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Tobin's Palm

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







Tobin and me, the two of us, went down to Coney one day, for there
was four dollars between us, and Tobin had need of distractions.
For there was Katie Mahorner, his sweetheart, of County Sligo, lost
since she started for America three months before with two hundred
dollars, her own savings, and one hundred dollars from the sale of
Tobin's inherited estate, a fine cottage and pig on the Bog
Shannaugh. And since the letter that Tobin got saying that she had
started to come to him not a bit of news had he heard or seen of
Katie Mahorner. Tobin advertised in the papers, but nothing could be
found of the colleen.

So, to Coney me and Tobin went, thinking that a turn at the chutes
and the smell of the popcorn might raise the heart in his bosom. But
Tobin was a hardheaded man, and the sadness stuck in his skin. He
ground his teeth at the crying balloons; he cursed the moving
pictures; and, though he would drink whenever asked, he scorned Punch
and Judy, and was for licking the tintype men as they came.

So I gets him down a side way on a board walk where the attractions
were some less violent. At a little six by eight stall Tobin halts,
with a more human look in his eye.

"'Tis here," says he, "I will be diverted. I'll have the palm of me
hand investigated by the wonderful palmist of the Nile, and see if
what is to be will be."

Tobin was a believer in signs and the unnatural in nature. He
possessed illegal convictions in his mind along the subjects of black
cats, lucky numbers, and the weather predictions in the papers.

We went into the enchanted chicken coop, which was fixed mysterious
with red cloth and pictures of hands with lines crossing 'em like a
railroad centre. The sign over the door says it is Madame Zozo the
Egyptian Palmist. There was a fat woman inside in a red jumper with
pothooks and beasties embroidered upon it. Tobin gives her ten cents
and extends one of his hands. She lifts Tohin's hand, which is own
brother to the hoof of a drayhorse, and examines it to see whether
'tis a stone in the frog or a cast shoe he has come for.

"Man," says this Madame Zozo, "the line of your fate shows--"

"Tis not me foot at all," says Tobin, interrupting. "Sure, 'tis no
beauty, but ye hold the palm of me hand."

"The line shows," says the Madame, "that ye've not arrived at your
time of life without bad luck. And there's more to come. The mound
of Venus--or is that a stone bruise?--shows that ye've been in love.
There's been trouble in your life on account of your sweetheart."

"'Tis Katie Mahorner she has references with," whispers Tobin to me
in a loud voice to one side.

"I see," says the palmist, "a great deal of sorrow and tribulation
with one whom ye cannot forget. I see the lines of designation point
to the letter K and the letter M in her name."

"Whist!" says Tobin to me, "do ye hear that?"

"Look out," goes on the palmist, "for a dark man and a light woman;
for they'll both bring ye trouble. Ye'll make a voyage upon the
water very soon, and have a financial loss. I see one line that
brings good luck. There's a man coming into your life who will fetch
ye good fortune. Ye'll know him when ye see him by his crooked
nose."

"Is his name set down?" asks Tobin. "'Twill be convenient in the way
of greeting when he backs up to dump off the good luck."

"His name," says the palmist, thoughtful looking, "is not spelled out
by the lines, but they indicate 'tis a long one, and the letter 'o'
should be in it. There's no more to tell. Good-evening. Don't
block up the door."

"'Tis wonderful how she knows," says Tobin as we walk to the pier.

As we squeezed through the gates a nigger man sticks his lighted
segar against Tobin's ear, and there is trouble. Tobin hammers his
neck, and the women squeal, and by presence of mind I drag the little
man out of the way before the police comes. Tobin is always in an
ugly mood when enjoying himself.

On the boat going back, when the man calls "Who wants the good-
looking waiter?" Tobin tried to plead guilty, feeling the desire to
blow the foam off a crock of suds, but when he felt in his pocket he
found himself discharged for lack of evidence. Somebody had
disturbed his change during the commotion. So we sat, dry, upon the
stools, listening to the Dagoes fiddling on deck. If anything, Tobin
was lower in spirits and less congenial with his misfortunes than
when we started.

On a seat against the railing was a young woman dressed suitable for
red automobiles, with hair the colour of an unsmoked meerschaum. In
passing by, Tobin kicks her foot without intentions, and, being
polite to ladies when in drink, he tries to give his hat a twist
while apologising. But he knocks it off, and the wind carries it
overboard.

Tobin came back and sat down, and I began to look out for him, for
the man's adversities were becoming frequent. He was apt, when
pushed so close by hard luck, to kick the best dressed man he could
see, and try to take command of the boat.

Presently Tobin grabs my arm and says, excited: "Jawn," says he, "do
ye know what we're doing? We're taking a voyage upon the water."

