mrs. brashear's rooming-house on grove street wore its air of respectability like a garment, clean and somber, in an environment of careful behavior. greenwich village, not having fully awakened to the commercial advantages of being a _locale_, had not yet stretched between itself and the rest of new york that gauzy and iridescent curtain of sprightly impropriety and sparkling intellectual naughtiness, since faded to a lather tawdry pattern. an early pioneer of the villager type, emancipated of thought and speech, chancing upon no. 11 grove, would have despised it for its lack of atmosphere and its patent conservatism. it did not go out into the highways and byways, seeking prospective lodgers. it folded its hands and waited placidly for them to come. when they came, it pondered them with care, catechized them tactfully, and either rejected them with courteous finality or admitted them on probation. had it been given to self-exploitation, it could have boasted that never had it harbored a bug or a scandal within its doors.
now, on this filmy-soft april day it was nonplussed. a type new to its experience was applying for a room, and mrs. brashear, who was not only the proprietress, but, as it were, the familiar spirit and incarnation of the institution, sat peering near-sightedly and in some perturbation of soul at the phenomenon. he was young, which was against him, and of a winning directness of manner, which was in his favor, and extremely good to look at, which was potential of complications, and encased in clothing of an uncompromising cut and neutral pattern (to wit; no. 45 t 370, "an ideal style for a young business man of affairs; neat, impressive and dignified"), which was reassuring.
"my name is banneker," he had said, immediately the door was opened to him. "can i get a room here?"
"there is a room vacant," admitted the spirit of the house unwillingly.
"i'd like to see it."
as he spoke, he was mounting the stairs; she must, perforce, follow. on the third floor she passed him and led the way to a small, morosely papered front room, almost glaringly clean.
"all right, if i can have a work-table in it and if it isn't too much," he said, after one comprehensive glance around.
"the price is five dollars a week."
had banneker but known it, this was rather high. the brashear rooming-house charged for its cleanliness, physical and moral. "can i move in at once?" he inquired.
"i don't know you nor anything about you, mr. banneker," she replied, but not until they had descended the stairs and were in the cool, dim parlor. at the moment of speaking, she raised a shade, as if to help in the determination.
"is that necessary? they didn't ask me when i registered at the hotel."
mrs. brashear stared, then smiled. "a hotel is different. where are you stopping?"
"at the st. denis."
"a very nice place. who directed you here?"
"no one. i strolled around until i found a street i liked, and looked around until i found a house i liked. the card in the window--"
"of course. well, mr. banneker, for the protection of the house i must have references."
"references? you mean letters from people?"
"not necessarily. just a name or two from whom i can make inquiries. you have friends, i suppose."
"no."
"your family--"
"i haven't any."
"then the people in the place where you work. what is your business, by the way?"
"i expect to go on a newspaper."
"expect?" mrs. brashear stiffened in defense of the institution. "you have no place yet?"
he answered not her question, but her doubt. "as far as that is concerned, i'll pay in advance."
"it isn't the financial consideration," she began loftily--"alone," she added more honestly. "but to take in a total stranger--"
banneker leaned forward to her. "see here, mrs. brashear; there's nothing wrong about me. i don't get drunk. i don't smoke in bed. i'm decent of habit and i'm clean. i've got money enough to carry me. couldn't you take me on my say-so? look me over."
though it was delivered with entire gravity, the speech provoked a tired and struggling smile on the landlady's plain features. she looked.
"well?" he queried pleasantly. "what do you think? will you take a chance?"
that suppressed motherliness which, embodying the unformulated desire to look after and care for others, turns so many widows to taking lodgers, found voice in mrs. brashear's reply:
"you've had a spell of sickness, haven't you?"
"no," he said, a little sharply. "where did you get that idea?"
"your eyes look hot."
"i haven't been sleeping very well. that's all."
"too bad. you've had a loss, maybe," she ventured sympathetically.
"a loss? no.... yes. you might call it a loss. you'll take me, then?"
"you can move in right away," said mrs. brashear recklessly.
so the brashear rooming-house took into its carefully guarded interior the young and unknown mr. banneker--who had not been sleeping well. nor did he seem to be sleeping well in his new quarters, since his light was to be seen glowing out upon the quiet street until long after midnight; yet he was usually up betimes, often even before the moving spirit of the house, herself. a full week had he been there before his fellow lodgers, self-constituted into a committee on membership, took his case under consideration in full session upon the front steps. none had had speech with him, but it was known that he kept irregular hours.
