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Nemesis and the Candy Man

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







"We sail at eight in the morning on the Celtic," said
Honoria, plucking a loose thread from her lace
sleeve.

"I heard so," said young Ives, dropping his hat,
and muffing it as he tried to catch it, "and I came
around to wish you a pleasant voyage."

"Of course you heard it," said Honoria, coldly
sweet, "since we have had no opportunity of inform-
ing you ourselves."

Ives looked at her pleadingly, but with little hope.

Outside in the street a high-pitched voice
chanted, not unmusically, a commercial gamut of
"Cand-de-ee-ee-s! Nice, fresh cand-ee-ee-ee-ees!d

"It's our old candy man," said Honoria, leaning
out the window and beckoning. "I want some of his
motto kisses. There's nothing in the Broadway
shops half so good."

The candy man stopped his pushcart in front of
the old Madison Avenue home. He had a holiday
and festival air unusual to street peddlers. His tie
was new and bright red, and a horseshoe pin, almost
life-size, glittered speciously from its folds. His
brown, thin face was crinkled into a semi-foolish
smile. Striped cuffs with dog-head buttons covered
the tan on his wrists.

"I do believe he's going to get married," said
Honoria, pityingly. "I never saw him taken that
way before. And to-day is the first time in months
that he has cried his wares, I am sure."

Ives threw a coin to the sidewalk. The candy man
knows his customers. He filled a paper bag, climbed
the old-fashioned stoop and banded it in.
"I remember -- " said Ives.

"Wait," said Honoria.

She took a small portfolio from the drawer of a
writing desk and from the portfolio a slip of flimsy
paper one-quarter of an inch by two inches in size.

"This," said Honoria, inflexibly, "was wrapped
about the first one we opened."

"It was a year ago," apologized Ives, as he held
out his hand for it,


"As long as skies above are blue

To you, my love, I will be true."


This he read from the slip of flimsy paper.

"We were to have sailed a fortnight ago," said
Honoria, gossipingly. "It has been such a warm
summer. The town is quite deserted. There is no-
where to go. Yet I am told that one or two of the
roof gardens are amusing. The, singing -- and the
dancing -- on one or two seem to have met with ap-
proval."

Ives did not wince. When you are in the ring you
are not surprised when your adversary taps you on
the ribs.

"I followed the candy man that time," said Ives,
irrelevantly, "and gave him five dollars at the corner
of Broadway."

He reached for the paper bag in Honoria's lap,
took out one of the square, wrapped confections and
slowly unrolled it.

Sara Chillingworth's father," said Honoria,
"has given her an automobile."

"Read that," said Ives, handing over the slip that
had been wrapped around the square of candy.


"Life teaches us -- how to live,

Love teaches us -- to forgive."


Honoria's checks turned pink.
"Honoria!" cried Ives, starting up from his chair.

"Miss Clinton," corrected Honoria, rising like
Venus from the head on the surf. "I warned you
not to speak that name again."'

"Honoria," repeated Ives, "you must bear me. I
know I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I must
have it. There is a madness that possesses one some-
times for which his better nature is not responsible.
I throw everything else but you to the winds. I
strike off the chains that have bound me. I re-
nounce the siren that lured me from you. Let the
bought verse of that street peddler plead for me. It
is you only whom I can love. Let your love forgive,
and I swear to you that mine will be true 'as long
as skies above are blue.'

On the west side, between Sixth and Seventh Ave-
nues, an alley cuts the block in the middle. It per-
ishes in a little court in the centre of the block. The
district is theatrical; the inhabitants, the bubbling
froth of half a dozen nations. The atmosphere is
Bohemian, the language polyglot, the locality pre-
carious.

In the court at the rear of the alley lived the candy
man. At seven o'clock be pushed his cart into the
narrow entrance, rested it upon the irregular stone
slats and sat upon one of the handles to cool himself.
There was a great draught of cool wind through the
alley.

There was a window above the spot where be al-
ways stopped his pushcart. In the cool of the after-
noon, Mlle. Adele, drawing card of the Aerial Roof
Garden, sat at the window and took the air. Gen-
erally her ponderous mass of dark auburn hair was
down, that the breeze might have the felicity of aid-
ing Sidonie, the maid, in drying and airing it.
About her shoulders -- the point of her that the pho-
tographers always made the most of -- was loosely
draped a heliotrope scarf. Her arms to the elbow
were bare -- there were no sculptors there to rave
over them -- but even the stolid bricks in the walls
of the alley should not have been so insensate as to
disapprove. While she sat thus Fe1ice, another maid,
anointed and bathed the small feet that twinkled and
so charmed the nightly Aerial audiences.

Gradually Mademoiselle began to notice the candy
man stopping to mop his brow and cool himself be-
neath her window. In the hands of her maids she
was deprived for the time of her vocation -- the
charming and binding to her chariot of man. To
lose time was displeasing to Mademoiselle. Here
was the candy man - no fit game for her darts, truly
-- but of the sex upon which she had been born to
make war.

After casting upon him looks of unseeing coldness
for a dozen times, one afternoon she suddenly thawed
and poured down upon him a smile that put to shame
the sweets upon his cart.

"Candy man," she said, cooingly, while Sidonie
followed her impulsive dive, brushing the heavy
auburn hair, "don't you think I am beautiful?

The candy man laughed harshly, and looked up,
with his thin jaw set, while he wiped his forehead
with a red-and-blue handkerchief

"Yer'd make a dandy magazine cover," he said,
grudgingly. "Beautiful or not is for them that
cares. It's not my line. If yer lookin' for bou-
quets apply elsewhere between nine and twelve. I
think we'll have rain."

