  For weeks they had no news from the Arcade, except a postal from King O’Leary. It was far into September before a batch of letters, which had journeyed back and forth and had been reenclosed, arrived with news of the outer world. There were several of no importance—notices of firms soliciting patronage, and advertisements—but among them were two letters which Dangerfield pounced upon eagerly—the first from Flick, with a Southern postmark which excited their curiosity, the second from Tootles, which was deferred for a later reading. The New Imperial Lodging House, Jiggs Rest, Georgia. Temperature, 105 in the cellar. Dear kind folks swept by ocean breezes: I’m in trouble again—awful trouble, but this time it’s desperate. I’ve lost the best pal in the world; I have forfeited the respect of the whitest white man in Manhattan; I have ruined, blighted, dynamited, sold out, and Judas-Iscarioted my best friend. I shall never face him again, never look into his reproachful eyes. I couldn’t—I couldn’t. It would break me all up; I should crumble and weep like a maiden. He has forgiven me much, but he will never, never forgive this. I shall never return unless a scheme I am looking into here turns out big money and I can come back proudly, with my wallet cracking, ready to make amends. It’s all about the pride of Tootles’ heart, the masterpiece which was to create a new art, to dignify the advertising profession and put a dress suit into the home of every flat-climber. But first—The address may surprise you. You’re not as surprised as me; I’ve been here about five days—I think. Just how I came is also hazy, but the evidence is I came in a smoker, under a smoker, or on top of a At any rate, I’m here—until I make enough to get out. I could take all the money away from these rubes, only there isn’t any money to take. My best chance is selling a Wimpheimer & Goldfinch, silklined, pointed cuff, velvet collar, two-button-and-braid-down-the-trousers dress suit for one week’s board and ten dollars flat to Jiggstown’s chief of police, who’s hankering at the chance of a lifetime to wear one but’s afraid of being REMARKED! Which brings me to the point. How did I acquire thirty-two dress suits, sizes 38 to 42, 18 white-piquÉ vests, three winter overcoats, and one golf suit? At least I did have them, because I’ve got a little paper that tells me so in my pocket. How it got in my pocket I don’t know. Where these are at present, I don’t know, with the exception of three dress suits and a winter ulster that seem to have stuck by me. If it would only snow I might sell the overcoats and go after the dress suits. I’ve got two checks for Chattanooga, three for Miami and one for Oscaloosa. Where I acquired all those trunks, I don’t know. I suppose the dress suits are in them. I can’t imagine where else they can be. It all began so peacefully too. I’d played Wimpheimer & Goldfinch backward and forward and three times around the corner until I had them feeding out of my hand. When everything was set, I hired an open-face dray and tucked the Well-dressed Man in it—uncovered—with a bunch of palms at the head and the foot and started down Broadway. Say, we gathered a mob about us that had to be beaten apart! I’d tipped off the reporters—a few particular friends of mine—that this was something new in publicity about to be pulled off, and when they saw us floating down the mob, they began to pull the coat off me to get the inside story. All I would give them was a bouquet of dark and mysterious hints. Picture by famous artist, identity profound secret, fabulous price, every figure supposed to be a close portrait of some of the swells higher up (which “Our purchasing agent,” says Mr. Goldfinch, with his eyes still bulging at the Well-dressed Man. “Shall we talk business over a little gentle lunch,” says Steinwilly pleasantly. ’Course that’s a way they have down there; they think if they buy you a five-dollar meal you’re going to come down a thousand or two. So I nodded and we sauntered out. “Ever try a royal-smile cocktail?” says Steinwilly. I knew that game, too, but I looked him over and sized up his capacity, and I said to myself, “Two can play at that.” There’s where I was wrong—besides it was a hot day. Well, we sat down and I plumped out my terms. Twelve hundred outright and three hundred extra if it took on and they ran it another year. I was figuring on falling back to a flat thousand, you see. Steinwilly looked terribly distressed at this, but I knew that game, too, so I proposed another flock of royal smiles. He brightened up at once—reckon he must have been living on them for the past year. So we matched, and I won. Then we decided to take in a show, and we matched for the taxi, and then for the tickets. “Would you match twelve hundred or nothing for the picture,” he said smoothly. “Nothin’ doin’,” I said. He sort of sized me over and decided to wait a little longer. Now, I don’t know just exactly what happened after this. I know we stayed together for a good part of the night, for all I remember is seeing royal smiles (they’re pink, you know) blooming on every bar. Whether I left him or he left me, I don’t know. Fact there’s a good deal I don’t know, or why, or when, or where, but the awful outstanding fact is Steinwilly and I must have matched and I must have sold Tootles’ masterpiece for a bunch of dress suits. The worst of it is: Where are the dress suits? The memorandum I’ve got is signed “Steinwilly,” and there’s an awful scrawl “per special agreement” but if I got the dress suits, did I keep them? I don’t like the appearance Honest, I’m all broke up—what will Tootles say? I don’t dare write him. Chattanooga (later). There’s no doubt about it—The dress suits are here, most of them. I met a conductor on the way who greeted me like a long-lost brother. Seems I paid my fare by contributing one to his beautiful appearance. I wonder how many more are roaming the sunny South? Couldn’t work the sheriff in Jiggstown, but as I was eating on tick, he concluded he’d save money by buying me a railroad ticket out. Remorse is here with me. Miami. Located more dress suits, likewise ran into a traveling man whom I swapped two dress suits with, for about half a ton of patent