The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lash, by Olin L. Lyman This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Lash Author: Olin L. Lyman Release Date: December 19, 2011 [EBook #38341] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LASH *** Produced by Roberta Staehlin, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) The Lash Cover Haskins quizzically looked him over "Haskins quizzically looked him over" The Lash OLIN L. LYMAN Author of "The Trail of the Grand Seigneur" Logo BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS 1909 Copyright 1909 by RICHARD G. BADGER All Rights Reserved_ Printed at The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. TO C. E. A CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE T I A Star Chamber Session 9 II An Arrival 18 III Micky 29 IV Fists and the Man 36 V The Ironworkers' Ball—and Maisie 47 VI The Web 61 VII Loneliness 67 VIII An Evening Call 77 IX Not on the Programme 87 X The Little Red Devil 99 XI In the Morning 106 XII Why She Cried 113 XIII A Wager 122 XIV A Discredited Henchman 133 XV Useful Information 145 XVI His Better Side 155 XVII The Coup in Sight 165 XVIII A Counter Move 178 XIX Suspense 187 XX Out of the Past 195 XXI The Lash 204 XXII The Story 215 XXIII Wanderlust 224 XXIV The Long Road 234 THE LASH CHAPTER I A STAR CHAMBER SESSION HE speaker paused for a moment to pass his handkerchief over his fevered brow. Up from the ugly, leering, little eyes swept the swabbing linen, traversing the smooth top of the round head and disappearing mysteriously at the rear. The reason for this was obvious. The teeth of time take kindly to the hirsute and the speaker was very bald. Only a narrow fringe of reddish hair divided the rear depression of his fevered brow from the nape of his fat red neck. A plump and hairy fist smote the table and the glasses jingled. "Don't fool yourselves, you young fellows," advised the bald gentleman, in a curious gusty voice. "I've been all through it, clean to the retired list," with a wicked wink, "and I know, that's all. You've got to work harder this year than you did the first; you've got to a point where there ain't no layin' down for you if you want to keep on fodderin'. 'Cause why? 'Cause they're on, or think they are, and they're gettin' uneasy. You think everything's lovely, do you? Well, take a little advice from the old man that's now on the sideline, and aim to get busy from now on." [9] He again swabbed his illimitable brow, peering cunningly at them with wicked little eyes that gleamed unpleasantly on either side of a bulbous, crimsoned nose, while he chewed complacently at a black cigar. In common with the rest of the small company he was in his shirt-sleeves, for it was very hot. A mere ghost of a breeze stole in through the window screen, against which foiled moths, attracted by the light within, bumped in vain. A white-aproned waiter, summoned by an electric bell, entered, removed the empty glasses and received a fresh order. With his departure the bald gentleman was again heard from. "Well," he snorted aggressively, "what's eatin' you? Don't you believe me?" "Why," drawled a lank, middle-aged gentleman with a generally unsophisticated look that increased the efficiency of his talents for the peculiar use to which he devoted them; "I suppose it's safe to be on the safe side, but there's no use in borrowin' trouble any more than you have to. Everything looks smooth to me." "Pals," remarked the bald gentleman impressively, "remember this. The only way to stave off the foreclosure is to keep borrowin', and it's the smoothest whisky that gives you the rockiest head the next morning. 'Cause why? 'Cause you get enthused and hit it up too hard. Now that's where our danger flag's out. We've found this an easy town, we've worked it for all it's worth, puttin' it in plain English; the reformers ain't never woke up and you're takin' the attitude that they never will. Boys, it's a mistake. They do, sometimes. You don't want to plan on no sleepy campaign, if you'll take it from a sideliner that's 'retired' but wishes you well." "That's all very well, Alderman." said a plump, moon-faced fellow across the table, "but we've had these scares before and they've been for nothing. Two years ago Fusion thought it had us beat and we was afraid it was going to turn the trick. Remember the vote? Why, we got the laugh from our own men. We needn't have hustled ourselves. It was a dead open-and-shut." "It's because the town don't believe half it hears," interpolated the lank gentleman. "I'll say this, that the old man— drink to him, boys!—is the best organizer in this country today, and he leaves the blindest trail. They can't bring anything home, not while we're in control." "That's what I'm tellin' you," remarked the bald one grimly. "You've got to hang on to the control. Let it slip away from you while you're nappin' and how long would it be before the town was next? What would the hide of any man in this room be worth?" His voice had instinctively lowered; his head was thrust forward, his little eyes were piercing. "I tell you it always pays to keep busy all the time." There was a moment's silence. The half dozen companions of the speaker surveyed him minutely but with visible respect. After all, he could give any and all of them pointers in the gentle art of grafting and they knew it. Moreover, his words had at last struck home, had awakened them from a false sense of security. Alderman Goldberg had been through the mill, and had fed at the public crib at intervals no better judged than times when he elected to remain in discreet retirement, in his cyclone cellar, until ominous signs on the municipal weather horizon had disappeared. So, because they knew that he spoke by the card, his companions now paid him the tribute of uneasy silence. The lanky individual, Dick Peterson by name, finally resumed the conversation. "Well," said he, "this is only a preliminary to the main event anyway. Wonder what's keepin' the old man? Here we've been waitin' an hour. We'll see what he says. I haven't mentioned 'campaign' to him myself." "I know what he'll