"They all have," said the young man. "Have one?"
I took one of the grapes with a hand that shook, and ate it, and felt the red blood in my veins turn into acid.
There happened to be a man in the neighborhood who had been nibbling after my business for some time. I went to him now and made him a cheap sale for cash. This I deposited with my savings, keeping out a hundred dollars for myself, and put the whole in trust for my wife and children. Then I went away and, after many hardships, established myself in a new place. And, as is often the case with men who have nothing whatsoever to live for and who are sad, I prospered. God was ever presenting me with opportunities and the better ends of bargains.
When fifteen years had passed I returned once more to New York. I had reached a time of life when the possibility of death must be as steadily reckoned with as the processes of digestion. And I wished, before I lay down in the narrow house, to revisit the scenes of my former happiness. I took the same furnished lodging to which we had gone after our wedding. I lay all night, but did not sleep, in our nuptial bed. Alone, but rather in reverence and revery than sadness, I made all those little excursions upon which we had been so happy during the days of our honey-moon. I made a point of feeding the animals in the park, of dining at Claremont—I even stood for a long time before the fruit shop that is near the Grand Central. But I was too old to feel much. So it seemed.
One day I sat on the steps of the lodging-house in the sun. I had been for a long walk and I was very tired, very sick of my mortal coil, very sure that I did not care if the end were to be sleep or life everlasting. Then came, slowly around the corner of the shabby street and toward me, a hansom cab. Its occupant, an alert, very young, eager man, kept glancing here and there as if he were looking for something or some one; for the old East Side street had still its old look, as if all the inhabitants of its houses had rushed out to watch an eclipse of the sun or the approach of a procession—and were patiently and idly awaiting the event.
The children, and even many of the older people, mocked at the young man in the hansom and flung him good-natured insults. But he knew the language of the East Side and returned better than he received. My old heart warmed a little to his young, brightly colored face, his quick, flashing eyes, and his ready repartees. And it seemed to me a pity that, like all the pleasant moments I had known, he, too, must pass and be over.
But his great eyes flashed suddenly upon my face and rested; then he signalled to the driver to stop and, springing out, a big sketch-book under his arm, came toward me with long, frank strides.
"I know it's cheeky as the devil," he began in a quick, cheerful voice, while he had yet some distance to come, "but I can't help it. I've been looking for you for weeks, and—"
"What is it that I can do for you?" I asked pleasantly.
"You can give me your head." He said it with an appealing and delighted smile. "I'm a sort of artist—" he explained.