home | authors | books | about

Home -> O. Henry -> Past One at Rooney's

Past One at Rooney's

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







Only on the lower East Side of New York do the houses of Capulet and
Montagu survive. There they do not fight by the book of arithmetic. If
you but bite your thumb at an upholder of your opposing house you have
work cut out for your steel. On Broadway you may drag your man along a
dozen blocks by his nose, and he will only bawl for the watch; but in
the domain of the East Side Tybalts and Mercutios you must observe the
niceties of deportment to the wink of any eyelash and to an inch of
elbow room at the bar when its patrons include foes of your house and
kin.

So, when Eddie McManus, known to the Capulets as Cork McManus, drifted
into Dutch Mike's for a stein of beer, and came upon a bunch of
Montagus making merry with the suds, he began to observe the strictest
parliamentary rules. Courtesy forbade his leaving the saloon with his
thirst unslaked; caution steered him to a place at the bar where the
mirror supplied the cognizance of the enemy's movements that his
indifferent gaze seemed to disdain; experience whispered to him that the
finger of trouble would be busy among the chattering steins at Dutch
Mike's that night. Close by his side drew Brick Cleary, his Mercutio,
companion of his perambulations. Thus they stood, four of the Mulberry
Hill Gang and two of the Dry Dock Gang, minding their P's and Q's so
solicitously that Dutch Mike kept one eye on his customers and the other
on an open space beneath his bar in which it was his custom to seek
safety whenever the ominous politeness of the rival associations
congealed into the shapes of bullets and cold steel.

But we have not to do with the wars of the Mulberry Hills and the Dry
Docks. We must to Rooney's, where, on the most blighted dead branch of
the tree of life, a little pale orchid shall bloom.

Overstrained etiquette at last gave way. It is not known who first
overstepped the bounds of punctilio; but the consequences were
immediate. Buck Malone, of the Mulberry Hills, with a Dewey-like
swiftness, got an eight-inch gun swung round from his hurricane deck.
But McManus's simile must be the torpedo. He glided in under the guns
and slipped a scant three inches of knife blade between the ribs of the
Mulberry Hill cruiser. Meanwhile Brick Cleary, a devotee to strategy,
had skimmed across the lunch counter and thrown the switch of the
electrics, leaving the combat to be waged by the light of gunfire alone.
Dutch Mike crawled from his haven and ran into the street crying for the
watch instead of for a Shakespeare to immortalize the Cimmerian shindy.

The cop came, and found a prostrate, bleeding Montagu supported by three
distrait and reticent followers of the House. Faithful to the ethics of
the gangs, no one knew whence the hurt came. There was no Capulet to be
seen.

"Raus mit der interrogatories," said Buck Malone to the officer. "Sure I
know who done it. I always manages to get a bird's eye view of any guy
that comes up an' makes a show case for a hardware store out of me. No.
I'm not telling you his name. I'll settle with um meself. Wow--ouch!
Easy, boys! Yes, I'll attend to his case meself. I'm not making any
complaint."

At midnight McManus strolled around a pile of lumber near an East Side
dock, and lingered in the vicinity of a certain water plug. Brick Cleary
drifted casually to the trysting place ten minutes later. "He'll maybe
not croak," said Brick; "and he won't tell, of course. But Dutch Mike
did. He told the police he was tired of having his place shot up. It's
unhandy just now, because Tim Corrigan's in Europe for a week's end with
Kings. He'll be back on the _Kaiser Williams_ next Friday. You'll have
to duck out of sight till then. Tim'll fix it up all right for us when
he comes back."

This goes to explain why Cork McManus went into Rooney's one night and
there looked upon the bright, stranger face of Romance for the first
time in his precarious career.

Until Tim Corrigan should return from his jaunt among Kings and Princes
and hold up his big white finger in private offices, it was unsafe for
Cork in any of the old haunts of his gang. So he lay, perdu, in the high
rear room of a Capulet, reading pink sporting sheets and cursing the
slow paddle wheels of the _Kaiser Wilhelm_.