say," retorted Goldberg. "Just what I've been tellin' you, to get busy. That's why he called you here tonight, to dig in the spurs a little. The old man's no fool. Hark! I guess he's comin' now." There was a soft tread outside, a door opened and a man entered the room. Nodding slightly in response to their greeting, he seated himself in a chair, at the head of the table, which had evidently been reserved for him. Peterson pushed some cigars toward him, at the same time thrusting an interrogative finger toward the electric bell. The newcomer shook his head, and selecting one of the cigars, leaned back in his chair as he leisurely lighted it. John Shaughnessy was as unlike the cartooned type of political boss as could be imagined. He looked decidedly ordinary, and might have been taken for anything from a dejected clerk of middle age to an unostentatious gambler. His garb was quiet; there was an utter absence of vociferous jewelry. In person he was lank and slightly over middle height. The face was singularly impassive; that of a gambler to whom nothing apparently mattered. A hawk nose and small black moustache had Shaughnessy, also a pair of heavy-lidded eyes. These eyes, when they glanced casually at you, held a lustreless, ennuied expression that impressed you, did you trouble to entertain any impression at all, with a definite idea of somnolence in Shaughnessy. A discouraged gambler, you might think casually, had you not the honor of his acquaintance. But did you happen to kindle Shaughnessy's interest in any way, lo! a startling change. The heavy lids contracted ever so little about the black eyes, which shot forth gleams that revealed Shaughnessy in a new and sinister light. They bared a sleepless vigilance, an unpleasant concentration, which inspired the person regarded with a nervousness that was justified. For when those eyes, but a moment before lustreless and dead, lightened with that strange gleam, the dispirited clerk or discouraged gambler vanished. In his stead, regarding you with a cold, basilisk, snaky stare that pierced you through and through, there was revealed—Shaughnessy. It was his wonted mask of impassive features and lustreless eyes that long caused Shaughnessy to be surprisingly and [10] [11] [12] [13] generally underestimated. Men chose not to believe that one whose general appearance so lacked significance was capable of the stealth and finesse in large, dark matters that a portion of the press emphatically but rather gropingly attributed to Shaughnessy. So it was Shaughnessy's good fortune, for his nefarious ends, that most men refused to take him too seriously. The majority chanced never to rouse his interest; hence, never saw the optical gleam. For the minority who did, Shaughnessy was a man transformed, invested with power, genuine and unmistakable. Following the leader's entrance, the company waited silently for him to speak. He favored them with a moment's reflective stare, puffing billowing smoke clouds. Then he spoke, and his voice was as cold and impersonal as his white face. "I called you together, boys," said he, "because there's work ahead for us." There was a significant nod from Goldberg. "It doesn't look bad at a first glance," continued Shaughnessy, "but a look-in will show you that it will pay to hump some. There's nothing open yet, but we've got to face the hottest fight we have had. Well," with a grim smile, "we'll do it and we'll win out. We've got to." "Yes," remarked Peterson, with a deep sigh. "We've got to, all right, governor." "That's what I was tellin' 'em, Shaughnessy," put in Goldberg, rolling his cigar to the lee corner of his mouth. "They wanted to give me the laugh. Thought everything was lovely. They'll know when they've sidestepped the shivers as often as we have. I tell you, the clearest day is the one you want to have your umbrella ready for, and that's no lie." "No," assented Shaughnessy, "that's no lie. It's going to rain votes this fall and we've got to get busy in mortgaging the majority of 'em. If we don't, we get caught napping, that's all, and it's us to the woods. I needn't tell you, of course, that as late as a year ago we could have defied 'em to put the hooks on us, even if they'd got a look-in at the polls. We had things tied up so they couldn't have touched us; we could have stayed right on. But there've been some bad mistakes made; some instructions exceeded and some things we couldn't help, being forced into 'em. Truth is, boys, that if through any chance we're done up in this coming election, we're caught right out in the open with a wagonload of goods, and there's no time to hide 'em. That's the situation we're facing and it's one that calls for cutting out sleep till after election day." "Well, we've done it before," remarked Willie Shute, the moon-faced gentleman, as he pressed the button for another round of drinks. "What the devil is sleep, anyway? Waste of time." "It's a waste of time in politics," assented the leader, "unless you want to wake up to find you've been buried alive with no air tube." Willie Shute, following the laughter which greeted this grisly pleasantry, was discovered looking about him with vague apprehension. "Thought I heard someone snickerin'," he explained. "Before we did." Peterson glanced significantly at Shute's whisky glass. "Preliminary to the main event," he commented. "Saw off, or you'll be hearing bands of music in the morning." Shaughnessy leaned forward upon the table. "Well, let's get down to business," he remarked. "Let's talk things over, look at all we've got to buck against and plan to buck it in the good old way. Give us another whack at this and in the next two years we'll be ready to retire with a trail blinder than an eyeless fish in the Mammoth Cave. But it would be all day with us to lose just now; we can't afford it. In some ways we're better fixed for the fight than we've been before. We own one newspaper body and soul, though we're not advertising it. We've practically clinched another of 'em, there's a couple that don't count anyway, and then, there's that damned Courier." "What figure does it cut?" sneered Goldberg. "What do