"There now," says I; "subdue yeself. The boat'l1 land in ten minutes
more."

"Look," says he, "at the light lady upon the bench. And have ye
forgotten the nigger man that burned me ear? And isn't the money I
had gone--a dollar sixty-five it was?"

I thought he was no more than summing up his catastrophes so as to
get violent with good excuse, as men will do, and I tried to make him
understand such things was trifles.

"Listen," says Tobin. "Ye've no ear for the gift of prophecy or the
miracles of the inspired. What did the palmist lady tell ye out of
me hand? 'Tis coming true before your eyes. 'Look out,' says she,
'for a dark man and a light woman; they'll bring ye trouble.' Have
ye forgot the nigger man, though be got some of it back from me fist?
Can ye show me a lighter woman than the blonde lady that was the
cause of me hat falling in the water? And where's the dollar sixty-
five I had in me vest when we left the shooting gallery?"

The way Tobin put it,it did seem to corroborate the art of
prediction, though it looked to me that these accidents could happen
to any one at Coney without the implication of palmistry.

Tobin got up and walked around on deck, looking close at the
passengers out of his little red eyes. I asked him the
interpretation of his movements. Ye never know what Tobin has in his
mind until he begins to carry it out.

"Ye should know," says he, "I'm working out the salvation promised
by the lines in me palm. I'm looking for the crooked-nose man that's
to bring the good luck. 'Tis all that will save us. Jawn, did ye
ever see a straighter-nosed gang of hellions in the days of your
life?"

'Twas the nine-thirty boat, and we landed and walked up-town through
Twenty-second Street, Tobin being without his hat.

On a street corner, standing under a gas-light and looking over the
elevated road at the moon, was a man. A long man he was, dressed
decent, with a segar between his teeth, and I saw that his nose made
two twists from bridge to end, like the wriggle of a snake. Tobin
saw it at the same time, and I heard him breathe hard like a horse
when you take the saddle off. He went straight up to the man, and
I went with him.

"Good-night to ye," Tobin says to the man. The man takes out his
segar and passes the compliments, sociable.

"Would ye hand us your name," asks Tobin, "and let us look at the
size of it? It may be our duty to become acquainted with ye."

"My name" says the man, polite, "is Friedenhausman--Maximus G.
Friedenhausman."

"'Tis the right length," says Tobin. "Do you spell it with an 'o'
anywhere down the stretch of it?"

"I do not," says the man.

"~Can~ ye spell it with an 'o'?" inquires Tobin, turning anxious.

"If your conscience," says the man with the nose, "is indisposed
toward foreign idioms ye might, to please yourself, smuggle the
letter into the penultimate syllable."

"'Tis well," says Tobin. "Ye're in the presence of Jawn Malone and
Daniel Tobin."

"Tis highly appreciated," says the man, with a bow. "And now since
I cannot conceive that ye would hold a spelling bee upon the street
corner, will ye name some reasonable excuse for being at large?"

"By the two signs," answers Tobin, trying to explain, "which ye
display according to the reading of the Egyptian palmist from the
sole of me hand, ye've been nominated to offset with good luck the
lines of trouble leading to the nigger man and the blonde lady with
her feet crossed in the boat, besides the financial loss of a dollar
sixty-five, all so far fulfilled according to Hoyle."

The man stopped smoking and looked at me.

"Have ye any amendments," he asks, "to offer to that statement, or
are ye one too? I thought by the looks of ye ye might have him in
charge."

"None," says I to him, "except that as one horseshoe resembles
another so are ye the picture of good luck as predicted by the hand
of me friend. If not, then the lines of Danny's hand may have been
crossed, I don't know."

"There's two of ye," says the man with the nose, looking up and down
for the sight of a policeman. "I've enjoyed your company immense.
Good-night."

With that he shoves his segar in his mouth and moves across the
street, stepping fast. But Tobin sticks close to one side of him
and me at the other.

"What!" says he, stopping on the opposite sidewalk and pushing back
his hat; "do ye follow me? I tell ye," he says, very loud, "I'm
proud to have met ye. But it is my desire to be rid of ye. I am off
to me home."

"Do," says Tobin, leaning against his sleeve. "Do be off to your
home. And I will sit at the door of it till ye come out in the
morning. For the dependence is upon ye to obviate the curse of the
nigger man and the blonde lady and the financial loss of the
one-sixty-five."

"'Tis a strange hallucination," says the man, turning to me as a more
reasonable lunatic. "Hadn't ye better get him home?"