It was on Thursday evening that Cork's seclusion became intolerable to
him. Never a hart panted for water fountain as he did for the cool touch
of a drifting stein, for the firm security of a foot-rail in the hollow
of his shoe and the quiet, hearty challenges of friendship and repartee
along and across the shining bars. But he must avoid the district where
he was known. The cops were looking for him everywhere, for news was
scarce, and the newspapers were harping again on the failure of the
police to suppress the gangs. If they got him before Corrigan came back,
the big white finger could not be uplifted; it would be too late then.
But Corrigan would be home the next day, so he felt sure there would be
small danger in a little excursion that night among the crass pleasures
that represented life to him.

At half-past twelve McManus stood in a darkish cross-town street looking
up at the name "Rooney's," picked out by incandescent lights against
a signboard over a second-story window. He had heard of the place
as a tough "hang-out"; with its frequenters and its locality he was
unfamiliar. Guided by certain unerring indications common to all such
resorts, he ascended the stairs and entered the large room over the
café.

Here were some twenty or thirty tables, at this time about half-filled
with Rooney's guests. Waiters served drinks. At one end a human
pianola with drugged eyes hammered the keys with automatic and furious
unprecision. At merciful intervals a waiter would roar or squeak a
song--songs full of "Mr. Johnsons" and "babes" and "coons"--historical
word guaranties of the genuineness of African melodies composed by red
waistcoated young gentlemen, natives of the cotton fields and rice
swamps of West Twenty-eighth Street.

For one brief moment you must admire Rooney with me as he receives,
seats, manipulates, and chaffs his guests. He is twenty-nine. He
has Wellington's nose, Dante's chin, the cheek-bones of an Iroquois,
the smile of Talleyrand, Corbett's foot work, and the poise of an
eleven-year-old East Side Central Park Queen of the May. He is assisted
by a lieutenant known as Frank, a pudgy, easy chap, swell-dressed, who
goes among the tables seeing that dull care does not intrude. Now,
what is there about Rooney's to inspire all this pother? It is more
respectable by daylight; stout ladies with children and mittens and
bundles and unpedigreed dogs drop up of afternoons for a stein and a
chat. Even by gaslight the diversions are melancholy i' the mouth--drink
and rag-time, and an occasional surprise when the waiter swabs the suds
from under your sticky glass. There is an answer. Transmigration! The
soul of Sir Walter Raleigh has traveled from beneath his slashed doublet
to a kindred home under Rooney's visible plaid waistcoat. Rooney's is
twenty years ahead of the times. Rooney has removed the embargo. Rooney
has spread his cloak upon the soggy crossing of public opinion, and any
Elizabeth who treads upon it is as much a queen as another. Attend to
the revelation of the secret. In Rooney's ladies may smoke!

McManus sat down at a vacant table. He paid for the glass of beer
that he ordered, tilted his narrow-brimmed derby to the back of his
brick-dust head, twined his feet among the rungs of his chair, and
heaved a sigh of contentment from the breathing spaces of his innermost
soul; for this mud honey was clarified sweetness to his taste. The sham
gaiety, the hectic glow of counterfeit hospitality, the self-conscious,
joyless laughter, the wine-born warmth, the loud music retrieving the
hour from frequent whiles of awful and corroding silence, the presence
of well-clothed and frank-eyed beneficiaries of Rooney's removal of the
restrictions laid upon the weed, the familiar blended odors of soaked
lemon peel, flat beer, and _peau d'Espagne_--all these were manna to
Cork McManus, hungry for his week in the desert of the Capulet's high
rear room.

A girl, alone, entered Rooney's, glanced around with leisurely
swiftness, and sat opposite McManus at his table. Her eyes rested upon
him for two seconds in the look with which woman reconnoitres all men
whom she for the first time confronts. In that space of time she will
decide upon one of two things--either to scream for the police, or that
she may marry him later on.

Her brief inspection concluded, the girl laid on the table a worn red
morocco shopping bag with the inevitable top-gallant sail of frayed lace
handkerchief flying from a corner of it. After she had ordered a small
beer from the immediate waiter she took from her bag a box of cigarettes
and lighted one with slightly exaggerated ease of manner. Then she
looked again in the eyes of Cork McManus and smiled.

Instantly the doom of each was sealed.

