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A Fog in Santone

Short Stories

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

A Bird of Bagdad

A Blackjack Bargainer

A Call Loan

A Chaparral Christmas Gift

A Chaparral Prince

A Comedy in Rubber

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

A Departmental Case

A Dinner at--------*

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

A Fog in Santone

A Harlem Tragedy

A Lickpenny Lover

A Little Local Colour

A Little Talk about Mobs

A Madison Square Arabian Night

A Matter of Mean Elevation

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

A Midsummer Masquerade

A Municipal Report

A Newspaper Story

A Night in New Arabia

A Philistine in Bohemia

A Poor Rule

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Retrieved Reformation

A Ruler of Men

A Sacrifice Hit

A Service of Love

A Snapshot at the President

A Strange Story

A Technical Error

A Tempered Wind

According to Their Lights

After Twenty Years

An Adjustment of Nature

An Afternoon Miracle

An Apology

An Unfinished Christmas Story

An Unfinished Story

Aristocracy Versus Hash

Art and the Bronco

At Arms With Morpheus

Babes in the Jungle

Best-Seller

Between Rounds

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Blind Man's Holiday

Brickdust Row

Buried Treasure

By Courier

Calloway's Code

Caught

Cherchez La Femme

Christmas by Injunction

Compliments of the Season

Confessions of a Humorist

Conscience in Art

Cupid a La Carte

Cupid's Exile Number Two

Dickey

Dougherty's Eye-Opener

Elsie in New York

Extradited from Bohemia

Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled

Friends in San Rosario

From Each According to His Ability

From the Cabby's Seat

Georgia's Ruling

Girl

He Also Serves

Hearts and Crosses

Hearts and Hands

Helping the Other Fellow

Holding Up a Train

Hostages to Momus

Hygeia at the Solito

Innocents of Broadway

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

Law and Order

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Little Speck in Garnered Fruit

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Lost on Dress Parade

Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches

Makes the Whole World Kin

Mammon and the Archer

Man About Town

Masters of Arts

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

Modern Rural Sports

Money Maze

Nemesis and the Candy Man

New York by Camp Fire Light

Next to Reading Matter

No Story

October and June

On Behalf of the Management

One Dollar's Worth

One Thousand Dollars

Out of Nazareth

Past One at Rooney's

Phoebe

Proof of the Pudding

Psyche and the Pskyscraper

Queries and Answers

Roads of Destiny

Roses, Ruses and Romance

Rouge et Noir

Round the Circle

Rus in Urbe

Schools and Schools

Seats of the Haughty

Shearing the Wolf

Ships

Shoes

Sisters of the Golden Circle

Smith

Sociology in Serge and Straw

Sound and Fury

Springtime a La Carte

Squaring the Circle

Strictly Business

Strictly Business

Suite Homes and Their Romance

Telemachus, Friend

The Admiral

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes

The Assessor of Success

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Badge of Policeman O'Roon

The Brief Debut of Tildy

The Buyer From Cactus City

The Caballero's Way

The Cactus

The Caliph and the Cad

The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

The Call of the Tame

The Chair of Philanthromathematics

The Champion of the Weather

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel

The City of Dreadful Night

The Clarion Call

The Coming-Out of Maggie

The Complete Life of John Hopkins

The Cop and the Anthem

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Country of Elusion

The Day Resurgent

The Day We Celebrate

The Defeat of the City

The Detective Detector

The Diamond of Kali

The Discounters of Money

The Dog and the Playlet

The Door of Unrest

The Dream

The Duel

The Duplicity of Hargraves

The Easter of the Soul

The Emancipation of Billy

The Enchanted Kiss

The Enchanted Profile

The Ethics of Pig

The Exact Science of Matrimony

The Ferry of Unfulfilment

The Fifth Wheel

The Flag Paramount

The Fool-Killer

The Foreign Policy of Company 99

The Fourth in Salvador

The Friendly Call

The Furnished Room

The Gift of the Magi

The Girl and the Graft

The Girl and the Habit

The Gold That Glittered

The Greater Coney

The Green Door

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Guilty Party - An East Side Tragedy

