A THICK, wet night on the southwest coast of Lake Michigan a dozen years ago; a wind that sweeps over the pitching lake and on over the dim white beach with a rush that whirls the sand up and away. Trees are bending up there on the bluff. The sand and the rain are in the air—or do we feel the spray from yonder line of breakers, a hundred yards away?
And deep in a mudhole on the lonely road that skirts the bluff—the four horses, fetlock-deep in the sticky clay, straining forward like heroes, the members of the student crew in their oilskins throwing their weight on the wheels of the truck—is the Evanston surf-boat.
The driver has pulled his sou’wester hat down on his neck behind and swung the U. S. L. S. S. lantern on his arm; he stands beside the forward wheel, cracks his long whip and swears vigorously.
“Hold on a minute, boys,” he calls over his shoulder; and he must shout it twice before he is heard. “Whoa, there! Stand back! Now, boys, get your breath and try it together. When I call——— Now. All ready! Let her go!”
The men throw themselves on the spokes, the horses plunge forward under the lash of the whip. A moment of straining—an uncertain moment—then the wheels turn slowly forward, the horses’ feet draw out with a sucking sound, and the boat rolls ahead. The driver unbuttons his oilskins at the waist and reaches beneath an under coat for his watch. They have been out two hours; distance covered, two miles. Before him is darkness, save where the lantern throws a yellow circle on the ground; behind him is darkness, save for the white boat, the little group of panting, grunting men, and, a long mile to the southward, the gleaming eye of the Grosse Pointe lighthouse, now red, now white. But somewhere in the darkness ahead, somewhere beyond the white of the breakers, a big steamer is pounding herself to pieces on the bar. So he buttons his coat and shifts the reins and swears at the horses. He seems to swear easily, this young fellow; but he is thinking of the poor devils on the big steamer, lashed to the mast perhaps, if the masts are still standing; and he is wondering how many of them will ever ship again.
A huge bonfire lighted up beach and breakers. Around it huddled a motley crowd, students in rain-coats or sweaters, sober citizens and residents of the north shore, fishermen, and all the village loafers. But the students were in the majority and were making most of the noise. It was they who had built the fire, raiding fences and wood-yards to send up a blaze that should tell the poor fellows out yonder of the warmth and comfort awaiting them on shore—if they should ever get in through the surf. They were cheering, too, giving the college yells and shouting out inspiriting messages—as if any noise below the sound of a gun or a steam fog-horn could hope to be heard over the roar of the lake! But this was a great occasion and must be made the most of.
Of course no such body of students could act in concert without a recognized leader; and the young man who claimed the honour could be distinguished at a glance. Now issuing orders to the foragers, now mounting the pile to adjust with a flourish the top barrel and to pour out the last can of kerosene, now heading the war-dance around the crackling fire or leading the yells with an improvised baton, always in evidence, as busy and breathless as though his labours had an aim—was a long-faced, long-legged student. He wore a cap that was too small to hide his curly chestnut hair. His face was good-natured, if flushed with the responsibilities of his position. His rain-coat thrown aside, he stood attired in a white sweater with a wide-rolling collar, and a pair of striped trousers that fitted close to his nimble legs.
“Hi, there! Here they come!”
A small boy was shouting. He had been stationed on the bluff; and now he was sliding down, using his trousers as a toboggan on the steep clay. “Here they come!”
The news spread. “Here they come!” was passed from mouth to mouth. Those who had gone out of the firelight, in order to get a glimpse of the hulk that stood out dimly against the horizon, now came running back and joined their voices to the cheer that was rising.
Yes, they had come. A Coston signal was burning up on the bluff; and half a hundred pair of legs were running up the beach to lend a hundred hands in getting a ton and more of surf-boat down the ravine road. The tall young man led the way, thanks to the nimble legs, and called over his shoulder as he ran:
“This way, boys! Everybody this way!”