The unqualified desire of a man to buy clothes and build fires for a
woman for a whole lifetime at first sight of her is not uncommon among
that humble portion of humanity that does not care for Bradstreet or
coats-of-arms or Shaw's plays. Love at first sight has occurred a time
or two in high life; but, as a rule, the extempore mania is to be found
among unsophisticated creatures such as the dove, the blue-tailed
dingbat, and the ten-dollar-a-week clerk. Poets, subscribers to all
fiction magazines, and schatchens, take notice.

With the exchange of the mysterious magnetic current came to each of
them the instant desire to lie, pretend, dazzle and deceive, which is
the worst thing about the hypocritical disorder known as love.

"Have another beer?" suggested Cork. In his circle the phrase was
considered to be a card, accompanied by a letter of introduction and
references.

"No, thanks," said the girl, raising her eyebrows and choosing her
conventional words carefully. "I--merely dropped in for--a slight
refreshment." The cigarette between her fingers seemed to require
explanation. "My aunt is a Russian lady," she concluded, "and we often
have a post perannual cigarette after dinner at home."

"Cheese it!" said Cork, whom society airs oppressed. "Your fingers are
as yellow as mine."

"Say," said the girl, blazing upon him with low-voiced indignation,
"what do you think I am? Say, who do you think you are talking to?
What?"

She was pretty to look at. Her eyes were big, brown, intrepid and
bright. Under her flat sailor hat, planted jauntily on one side, her
crinkly, tawny hair parted and was drawn back, low and massy, in a
thick, pendant knot behind. The roundness of girlhood still lingered in
her chin and neck, but her cheeks and fingers were thinning slightly.
She looked upon the world with defiance, suspicion, and sullen wonder.
Her smart, short tan coat was soiled and expensive. Two inches below her
black dress dropped the lowest flounce of a heliotrope silk underskirt.

"Beg your pardon," said Cork, looking at her admiringly. "I didn't mean
anything. Sure, it's no harm to smoke, Maudy."

"Rooney's," said the girl, softened at once by his amends, "is the only
place I know where a lady can smoke. Maybe it ain't a nice habit, but
aunty lets us at home. And my name ain't Maudy, if you please; it's Ruby
Delamere."

"That's a swell handle," said Cork approvingly. "Mine's
McManus--Cor--er--Eddie McManus."

"Oh, you can't help that," laughed Ruby. "Don't apologize."

Cork looked seriously at the big clock on Rooney's wall. The girl's
ubiquitous eyes took in the movement.

"I know it's late," she said, reaching for her bag; "but you know how
you want a smoke when you want one. Ain't Rooney's all right? I never
saw anything wrong here. This is twice I've been in. I work in a
bookbindery on Third Avenue. A lot of us girls have been working
overtime three nights a week. They won't let you smoke there, of course.
I just dropped in here on my way home for a puff. Ain't it all right in
here? If it ain't, I won't come any more."

"It's a little bit late for you to be out alone anywhere," said Cork.
"I'm not wise to this particular joint; but anyhow you don't want to
have your picture taken in it for a present to your Sunday School
teacher. Have one more beer, and then say I take you home."

"But I don't know you," said the girl, with fine scrupulosity. "I don't
accept the company of gentlemen I ain't acquainted with. My aunt never
would allow that."

"Why," said Cork McManus, pulling his ear, "I'm the latest thing in
suitings with side vents and bell skirt when it comes to escortin' a
lady. You bet you'll find me all right, Ruby. And I'll give you a tip as
to who I am. My governor is one of the hottest cross-buns of the Wall
Street push. Morgan's cab horse casts a shoe every time the old man
sticks his head out the window. Me! Well, I'm in trainin' down the
Street. The old man's goin' to put a seat on the Stock Exchange in my
stockin' my next birthday. But it all sounds like a lemon to me. What I
like is golf and yachtin' and--er--well, say a corkin' fast ten-round
bout between welter-weights with walkin' gloves."

"I guess you can walk to the door with me," said the girl hesitatingly,
but with a certain pleased flutter. "Still I never heard anything extra
good about Wall Street brokers, or sports who go to prize fights,
either. Ain't you got any other recommendations?"