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

The Hand that Riles the World

The Handbook of Hymen

The Harbinger

The Head-Hunter

The Hiding of Black Bill

The Higher Abdication

The Higher Pragmatism

The Hypotheses of Failure

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson

The Lady Higher Up

The Last Leaf

The Last of the Troubadours

The Lonesome Road

The Lost Blend

The Lotus And The Bottle

The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

The Making of a New Yorker

The Man Higher Up

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

The Marry Month of May

The Memento

The Missing Chord

The Moment of Victory

The Octopus Marooned

The Passing of Black Eagle

The Pendulum

The Phonograph and the Graft

The Pimienta Pancakes

The Plutonian Fire

The Poet and the Peasant

The Pride of the Cities

The Princess and the Puma

The Prisoner of Zembla

The Proem

The Purple Dress

The Ransom of Mack

The Ransom of Red Chief

The Rathskeller and the Rose

The Red Roses of Tonia

The Reformation of Calliope

The Remnants of the Code

The Renaissance at Charleroi

The Roads We Take

The Robe of Peace

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Rose of Dixie

The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

The Rubber Plant's Story

The Shamrock and the Palm

The Shocks of Doom

The Skylight Room

The Sleuths

The Snow Man

The Social Triangle

The Song and the Sergeant

The Sparrows in Madison Square

The Sphinx Apple

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

The Theory and the Hound

The Thing's the Play

The Third Ingredient

The Trimmed Lamp

The Unknown Quantity

The Unprofitable Servant

The Venturers

The Vitagraphoscope

The Voice of the City

The Whirligig of Life

The World and the Door

Thimble, Thimble

Tictocq

To Him Who Waits

Tobin's Palm

Tommy's Burglar

Tracked to Doom

Transformation of Martin Burney

Transients in Arcadia

Two Recalls

Two Renegades

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Ulysses and the Dogman

Vanity and Some Sables

What You Want

While the Auto Waits

Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

Witches' Loaves







The drug clerk looks sharply at the white face half concealed by the
high-turned overcoat collar.

"I would rather not supply you," he said doubtfully. "I sold you a dozen
morphine tablets less than an hour ago."

The customer smiles wanly. "The fault is in your crooked streets. I
didn't intend to call upon you twice, but I guess I got tangled up.
Excuse me."

He draws his collar higher, and moves out, slowly. He stops under an
electric light at the corner, and juggles absorbedly with three or four
little pasteboard boxes. "Thirty-six," he announces to himself. "More
than plenty." For a gray mist had swept upon Santone that night, an
opaque terror that laid a hand to the throat of each of the city's
guests. It was computed that three thousand invalids were hibernating in
the town. They had come from far and wide, for here, among these
contracted river-sliced streets, the goddess Ozone has elected to
linger.

Purest atmosphere, sir, on earth! You might think from the river winding
through our town that we are malarial, but, no, sir! Repeated
experiments made both by the Government and local experts show that our
air contains nothing deleterious--nothing but ozone, sir, pure ozone.
Litmus paper tests made all along the river show--but you can read it
all in the prospectuses; or the Santonian will recite it for you, word
by word.

We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us. Santone, then,
cannot be blamed for this cold gray fog that came and kissed the lips of
the three thousand, and then delivered them to the cross. That night the
tubercles, whose ravages hope holds in check, multiplied. The writhing
fingers of the pale mist did not go thence bloodless. Many of the wooers
of ozone capitulated with the enemy that night, turning their faces to
the wall in that dumb, isolated apathy that so terrifies their watchers.
On the red stream of Hemorrhagia a few souls drifted away, leaving
behind pathetic heaps, white and chill as the fog itself. Two or three
came to view this atmospheric wraith as the ghost of impossible joys,
sent to whisper to them of the egregious folly it is to inhale breath
into the lungs, only to exhale it again, and these used whatever came
handy to their relief, pistols, gas or the beneficent muriate.

The purchaser of the morphia wanders into the fog, and at length, finds
himself upon a little iron bridge, one of the score or more in the heart
of the city, under which the small tortuous river flows. He leans on the
rail and gasps, for here the mist has concentrated, lying like a
foot-pad to garrote such of the Three Thousand as creep that way. The
iron bridge guys rattle to the strain of his cough, a mocking phthisical
rattle, seeming to say to him: "Clickety-clack! just a little rusty
cold, sir--but not from our river. Litmus paper all along the banks and
nothing but ozone. Clacket-y-clack!"

