not to do as the others did. The beverage was bitter, but not unpleasant, and with an effort he drank it half down at a time, as he saw his companions do. Then he looked about, while they discussed the merits of this new “bock,” Tom speaking with an air of great authority, and pronouncing it better than the last, but a bit too cold.
The piano was still jangling, and the dominoes were being rattled around for a new game. The three noisy old men had grown, if possible, more violent and boisterous than ever. One of them now sprang to his feet, lifted his right hand dramatically toward the dusky ceiling, and bellowed forth sonorously something which Seth thought must be at least a challenge to immediate combat, while the others hammered their glasses vehemently, and fairly shrieked dissent.
“I’m afraid those men are going to fight,” he said.
“Fight? Nonsense! They’re rather quieter than usual,” remarked Tom. “What are they chewing on to-night, Bismarck—the Sigel racket?”
“Yes,” said their host, listening indifferently. “Dot’s Sigel.” Then, addressing Seth, he explained: “Somedimes it’s Sigel, unt somedimes the reffolution uff forty-eighd, unt den somedimes der k-vestion of we haf a vood bafement by Main streed. It all makes no differunce to dem, vicheffer ding dey shdarts mit, dey git yust so much oxcited. Dot rooster you see standing up mit der spegtacles, dot Henery Beckstein, he’s a tailor; he sits mid his legs tvisted all day, den when night comes he neets some exercises. Efery night for tweluf years he comes here, unt has his liddle dalk, und de udders, dey alvays pitches into him. He likes dot better as his dinner. De vurst is, dey all don’t know vat dey talk aboud. I bleef, so help me Gott, no one of ’em ever laid eyes by Sigel, unt dey all svear he vas deir dearest frent. Now—hear dot! Dot Beckstein say uff he didn’t shleep mid him four years in his dent, in de same bet! How was dot for lies, huh?” The host, pained and mortified at this mendacity, left his seat and waddled over to the disputants, shouting as he went, and joined the conversation so earnestly that his little eyes seemed bursting from his beet-red face.
“Great old man, that,” said Tom, pounding with his glass for the waiter; “there’s no flies on him! I named him Bismarck three or four years ago—everybody calls him that now—and it tickled him so, there’s nothing here too good for me. You like cheese, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, I eat cheese sometimes.”
Seth never had eaten this kind of cheese which Owgoost presently slapped down before them, along with a mustard cup, a long bulging roll of black bread, and more beer. It was pale and hard and strong of scent, was cut in thick slabs, and was to be eaten, he judged from Tom’s procedure, under a heavy top-dressing of the brown mustard. He liked it though, and was interested to find how well beer went with it, or it went with beer. Then they had each a little pickled lambs-tongue, pink and toothsome, to be eaten with plenty of salt, and it was quite remarkable how ideally beer seemed to go with this, too. In all, three large glasses went.
Tom was a delightful companion. It was simply charming to hear him talk, as he did almost continuously, describing the round of life in Tecumseh, relating gay little anecdotes of personal experience, and commenting trenchantly on various men as they came in. To some of these he introduced Seth. They seemed extremely affable young people, and some of them who took seats near by invited Tom and him with much fervor and still greater frequency, to have their glasses filled up. The former accepted these proffers very freely, but the beer did not taste as good to Seth as it had during supper, and he kept to his one glass—the fourth—sipping at it from time to time. Tom was so urgent about it, though, that he did take a cigar, a dark, able-bodied cigar which annoyed him by burning up on one side.
The beer-hall presented a brilliant appearance now, with all the lights flaming, with most of the chairs filled by merry young men, with three or four white-jacketed waiters flitting about, bearing high in air both hands full of foaming glasses—a fine contrast to the dingy, bare interior of the twilight, with only the solitary Owgoost. Above the ceaseless hum of conversation and laughter, rose, at intervals, the strains of lively music from the far-off piano, reinforced now by a harp and a flute.