you care? You've got good organs of your own." "I'd give the lot of 'em, pro and con," responded Shaughnessy reflectively, "if I could either switch that sheet onto my line or work it for a neutral sidetrack. It's got more real, solid influence than the lot of 'em put together. It's always been against me, more or less, said I was 'some' back in the days when the other papers gave it the laugh. Last election it let up a little. I was beginning to get in. Then old Westlake bought up the controlling interest unexpectedly a while ago, and they're getting ready to lam it to us this fall, boys, and don't you forget it. We can't do anything with Westlake. You know I was trying, through sources that ought to have been influential, to get in an entering wedge by practically throwing the whole batch of city printing at Westlake's head. Well, what do you think? Westlake was on all right and it's a case of no compromise. Matter went to the business office and was referred directly to him, as a matter of course. He sent back word that the Courier was planning to print a great deal about the city "gov." during the next few months that it wouldn't charge anything for." "Well," inquired Goldberg, after a moment's silence, "what good is that going to do him?" "Nothing yet," replied Shaughnessy, the light of battle kindling in his strange eyes. "He's got nothing that'll do us any real harm, and I think we can see to it that there'll be no leaking on anything that will. It's up to us just to pull down the blinds, and keep 'em pulled, and then let Westlake howl about what he suspects; he won't know anything. We've got respectable papers," with an ugly sneer, "controlled by respectable men on our side, too. If Westlake or any man of Westlake's can dig up anything after we've nailed it down, why, he's welcome to it. But now let's get busy and talk things over." [14] [15] [16] [17] A A colloquy followed which would have electrified the citizens of this community, could they have heard it. Ancient, mysterious skeletons were exhumed in that talk, skeletons which had been in the flesh the source of much speculation. There were recent dark issues, too, and there was a murky present and a future that would be murkier, did things go well. All told, an opportunity to listen to that conversation would have benefited the adherents of municipal decency. After two hours of reminiscence, of planning for the campaign and speculating on the future, Shaughnessy rose with a yawn. "Get a good night's sleep, boys," he suggested dryly, "and then don't sleep again till the day after we do the old ladies at the polls." They laughed as they followed him out of the private room and down stairs. There was a slight stir in a corner of the room. It subsided as a waiter entered to clear and tidy the table. With the receding steps of the servitor down the stairs, from behind the sideboard in the corner softly stepped a man. He looked cautiously about him, then, walking to the window, he quietly withdrew the screen, and, gaining a convenient roof outside, replaced the screen carefully. Upon the roof his stealthily receding footsteps were audible. CHAPTER II AN ARRIVAL MBITION is an itch for something you haven't got and never expect to get," remarked Peters, rapping his pipe bowl against the edge of the desk and reaching for Mead's tobacco box. He owned none of his own and the rest of the force formed a convenient and interminable tobacco trust for him. "You might add to that observation the clause 'but others have,' Pete," put in Charlie Kirk, while Mead resignedly watched Peters jamming an unwieldy wad of the weed into the bowl with his thumb, to brazenly reach for more the next instant. "Besides, that remark isn't original. It's gone the rounds of the papers. I don't know where they pinched it, but I'll bet it wasn't from you." "Your observation does you credit, Sherlock," retorted Peters, undisturbed. "If you would exercise a little of that faculty on the job, maybe the old man would raise your attenuated wage." The quiet voice of the city editor broke in upon the amiable colloquy. "Here, Kirk," said he, "and you, Peters, I want you. Go and relieve Smallwood and Lynn at that visiting convention and tell them to hurry here with their stuff. They've been there since seven. I thought the thing would be over by now." Kirk and Peters left Mead's desk, where they had been loafing for a few spare moments, and, slipping on their coats, walked to the elevator and sank streetward. The city editor delved again into the debris on his groaning desk. It was a rush night. The few men in the great room, for most of the reporters were still out, were bent over portly pads or pecked busily at typewriters. Mead scrawled away at the lecture story to which he had been assigned that evening. Warming to his work he rounded out many of the professor's periods for him and added some good things of his own. Now and then he read a paragraph with complacency and sifted in a few more adjectives. He had heard the old fairy tale of speakers giving reporters credit for improving their efforts. Moreover, he was but lately hatched from the high school and was nearing the end of his probationary period upon the Courier. As with the _debut_ of most of the boys, coherence was smothered in verbiage. Mead's written words flowed on like rivers to the sea. You who speak by the card will well remember the turbid freshets you handed in, long ago, with a sort of awe to think you had penned them. You looked for a little corresponding awe on the part of the city editor. He merely grunted, and the next morning it was a wise father that knew his brain-child. The anxious parent looked twice through the pages, finally finding the changeling, dwarfed and subdued, in a modest corner next the patent medicine "ads." Stripped of the gauzy gewgaws of fancy with which you had complacently adorned it, it lay in its stark cerements of staring simplicity, a hard, terse, graphic, uncompromising fact. That salient bar, the editorial pencil, had dammed the winding, sunlit stream at its very source, forcing it home by a short cut that skipped much romantic scenery