The horses were taken out in a hurry and led off to the nearest barn. Long ropes were rigged to the back axle, “everybody” laid hold, and then, with the crew men still hanging to the spokes and the young driver leaning back on the tongue to guide the forward wheels, the surf-boat went bumping and lurching down the road. With a rush and a cheer she went, as if the fever of the waiting crowd had got into the wheels, as if the desperate hands of the half-drowned men out yonder were hauling them on—impatiently, madly, courageously hauling them on.
On down the beach, the broad wheels plowing through the sand; on toward the breakers that came running to meet them: into the water with a splash and a plunge, until ankles were wet and knees were wet—then a halt. The eight young men in oilskins bustled about the boat, their yellow coats and hats glistening in the firelight; and the crowd stood silent at the water’s edge, looking first at them and then at the black-and-white sea out yonder—and an ugly sea it was. But in a moment the confusion resolved into harmony. The eight men fell into place around the boat, lashed on their cork jackets, laid hold of the gunwales, ran her out into the surf, tumbled aboard—and the fight was on.
It was a fight that made those young fellows set their teeth hard as their backs bent over the oars. They did not know that this storm had strewn the coast with wrecks; they did not know that the veteran crew at Chicago had refused to venture out in their big English life-boat. And they did not care. Too young to be prudent, too strong to be afraid, these youngsters fought for the sake of the fighting; and they loved it. So they worked through the surf with never a thought of failure, with never a thought that the white waves might beat them back; and they shook the water out of their eyes and watched Number Two, who was pulling stroke to-night, and went in to win. And all the while the young man standing erect in the stern, swinging the twenty-foot steering-oar, was swearing, letting out a flow of language that would, as Number Two said afterward, have made a crab go forwards. It was plain that he was enjoying it, too.
The fire was sinking; the drizzle was cold and penetrating. The little groups down on the hard sand near the water were tired of straining their eyes into the blackness. The moment of enthusiasm was past. The surf-boat had slipped away like a dream—a moment of tossing against the sky, a glimpse of set faces, a shout or two over the pounding surf, then the lead-black lake with its white flecks, the lead-black sky, and the spot of deeper black where the steamer lay. A shivering fellow brought an armful of driftwood from a dry nook and threw it on the fire. The idea was good and the others took it up. Soon the flames were leaping up again.
And now what more natural than a song! The bleached-out bones of a forty-ton lumber schooner lay curving up from the sand; here mounted a student, he of the white sweater and long legs, and the others crowded around.
“All right, Apples; let her go!”
And they sang out merrily there, with the glare of the fire in their wet faces and the wildness of the lake in their throats:
“Oh, my name is Captain Hall, Captain Hall!”
A rush of wind carried the next words down the beach; but the last lines came out strong:
“Hope to———you go to Hell!
Hope to——— you’re roasted well!
Damn your eyes!”
“Hi-yi!”—it is the small boy again. “There she is! There she is!”
“Where, boy?”
“Out there—off the breakwater! There—see!”
Again the straining eyes, again the lead-black of the sky and water. Is that the boat, that speck of white away out, or is it a whitecap? Now it is gone. Has the boat dropped into a hollow of the sea? Who knows! A white speck here, another there, white specks everywhere! “Boy, you’re dreaming.”
“Sure he’s dreaming. They haven’t been gone twenty minutes. What’s the matter with you!” Yes, it is only twenty minutes; and there is a weary, bitter hour yet for the poor devils before they may set foot on land. Another song is the cry; and more wood—heap her up! Again Apples mounts his grim perch—the head- and footstone of half a dozen forgotten sailors—and marches the “Grand Old Duke of York” up the hill, and marches him down again; and when he was up he was up, up, up; and when he was down he was down, down, down; and when he was only half way up he was neither up nor down; and the rain thickens; and the smoke and flames run along parallel to the sand, so fierce is the wind; and the poor devils out yonder call up what prayers they may have known in childhood—and lucky the sailor who remembers how those prayers used to go!