"what's his job: that's what i'd like to know," demanded in a tone of challenge, young wickert, a man of the world who clerked in the decorative department of a near-by emporium.
"newsboy, i guess," said lambert, the belated art-student of thirty-odd with a grin. "he's always got his arms full of papers when he comes in."
"and he sits at his table clipping pieces out of them and arranging them in piles," volunteered little mrs. bolles, the trained nurse on the top floor. "i've seen him as i go past."
"help-wanted ads," suggested wickert, who had suffered experience in that will-o'-the-wisp chase.
"then he hasn't got a job," deduced mr. hainer, a heavy man of heavy voice and heavy manner, middle-aged, a small-salaried accountant.
"maybe he's got money," suggested lambert.
"or maybe he's a dead beat; he looks on the queer," opined young wickert.
"he has a very fine and sensitive face. i think he has been ill." the opinion came from a thin, quietly dressed woman of the early worn-out period of life, who sat a little apart from the others. young wickert started a sniff, but suppressed it, for miss westlake was held locally in some degree of respect, as being "well-connected" and having relatives who called on her in their own limousines, though seldom.
"anybody know his name?" asked lambert.
"barnacle," said young wickert wittily. "something like that, anyway. bannsocker, maybe. guess he's some sort of a swede."
"well, i only hope he doesn't clear out some night with his trunk on his back and leave poor mrs. brashear to whistle," declared mrs. bolles piously.
the worn face of the landlady, with its air of dispirited motherliness, appeared in the doorway. "mr. banneker is a _gentleman_," she said.
"gentleman" from mrs. brashear, with that intonation, meant one who, out of or in a job, paid his room rent. the new lodger had earned the title by paying his month in advance. having settled that point, she withdrew, followed by the two other women. lambert, taking a floppy hat from the walnut rack in the hall, went his way, leaving young wickert and mr. hainer to support the discussion, which they did in tones less discreet than the darkness warranted.
"where would he hail from, would you think?" queried the elder. "iowa, maybe? or arkansas?"
"search me," answered young wickert. "but it was a small-town carpenter built those honest-to-gawd clothes. i'd say the corn-belt."
"dressed up for the monthly meeting of the farmers' alliance, all but the oil on his hair. he forgot that," chuckled the accountant.
"he's got a fine chance in nuh yawk--of buying a gold brick cheap," prophesied the worldly wickert out of the depths of his metropolitan experience. "somebody ought to put him onto himself."
a voice from the darkened window above said, with composure, "that will be all right. i'll apply to you for advice."
"oh, gee!" whispered young wickert, in appeal to his companion. "how long's he been there?"
acute hearing, it appeared, was an attribute of the man above, for he answered at once:
"just put my head out for a breath of air when i heard your kind expressions of solicitude. why? did i miss something that came earlier?"
mr. hainer melted unostentatiously into the darkness. while young wickert was debating whether his pride would allow him to follow this prudent example, the subject of their over-frank discussion appeared at his elbow. evidently he was as light of foot as he was quick of ear. meditating briefly upon these physical qualities, young wickert said, in a deprecatory tone:
"we didn't mean to get fresh with you. it was just talk."
"very interesting talk."
wickert produced a suspiciously jeweled case. "have a cigarette?"
"i have some of my own, thank you."
"give you a light?"
the metropolitan worldling struck a match and held it up. this was on the order of strategy. he wished to see banneker's face. to his relief it did not look angry or even stern. rather, it appeared thoughtful. banneker was considering impartially the matter of his apparel.
"what is the matter with my clothes?" he asked.
"why--well," began wickert, unhappy and fumbling with his ideas; "oh, _they_'re all right."
"for a meeting of the farmers' alliance." banneker was smiling good-naturedly. "but for the east?"
"well, if you really want to know," began wickert doubtfully. "if you won't get sore--" banneker nodded his assurance. "well, they're jay. no style. no snap. respectable, and that lets 'em out."
"they don't look as if they were made in new york or for new york?"
young mr. wickert apportioned his voice equitably between a laugh and a snort. "no: nor in hoboken!" he retorted. "listen, 'bo," he added, after a moment's thought. "you got to have a smooth shell in nuh yawk. the human eye only sees the surface. get me? and it judges by the surface." he smoothed his hands down his dapper trunk with ineffable complacency. "thirty-eight dollars, this. bernholz brothers, around on broadway. look it over. that's a cut!"