but saved time for the navigator. You read the mangled remnant of that early flight and cursed the city editor's lack of literary appreciation. Afterward, when the years had brought you wisdom, you wondered why he had kept you at all. Yet you knew, after all,—for the veterans were tyros once. Mead toiled on, the mirage of an achieved literary gem on his mental horizon. It was the same mirage, old yet ever young, that flashes in transient glory and fades as often and as miserably before the wistful eyes of the veteran in letters as with the tyro: the dream of an unattainable ideal, which mocks and melts away, a phantom of the sands. His task completed, Mead brought his masterpiece to the city editor's desk. "The lecture, Mr. Harkins," said he, with a thrill of secret pride. A sense of polished erudition welled strong within him. Harkins might now see what the real thing [18] [19] [20] in literary skill could do with the most prosaic of assignments. Harkins had cleared his desk pretty well in the past few minutes and his assistants were busy in consequence. He slapped the masterpiece irreverently on the desk. Like a withering blast his trained eyes swept the first page, which was heavily laden with elaborate introduction. There were a few fierce swoops of a blue pencil. Words fell in the ranks like scattered skirmishers, then platoons of phrases were swept away. The enfiladed page fell face down on the desk. Another, similarly mangled, followed. Only a few gallant remnants of that imposing array remained. It was the survival of the fittest, the obliteration of the superfluous; but it was hard. Mead watched the sacrifice in slow, gathering horror. Harkins looked up. "Busy night!" said he abruptly but not unkindly. "Anyway, this won't do. Cultivate the newspaper style. Get brevity, terseness. Cut out excess baggage. Get the right word and fit it in right. You're voluminous. Make it luminous." Harkins resumed the massacre and Mead, poor innocent, walked disconsolately to his desk to digest the bitter pill that must invariably be administered to the newspaper novice. At Mead's age the simultaneous discovery that there are things to learn and things to unlearn is disconcerting. He sat discouraged, his pinions drooping, and stared gloomily at some gyrating millers about the electric bulb over his desk. Presently he tried to catch them, with a half-acknowledged desire to pluck off their wings in a little game of "pass it on." But they were elusive and evaded him. Several men came in from assignments, and removing their coats, for a hot wave was grilling the late days of June, set to work. Smallwood and Lynn, back from the convention, left thick wads of copy on the city editor's desk and went out for a late lunch. More reporters entered hurriedly and fell to. The dramatic editor entered with deliberation, as became the great, and leisurely set about the roasting of a "first night." Copy boys scurried like scampering ants. The editors bent to their tasks, the reporters' fingers rushed over the pads or jingled the typewriter keys. Everybody hit up the pace but the dramatic critic. He sat, pencil poised like a poniard, deliberating whether he should slay the piece and principals by slow torture, like an Indian, or perform the deed with one murderous lunge. The proprietors of this particular theatre had fallen out with the business office of the Courier. They did not advertise in the Courier now, so when the dramatic critic attended their house he paid for his seat and charged it to expense account. Naturally, what the Courier said about the attractions at that house, during the season in question, was not what it would have said had the brethren been dwelling together in amity. This was a particularly auspicious occasion. The other houses had been closed for several weeks, owing to the advent of warm weather. This theatre had opened to accommodate a troupe which, in stage parlance, was trying it on the dog before venturing to launch a new summer attraction in the metropolis. After due reflection the Courier's dramatic critic savagely gripped his pencil and proceeded to use it as a bowie in the interest of the suffering dog. There had been nothing more for Mead to do and he sat at his desk, sucking disconsolately at a short pipe. It being a new accomplishment, he found difficulty in keeping it lighted. He viewed the moths with malice, their fluttering wings fanning his resentment. He was again reaching cautiously for them when a voice sounded at his elbow; an odd voice, unlike other voices. "Say, kid," it inquired, "where's the head push?" Mead turned, somewhat confused by the unexpected interruption. "Huh?" he asked. "Why, the main squeeze, the first fiddle!" was the impatient rejoinder. Then, as an afterthought, "the city editor." Mead indicated. "Over there," he said. "His name's Harkins." He turned in his chair to watch the stranger, who shuffled over to Harkins' desk. "Say, Mr. Harkins, I need a job. And that's no lie," was how he put it. Harkins whirled in his chair. His keen glance swept the visitor from head to foot. "No, I guess it isn't," was his quiet verdict. "You need a lot of things, don't you?" "You've hit it, sir," grinned the guest, "right behind the ear. But a job will bring 'em and my face won't. It's been overworked lately, that face, and I'm restin' it. I'd hock it, but it's all I've got, and besides I guess I've got all it'll bring already." "Shouldn't wonder," grinned Harkins in reply, surveying with growing interest the traveller, for such his appearance bespoke him. "Did it bring you here?" "No, they didn't see it," laughed the stranger. "I came by freight from Cleveland. It was a pork train—and I'm on it yet," with a sweeping gesture that indicated the ensemble of his frayed and dusty habiliments. "No low bridge for me that trip," he continued. "The brakemen rode on top, but the bumpers were good enough for me. Ain't so risky." Harkins quizzically looked him over. He was uniquely worth the trouble. A battered cap, tipped rakishly over one ear, topped a mat of curly red hair of the peculiar bricky hue that hisses a sibilant Celtic brogue in whilom