There is more singing and more watching; then, after a long while, the boat is sighted. She is coming in from the north, making full allowance for the set of the surf. As she works slowly nearer they can make out the figure of the steersman and the huddled lot of crew men and sailors. The fire is renewed again and a shout goes up. She hovers outside the line of surf, then lifts on a roller and comes swiftly in to the sand, so swiftly that the oars must be hauled in with a rush, and the crew must tumble out, waist-deep, and catch the gunwales and heave her forward before the wave glides back.
There is one man in the stem, rolling about between the feet of Number Two. Even in that uncertain light, and bedraggled as he is, it is plain that his dress is of a different quality from that of the sailors. Bareheaded he is, and one can see the white in his hair and the wrinkles on his smooth-shaven face. It seems, too, that he wants the physique of his companions, most of whom are able, for all the exposure, to spring out without assistance. The steersman, who has been watching him with some anxiety, leans over and helps him out, and then, swinging him on his shoulders, carries him pickaback up out of the water and toward the fire. Word goes around that this is the owner of the steamer.
“Here, Jack,” calls Apples, bobbing up close at hand, “you’re to go up to the house on the bluff. They are making coffee for all the boys. Let me give you a hand.”
The steersman makes no reply, but, as his burden protests that he can walk, lets him down, and each young man takes an arm. In a few moments they are all, rescuers and rescued, in a hospitable kitchen drinking black coffee and crowding, with steaming clothes, about the range. The steersman drinks a second cup at a gulp and looks around for his men. He is not joining in the talk, for a heavy responsibility rests on him, but his eyes have the blaze of excitement in them and his square jaw is set hard. His white, drawn face shows that the work is telling.
“Come on, boys,” he says quietly. “Time for the next trip.”
Quiet falls on the room that was just now loud with talk. It continues while the crew men toss down their coffee, hastily retie their cork jackets, and file out into the night. The sailors have been exultant over their rescue; but now they are reminded of the comrades out yonder, and they fall into moody silence.
But after all, it is a great thing to be alive when one has been clinging to a rope in a desperate sea with ugly thoughts to face. At any rate, these men seemed to find it so; for, after a time, when doubtless the white surf-boat was bobbing far out, one of the hundred white flecks on the black lake; when doubtless the poor fellows who had to wait, old Captain Craig with them, were still cursing and praying—and one of them had wept foolish tears when they parted—they fell back into talk. The drama had reached but the second act, and no one could say if it was to be a tragedy, but the warm kitchen and the plentiful coffee, and the thoughtless talk of the half-dozen students who had followed them in, were not to be resisted. Within half an hour the banter and jokes were flying fast.
The elderly man, whose name was Higginson, was sitting close to the range, wrapped in a blanket. He found Apples at his elbow and spoke to him.
“What crew is this?”
“The Evanston crew.”
The man nodded and was silent, but after a few moments he spoke again.
“Who was that young man in the stem? Is he the Captain?”
“No, the Captain is sick. He is Number One.”
“What is his name?”
“Halloran—Jack Halloran.”
In a mahogany office high up in a very high building sat Mr. G. Hyde Bigelow. An elaborate building it was, with expensive statuary about the entrance, with unusually expensive mosaic floors on all of the fifteen or more stories. A dozen elevators were at Mr. Bigelow’s service, and a dozen uniformed elevator boys to bow deferentially whenever he granted his brief presence in the necessary actions of going up to his office or coming down from his office—boys that were fond of remarking casually when the great man had stepped out, “That’s G. Hyde Bigelow.” A very expensive building, in fact, such as best comported with his dignity.
For Mr. Bigelow was a rising man; and the simple inscription on the ground-glass door, “G. Hyde Bigelow & Company,” already stood in the eyes of a small quarter of the financial world of Chicago for unqualified success. If a syndicate was to be floated, if a mysterious new combine was to be organized, what so important to its success as the name of G. Hyde Bigelow somewhere behind the venture—what so necessary in the somewhat difficult task of making it plain that paper is gold, that water is a solid, as the indorsement of G. Hyde Bigelow & Company? If Bigelow invested largely in Kentucky coal lands, what more reasonable than an immediate boom in Kentucky coal—and that men should speak sagely on the street of the immense value of the new mines? If Bigelow went heavily into the new-style freighters that were to revolutionize the lake-carrying trade, what more natural than a rush in “new freighters,” and who could know if the Bigelows should unload rapidly on an inflated market? But the great man is speaking!