"is that how they're making them in the east?" doubtfully asked the neophyte, reflecting that the pinched-in snugness of the coat, and the flare effect of the skirts, while unquestionably more impressive than his own box-like garb, still lacked something of the quiet distinction which he recalled in the clothes of herbert cressey. the thought of that willing messenger set him to groping for another sartorial name. he hardly heard wickert say proudly:
"if bernholz's makes 'em that way, you can bet it's up to the split-second of date, and _maybe_ they beat the pistol by a jump. i bluffed for a raise of five dollars, on the strength of this outfit, and got it off the bat. there's the suit paid for in two months and a pair of shoes over." he thrust out a leg, from below the sharp-pressed trouser-line of which protruded a boot trimmed in a sort of bizarre fretwork. "like me to take you around to bernholz's?"
banneker shook his head. the name for which he sought had come to him. "did you ever hear of mertoun, somewhere on fifth avenue?"
"yes. and i've seen central park and the statue of liberty," railed the other. "thinkin' of patternizing mertoun, was you?"
"yes, i'd like to."
"like to! there's a party at the astorbilt's to-morrow night; you'd _like_ to go to that, wouldn't you? fat chance!" said the disdainful and seasoned cit. "d'you know what mertoun would do to you? set you back a hundred simoleons soon as look at you. and at that you got to have a letter of introduction like gettin' in to see the president of the united states or john d. rockefeller. come off, my boy! bernholz's 'll fix you just as good, all but the label. better come around to-morrow."
"much obliged, but i'm not buying yet. where would you say a fellow would have a chance to see the best-dressed men?"
young mr. wickert looked at once self-conscious and a trifle miffed, for in his own set he was regarded as quite the mould of fashion. "oh, well, if you want to pipe off the guys that _think_ they're the whole thing, walk up the avenue and watch the doors of the clubs and the swell restaurants. at that, they haven't got anything on some fellows that don't spend a quarter of the money, but know what's what and don't let grafters like mertoun pull their legs," said he. "say, you seem to know what you want, all right, all right," he added enviously. "you ain't goin' to let this little old town bluff you; ay?"
"no. not for lack of a few clothes. good-night," replied banneker, leaving in young wickert's mind the impression that he was "a queer gink," but also, on the whole, "a good guy." for the worldling was only small, not mean of spirit.
banneker might have added that one who had once known cities and the hearts of men from the viewpoint of that modern incarnation of ulysses, the hobo, contemptuous and predatory, was little likely to be overawed by the most teeming and headlong of human ant-heaps. having joined the ant-heap, banneker was shrewdly concerned with the problem of conforming to the best type of termite discoverable. the gibes of the doorstep chatterers had not aroused any new ambition; they had merely given point to a purpose deferred because of other and more immediate pressure. already he had received from camilla van arsdale a letter rich in suggestion, hint, and subtly indicated advice, with this one passage of frank counsel:
if i were writing, spinster-aunt-wise, to any one else in your position, i should be tempted to moralize and issue warnings about--well, about the things of the spirit. but you are equipped, there. like the "master," you will "go your own way with inevitable motion." with the outer man--that is different. you have never given much thought to that phase. and you have an asset in your personal appearance. i should not be telling you this if i thought there were danger of your becoming vain. but i really think it would be a good investment for you to put yourself into the hands of a first-class tailor, and follow his advice, in moderation, of course. get the sense of being fittingly turned out by going where there are well-dressed people; to the opera, perhaps, and the theater occasionally, and, when you can afford it, to a good restaurant. unless the world has changed, people will look at you. _but you must not know it_. important, this is!... i could, of course, give you letters of introduction. "_les morts vont vite_," it is true, and i am dead to that world, not wholly without the longings of a would-be _revenant_; but a ghost may still claim some privileges of memory, and my friends would be hospitable to you. only, i strongly suspect that you would not use the letters if i gave them. you prefer to make your own start; isn't it so? well; i have written to a few. sooner or later you will meet with them. those things always happen even in new york.... be sure to write me all about the job when you get it--
prudence dictated that he should be earning something before he invested in expensive apparel, be it never so desirable and important. however, he would outfit himself just as soon as a regular earning capacity justified his going into his carefully husbanded but dwindling savings. he pictured himself clad as a lily of the field, unconscious of perfection as herbert cressey himself, in the public haunts of fashion and ease; through which vision there rose the searing prospect of thus encountering io welland. what was her married name? he had not even asked when the news was broken to him; had not wanted to ask; was done with all that for all time.
he was still pathetically young and inexperienced. and he had been badly hurt.