"I think you're the swellest looker I've had my lamps on in little old
New York," said Cork impressively.

"That'll be about enough of that, now. Ain't you the kidder!" She
modified her chiding words by a deep, long, beaming, smile-embellished
look at her cavalier. "We'll drink our beer before we go, ha?"

A waiter sang. The tobacco smoke grew denser, drifting and rising in
spirals, waves, tilted layers, cumulus clouds, cataracts and suspended
fogs like some fifth element created from the ribs of the ancient four.
Laughter and chat grew louder, stimulated by Rooney's liquids and
Rooney's gallant hospitality to Lady Nicotine.

One o'clock struck. Down-stairs there was a sound of closing and
locking doors. Frank pulled down the green shades of the front windows
carefully. Rooney went below in the dark hall and stood at the front
door, his cigarette cached in the hollow of his hand. Thenceforth
whoever might seek admittance must present a countenance familiar to
Rooney's hawk's eye--the countenance of a true sport.

Cork McManus and the bookbindery girl conversed absorbedly, with their
elbows on the table. Their glasses of beer were pushed to one side,
scarcely touched, with the foam on them sunken to a thin white scum.
Since the stroke of one the stale pleasures of Rooney's had become
renovated and spiced; not by any addition to the list of distractions,
but because from that moment the sweets became stolen ones. The flattest
glass of beer acquired the tang of illegality; the mildest claret punch
struck a knockout blow at law and order; the harmless and genial company
became outlaws, defying authority and rule. For after the stroke of one
in such places as Rooney's, where neither bed nor board is to be had,
drink may not be set before the thirsty of the city of the four million.
It is the law.

"Say," said Cork McManus, almost covering the table with his eloquent
chest and elbows, "was that dead straight about you workin' in the
bookbindery and livin' at home--and just happenin' in here--and--and
all that spiel you gave me?"

"Sure it was," answered the girl with spirit. "Why, what do you think?
Do you suppose I'd lie to you? Go down to the shop and ask 'em. I handed
it to you on the level."

"On the dead level?" said Cork. "That's the way I want it; because--"

"Because what?"

"I throw up my hands," said Cork. "You've got me goin'. You're the girl
I've been lookin' for. Will you keep company with me, Ruby?"

"Would you like me to--Eddie?"

"Surest thing. But I wanted a straight story about--about yourself, you
know. When a fellow had a girl--a steady girl--she's got to be all
right, you know. She's got to be straight goods."

"You'll find I'll be straight goods, Eddie."

"Of course you will. I believe what you told me. But you can't blame me
for wantin' to find out. You don't see many girls smokin' cigarettes in
places like Rooney's after midnight that are like you."

The girl flushed a little and lowered her eyes. "I see that now," she
said meekly. "I didn't know how bad it looked. But I won't do it any
more. And I'll go straight home every night and stay there. And I'll
give up cigarettes if you say so, Eddie--I'll cut 'em out from this
minute on."

Cork's air became judicial, proprietary, condemnatory, yet sympathetic.
"A lady can smoke," he decided, slowly, "at times and places. Why?
Because it's bein' a lady that helps her pull it off."

"I'm going to quit. There's nothing to it," said the girl. She flicked
the stub of her cigarette to the floor.

"At times and places," repeated Cork. "When I call round for you of
evenin's we'll hunt out a dark bench in Stuyvesant Square and have a
puff or two. But no more Rooney's at one o'clock--see?"

"Eddie, do you really like me?" The girl searched his hard but frank
features eagerly with anxious eyes.

"On the dead level."

"When are you coming to see me--where I live?"

"Thursday--day after to-morrow evenin'. That suit you?"

"Fine. I'll be ready for you. Come about seven. Walk to the door with me
to-night and I'll show you where I live. Don't forget, now. And don't
you go to see any other girls before then, mister! I bet you will,
though."

"On the dead level," said Cork, "you make 'em all look like rag-dolls to
me. Honest, you do. I know when I'm suited. On the dead level, I do."