Before him, on the mahogany desk, were spread some papers—vastly important papers, or they could never have penetrated to the Presence to take up time of such inestimable value. “Time is money” is a phrase that had been heard to fall from the Bigelow lips. Perhaps some one else had coined this phrase years before; perhaps Mr. Bigelow himself might even vaguely remember hearing it: what matters it! Did not old phrases fall new-minted from his lips? Did not the minor earths and moons and satellites that revolved about the Bigelow sun recognize in each authoritative Bigelow utterance an addition to the language? And were there ever such jokes as the Bigelow jokes?
Before him were the papers; beside him, in a broad-armed, leather-backed mahogany chair, sat the junior partner, the “Company” of Bigelow & Company, Mr. William H. Babcock. A youngish man was Mr. Babcock; a very well dressed man with a shrewd, somewhat incredulous eye; a man who speaks cautiously, is even inclined to mumble in a low voice; and who finds his worth and caution recognized as a useful, if secondary, part of the importance of Bigelow & Company. Lacking in the audacious qualities of his senior, it would seem, but shrewd, very shrewd—not a man given to unnecessary promises or straight-out declarations. And if Mr. Babcock had a phrase, a creed, locked securely away in the depths behind that quiet face, it was “Business is Business.” Business was business to Mr. Babcock; and he had hopes, even a fair prospect, indeed, of himself rising to a point where Time should be Money, thanks to the aid of the Bigelow name. And in the part of those depths where the thinking was done, the thought lurked, that if the time should ever come when Business-is-Business and Time-is-Money should be combined in his career (and everything about him tended to combination), Chicago would be too small for William H. Babcock.
The papers were before Mr. Bigelow, and the great brain was grappling with them; it being Mr. Babcock’s part to weed out details and trouble Mr. Bigelow only with the broader facts.
“And now, Mr. Babcock,” said the head of the firm, “how are we to arrive at this?”
Mr. Babcock leaned forward and mumbled a few sentences with the air of a man habitually afraid of being overheard and caught. Mr. Bigelow’s brow drew together, in such a state of concentration was the massive brain. History has not recorded the subject of these documents; whether it was Kentucky Coal or New Freighters, or the booming town of Northwest Chicago, or suburban street-railways, or one of the dozen or more growing interests that absorbed at this time the attention and some of the money of G. Hyde Bigelow & Company (to say nothing of the money of the Bigelow followers), we may never know. For at the moment when the Bigelow brows were knitted the closest, when the questions raised by the papers were about to attain a masterly and decisive solution, an office-boy entered the room—a round-eyed boy so awed by the Presence that he was visibly impatient to deliver his message and efface himself—a boy who was habitually out of breath.
“Lady t’ see y’u, sir.”
Mr. Bigelow turned with some annoyance. How often had his subordinates instructed this boy to demand the card of every visitor and to lay it silently on the mahogany desk. But, on the other hand, Mr. Bigelow made it a point to rise above petty annoyances.
“Well, boy, what is the name?”
“Sh’ wouldn’ give ‘t, sir.”
The great man’s expression changed slightly; it was as if he had suddenly remembered something. He turned to the desk and fingered the papers for a moment.
“We will take up this matter after lunch, Mr. Babcock.”
He spoke a shade more pompously than was his wont in dealing with his junior.
Mr. Babcock bowed and went out. Then Mr. Bigelow turned to his stenographer, who was clicking away by the window.
“Miss Brown, I wish you would go out to the files and look up all the Pine Lands correspondence for me.”
The stenographer laid aside her work and went out.
