V
Joe Kaplan was walking up lower Broadway, hugging himself within an expensive overcoat. Catching sight of his shining eyes and wreathed lips in a mirror, he thought: Picture of a man who enjoys life! Well, everything was going fine with him. He put down his feet deliberately, for it suited his humor to affect the solid air of an established man of thirty-five—but his heels were light.
Passing the Union Trust Building, his attention was attracted by a slender figure, who, with self-consciously averted head, sought to hurry by him unseen. Joe caught the man’s shoulder and swung him around.
“Bristed!” he cried. “How are you!”
The other, held in Joe’s grip, showed his teeth painfully; scowled; turned red; said nothing. Joe saw that he would have liked to strike him, but was too civilized. Six or seven years older than me, thought Joe; but a child in my hands! One of those white-headed boys with rich blue eyes like a picture—and like a picture, with nothing behind it. But this pup had one merit; he had not yelped when he was held up by his tail.
“Come and have lunch with me,” said Joe.
“Thanks, I don’t care to,” said Bristed stiffly.
“What the hell!” said Joe. “That’s ancient history. . . . I was just thinking about you. Or rather, I was casting about in my mind for somebody like you. You lost out through me once; well, now you got a chance to make through me.”
“I’ve had quite enough of you,” said Bristed bitterly.
“Don’t be a fool. Come and have a good lunch with me at the Savarin. That commits you to nothing.”
Bristed’s blue eyes sought out Joe’s black ones. “You know I think you’re a scoundrel,” he said quietly.
Joe was not in the least put out. “That’s all right,” he said laughing. “Now you’ve put yourself on record, there’s no reason you shouldn’t take a lunch off me.”
“All right. I’ll come,” said Bristed.
They continued up the street together. Joe warmed on the outside by the overcoat; and inside, by the sense of well-being, discussed the morning’s news of the Street. Bristed said nothing. Joe, without ever looking at him, was aware how he was biting his lip, and darting painful and envious looks like adders’ tongues at Joe’s profile. Joe had that effect on young men. It stimulated him. This young man gave Joe no concern. A slack-twisted skein, he was thinking; I could sell him out twice over, and still he wouldn’t be able to stand out against me, if I wanted to use him again.
Once inside the expensive restaurant, Bristed began to lose something of his pinched air. This is like coming home to him, thought Joe. The maître-d’hotel remembered him. “How do you do, Mr. Bristed. It is a long time since we have had the pleasure of seeing you.”
“Yes, I’ve been travelling,” said Bristed carelessly.
Joe rubbed his upper lip to hide a grin.
Joe ordered a choice little meal, and a bottle of Johannisberger. Bristed was impressed, but would not show it. Joe was becoming an adept in menu cards; and was prouder of this accomplishment than of his greatest coup on the Street. He himself, never over-ate; there were too many swollen paunches surrounding him down-town. He liked too well, the feeling of being twenty-three and on his toes. Besides, he went in for other pleasures.
When at last they lighted up their Eden perfectos, Joe said: “Gosh! when I was a brat in Sussex street, I never expected to be burning these!”
Bristed betrayed no interest in his reminiscences. “What do you want of me this time?” he asked bluntly.
“Keep your shirt on,” said Joe coolly. “This is not financial. I’m already making money faster than I can hire safety-deposit boxes.”
“What is it then?”
“I’m going into society.”
Bristed laughed unpleasantly.
Joe did not mind, because it was not assured laughter. Bristed knew quite well that Joe could go into society if he wanted to. “There’s plenty of society already open to me,” Joe went on; “but I’ll have nothing short of the best. The real top-notch. I’ve got money enough already to support the position; and in a few years, if I live, I’ll be one of the big half dozen of this burg.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Bristed bitterly. “You’re marked for it. . . . Do you think I am able to help you get into society?”
“None better,” said Joe. “Your father, and his father before him were in the forefront.”
“Sure!” said Bristed. “My grandfather had the distinction of making money, and my father of spending it. But what have I got?”
“The family name,” suggested Joe.
“Sure! And an old house on Thirty-sixth street that we can’t afford to heat properly in the winter; and where my mother and sister do their own housework.”
“But the best society in New York is open to you, if you had the money to take your place in it. The old society. That’s what I have my eye on.”