wind-stirrings. Beneath a broad forehead there danced and rioted two Irish eyes, pale blue pools in an environing forest of freckles. Nature had been generous with mouths when he transpired and had given him enough for two. He had further distended it with much smiling. His cheeks and chin were rough with a sandy stubble; not over-coarse, for he was young. He was [21] [22] [23] [24] slender and of medium height. His garments, in an advanced state of senility, exuded cinders at every pore. As for his shoes, the poor devil was literally on his uppers. "I guess," said Harkins, not unkindly, "I guess, my boy, we're full." "You're lucky," murmured the stranger, gray discouragement in his face. "Wish I was. I'm a hollow tube just now." He turned suddenly toward Harkins, despair in the eyes grown dark with trouble, the light and the laughter fled. "My God!" he gulped, "I haven't eaten a morsel for hours! I want to earn my livin'! I know I look like a hobo,—I am one, I suppose,—but I'm a workin' one. I'm a bum tramp reporter, it's true enough, you only have to look at me. But try me, Mr. Harkins, just give me a chance to make good, for I tell you I can get the news!" Harkins involuntarily thrust his hand into his trousers pocket. A gesture restrained him. "Mr. Harkins," said the visitor, with an odd dignity, grotesque enough in his shabby garb, "no hand-outs. When I can't earn what I eat, I'll cut the game." Harkins reflectively looked him over, now with a little concern. Pride in such tatters, that would not accept alms, merited consideration. Then, too, Dodds had just been dismissed and someone must replace him. But the stranger! He was hardly an acceptable candidate. Still, there was a frankness in the mottled face and twinkling eyes, an odd note in the voice just tinged with an Anglicized brogue, that appealed to Harkins. In the ensuing moment of hesitancy the question was decided for him. A telephone bell sounded at the city editor's elbow. He turned in his chair, clapped the receiver to his ear, listened a moment, replied briefly, hung up the receiver and turned to the stranger. Mead, the only one of the force at liberty, had leaned forward in his chair as the city editor answered the 'phone. Now he settled back again in deep disgust as Harkins addressed the disreputable visitor. "I'll try you," he said briefly. "Know the town at all?" "No, but I can find it," was the reply. "There's a big row on at the corner of Elm and Market streets," said Harkins. "Beer and brickbats, tough locality. Rival nests of low foreigners. You'll have to step lively, forms close early tonight. By the way, take Mead with you and you take charge. It's a job if you win out. If not, you can travel." The stranger grabbed his hat and vanished, the resentful cub at his heels. The city editor glanced at the big clock in the corner and returned to his task. More men came in, including Kirk and Peters, the convention having finally adjourned. The manuscripts multiplied on the readers' desks. On all sides men were laboring furiously. Three-quarters of an hour had elapsed when there was an upward whisk of the elevator and into the big room hurried the seedy stranger. Mead, no longer resentful, followed him. Indeed, there was something of homage in Mead's tribute toward the other, the involuntary tribute that any honest tyro must pay, in any trade, to the experienced hand who knows his business. Mead was perspiring. So was the stranger, who had evidently kept himself and his force moving. Straight to Mead's desk strode the new arrival, tearing off his shabby coat as he went, Mead heeling. The leader flung himself into Mead's chair, waving his hand toward the vacant desk next to it, where the cub meekly seated himself and fell to writing. He had been assigned to his part of the tale by the vagrant journalist as the two were rushed back to the office in a cab from the scene of the trouble. The stranger drew from his vest pocket the stub of a soft-leaded pencil about three inches long. The point was inserted for a thoughtful instant in his mouth, then was slapped swiftly upon a pad. Sprawled forward, with elbows on the desk, he wrapped his calves securely around the legs of his chair. Thus he began the strewing of words upon the paper, in the execrable handwriting and at the phenomenal speed which have become traditions of that office, where each has remained unrivaled in the paper's annals. Oblivious of his surroundings, he bent over his desk like a jockey in the saddle, eyes glued on the pad whose leaves he was covering at lightning speed. As he proceeded he tossed the finished sheets carelessly aside without pausing. Mead, too, under the benign influence of time-pressure, took a long stride forward in newspaper requirements by forgetting to "pad" uselessly. Meanwhile the city editor's assistants gathered up the finished sheets and carried them away to be hastily edited and shot upward to the compositors. It was, in reportorial parlance, "hot stuff." A man had been killed in this battle of the slums and the criminal was somewhere in hiding. Many men were injured, some seriously. Extra policemen had been summoned. The detail had charged the mob with sanguinary results, both to the mob and the bluecoats. As usual some non-combatants had suffered. There had been a number of arrests. The patrol wagons had been busy, the gongs of the hospital ambulances had sounded their warning as they dashed to the relief of the injured. It was the big story of that issue, grim and formidable, dwarfing even the stormy convention in its dramatic features, which partook of the sombre dignity of the tragic under the masterly treatment of the tattered scribe. It was, too, a chaotic story, with a certain swirl, a swift rush of events that had piled one upon the other with a cyclonic swiftness that must have staggered a neophyte and taxed to the utmost the highest resources of brain and nerve, together with the most feverish energy of the veteran. In a full, rounded entirety, dwarfing the efforts of the rival morning dailies,—though some of them had several [25] [26] [27] M experienced men on the story,—the parish of