The Memphis man at last recovers sufficiently to be aware of another
overcoated man ten feet away, leaning on the rail, and just coming out
of a paroxysm. There is a freemasonry among the Three Thousand that does
away with formalities and introductions. A cough is your card; a
hemorrhage a letter of credit. The Memphis man, being nearer recovered,
speaks first.

"Goodall. Memphis--pulmonary tuberculosis--guess last stages." The
Three Thousand economize on words. Words are breath and they need breath
to write checks for the doctors.

"Hurd," gasps the other. "Hurd; of T'leder. T'leder, Ah-hia. Catarrhal
bronkeetis. Name's Dennis, too--doctor says. Says I'll live four weeks
if I--take care of myself. Got your walking papers yet?"

"My doctor," says Goodall of Memphis, a little boastingly, "gives me
three months."

"Oh," remarks the man from Toledo, filling up great gaps in his
conversation with wheezes, "damn the difference. What's months! Expect
to--cut mine down to one week--and die in a hack--a four wheeler, not a
cough. Be considerable moanin' of the bars when I put out to sea. I've
patronized 'em pretty freely since I struck my--present gait. Say,
Goodall of Memphis--if your doctor has set your pegs so close--why
don't you--get on a big spree and go--to the devil quick and easy--like
I'm doing?"

"A spree," says Goodall, as one who entertains a new idea, "I never did
such a thing. I was thinking of another way, but-----"

"Come on," invites the Ohioan, "and have some drinks. I've been at
it--for two days, but the inf--ernal stuff won't bite like it used to.
Goodall of Memphis, what's your respiration?"

"Twenty-four."

"Daily--temperature?"

"Hundred and four."

"You can do it in two days. It'll take me a--week. Tank up, friend
Goodall--have all the fun you can; then--off you go, in the middle of a
jag, and s-s-save trouble and expense. I'm a s-son of a gun if this
ain't a health resort--for your whiskers! A Lake Erie fog'd get lost
here in two minutes."

"You said something about a drink," says Goodall.

A few minutes later they line up at a glittering bar, and hang upon the
arm rest. The bartender, blond, heavy, well-groomed, sets out their
drinks, instantly perceiving that he serves two of the Three Thousand.
He observes that one is a middle-aged man, well-dressed, with a lined
and sunken face; the other a mere boy who is chiefly eyes and overcoat.
Disguising well the tedium begotten by many repetitions, the server of
drinks begins to chant the sanitary saga of Santone. "Rather a moist
night, gentlemen, for our town. A little fog from our river, but nothing
to hurt. Repeated Tests."

"Damn your litmus papers," gasps Toledo--"without any--personal offense
intended."

"We've beard of 'em before. Let 'em turn red, white and blue. What we
want is a repeated test of that--whiskey. Come again. I paid for the
last round, Goodall of Memphis."

The bottle oscillates from one to the other, continues to do so, and is
not removed from the counter. The bartender sees two emaciated invalids
dispose of enough Kentucky Belle to floor a dozen cowboys, without
displaying any emotion save a sad and contemplative interest in the
peregrinations of the bottle. So he is moved to manifest a solicitude as
to the consequences.

"Not on your Uncle Mark Hanna," responds Toledo, "will we get drunk.
We've been--vaccinated with whiskey--and--cod liver oil. What would send
you to the police station--only gives us a thirst. S-s-set out another
bottle."

It is slow work trying to meet death by that route. Some quicker way
must be found. They leave the saloon and plunge again into the mist. The
sidewalks are mere flanges at the base of the houses; the street a cold
ravine, the fog filling it like a freshet. Not far away is the Mexican
quarter. Conducted as if by wires along the heavy air comes a guitar's
tinkle, and the demoralizing voice of some senorita singing:

"En las tardes sombrillos del invierro En el prado a Marar me reclino Y
maldigo mi fausto destino--Una vida la mas infeliz."