"Listen, man," says I to him. "Daniel Tobin is as sensible as he
ever was. Maybe he is a bit deranged on account of having drink
enough to disturb but not enough to settle his wits, but he is no
more than following out the legitimate path of his superstitions and
predicaments, which I will explain to you." With that I relates the
facts about the palmist lady and how the finger of suspicion points
to him as an instrument of good fortune. "Now, understand," I
concludes, "my position in this riot. I am the friend of me friend
Tobin, according to me interpretations. 'Tis easy to be a friend to
the prosperous, for it pays; 'tis not hard to be a friend to the
poor, for ye get puffed up by gratitude and have your picture printed
standing in front of a tenement with a scuttle of coal and an orphan
in each hand. But it strains the art of friendship to be true friend
to a born fool. And that's what I'm doing," says I, "for, in my
opinion, there's no fortune to be read from the palm of me hand that
wasn't printed there with the handle of a pick. And, though ye've
got the crookedest nose in New York City, I misdoubt that all the
fortune-tellers doing business could milk good luck from ye. But the
lines of Danny's hand pointed to ye fair, and I'll assist him to
experiment with ye until he's convinced ye're dry."

After that the man turns, sudden, to laughing. He leans against a
corner and laughs considerable. Then he claps me and Tobin on the
backs of us and takes us by an arm apiece.

"'Tis my mistake," says he. "How could I be expecting anything so
fine and wonderful to be turning the corner upon me? I came near
being found unworthy. Hard by," says he, "is a cafe, snug and
suitable for the entertainment of idiosyncrasies. Let us go there
and have drink while we discuss the unavailability of the
categorical."

So saying, he marched me and Tobin to the back room of a saloon, and
ordered the drinks, and laid the money on the table. He looks at me
and Tobin like brothers of his, and we have the segars.

"Ye must know," says the man of destiny, "that me walk in life is one
that is called the literary. I wander abroad be night seeking
idiosyncrasies in the masses and truth in the heavens above. When ye
came upon me I was in contemplation of the elevated road in
conjunction with the chief luminary of night. The rapid transit is
poetry and art: the moon but a tedious, dry body, moving by rote.
But these are private opinions, for, in the business of literature,
the conditions are reversed. 'Tis me hope to be writing a book to
explain the strange things I have discovered in life."

"Ye will put me in a book," says Tobin, disgusted; "will ye put me
in a book?"

"I will not," says the man, "for the covers will not hold ye. Not
yet. The best I can do is to enjoy ye meself, for the time is not
ripe for destroying the limitations of print. Ye would look
fantastic in type. All alone by meself must I drink this cup of joy.
But, I thank ye, boys; I am truly grateful."

"The talk of ye," says Tobin, blowing through his moustache and
pounding the table with his fist, "is an eyesore to me patience.
There was good luck promised out of the crook of your nose, but ye
bear fruit like the bang of a drum. Ye resemble, with your noise of
books, the wind blowing through a crack. Sure, now, I would be
thinking the palm of me hand lied but for the coming true of the
nigger man and the blonde lady and--"

"Whist!" says the long man; "would ye be led astray by physiognomy?
Me nose will do what it can within bounds. Let us have these glasses
filled again, for 'tis good to keep idiosyncrasies well moistened,
they being subject to deterioration in a dry moral atmosphere."

So, the man of literature makes good, to my notion, for he pays,
cheerful, for everything, the capital of me and Tobin being exhausted
by prediction. But Tobin is sore, and drinks quiet, with the red
showing in his eye.

By and by we moved out, for 'twas eleven o'clock, and stands a bit
upon the sidewalk. And then the man says he must be going home, and
invites me and Tobin to walk that way. We arrives on a side street
two blocks away where there is a stretch of brick houses with high
stoops and iron fences. The man stops at one of them and looks up
at the top windows which he finds dark.

"'Tis me humble dwelling," says he, "and I begin to perceive by the
signs that me wife has retired to slumber. Therefore I will venture
a bit in the way of hospitality. 'Tis me wish that ye enter the
basement room, where we dine, and partake of a reasonable
refreshment. There will be some fine cold fowl and cheese and a
bottle or two of ale. Ye will be welcome to enter and eat, for I am
indebted to ye for diversions."

The appetite and conscience of me and Tobin was congenial to the
proposition, though 'twas sticking hard in Danny's superstitions to
think that a few drinks and a cold lunch should represent the good
fortune promised by the palm of his hand.

"Step down the steps," says the man with the crooked nose, "and I
will enter by the door above and let ye in. I will ask the new girl
we have in the kitchen," says he, "to make ye a pot of coffee to
drink before ye go. 'Tis fine coffee Katie Mahorner makes for a
green girl just landed three months. Step in," says the man, "and
I'll send her down to ye."




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