the Courier read of the memorable riot in that issue. It was actually impressive to watch the story pouring from the point of that flying, disreputable pencil, flowing down the sheets in a mad torrent, the scenes brought before the reader's eyes with an irresistible force that made them visible in graphic word pictures, as if actually photographed. The stub rushed on, weaving the main web of the tale, while Mead's pencil picked up the loose ends in the form of minor details. Harkins marveled as he watched the story's development. Its size surpassed his expectations. Had he fully understood its scope, several of his best men would have been taken summarily from their tasks and sent post-haste to the scene. Not till this tattered knight of the road returned, with the cub in tow, had Harkins known of the snowball's growth. Yet here it was at last, the final sheet of what Harkins' trained journalistic sense told him was a superb handling of an unusually difficult assignment. He sent the last sheets upstairs and turned to the stranger and his faithful cub, who were mopping fevered faces. "Great!" quoth Harkins, including the cub, who felt his oats in consequence and began filling his pipe with due seriousness. "You will do," added the editor, turning to the new man. "Come on tomorrow afternoon." The new man rose to leave but hesitated, crimsoning a little. Harkins eyed him inquiringly. The stranger grinned rather ruefully. "Object to my sleeping on this table?" he asked. "The rate is cheaper. Besides, I'm hollower even than I was." Harkins laughed, but it was a sympathetic laugh. "I had forgotten," said he. "You'll find a bed softer than the table, I imagine, and there is a filling restaurant in the next block." He proceeded to make an advance on the new man's salary. The latter thanked him and was off. The boys crowded around, curious and interested. "He's no Albert Edward on wardrobe," commented the dramatic critic, "but he's a pippin just the same. Who is he, Harkins?" "Hang it!" replied Harkins dubiously, "I forgot to ask him. What's his name, Mead?" "Gee, I don't know," replied the cub, sucking contentedly at his pipe. "He didn't give me any time to ask." CHAPTER III MICKY ICHAEL O'BYRN, picturesquely Irish, so his name appeared on the payroll, but from the cases to the press room they called him Micky. Mike would have been a misfit, for its tang suggests a burly, bull-necked son of Erin with fists like hams and a brogue of gravy-like thickness, a boisterous, beefy, big-hearted broth of a boy of blows and budge. Micky had the Irish heart, but he was short on fists and beef and possessed the mere ghost of a brogue. Besides, O'Byrn's pseudonym suggests juvenility, and Micky's four and twenty years, with their palpable vicissitudes, had not robbed him of that saving grace. Indeed, on meeting him, light-hearted and laughter-loving as he was in youth, your imagination would experience little effort in leaping a long leap into futurity to behold him a generation on, white-polled and with the olden freckles faded in his wrinkled face; still the laugh on his lips, the light of quizzical humor in his blue eyes. Glad he would always be, because there would always bubble in his heart the fountain of eternal youth. The newspaper spirit had its embodiment in Micky O'Byrn, the tattered knight of the road whose first story electrified the city editor of the Courier. The spirit shone out of the portals of the twinkling Irish eyes, eternally questioning. It reconnoitred the field from the bridge of the nose that twitched with eagerness at the scent of a story, as a pointer snuffs grouse. Within the mouth, that was always distended with an ingratiating smile, dwelt in amity those heavenly twins, guile and blarney. They served as forceful means to the eternal end of news-seeking, and they were backed by ramparts of cheerful impudence that flanked the whole freckled face. The chin was round, but a bump peered forth that bespoke tenacity. He ordinarily displayed a guileless expression that hid an unfathomed depth of resource. Once on the trail, he could never be turned away. When one route to information failed, he had a dozen others in readiness, leading by devious paths to the desired end. O'Byrn's appearance, when he had selected and donned his new ready-made suit, rakish derby and vociferating shirt, was decidedly tracky. This transformation occurred soon after he joined the Courier's staff. The suit was checked in a pattern which cried aloud to heaven, the new crimson tie adding its insistent clamor. The derby was done off in a delicate drab. As for shoes, he selected tan oxfords with red ties. The ensemble, to use a word that found much favor with Micky, "jibed" harmoniously with his thick fell of lurid hair and his staring freckles. In dress, as in all else, Micky was a pronounced radical. [28] [29] [30] Micky entered upon his service for the Courier with a vim which abundantly realized his promise to "make good" if given the chance. In him energy was wedded with tenacity. He had an inexhaustible fund of subtle resource, an ingratiating impudence. Altogether, he was well adapted to his strenuous trade, the trade that sifts out so much of chaff and leaves so little wheat—and finally withers the wheat till it follows the chaff. Micky had a positive genius for coping with obstacles. If he could not "sidestep" them he climbed over, crawled under or wriggled through them. Harkins steered him up against nearly everything in those first few days and he never fell down. Harkins began to grow self- complacent regarding his discernment. He had discovered this pearl, or to put it more literally, this speckled ruby of journalism. As a matter of fact, the ruby had discovered himself, but Harkins had helped. He was entitled to congratulate himself, for the new arrival was amply demonstrating his services to be valuable. Micky had been with the Courier a fortnight. The voice of his new apparel had been heard on the land and also on the waters. For only the previous day he had boarded a tug steaming out to the quarantine station, casually absorbed a mine of information without the