Truly, fascinating a candy man is like killing rab-
bits in a deep snow; but the hunter's blood is widely
diffused. Mademoiselle tugged a great coil of
hair from Sidonie's bands and let it fall out the
window.

"Candy man, have you a sweetheart anywhere
with hair as long and soft as that? And with an arm
so round? " She flexed an arm like Galatea's after
the miracle across the window-sill.

The candy man cackled shrilly as he arranged a
stock of butter-scotch that had tumbled down.

"Smoke up!" said he, vulgarly. "Nothin' doin'
in the complimentary line. I'm too wise to be bam-
boozled by a switch of hair and a newly massaged
arm. Oh, I guess you'll make good in the calcium,
all right, with plenty of powder and paint on and the
orchestra playing "Under the Old Apple Tree."
But don't put on your hat and chase downstairs to
fly to the Little Church Around the Corner with me.
I've been up against peroxide and make-up boxes be-
fore. Say, all joking aside -- don't you think we'll
have rain?"

"Candy man," said Mademoiselle softly, with her
lips curving and her chin dimpling, "don't you think
I'm pretty?"

The candy man grinned.
"Savin' money, ain't yer? " said be, "by bein' yer
own press agent. I smoke, but I haven't seen yer
mug on any of the five-cent cigar boxes. It'd take
a new brand of woman to get me goin', anyway. I
know 'em from sidecombs to shoelaces. Gimme a
good day's sales and steak-and-onions at seven and
a pipe and an evenin' paper back there in the court,
and I'll not trouble Lillian Russell herself to wink at
me, if you please."

Mademoiselle pouted.

"Candy man," she said, softly and deeply, "yet
you shall say that I am beautiful. All men say so
and so shall you."

The candy man laughed and pulled out his pipe.

"Well," said be, "I must be goin' in. There is a
story in the evenin' paper that I am readin'. Men
are divin' in the seas for a treasure, and pirates are
watchin' them from behind a reef. And there ain't
a woman on land or water or in the air. Good-
evenin'." And he trundled his pushcart down the
alley and back to the musty court where he lived.

Incredibly to him who has not learned woman,
Mademoiselle sat at the window each day and spread
her nets for the ignominious game. Once she kept a
grand cavalier waiting in her reception chamber for
half an hour while she battered in vain the candy
man's tough philosophy. His rough laugh chafed her
vanity to its core. Daily he sat on his cart in the
breeze of the alley while her hair was being ministered
to, and daily the shafts of her beauty rebounded
from his dull bosom pointless and ineffectual. Un-
worthy pique brightened her eyes. Pride-hurt she
glowed upon him in a way that would have sent her
higher adorers into an egoistic paradise. The candy
man's hard eyes looked upon her with a half-con-
cealed derision that urged her to the use of the sharp-
est arrow in her beauty's quiver.

One afternoon she leaned far over the sill, and she
did not challenge and torment him as usual.

"Candy man," said she, "stand up and look into
my eyes."

He stood up and looked into her eyes, with his
harsh laugh like the sawing of wood. He took out
his pipe, fumbled with it, and put it back into big
pocket with a trembling band.

"That will do," said Mademoiselle, with a slow
smile. "I must go now to my masseuse. Good-
evening."

The next evening at seven the candy man came and
rested his cart under the window. But was it the
candy man? His clothes were a bright new check.
His necktie was a flaming red, adorned by a glit-
tering horseshoe pin, almost life-size. His shoes were
polished; the tan of his cheeks had paled -- his hands
had been washed. The window was empty, and he
waited under it with his nose upward, like a hound
hoping for a bone.

Mademoiselle came, with Sidonie carrying her load
of hair. She looked at the candy man and smiled a
slow smile that faded away into ennui. Instantly she
knew that the game was bagged; and so quickly
she wearied of the chase. She began to talk to
Sidonie.

"Been a fine day," said the candy man, hollowly.
"First time in a month I've felt first-class. Hit it
up down old Madison, hollering out like I useter.
Think it'll rain to-morrow?"

Mademoiselle laid two round arms on the cushion
on the window-sill, and a dimpled chin upon them.

"Candy man," said she, softly, "do you not
love me? "

The candy man stood up and leaned against the
brick wall.

"Lady," said be, chokingly, "I've got $800 saved
up. Did I say you wasn't beautiful? Take it every
bit of it and buy a collar for your dog with it."

A sound as of a hundred silvery bells tinkled in the
room of Mademoiselle. The laughter filled the alley
and trickled back into the court, as strange a thing to
enter there as sunlight itself. Mademoiselle was
amused. Sidonie, a wise echo, added a sepulchral but
faithful contralto. The laughter of the two seemed
at last to penetrate the candy man. He fumbled
with his horseshoe pin. At length Mademoiselle, ex-
hausted, turned her flushed, beautiful face to the win-
dow.

"Candy man," said she, "go away. When I
laugh Sidonie pulls my hair. I can but laugh while
you remain there."

"Here is a note for Mademoiselle," said Fe1ice,
coming to the window in the room.

"There is no justice," said the candy man, lift-
ing the handle of his cart and moving away.

Three yards he moved, and stopped. Loud shriek
after shriek came from the window of Mademoiselle.
Quickly he ran back. He heard a body thumping
upon the floor and a sound as though heels beat alter-
nately upon it.

"What is it?" be called.

Sidonie's severe head came into the window.

"Mademoiselle is overcome by bad news," she said.
"One whom she loved with all her soul has gone --
you may have beard of him -- he is Monsieur Ives.
He sails across the ocean to-morrow. Oh, you men!"




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