The words of it they do not understand--neither Toledo nor Memphis, but
words are the least important things in life. The music tears the
breasts of the seekers after Nepenthe, inciting Toledo to remark:

"Those kids of mine--I wonder--by God, Mr. Goodall of Memphis, we had
too little of that whiskey! No slow music in mine, if you please. It
makes you disremember to forget."

Hurd of Toledo, here pulls out his watch, and says: "I'm a son of a gun!
Got an engagement for a hack ride out to San Pedro Springs at eleven.
Forgot it. A fellow from Noo York, and me, and the Castillo sisters at
Rhinegelder's Garden. That Noo York chap's a lucky dog--got one whole
lung--good for a year yet. Plenty of money, too. He pays for everything.
I can't afford--to miss the jamboree. Sorry you ain't going along.
Good-by, Goodall of Memphis."

He rounds the corner and shuffles away, casting off thus easily the ties
of acquaintanceship as the moribund do, the season of dissolution being
man's supreme hour of egoism and selfishness. But he turns and calls
back through the fog to the other: "I say, Goodall of Memphis! If you
get there before I do, tell 'em Hurd's a-comin' too. Hurd, of T'leder,
Ah-hia."

Thus Goodall's tempter deserts him. That youth, un-complaining and
uncaring, takes a spell at coughing, and, recovered, wanders desultorily
on down the street, the name of which he neither knows nor recks. At a
certain point he perceives swinging doors, and hears, filtering between
them a noise of wind and string instruments. Two men enter from the
street as he arrives, and he follows them in. There is a kind of
ante-chamber, plentifully set with palms and cactuses and oleanders. At
little marble-topped tables some people sit, while soft-shod attendants
bring the beer. All is orderly, clean, melancholy, gay, of the German
method of pleasure. At his right is the foot of a stairway. A man there
holds out his hand. Goodall extends his, full of silver, the man selects
therefrom a coin. Goodall goes upstairs and sees there two galleries
extending along the sides of a concert hall which he now perceives to
lie below and beyond the anteroom he first entered. These galleries are
divided into boxes or stalls, which bestow with the aid of hanging lace
curtains, a certain privacy upon their occupants.

Passing with aimless feet down the aisle contiguous to these saucy and
discreet compartments, he is half checked by the sight in one of them of
a young woman, alone and seated in an attitude of reflection. This young
woman becomes aware of his approach. A smile from her brings him to a
standstill, and her subsequent invitation draws him, though hesitating,
to the other chair in the box, a little table between them.

Goodall is only nineteen. There are some whom, when the terrible god
Phthisis wishes to destroy be first makes beautiful; and the boy is one
of these. His face is wax, and an awful pulchritude is born of the
menacing flame in his cheeks. His eyes reflect an unearthly vista
engendered by the certainty of his doom. As it is forbidden man to guess
accurately concerning his fate, it is inevitable that he shall tremble
at the slightest lifting of the veil.

The young woman is well-dressed, and exhibits a beauty of distinctly
feminine and tender sort; an Eve-like comeliness that scarcely seems
predestined to fade.

It is immaterial, the steps by which the two mount to a certain plane of
good understanding; they are short and few, as befits the occasion.

A button against the wall of the partition is frequently disturbed and a
waiter comes and goes at signal.

Pensive beauty would nothing of wine; two thick plaits of her blond hair
hang almost to the floor; she is a lineal descendant of the Lorelei. So
the waiter brings the brew; effervescent, icy, greenish golden. The
orchestra on the stage is playing "Oh, Rachel." The youngsters have
exchanged a good bit of information. She calls him, "Walter" and he
calls her "Miss Rosa."

Goodall's tongue is loosened and he has told her everything about
himself, about his home in Tennessee, the old pillared mansion under the
oaks, the stables, the hunting; the friends he has; down to the
chickens, and the box bushes bordering the walks. About his coming South
for the climate, hoping to escape the hereditary foe of his family. All
about his three months on a ranch; the deer hunts, the rattlers, and the
rollicking in the cow camps. Then of his advent to Santone, where he had
indirectly learned, from a great specialist that his life's calendar
probably contains but two more leaves. And then of this death-white,
choking night which has come and strangled his fortitude and sent him
out to seek a port amid its depressing billows.