And now Mr. Bigelow, once more bland and gracious, turned to the boy who was holding fast to the bronze door-knob.
“Here, boy, you may show the lady in.”
Having said this, he bent over a letter and was so busy that he seemed not to hear the woman enter. For some moments she stood there by the closed door. Once she coughed timidly; and even that failed to reach the attention of the much-absorbed man. But at last the letter was laid down and Mr. Bigelow turned.
“Sit down,” he said, motioning to the chair that Mr. Babcock had just now vacated.
But the woman, it seemed, preferred to stand. “Why have you come here?”
“I think you know why I have come.”
Mr. Bigelow took up the letter again and regarded it closely. A great many thoughts apparently were passing through his mind—thoughts not of Kentucky Coal and New Freighters, but of a stately suburban home of granite completed within the year; of a certain Mrs. Bigelow who was rising rapidly toward the social leadership of her suburb, and was carrying Mr. G. Hyde Bigelow into circles that he, with all his prestige of a sort, could hardly have penetrated alone; of a certain dignified, comfortable, downright conservative suburban church, where the Bigelow money and judgment, new as they were in such surroundings, were undoubtedly earning a place; and, lastly, of certain small Bigelows. Of all these things thought Mr. Bigelow.
“Well,” he said at length, without raising his eyes, “what is it now? What do you want?”
“If I had only myself to think of,” began the woman, speaking in a low voice and with noticeable effort, “I should never come near you. But I have others to think of, and I think you have, too. I have not come for money. If I could do it, I should like to bring every cent you have given me and throw it in your face.”
Rather unpleasant words these—unpleasant to Mr. Bigelow, at least. Indeed, they seemed quite to disturb him, to drive him even toward something that in a man of smaller reputation might have been called brutality.
“See here,” he burst out, wheeling around, “how long is this going to keep up? How many years more must I support you in idleness? There is a limit to this sort of thing.”
It may be that this was not so much brutality as sagacity. It may be that Mr. Bigelow had in mind certain steps that might relieve him from a situation which was growing more and more annoying and disagreeable, and that this was one of the steps. For such words as these—such a blaze of righteous anger—should be very hard to answer in a man’s own office; hard at least for an unknown woman before the great G. Hyde Bigelow. Even if the woman had come with vague notions that she was acting within her rights, that the law which had severed her life from the life of this man so long ago would support her now—what was she, after all, but an unfortunate woman standing before a great man?
But there was a curious expression in her eyes: perhaps she was more resolute than he supposed; perhaps simply she had reached a point in wretchedness where such words fail of an impression.
“When I told you I should never come to your office, I did not know how you would take advantage of me. I should not have come even now if I could have helped it. I don’t know if it will interest you to hear that I have not had enough to eat this week.”
She was mistaken; Mr. Bigelow was interested. Indeed, he was beginning to recover himself and to look down on the ill-dressed woman before him from the proper altitude of G. Hyde Bigelow. As he looked down he told himself that he was quite calm, that he was standing frankly and firmly, as became him, on his proper footing as a prominent citizen. And such a sight as this, an ill-dressed woman standing in this mahogany office and talking about starvation, was really shocking. He felt that he must dismiss her, must rid himself of her; but on the other hand he was really touched by her distress. Mr. Bigelow leaned back in his chair and half closed his eyes.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked, in a voice that showed signs of leading up to something further.
She gave him a puzzled, indignant flash of her eyes and replied in the same low voice:
“It is more than fourteen years.”
More than fourteen years—think of it! For fourteen years this woman had been suffering for an error of judgment, the mistake of two deluded years, the mistake of giving her life to the wrong man, and now had even faced starvation because of it. So mistakes are punished in this world. Mr. Bigelow, on his part, looking down from his great altitude, was running over these fourteen years and recalling the mistakes of his own that had brought this annoying visit upon him. He had been soft-hearted; he saw it plainly enough now. In his effort to do right, to comply voluntarily with certain nominal requirements which a less honourable man would have easily evaded; in his effort to be kind to a foolish young woman—and a very young woman indeed she had been at first—to humour her childish notions of the facts of this real world—his impulses had carried him too far, and she, of course, had taken advantage of him. He should have known better.