suicidal flashing of a notebook and scooped the field with a harrowing chapter of abuses by those in power. His prestige was increased. A little bird slyly twittered in his ear that they had started him low in the wage line. He would better strike for more while the iron was hot, for it was like to cool quickly in this uncertain calling. He pondered over the matter, his feet reposing on his desk, a red-eyed cigar stub in the corner of his mouth. It was midnight. He had handed in a warm political column, happened upon by accident that evening. He was always stumbling upon such accidents, that spelled spice for the reader in the morning. Micky ceased ruminating, with a mental vow to strike 'em next day. He rose, yawned, stretched himself and strolled over to the sporting editor's desk. O'Byrn sank into an adjoining chair as his neighbor administered the finishing touches to an intercollegiate field meet of that afternoon. "How 're ye, Fatty?" inquired Micky amiably, prodding his co-laborer in the ample excuse for his nickname. "Fine 'nd dandy, Irish," replied the rotund Stearns rather absently, as he pensively rubbed his prodded abdomen. "Say, Irish," he burst out in an odd breathless way—Fatty's fits were a joke in the office and startling to newcomers —"good hammer throw, that. Fell short two feet, though." He shoved a written sheet over to Micky. Micky had jumped in his chair at the onslaught, spilling cigar ashes over his noisy shirt bosom. "Short of what?" he demanded with sarcasm, blowing the ashes into Stearns' rubicund face. "Fatty, have you got 'em again?" "Got nothin'," retorted Fatty, rubbing an ashy eye. "They'll never beat it, never," he murmured, more to himself than to Micky, with a slow shake of his fat head. "Not on your pajamas! They can't touch him." "Cut it out, Fatty," exhorted Micky with concern. "Quit the pill cookin' stunt or it'll land you in the dip-house for sure. Why, you spit when you talk now! Of whom are you dreaming?" Fatty came back to earth. "That's so, you weren't here then," he vouchsafed pityingly. "When?" retorted Micky pugnaciously. "When wasn't I here?" "Three years ago," replied Stearns, the tremolo of a tender memory throbbing in his tone. "And if I wasn't here," demanded Micky, unmollified, "who was, you sofa pillow?" The sofa pillow, like most such, was good natured. He grinned forgivingly at the freckled features opposite him. "Dick Glenwood was!" he answered with firm finality. "Yes 'r! And when he got through there was nothin' else. The rest of 'em were hangin' on the clothes line. It was three years ago, Speckles, and I was helpin' do the intercollegiate meet for the News. Cubbin' it then, you know. All the colleges, Hale, Pittston and the rest were there. I knew Dick; best man Hale ever had, bar none. Knew what was comin'. Came from the same town as I did. Brought up together; he's licked me more than once," with pardonable pride. "Came out just as I expected and he scooped everything. It was his last appearance, graduation year, big rep. Had to make good and he did, won everything in sight. That is, everything he went into, and he was in everything worth while. Made some records that stand today. And that hammer throw! Say," gurgled Fatty, his face apoplectic, "that man Myers came the closest to it today of any meet since then, and he's got two feet comin' to touch it!" "Dick Glenwood," mused Dicky. "I've heard the name around the office." "And why not?" exploded Stearns. His little eyes, lurking beneath folds of fat, peeled like round agate marbles. "Why, man, don't you know?" "Know what?" snapped O'Byrn, reaching for a convenient paper-weight. "Now, Fatty!" poising the weapon. "Know he works here, of course," replied Stearns, viewing the weight apprehensively. "Say, Irish, don't talk to me! You'd better come out of it yourself." "Works here?" repeated Micky, putting down the weight. "I haven't seen him." "On his vacation," explained Fatty. "Expect him back tomorrow. My last whack at this stunt." [31] [32] [33] [34] B "So he does sports," observed Micky, taking a fresh cigar from Stearns' vest pocket. "I thought you did 'em right along." "Me?" exploded Fatty, in incredulous oblivion of slaughtered grammar. His fat face expressed ludicrous amaze at the impression. "Why, man, he's the best sporting writer in town or anywhere else! I'm just supplyin'. Ordinarily I do odds and ends. I've done everything but time. Sometimes, when we're specially busy, I act as his assistant. He got me my job here when the News fired me." Fatty was nothing if not ingenuous. Micky did not try to hide his grin, for it would make no difference with Fatty. "Why, yes, I've read of that fellow," assented Micky, transferring a generous portion of the contents of Stearns' match box to his own pocket. "So he went into this rotten business, did he?" "Why, yes, he's stuck on it," explained Fatty. "You see he's got money." "Got money!" echoed Micky amazedly. "Gee whiz! then why—? Excuse me, Fatty, I'm asleep at the switch for fair." "I don't know," floundered Fatty helplessly, "but anyway, his father's got money. But Dick likes this business just the same. Been at it since he left college." "Then it is because he's got money, or his father has," agreed Micky. "I couldn't see it before, but you have made it very clear, Fatty. It's because he's got money or his father has. How stupid of me to be wingin' on that proposition! But if he didn't have money, or his father didn't, and he was doing this for a living like the rest of us instead of for the fun of it, he'd say to the devil with it, like the rest of us—and probably keep right at it, like the rest of us." In which words Micky gave utterance to a philosophic, universal truth. The voice of the city editor broke in upon the conference. "Say, Stearns," it called, "where's that meet?" "Most done, Mr. Harkins," responded Fatty in a panic, diving into his copy like a greased swimmer off the side of a yacht. "O'Byrn," called Harkins. "Here's word of a row down at Goldberg's saloon on Ash street, pretty serious. Thuggery. Slide down and get it quietly. You know they don't like the looks of notebooks