bottle-openers. I found half the dress suits gone and all kinds of junk in their place, folding tooth-brushes, histories of the South, etc. Guess I must have gotten into a traveling man’s convention. Am at work selling out the stock, slow business—weather against me. Wonder what I’ll find at Oscaloosa. Break the news to Tootles, won’t you? The way I’m headed now it looks as though I’d reach the Arcade via Panama and Japan. Let me know what really did happen with that body-snatcher Steinwilly. Honest, I’m sick over it. I shall never, never forgive myself. Flick. P. S. I expect to do considerable sightseeing down here, but I’ll get a letter if you send it care Hank The Jackson House. At the Bar. “Do you suppose that’s all he got for the picture?” said Inga, when they had ended laughing over Flick’s adventures. “Tootles will be broken-hearted.” “Looks pretty bad,” said Dangerfield, shaking his head. “Well, let’s get to the worst.” He took up Tootles’ letter and immediately broke into a roar of laughter. Dear folk: Lots of things have happened since you left, good, bad, and indifferent. Flick has disappeared. Where the deuce he’s landed is beyond me. He’s been gone two weeks and never sent a word. He started on a spree after selling the masterpiece to Wimpheimer & Goldfinch, for fifteen hundred dollars down and a royalty of five hundred a year. This must have been too much for him, for he started in to celebrate. Don’t blame him, do you? It almost made me take up drinking. As far as I can make out from what they tell me, the firm put one of their best little drinkers up against Flick, a fellow called Steinweld—quite a decent old sport, too. According to him, he started Flick at lunch, kept with him through the afternoon and evening, and ran him into a couple of their traveling men to take up the job. Flick not only cleaned up the contract, but matched the crowd for all their spare change and then kept on matching until he’d won about six trunks of spring styles which were waiting over in the depot to go out the next day. More than that, he ran them into some benefit ball up in Terrace Garden. You know Flick. The dance, they’re not sure it was at the garden, either, broke up with a free fight, and when they woke up the next day, they were enjoying the hospitality of the city. The last they remember of Flick he was leading the grand march with the winner of some popularity contest. They weren’t sure just where this was—they said they’d been so many places! However, Goldfinch was a sport, stuck by the bargain, said they’d been caught at their own game. But what do you think happened to Flick! The only clue I have had, was the arrival of a strange-looking pup, which Sassafras says is a coon-dog, which came here in a box, half starved and howling like mischief. Box was addressed to Flick from some point on a southern railroad line. Sounds as though he were still alive, doesn’t it? When are you coming back? It’s awfully glum up here, you can imagine, with everyone away. I’ve been working hard, all summer, drawing like mad—think you’ll say I’m getting somewhere. As far as news goes, there are some queer turns. Old Pomello died some three months after the marriage, over in Italy—pneumonia, I believe. Belle Shaler had a note from Myrtle. Queer, isn’t it? Wonder what’ll become of her now. She inherits what the old fellow had, I suppose. The news excited everyone, of course. You see Madame Probasco, the Tootles. The hilarity which Tootles’ elucidation of the mystery of the dress suits occasioned, died out at the news of Pansy’s elopement. Underneath the quiet of his announcement, they divined the hurt that lay near his heart. A few more letters remained among the chaff, which Dangerfield opened rapidly—announcements of fall exhibitions, which woke in him curious currents of impatience; a note from Steingall urging him to exhibit, another from Quinny with the news of the club. Then, all of a sudden his fingers struck one addressed to Miss Inga Sonderson. “The idea!” he exclaimed, in pretended wrath. “Never heard of such a person! What impudence!” He tossed the letter over to her without curiosity, and took up Quinny’s letter for a more careful perusal. The echoes of the old world brought a strange fluttering to his heart. He wondered what they, the old friends, believed had happened to him all this time, and he wondered, looking out the doorway with a curious quivering smile, what they would say when they knew that he had not gone under, that he had won his fight and was coming back to his own. He took a long breath, and there was a new light in his eyes as he turned. Inga was at the fireplace, her head resting on her hand, staring into the flames which were licking up the letter she had tossed there. “What was your letter?” he said, noticing the immobility of her attitude. “Nothing—a notice from a publisher, that’s all.” He came closer with a sudden, leaping jealousy which he would have been at a loss to justify. “Is that true?” he said slowly. She nodded, looking at the burning, twisted mass. “Inga, tell me the truth!” he said, in a voice he had never used before with her. She raised her head, met his burning eyes, and answered steadily: “Why, that was all.” In the embers, the flame died down. He knew that she had lied to save him pain. In a sudden disgust at this outer world which still had power to throw its disturbing shadow across their Eden, he went to the table and took up the whole correspondence and flung it into the coals. “Curse them! I wish they’d leave me alone!” Then he sat down and held his head in his hands for fear of jumping up, of seizing her and turning her to his eyes, and forcing her to admit that what lay now in ashes had been a letter from out the ashes of the past, from that other man, whom he could never see or comprehend, but who haunted his days and stood always between him and the sun of unconscious happiness. “I hate letters!” she burst out as suddenly, and went precipitately out of the door and flying over the cliffs. He made no move to follow, but sat there grimly, staring into the fire, and what he thought of darkly was not alone the past but of what lay ahead. |
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