The World Of Chance. William Dean Howells
Читать онлайн книгу.
other, and the hero could marry the rich girl; and shortly after the heroine could die. An ending like that could be made very powerful; and it would be popular, too.
Ray found himself in a jam of people who had begun suddenly to gather at the comer he was approaching. They were looking across at something on the other corner, and Ray looked too. Trunks and travelling-bags had overflowed from a store in the basement there, and piled themselves on the sidewalk and up the house wall; and against the background they formed stood two figures. One was a decent-looking young man in a Derby hat, and wearing spectacles, which gave him a sort of scholarly air; he remained passive in the grip of another, probably the shopman, who was quite colorless with excitement, and who clung fast to the shoulder of the first, as if his prisoner were making violent efforts to escape. A tall young policeman parted the crowd, and listened a moment to the complaint the shopman made, with many gestures toward his wares. Then he turned to the passive captive, and Ray heard the click of the handcuffs as they snapped on the wrists of this scholarly-looking man; and the policeman took him by the arm and led him away.
The intrusion of such a brutal fact of life into the tragic atmosphere of his reverie made the young poet a little sick, but the young journalist avidly seized upon it The poet would not have dreamed of using such an incident, but the journalist saw how well it would work into the scheme of that first letter he was writing home to the Echo where he treated of the surface contrasts of life in New York as they present themselves to the stranger. A glad astonishment at the profusion of the material for his letters possessed him; at this rate he should have no trouble in writing them; he could make them an indispensable feature; they would be quoted and copied, and he could get a rise out of Hanks Brothers on the price.
He crossed to the next comer, where the shopman was the center of a lessening number of spectators, and found him willing to prolong the interest he had created in the public mind. He said the thief had priced a number of bags in the place below, and on coming up had made a grab at one and tried to get off with it; but he was onto him like lightning. He showed Ray which bag it was, and turned it round and upside down as if with a fresh sense of its moral value. He said he should have to take that bag into court, and he set it aside so that he should not forget it.
"I suppose," said a tall, elderly gentleman, who seemed to have been listening to Ray's dialogue with the shopman, " you wouldn't be willing to sell me that bag? " He spoke slowly with a thick, mellow voice, deep in his throat.
" Money wouldn't buy that bag; no sir," said the shopman; but he seemed uneasy.
" You know," urged the soft-voiced stranger, " you could show some other bag in court that was just like it"
" I couldn't swear to no other bag," said the shopman, daunted, and visibly relenting.
" That is true," said the stranger. " But you could swear that it was exactly like this. Still, I dare say you're quite right, and it's better to produce the corpus delicti, if possible."
He glanced at Ray with a whimsical demand for sympathy; Ray smiled, and they walked off together, leaving the shopman in dubious study of his eventful bag. He was opening it, and scrutinizing the inside.
VII.
The stranger skipped into step with Ray more lightly than would have been expected from one of his years. He wore a soft felt hat over locks of silken silver that were long enough to touch his beautiful white beard. He wore it with an effect of intention, as if he knew it was out of character with the city, but was so much in character with himself that the city must be left to reconcile itself to the incongruity or not, as it chose. For the same reason, apparently, his well-fitting frock-coat was of broadcloth, instead of modern diagonal; a black silk handkerchief tied in an easy knot at his throat strayed from under his beard, which had the same waviness as his hair; he had black trousers, and drab gaiters showing themselves above wide, low shoes. In his hands, which he held behind him, he dangled a stick with an effect of leisure and ease, enhanced somehow by the stoop he made towards the young fellow's lower stature, and by his refusal to lift his voice above a certain pitch, whatever the uproar of the street about them. Ray screamed out his words, but the stranger spoke in what seemed his wonted tone, and left Ray to catch the words as he could.
" I didn't think," he said, after a moment, and with some misgiving, that this stranger who had got into step with him might be some kind of confidence man — "I didn't think that fellow looked like a thief much."
" You are a believer in physiognomy? " asked the stranger, with a' philosophic poise. He had himself a regular face, with gay eyes, and a fine pearly tint; lips that must have been beautiful shaped his branching mustache to a whimsical smile.
" No," said Ray. " I wasn't near enough to see his face. But he looked so decent and quiet, and he behaved with so much dignity. Perhaps it was his spectacles."
" Glasses can do much," said the stranger, " to redeem the human countenance, even when worn as a protest against the presence of one's portrait in the rogues' gallery I don't say you're wrong; I'm only afraid the chances are that you'll never be proved right I should prefer to make a speculative approach to the facts on another plane. As you suggest, he had a sage and dignified appearance; I observed it myself; he had the effect — how shall I express it? — of some sort of studious rustic. Say he was a belated farm youth, working his way through a fresh-water college, who had great latent gifts of peculation, such as might have won him a wide newspaper celebrity as a defaulter later in life, and under more favorable conditions. He finds himself alone in a great city for the first time, and is attracted by the display of the trunk-dealer's cellarway. The opportunity seems favorable to the acquisition of a neat travelling-bag; perhaps he has never owned one, or he wishes to present it to the object of his affections, or to a sick mother; he may have had any respectable motive: but his outlook has been so restricted that he cannot realize the difference between stealing a travelling-bag and stealing, say, a street; though I believe Mr. Sharp only bought Broadway of those who did not own it, and who sold it low; but never mind, it may stand for an illustration. If this young man had stolen a street, he would not have been arrested and handcuffed in that disgraceful way and led off to the dungeon-keep of the Jefferson Market Police Court — I presume that is the nearest prison, though I won't be quite positive — but he would have had to be attacked and exposed a long time in the newspapers; and he would have had counsel, and the case would have been fought from one tribunal to another, till at last he wouldn't have known whether he was a common criminal or a public benefactor. The difficulty in his case is simply an inadequate outlook."
The philosophic stranger lifted his face and gazed round over Ray's head, but he came to a halt at the same time with the young fellow. "Well, sir," he said, with bland ceremony, "I must bid you good morning. As we go our several ways let us remember the day's lesson, and when we steal, always steal enough."
He held out his hand, and Ray took it with a pleasure in his discourse which he was wondering how he should express to him. He felt it due himself to say something clever in return, but he could not think of anything. " I'm sure I shall remember your interpretation of it," was all he could get out.
" Ah, well, don't act upon that without due reflection," the stranger said; and he gave Ray's hand a final and impressive downward shake. " Dear me! " he added, for Ray made no sign of going on. " Are we both stopping here — two spiders at the parlor of the same unsuspecting fly? But perhaps you are merely a buyer, not a writer, of books? After you, sir!"
The stranger promoted a little polite rivalry that ensued between them; he ended it by passing one hand through the young man's arm, and with the other pressing open the door which they had both halted at, and which bore on either jamb a rounded metallic plate with the sign, "H. C. Chapley & Co., Publishers." Within, he released Ray with a courteous bow, as if willing to leave him now to his own devices. He went off to a distant counter in the wide, low room, and occupied himself with the books on it; Ray advanced and spoke to a clerk, who met him half-way. He asked for Mr. Chapley, and the clerk said he was not down yet — he seldom got down so early; but Mr. Brandreth would be in almost any minute now. When Ray said he had a letter for the firm,