Against the front door down-stairs repeated heavy blows were delivered.
The loud crashes resounded in the room above. Only a trip-hammer or a
policeman's foot could have been the author of those sounds. Rooney
jumped like a bullfrog to a corner of the room, turned off the electric
lights and hurried swiftly below. The room was left utterly dark except
for the winking red glow of cigars and cigarettes. A second volley of
crashes came up from the assaulted door. A little, rustling, murmuring
panic moved among the besieged guests. Frank, cool, smooth, reassuring,
could be seen in the rosy glow of the burning tobacco, going from table
to table.

"All keep still!" was his caution. "Don't talk or make any noise!
Everything will be all right. Now, don't feel the slightest alarm. We'll
take care of you all."

Ruby felt across the table until Cork's firm hand closed upon hers. "Are
you afraid, Eddie?" she whispered. "Are you afraid you'll get a free
ride?"

"Nothin' doin' in the teeth-chatterin' line," said Cork. "I guess
Rooney's been slow with his envelope. Don't you worry, girly; I'll look
out for you all right."

Yet Mr. McManus's ease was only skin- and muscle-deep. With the police
looking everywhere for Buck Malone's assailant, and with Corrigan still
on the ocean wave, he felt that to be caught in a police raid would mean
an ended career for him. He wished he had remained in the high rear room
of the true Capulet reading the pink extras.

Rooney seemed to have opened the front door below and engaged the police
in conference in the dark hall. The wordless low growl of their voices
came up the stairway. Frank made a wireless news station of himself at
the upper door. Suddenly he closed the door, hurried to the extreme rear
of the room and lighted a dim gas jet.

"This way, everybody!" he called sharply. "In a hurry; but no noise,
please!"

The guests crowded in confusion to the rear. Rooney's lieutenant swung
open a panel in the wall, overlooking the back yard, revealing a ladder
already placed for the escape.

"Down and out, everybody!" he commanded. "Ladies first! Less talking,
please! Don't crowd! There's no danger."

Among the last, Cork and Ruby waited their turn at the open panel.
Suddenly she swept him aside and clung to his arm fiercely.

"Before we go out," she whispered in his ear--"before anything happens,
tell me again, Eddie, do you l--do you really like me?"

"On the dead level," said Cork, holding her close with one arm, "when it
comes to you, I'm all in."

When they turned they found they were lost and in darkness. The last
of the fleeing customers had descended. Half way across the yard they
bore the ladder, stumbling, giggling, hurrying to place it against an
adjoining low building over the roof of which their only route to
safety.

"We may as well sit down," said Cork grimly. "Maybe Rooney will stand
the cops off, anyhow."

They sat at a table; and their hands came together again.

A number of men then entered the dark room, feeling their way about. One
of them, Rooney himself, found the switch and turned on the electric
light. The other man was a cop of the old régime--a big cop, a thick
cop, a fuming, abrupt cop--not a pretty cop. He went up to the pair at
the table and sneered familiarly at the girl.

"What are youse doin' in here?" he asked.

"Dropped in for a smoke," said Cork mildly.

"Had any drinks?"

"Not later than one o'clock."

"Get out--quick!" ordered the cop. Then, "Sit down!" he countermanded.

He took off Cork's hat roughly and scrutinized him shrewdly. "Your
name's McManus."

"Bad guess," said Cork. "It's Peterson."

"Cork McManus, or something like that," said the cop. "You put a knife
into a man in Dutch Mike's saloon a week ago."

"Aw, forget it!" said Cork, who perceived a shade of doubt in the
officer's tones. "You've got my mug mixed with somebody else's."

"Have I? Well, you'll come to the station with me, anyhow, and be looked
over. The description fits you all right." The cop twisted his fingers
under Cork's collar. "Come on!" he ordered roughly.

Cork glanced at Ruby. She was pale, and her thin nostrils quivered.
Her quick eye danced from one man's face to the other as they spoke or
moved. What hard luck! Cork was thinking--Corrigan on the briny; and
Ruby met and lost almost within an hour! Somebody at the police station
would recognize him, without a doubt. Hard luck!

But suddenly the girl sprang up and hurled herself with both arms
extended against the cop. His hold on Cork's collar was loosened and he
stumbled back two or three paces.