around there," with a grim laugh. So Micky, whose memory was his notebook and a wonderfully accurate one when caution and cunning were demanded, hurried to the elevator. CHAPTER IV FISTS AND THE MAN ETWEEN Goldberg's and the polite in indulgence there was a great gulf fixed. From the north side, with its glittering palaces of Bacchus dispensing varied decoctions served by irreproachable chemists, you travelled south through a scattered series of lessening liquid glories. Finally you came to Goldberg's, where they took it straight in draughts of cheap, blistering stuff which maddened and incited to crime. Goldberg's was the dive of last resort for the submerged tenth. Its maw gaped hungrily, gorging upon the dregs it gathered in. Finally, when the victims were stripped of their miserable resources, they were spewed forth, with brains inflamed with the liquid damnation purveyed there. Ripe for any crime, they were foul fruit for the gaoler and a menace to men. Goldberg's existed by grace of the modern god of money. Goldberg was a tool of the autocratic Shaughnessy, who contrived to head and manage a corrupt city government. Goldberg captained his ward, which was one of Shaughnessy's gilt-edged assets. The ward had become Shaughnessy's by right of Goldberg's conquest. It was a ward of thugs and human jugs and brutal, elementary mugs; all American sovereigns, equalized with decency under the deathless document of American independence. Born sovereigns, or having taken out papers, the adult males in this ward had lined up one day, now far in the past. One hand of each proudly clutched a ballot, the badge of his sovereignty. The other hand was greedily extended for the accompanying cash. Into the grimy palms had dropped more cash from Shaughnessy via Goldberg, than could be afforded by any of their rivals. So the ballots poured into the boxes for Goldberg, whose bull-faced lieutenants flanked the line to see that the bargain was carried out. Goldberg was the choice of his people for alderman. He was theirs, and through his rude genius, under Shaughnessy, it transpired that they were his forever. He did not sit with the council now. He had long since relinquished even the higher posts of confidence with which Shaughnessy had honored him after his aldermanic career. Truth to tell, Goldberg had become sufficiently notorious to [35] [36] [37] convince Shaughnessy that it would be politic to remove him from under the direct glare of the public eye. He could perform better service from the wings. So Goldberg had apparently retired from all connection with the politics of the city and even his own ward, though Shaughnessy and the retired gentleman could have told better. They now picked their puppets to run, invariably routing the forces of law and order on election day with the tremendous majorities for license and disorder rolled up in their several wards. There was subsequent increment, which someone got, gathered in shady subways of a peculiar municipal government; presenting the situation which makes the indifferent voter a byword and reproach in many cities of this broad and extremely hospitable land. On these triumphal election nights, too, joy overflowed at Goldberg's place,—albeit he was "no longer interested in politics,"—and fell like strong dew upon the unjust. There were free draughts of the cheap in beverages flowing fast into the faces of the unlaved, unshaved crew. The godless exulted and Goldberg continued to hold them for Shaughnessy in the hollow of his hand. As Micky was whirled southward, in an open trolley car, he reflected upon his dubious assignment. How should he conduct his campaign? It will be readily gathered that newspaper men were not especially popular at Goldberg's. Most of the representative city sheets, irrespective of political leanings, had for years been flaying the fifth ward king, seeking to uncrown him. Thus far it had been without avail. Not yet had the decent element been able to throw off the thrall. This was because they had been indulging in that practice which so universally blocks the wheels of progress in most lines, the pastime of quarreling among themselves in regard to the most desirable means to the end. So Shaughnessy and Goldberg, their colleagues and all they represented and misrepresented, were still in control, and buying larger burglar- proof safes. The newspapers had kept the quarreling factions of the perennially defeated party informed as to this growing prosperity, as well as they were able to ascertain regarding it. Naturally the gang's leaders and their mates resented this, for it favored the chances of the opposing party's factions finally getting together and putting the whole evil crew out of commission. When a man has begun to make easy money, he mourns to break off the habit; nor does he view with pleasure attempts to compel him to do so. Micky hoped he could get his story quietly, for discovery of his errand in that unfriendly atmosphere would probably mean failure and perhaps a broken head. However, he hardly thought he would encounter anyone he knew there, so would trust to luck. Alighting from the car at the end of South Avenue, he made his way through a tangle of dark, rank thoroughfares, which grew dingier and more disreputable as he continued, till he came to the street, little more than an alley, where Goldberg's flourished like a green bay tree,—late in season, for the structure needed painting. Low and dingy, squat and ugly, it crouched between a couple of cheap brick tenements like a stolid, sullen beast of prey; its few small windows alight with a dull red glow, like vengeful eyes. From within there came the discordant brawling of a cracked phonograph. A couple of red-eyed human derelicts, stupid with drink, lounged against the portal as Micky entered. It was quiet enough now. There were no signs of a disturbance. Micky was chagrined. He had hoped to arrive before the trouble, whatever it had been, was over; if not in the thick of it, at least before the participants had dispersed. He could then follow some of the interested parties and secure the details, for he knew his game too well to...