After a time cards were proposed, and Tom made one of a quartette who ranged themselves at the table. Seth could not play, and so moved his chair back, to watch the game. His cigar burned badly and he relighted it. Then it tasted bitter, and, after some hesitation, he threw it away. The game, called seven-up, was one he had never seen before; the ten-spots were invested with a fictitious value which puzzled him. Tom, over whose shoulder he watched had three of these tens, and silently indicated to Seth that they were of especial interest. Seth fixed his eyes upon them, to see how they were to be managed. They were very curious ten-spots, being made of beer-glasses running over with lambs-tongues, with lambs chasing them to rescue their lamented members, and burly “Bismarck” striving in vain to secure order. General Sigel came to help him, and Tom dealt him a terrific blow. Here was a fight at last, and John Fairchild stood by, rapidly taking notes. Then it came bed-time, and—Seth was being shaken into sensibility by Tom, who said between fits of chuckling:
“Wake up, old boy! Wake up!”
Another great change had taken place in the beer-hall—the lights were out, the music had ceased, the crowd was gone. A solitary gas-jet flickered from the chandelier over the table; the game was ended, and the players were standing ready to depart, and laughing. Fat Bismarck stood behind him, in the half-shadow, looking very sleepy, and he seemed to be grinning too.
Seth saw all this first. Then he discovered that he held his collar and necktie in his hand, and that his coat and waistcoat were on the table. He dimly began to understand that he had been asleep, and that, in the operation of his dream, he had commenced undressing. Everybody was laughing at him, his friend Tom, who now was helping him on with his coat, most heartily of all.
“I declare,” Seth said, “I must have fallen asleep. I had no idea—I suppose I was dreaming of getting ready for bed.”
“Oh, dots all right, dots all right,” said Bismarck heartily. “Ve don’d mind it a bit. You vas only dired owut.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Tom, “he’d had a hard day of it, traveling all the way from Thessaly. Are you ready? We’ll get the bag, and trot along home. Good night, boys!”
Seth responded to the chorus of answering “good nights,” and the twain started out. Tom not only carried the bag, but took his companion’s arm—much to Seth’s satisfaction, for he felt very tired, and it seemed unusually difficult for him to shake off his sleepiness. Tom was more talkative than ever, and he seemed to be saying extremely clever things, but Seth somehow did not follow their meaning, and he could think of nothing to say in reply. They were in a dark side street now.
“Ah, I thought he’d be open!” said Tom, abruptly, stopping before a place, through the closed shutters of which long horizontal threads of light gleamed. “Let’s go in and have a night-cap. It’ll set you straight in a minute.”
The curious reluctance to speak, of which Seth had felt vaguely conscious all along, now prompted acquiescence as the easiest course, and he followed Tom into a small, low room, thick with cigar-smoke and the odor of kerosene, where four or five men, with their hats tilted over their eyes, were playing cards: there was a pile of money in the centre of the table, to which each in turn seemed to be adding from a smaller heap before him. They were so much engrossed in the game that they only nodded at Tom, and Seth felt relieved at escaping the ordeal of being introduced to them. At Tom’s suggestion he took a little glass of brandy—“to do their duty by the National debt,”—what ever that meant. It was burning, nauseous stuff, which brought the tears to his eyes, but it made him feel better.
It especially enabled him to talk, which he proceeded to do now with a fluency that surprised him. Tom was evidently much impressed by his remarks, saying little, it is true, but gripping his arm more closely. Thus they walked to Tom’s lodgings—a tall, dark brick house opposite a long line of coal sheds. The hall was so dark that Seth, in trying to follow his guide, stumbled over an umbrella-rack, and fell to the floor. Tom assisted him to rise, with a paternal “steady now, steady; that’s it, lean on me,” and so helped him up the two flights of steep, narrow stairs. In all the world, it seemed to Seth, he could not have met a more amiable or congenial friend than Tom, and he told him so, as they climbed the stairs, affectionately leaning upon his arm, and making his phrases as ornate in diction and warm in tone as he could.
“Here we are,” said Tom, opening a door, and lighting a lamp which revealed a small, scantily furnished room, in extreme disorder. “Make yourself at home, my boy. Smoke a pipe before you go to bed?”
“Oh, mercy, no. I thinks—do you know, I feel a little dizzy.”
“Oh, you’ll be all right in the morning. Just undress and pile into bed. I’ll smoke a pipe first.” Half an hour after Seth’s first day in the World had closed in heavy slumber, Tom looked at him before blowing out the light, and smiled to himself: “He is about as fresh as they make ’em.”