“And where are we going to get the money?” asked Bristed.
“From me.”
“No! by God!” said Bristed. “We haven’t fallen as low as that!”
“Go ahead!” said Joe smiling. “Shoot off your fine sentiments, and then we’ll get down to business.”
Bristed became incoherent in his indignation. “What do you think I am? Do you think I’d lend my mother and sister to. . . . There are some things you don’t understand smart as you are. Ah! I’m not going to talk to you. . . !” He stood up.
“Sit down,” said Joe quietly. “You can always turn me down, you know. Only a fool turns down a proposition before he hears it.”
Bristed sat down looking rather like a fool.
“Now, briefly,” said Joe, “without any skyrockets or red fire, what is the objection?”
“Do you think we’re going to foist you off on our friends . . . ?”
“Easy!” said Joe. “There’s not going to be any foisting. You ought to know me. Wherever I go, I stand on my own bottom. I say to everybody: Eight years ago I was a dirty little ragamuffin on Sussex street. My father and mother made their living sewing on pants for a contractor. When I was hungry I stole things off the pushcarts to get me a meal.”
“It pays to tell that, eh?” sneered Bristed.
“You’re dead right, it pays,” said Joe. “The idea it suggests to the other person is: Look how far he’s risen! I never made any pretences. Don’t have to. That’s how I get along. People think it’s original. Everybody likes me except those who have lost money through me. If you could only see it, it’s your fine sentiments that keep you down. Bet your grandfather wasn’t troubled with them.
“Take this scheme that I propose—you wouldn’t exactly have to beat the drum for me, you know. I’m fairly notorious. The Boy Wonder of the Street. Folks high and low are curious to have a look at me. I’d be a social asset instead of a liability. I’ve noticed that family, blue blood and all that, don’t cut as much ice as they used to. Those people, having bored each other stiff, are now beginning to look around for a little outside entertainment . . . Of course I could climb up anyhow. But I don’t care to take the trouble to lay a regular campaign. Prefer to begin at the top . . . I like the girls up there,” he added grinning; “they’re so damned independent. Like me!”
“Damn you!” said Bristed under his breath.
“Keep the change!” said Joe cheerfully . . . “How much would it take to keep up your house in good style?”
“It’s not a big house,” muttered Bristed. “Ten thousand a year.”
“I’ll make it twelve thousand,” said Joe. “And what’s more, I’ll settle a good round sum on your mother in the beginning, so that when I no longer need you, she wont be left flat.”
“And what would we have to do, exactly, to earn it?” asked Bristed, sneering.
“Just have me to your house, and have your friends there to meet me. After that I stand or fall by my own efforts.”
“Everybody would know where the money came from.”
“And why the Deuce shouldn’t they know? That’s what people like you can’t see! Tell the truth about the whole affair. Tell everybody. Then they’d begin to respect you . . . There’d be a lot of benefits to you in addition to the twelve thou. If you and your folks took your rightful place, you’d have a chance to look around yourself, eh? and . . .”
“No thanks!” said Bristed violently.
“Oh, of course you wouldn’t sell yourself,” said Joe dryly. “But she might be a damn fine girl, though rich. It has happened. I tell you straight, Bristed, it’s your only chance. You haven’t got the guts to make good in the rough and tumble of the Street. You’re too gentlemanly. Then there’s your sister . . .”
“By God . . . !” said Bristed with burning eyes.
“Keep your hair on,” said Joe coolly. “That is not a part of my plans.”
“Don’t you mean to marry?” sneered Bristed.
“If I do, I shall look higher,” said Joe, facing him down. “. . . However, I mean to thoroughly canvass the field first. I don’t want money of course. I mean to marry a girl of the very highest position who hasn’t got too much. But she’s got to be a regular top-notcher!”
“I won’t have anything to do with it!” said Bristed.
“Put it before your family,” said Joe, undisturbed. “You owe them that. Tell them the worst you know about me. If they want to look me over before committing themselves, all right. Then if they turn me down, why that’s all right, too. I can easy find somebody else.”
“Well, I’ll tell them,” said Bristed. “But I’ll advise them against it.”
“That’s all right, old man,” said Joe. “I have confidence in the ladies. They are always realists.”