“Hum! More than fourteen years,” he repeated, still sitting in his chair and looking dreamily at a group picture of a certain Board of Directors that hung above his desk. “Has it ever occurred to you to stop and figure up how much you have cost me during these years—how many times I have sent you large sums without a word? If you will think of it now you will remember that I have asked no questions—that I have known nothing whatever about your life and your acquaintances. I have not known how real your needs were.”
He might have gone on to much plainer speaking, even to harshness (it being necessary sometimes in dealing with such people), had not his half-shut eyes strayed downward from the Board of Directors to her face. What he saw there seemed to weaken his self-possession. And, for another thing, it was certainly getting time for his stenographer to be returning with the Pine Lands correspondence. It was really a rather awkward moment for Mr. Bigelow.
“Well,” he said abruptly, opening his eyes again, “there is no use in prolonging this conversation. Tell me what you have come here for and be done with it.”
It was so abrupt that she had to wait a moment and compose herself before beginning in the same low tone:
“I told you I had not come for money, and I meant it. I am tired of begging for my living. But it would cost you very little to help me to some situation. If you will do this, I will try not to trouble you again.”
Mr. Bigelow pressed his lips and beat a tattoo with his fingers.
“What kind of work can you do?”
“I couldn’t take skilled work, I suppose,” she replied a little wearily, “and I could hardly expect an office position—at my age. But I have thought of going into a department store. I really ought to be able to do something there.” Mr. Bigelow was fidgeting a little: he was thinking of the Pine Lands correspondence.
“Why, yes,” he said, “I don’t know but what that could be arranged. I will speak to Murray of the New York store. He is employing hundreds of people all the time, and I know he has difficulty in getting good ones.”
He finished with a wave of dismissal and turned back to his letter. But the woman waited.
“You will see him to-day?” she asked.
“Why, yes”—rather impatiently—“I will try to see him this noon.”
“And shall I come back this afternoon?”
Mr. Bigelow leaned back again.
“No, I hardly think that will be necessary. Let me see———”
“I don’t see how I am to know if I don’t come back—unless you write to me.”
He hesitated at this and, thanks to his hesitation, received a keen stroke below his armour.
“If it is the writing,” she said, with quiet, bitter scorn, “you know I have letters enough now.” Yes, she had, and he knew it: there had been blue moments in his life when he would have given a great deal to get those letters back—letters relating to money matters, most of them; explanations why certain sums were still unpaid, perhaps; letters sent back into another life, a life which had gone under Mr. Bigelow’s feet as he mounted to higher things. And she added: “You needn’t sign your name, if you’d rather not.”
Yes, it was time to close this interview. He was not enjoying it at all—was even willing to concede a point in order to be rid of her. So he said shortly:
“Very well, I will see him at noon and let you know by the morning delivery if he has a place for you.” She turned to go but he detained her. “Here—wait! I will tell him that you are a cousin of mine. Do you understand?”
She made no reply to this, but simply went out as swiftly and silently as possible. She was evidently as glad as he to be through with it. And Mr. Bigelow, after glancing at the Pine Lands correspondence and after a look at his watch, put on his hat and coat and left the office. It was not yet his lunch time, but when bent upon a benevolent errand Mr. Bigelow would hear of no delay; and recalling that Mr. Murray was usually on the point of leaving the club when he entered, he was willing even to hasten his lunch in order to make sure of a chat with him.
And chat they did, those two powerful, public-spirited ones, over their cigars, of the questions of the day, handled as only masters of commerce could handle them; until at length—this from Mr. Bigelow, lighting a fresh cigar and speaking casually over his hollowed hands:
“By the way, Murray, I have a cousin who is in a bad way—husband dead, and some children, and that sort of thing. I want to do a little something for her if I can. Could you give her any work?”