"My weekly letter from home failed to come," he told her, "and I was
pretty blue. I knew I had to go before long and I was tired of waiting.
I went out and bought morphine at every drug store where they would sell
me a few tablets. I got thirty-six quarter grains, and was going back to
my room and take them, but I met a queer fellow on a bridge, who had a
new idea."

Goodall fillips a little pasteboard box upon the table. "I put 'em all
together in there."

Miss Rosa, being a woman, must raise the lid, and gave a slight shiver
at the innocent looking triturates. "Horrid things! but those little,
white bits--they could never kill one!"

Indeed they could. Walter knew better. Nine grains of morphia! Why, half
the amount might.

Miss Rosa demands to know about Mr. Hurd, of Toledo, and is told. She
laughs like a delighted child. "What a funny fellow! But tell me more
about your home and your sisters, Walter. I know enough about Texas and
tarantulas and cowboys."

The theme is dear, just now, to his mood, and he lays before her the
simple details of a true home; the little ties and endearments that so
fill the exile's heart. Of his sisters, one, Alice, furnishes him a
theme he loves to dwell upon.

"She is like you, Miss Rosa," he says. "Maybe not quite so pretty,
but, just as nice, and good, and----"

"There! Walter," says Miss Rosa sharply, "now talk about something
else."

But a shadow falls upon the wall outside, preceding a big, softly
treading man, finely dressed, who pauses a second before the curtains
and then passes on. Presently comes the waiter with a message: "Mr.
Rolfe says--"

"Tell Rolfe I'm engaged."

"I don't know why it is," says Goodall, of Memphis, "but I don't feel as
bad as I did. An hour ago I wanted to die, but since I've met you, Miss
Rosa, I'd like so much to live."

The young woman whirls around the table, lays an arm behind his neck and
kisses him on the cheek.

"You must, dear boy," she says. "I know what was the matter. It was the
miserable foggy weather that has lowered your spirit and mine too--a
little. But look, now."

With a little spring she has drawn back the curtains. A window is in the
wall opposite, and lo! the mist is cleared away. The indulgent moon is
out again, revoyaging the plumbless sky. Roof and parapet and spire are
softly pearl enamelled. Twice, thrice the retrieved river flashes back,
between the houses, the light of the firmament. A tonic day will dawn,
sweet and prosperous.

"Talk of death when the world is so beautiful!" says Miss Rosa, laying
her hand on his shoulder. "Do something to please me, Walter. Go home to
your rest and say: 'I mean to get better,' and do it."

"If you ask it," says the boy, with a smile, "I will."

The waiter brings full glasses. Did they ring? No; but it is well. He
may leave them. A farewell glass. Miss Rosa says: "To your better
health, Walter." He says: "To our next meeting."

His eyes look no longer into the void, but gaze upon the antithesis of
death. His foot is set in an undiscovered country to-night. He is
obedient, ready to go.

"Good night," she says.

"I never kissed a girl before," he confesses, "except my sisters."

"You didn't this time," she laughs, "I kissed you--good night."

"When shall I see you again," he persists.

"You promised me to go home," she frowns, "and get well. Perhaps we
shall meet again soon. Good night."

He hesitates, his hat in hand. She smiles broadly and kisses him once
more upon the forehead. She watches him far down the aisle, then sits
again at the table.

The shadow falls once more against the wall. This time the big, softly
stepping man parts the curtains and looks in. Miss Rosa's eyes meet his
and for half a minute they remain thus, silent, fighting a battle with
that king of weapons. Presently the big man drops the curtains and
passes on.

The orchestra ceases playing suddenly, and an important voice can be
heard loudly talking in one of the boxes farther down the aisle. No
doubt some citizen entertains there some visitor to the town, and Miss
Rosa leans back in her chair and smiles at some of the words she
catches:

"Purest atmosphere--in the world--litmus paper all long--nothing
hurtful--our city--nothing but pure ozone."

The waiter returns for the tray and glasses. As he enters, the girl
crushes a little empty pasteboard box in her hand and throws it in a
corner. She is stirring something in her glass with her hatpin.

"Why, Miss Rosa," says the waiter with the civil familiarity he
uses--"putting salt in your beer this early in the night!"




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