The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

by Alfred Henry Lewis

Those night absences, when he did not come in until three of the morning, and on occasion not at all, gave me no concern. My own business of Tammany was quite as apt to hold me; for there are events that must be dealt with in the immediate, like shooting a bird on the wing. A multitude of such were upon me constantly, and there was no moment of the day or night that I could say beforehand would not be claimed by them. When this was my own case, it turned nothing difficult to understand how the exigencies of stocks might be as peremptory.

One matter to promote a growing fund of confidence in young Van Flange was his sobriety. The story ran—and, in truth, his own mother had told it—of his drunkenness, when a boy fresh out of his books, and during those Barclay Street days when he went throwing his patrimony to the vultures. That was by and done with; he had somehow gotten by the bottle. Never but once did he show the flush of liquor, and that fell out when he had been to a college dinner. I had always understood how it was the custom to retire drunk from such festivals, wherefore that particular inebriety gave me scant uneasiness. One should not expect a roaring boy about town to turn deacon in a day.

Blossom was, as I've said, by nature shy and secret, and never one to relate her joys or griefs. While she and he were under the same roof with me, I had no word from her as to her life with young Van Flange, and whether it went bright, or was blurred of differences. Nor do I believe that in those days there came aught to harrow her, unless it were the feeling that young Van Flange showed less the lover and more like folk of fifty than she might have wished.

Once and again, indeed, I caught on her face a passing shade; but her eyes cleared when I looked at her, and she would come and put her arms about me, and by that I could not help but see how her marriage had flowered life's path for her. This thought of itself would set off a tune in my heart like the songs of birds; and I have it the more sharply upon my memory, because it was the one deep happiness I knew. The shadows I trapped as they crossed the brow of Blossom, I laid to a thought that young Van Flange carried too heavy a load of work. It might break him in his health; and the fear had warrant in hollow eyes and a thin sallowness of face, which piled age upon him, and made him resemble twice his years.

Towards me, the pose of young Van Flange was that one of respectful deference which had marked him from the start. Sometimes I was struck by the notion that he was afraid of me; not with any particularity of alarm, but as a woman might fear a mastiff, arguing peril from latent ferocities and a savagery of strength.

Still, he in no wise ran away; one is not to understand that; on the contrary he would pass hours in my society, explaining his speculations and showing those figures which were the record of his profits. I was glad to listen, too; for while I did not always grasp a meaning, being stock-dull as I've explained, what he said of “bull” and “bear” and “short” and “long,” had the smell of combat about it, and held me enthralled like a romance.

There were instances when he suggested speculations, and now and then as high as one thousand shares. I never failed to humor him, for I thought a negative might smack of lack of confidence—a thing I would not think of, if only for love of Blossom. I must say that my belief in young Van Flange was augmented by these deals, which turned unflaggingly, though never largely, to my credit.

It was when I stood waist-deep in what arrangements were preliminary to my battle for the town, now drawing near and nearer, that young Van Flange approached me concerning Blackberry Traction.

“Father,” said he—for he called me “father,” and the name was pleasant to my ear—“father, if you will, we may make millions of dollars like turning hand or head.”

Then he gave me a long story of the friendship he had scraped together with the president of Blackberry—he of the Hebrew cast and clutch, whom I once met and disappointed over franchises.