"Don't go so fast, Maguire!" she cried in shrill fury. "Keep your hands
off my man! You know me, and you know I'm givin' you good advice. Don't
you touch him again! He's not the guy you are lookin' for--I'll stand
for that."

"See here, Fanny," said the Cop, red and angry, "I'll take you, too, if
you don't look out! How do you know this ain't the man I want? What are
you doing in here with him?"

"How do I know?" said the girl, flaming red and white by turns. "Because
I've known him a year. He's mine. Oughtn't I to know? And what am I
doin' here with him? That's easy."

She stooped low and reached down somewhere into a swirl of flirted
draperies, heliotrope and black. An elastic snapped, she threw on the
table toward Cork a folded wad of bills. The money slowly straightened
itself with little leisurely jerks.

"Take that, Jimmy, and let's go," said the girl. "I'm declarin' the
usual dividends, Maguire," she said to the officer. "You had your usual
five-dollar graft at the usual corner at ten."

"A lie!" said the cop, turning purple. "You go on my beat again and I'll
arrest you every time I see you."

"No, you won't," said the girl. "And I'll tell you why. Witnesses saw me
give you the money to-night, and last week, too. I've been getting fixed
for you."

Cork put the wad of money carefully into his pocket, and said: "Come on,
Fanny; let's have some chop suey before we go home."

"Clear out, quick, both of you, or I'll--"

The cop's bluster trailed away into inconsequentiality.

At the corner of the street the two halted. Cork handed back the
money without a word. The girl took it and slipped it slowly into her
hand-bag. Her expression was the same she had worn when she entered
Rooney's that night--she looked upon the world with defiance, suspicion
and sullen wonder.

"I guess I might as well say good-bye here," she said dully. "You won't
want to see me again, of course. Will you--shake hands--Mr. McManus."

"I mightn't have got wise if you hadn't give the snap away," said Cork.
"Why did you do it?"

"You'd have been pinched if I hadn't. That's why. Ain't that reason
enough?" Then she began to cry. "Honest, Eddie, I was goin' to be the
best girl in the world. I hated to be what I am; I hated men; I was
ready almost to die when I saw you. And you seemed different from
everybody else. And when I found you liked me, too, why, I thought I'd
make you believe I was good, and I was goin' to be good. When you asked
to come to my house and see me, why, I'd have died rather than do
anything wrong after that. But what's the use of talking about it? I'll
say good-by, if you will, Mr. McManus."

Cork was pulling at his ear. "I knifed Malone," said he. "I was the one
the cop wanted."

"Oh, that's all right," said the girl listlessly. "It didn't make any
difference about that."

"That was all hot air about Wall Street. I don't do nothin' but hang out
with a tough gang on the East Side."

"That was all right, too," repeated the girl. "It didn't make any
difference."

Cork straightened himself, and pulled his hat down low. "I could get a
job at O'Brien's," he said aloud, but to himself.

"Good-by," said the girl.

"Come on," said Cork, taking her arm. "I know a place."

Two blocks away he turned with her up the steps of a red brick house
facing a little park.

"What house is this?" she asked, drawing back. "Why are you going in
there?"

A street lamp shone brightly in front. There was a brass nameplate at
one side of the closed front doors. Cork drew her firmly up the steps.
"Read that," said he.

She looked at the name on the plate, and gave a cry between a moan and a
scream. "No, no, no, Eddie! Oh, my God, no! I won't let you do that--not
now! Let me go! You shan't do that! You can't--you mus'n't! Not after
you know! No, no! Come away quick! Oh, my God! Please, Eddie, come!"

Half fainting, she reeled, and was caught in the bend of his arm. Cork's
right hand felt for the electric button and pressed it long.

Another cop--how quickly they scent trouble when trouble is on the
wing!--came along, saw them, and ran up the steps. "Here! What are you
doing with that girl?" he called gruffly.

"She'll be all right in a minute," said Cork. "It's a straight deal."

"Reverend Jeremiah Jones," read the cop from the door-plate with true
detective cunning.

"Correct," said Cork. "On the dead level, we're goin' to get married."




© Art Branch Inc. | English Dictionary