Peter Whiffle

by Carl Van Vechten

Once inside, I became aware of the presence of a Chinese woman at the back of the shop, holding in her arms an exquisite Chinese baby, for all Chinese babies, with their flat porcelain faces, their straight black hair, and their ivory hands, are exquisite. This baby, in green-blue trousers fashioned of some soft silk brocade, a pink jacket of the same material, and a head-dress prankt with ribbons into which ornaments of scarlet worsted and blue-bird feathers were twisted, was smiling silently and gracefully waving her tiny ivory hands towards the face of an outcast of the streets who stood beside her mother. I caught the rough workman's suit, the soiled, torn boots, the filthy cap, and the unkempt hair in my glance, which reverted to the baby. Then, as I approached the odd group, and spoke to the mother, the derelict turned.

Carl! he ejaculated, for, of course, it was Peter.

I was too much astonished to speak at all, as I stared at this ragged figure without a collar or a tie, with several days growth of beard on his usually glabrous cheeks, and dirty finger-nails. I had only wit enough left to shake his hand. At this time I knew nothing of his early life, nothing of the fortune he had inherited, and the man in front of me, save for something curiously inconsistent in the expression of the face, was a tramp. Certainly the face was puzzling: it positively exuded happiness. Perhaps, I thought, it was because he was glad to see me. I was glad to see him, even in this guise.

Carl, he repeated, dear old Carl! How silly of me not to remember that you would be in New York. He caught my glance. Somewhat of a change, eh? No more ruffles and frills. That life, and everything connected with it, is finished. Luckily, you've caught me near home. Come with me; there's liquor there.

So we walked out. I had not yet spoken a word. I was choking with an emotion I usually reserve for old theatres, but Peter did not appear to be aware of it. He chattered on gaily.

Have you been to Paris recently? Where have you been? What have you been doing? Are you writing? Isn't New York lovely? Don't you think Chinese babies are the kind to have, if you are going to become a father at all? Wasn't that an adorable one? He waited for no answers. Look at the lights on the bridge. I live in the shadow of the span. I think I live somewhere near the old Five Points that used to turn up in all the old melodramas; you know, The Streets of New York. It's a wonderful neighbourhood. Everybody, absolutely everybody, is interesting. There's nobody you can't talk to, and very few that can't talk. They all have something to say. They are all either disappointed and discouraged or hopeful. They all have emotions and they are not afraid to show them. They all talk about the REVOLUTION. It may come this winter. No, I don't mean the Russian revolution. Nobody expects a revolution in Russia. Nobody down here is interested in Russia; the Russian Jews especially are not. They have forgotten Russia. I mean the American REVOLUTION. The Second American REVOLUTION, I suppose it will be called. Labour against Capital. The Workman against the Leisure Class. The Proletariat against the Idler. Did you ever hear of Piet Vlag? Do you read The Masses? I go to meetings, union meetings, Socialist meetings, I.W.W. meetings, Syndicalist meetings, Anarchist meetings. I egg them on. It may come this winter, I tell you! There will be barricades on Fifth Avenue. Vanderbilt and Rockefeller will be besieged in their houses with the windows shuttered and the doors barred and the butler standing guard with a machine-gun at some gazebo or turret. It will be a real siege, lasting, perhaps, months. How long will the food hold out? In the end, they'll have to eat the canary and the Pekinese, and, no, not the cat, I hope. The cat will be clever and escape, go over to the enemy where he can get his meals. But boots, boot soup! Just like the siege of Paris; each robber baron locked up in his stronghold. Sometimes, the housemaid will desert; sometimes, the cook. The millionaires will be obliged to make their own beds and cook their own dogs and, at last, to man their own machine-guns!

The mob will be barricaded, too, behind barriers hastily thrown up in the street, formed of old moving-vans, Rolls-Royces and Steinway grands, covered with Gobelin tapestries and Lilihan, Mosul, Sarouk, and Khorassan rugs, the spoils of the denuded houses. With a red handkerchief bound around my brow, I will wave a red flag and shriek on the top of such a barricade. My face will be streaked with blood. We will all yell and if we don't sing the Ça Ira and the Carmagnole, we will at least sing Alexander's Ragtime Band and My Wife's Gone to the Country.

Eventually, Fifth Avenue will fall and the Astors and the Goulds will be brought before the Tribunal of the People, and if you know any better spot for a guillotine than the very square in which we stood just now, in that vast open space before the Manhattan Bridge, over which they all drive off for Long Island, I wish you'd tell me. There are those who would like to see the killing done in Washington or Madison Square, or the Plaza or Columbus Circle, which, of course, has a sentimental interest for the Italians, but think of the joy it would give the East Side mothers, suckling their babies, and the pushcart vendors, and all the others who never find time to go up town to have the show right here. Right here it shall be, if I have my way, and just now I have a good deal of influence.

We had stopped before one of those charming old brick houses with marble steps and ancient hand-wrought iron railings which still remain on East Broadway to remind us of the day when stately landaus drove up to deposit crinolined ladies before their portals. We ascended the steps and Peter opened the door with his key. The hallway was dark but Peter struck matches to light us up the stairs and we only ceased climbing when we reached the top landing. He unlocked another door which opened on a spacious chamber, a lovely old room with a chaste marble fire-place in the Dorian mode, and faded wall-paper of rose and grey, depicting Victorian Greek females, taller than the damsels drawn by Du Maurier and C.D. Gibson, languishing in the shadows of broken columns and weeping willow trees. Upon this paper were fastened with pins a number of covers from radical periodicals, native and foreign, some in vivid colours, the cover of The Masses for March, 1912, Charles A. Winter's Enlightenment versus Violence, the handsome head of a workman, his right hand bearing a torch, printed in green, several cartoons by Art Young, usually depicting the rich man as an octopus or hog, and posters announcing meetings of various radical groups. Gigantic letters, cut from sheets of newspaper, formed the legend, I.W.W., over the door.

The room was almost devoid of furniture. There was an iron bed, with tossed bed-clothing, a table on which lay a few books, including, I noted, one by Karl Marx, another by English Walling, Frank Harris's The Bomb, together with a number of copies of Piet Vlag's new journal, The Masses, and Jack Marinoff's Yiddish comic weekly, The Big Stick. There was also a pail on the table, such a pail as that in which a workman carries his mid-day meal. There were exactly two chairs and a wardrobe of polished oak in the best Grand Rapids manner stood in one corner. All this was sufficiently bewildering but I must confess that the appearance of the lovely head of a Persian cat, issuing from under the bed-covers, made me doubt my reason. I recognized George Moore. Presently I made out another puss, sitting beside a basket full of kittens in the corner near the wardrobe.