“I’m afraid the best place I could offer would be behind the counter in my North Side store at three dollars a week or so.”
“She’d be grateful for anything. It’s a matter of keeping alive.”
Mr. Murray was always glad of an opportunity to oblige Mr. Bigelow.
“Send her around, with a letter, and I will do the best I can for her.”
And thus did Mr. Bigelow free himself from an entangling alliance. He had now given the woman an opportunity to prove her worth; if after this she should stumble into dark ways, there would be only herself to blame. It had cost him considerable effort, to say nothing of his time; but had it not been worth while?
Dear Mr. Halloran: Won’t you come down to the Settlement Friday evening? The young men’s class and the girls’ class are going to entertain themselves, and Mr. Appleton Le Duc has promised to help them. I want to have another talk with you about George. We have heard nothing from him for a week, and I am afraid he is in trouble. After such encouragement as he has given us I don’t like to let go of him.
“Be sure to come if you can.
“Very sincerely yours,
“Margaret Davies.”
The above note accounts for the presence of Halloran and Le Duc (he of the nimble legs) in a suburban train, on that Friday evening, bound for Clybourn and the Settlement. A few seats behind them sat Miss Davies, escorted by Mr. Babcock, a young business man who seemed to be going in heartily for charity work at this time. Le Duc was talking earnestly with Halloran. Apparently a momentous question had arisen in his life, and the young man beside him, who had had plenty of experience in earning his own living, who could steer a life-boat in a boiling sea, whose generalship alone, it was conceded by one party in college, had won the Chicago game that fall, was, he felt sure, the best counselor to be found in the difficult task of guiding a life straight toward its destiny.
“I don’t know another fellow I could come to with a question like this, Jack; but you understand these things; you know life. You’ve learned things already that the rest of us spend the most of our lives finding out. Now what would you say—how far do you think a man ought to go in sticking to the idea of an education?” Le Due’s “education,” for several years now, had consisted of the study of elocution, with an occasional peck at English Literature or the French language, and a few, a very few, disastrous examinations. “I’ve got an offer to quit college right now to go in as second comedian with the Pooh Bah Company. They offer thirty dollars a week to begin with, with every prospect for a future. It is a rising company, you see—a sure thing. They are as safe as the First National Bank. If that were just the work I wanted, I couldn’t do better.”
Halloran was sitting back with his hat down on his forehead, listening conscientiously, but losing a word now and then, thanks to the roar of the train.
“You see, old chap, I set my mind on Shakespeare when I first came to college. I decided then it would be Shakespeare or nothing with me. A man’s got to have a goal, you know; he’s got to aim high or he will never get anywhere; and my goal has been Shakespeare. But the question is just this: Ought I to give up this offer, when it may be my chance to get a good start on the stage? I might be able to work up into Shakespeare by keeping at this for awhile, and making a professional acquaintance, and saving up money. Men have done it, you know. What do you say?” He evidently really expected an answer, so Halloran gave it to him.
“I am afraid you’ll have to decide that for yourself, Apples. If you care enough for first-class work to stick it out in college and then take your chances, you ought to do it: if you don’t, take this. That’s all I can say.”
With which casual conversation did an evening begin that later promised to influence considerably the lives of several members of the party.
They found a crowd of ragged boys and girls at the Settlement. Le Duc was to “read” for them; but he found himself fairly eclipsed by the performances of two of their own number, one a youthful dancer with a wizened face and remarkably thin legs, named Jimmie McGinnis, the other a dark-eyed girl, one Lizzie Bigelow, who sang some popular songs in a really good natural voice.
This girl made an immediate impression on Apples. At the close of her first song he stopped applauding long enough to say confidentially to Halloran, “Remarkable what a lot of talent you find among these people. That girl ought to be in the profession. Really a stunning girl—and clever, awfully clever. Splendid! Splendid!” he exclaimed again, turning toward her as she came into the hall, and applauding vigorously.