Read Ebook: The Lash by Lyman Olin L Olin Linus

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Ebook has 521 lines and 35702 words, and 11 pages

d shiver. Then without speaking, she entered the little parlor, he following.

They sat far apart. Her manner increased the gap immeasurably. Micky felt dimly that speech would partake of the nature of transmission over a long-distance telephone to the Klondike. However, he cleared his throat with some diffidence. It was something of an odd sensation for him.

"You were playin'," he ventured.

"Yes," somewhat pointedly. "I was."

"Well," he continued, "don't let me interrupt you. I like music."

"Oh, do you?" indifferently. "Sorry, but the pieces I was playin' are new ones. I don't know 'em well enough to play 'em before company."

"So?" he continued, calmly ignoring the reiterated hint. "Well, try some of the old ones. They're good enough for me." He watched her face eagerly.

It did not relax. "I think I've forgotten the old ones, Mr. O'Byrn," she said slowly.

"But I haven't," somewhat wistfully. "And it was not so long ago."

"Not so long ago!" her blue eyes brightening. "Mr. O'Byrn, it was longer ago than you seem to think."

"Yes, I guess it was," dejectedly. "It's a long way from 'Micky' to 'Mister' after all."

The girl's lip curled. "It's your own fault." she retorted. Then with a sudden burst of hurt resentment, "I couldn't believe it at first," with an involuntary little shiver, "when I saw you that night. My brother was pretty mad, I can tell you, said I ought to shake you. Such a sight!"

"So your brother was with you," exclaimed Micky, half to himself. One maddening surmise had been set at rest. The thought of Ryan had haunted him of late.

"Yes, who did you think it was? Couldn't you see him?" with sarcasm.

"I'm afraid I couldn't," with a humility strange in him, "but I could see you, Maisie, and it sobered me."

"High time!" she flashed. "But then," with an impatient gesture, "It ain't pleasant to talk about, so cut it out. What did you come here for, anyway?"

He straightened. "To apologize, Maisie, that's all," he said simply. "Just that and to ask for another chance. I sha'n't whine or excuse myself. Only this. They gave me another chance at the office. Do I get one here?"

She tapped the carpet with an impatient foot. Her eyes were downcast, her cheeks flushed. Micky watched her wistfully. Suddenly she stole a swift glance at him, her blue eyes brimming with tears.

"Oh," she burst out, a pitiful break in her voice, "if I hadn't seen you--that way. It nearly killed me. And every time I've thought of you since--I've seen you--like that! Oh, Micky--" Her voice was lost in sobs, stifled in her handkerchief.

He sprang from his chair, kneeling at her side, stroking her hair with trembling fingers, pouring out his soul in broken, incoherent words.

"I'm a beast, Maisie, a beast! Don't cry so--dear. It's always been so, it's what's done for me all my life. My mother's dead, thank God! She died before she knew. But my father," striking his clenched hand on the arm of her chair, "he's got it to answer for, wherever he is, living or dead! He was a devil, Maisie, and he made me one. He fed me the stuff when I was a baby and I took to it like milk; it was his cursed blood in me, I suppose. It's driven me from pillar to post, from a job to the gutter, time and again. It's been up one minute and down the next with me. Oh, I'm not fit to touch you, Maisie, I'm a dog to ask it, but I tell you that, if I play out the game alone, this thing will drive me to hell! Would you--stand by me, help me? It's always been stronger than I am, perhaps it always will be, but Maisie, I think I can beat it out, can be a man--with you!"

It was out at last, the sum of his passionate longing, poured out despairingly in a flood of wild unrecking words; without forethought, wrung from him by the sudden yearning born of the sight of the girl in tears. Now that it was over he remained silent a moment, still torn by his emotion and by hers. Then, slowly and fearfully, his stinging eyes sought her face. It was buried in her little hands. Tears trickled through her clasped fingers.

He rose heavily to his feet. What madness had possessed him, what presumption! He had asked her to marry--a drunkard. He laughed with bitter brevity. The sound brought the sight of a startled face with tear-wet eyes.

"Overlook it, Maisie," he asked desolately, as he turned away, "and good-by. I don't know how I came to do it--but you cried."

He was half way to the hall. There was a soft step behind him, a light touch upon his arm. He turned swiftly, the ghost of a wan hope in his haggard eyes.

"Ah, Micky," she whispered, with a smile whose tender memory would live for him in endless summer through autumn's falling leaves till winter's winding sheets,--"don't you--don't you know--why--I cried?"

A WAGER

Micky told Dick about it one evening, for his heart was full. His engagement was a serious thing to him, and something like fear mingled with his hope of the future. He was deeply sensible of his past mistakes, but he knew himself too well to look to the coming days with unshrinking confidence. He hoped, very humbly; that was all.

Dick was sympathetic, he understood. His was one of those rare natures that invite, comprehend and respect confidences. "You know my record, Dick," Micky had said. "There isn't much in it of a domestic tinge. But just the same, when I happen to get a night off and sit in the little parlor with her, it seems--" with a queer little break in his voice,--"why Dick, it seems as if I had at last--got home!"

And Dick had wrung Micky's hand until it ached, and assured him in his deep bass voice, eloquent with fervent earnestness, that he was all right, and poor Micky had begun to hope that, after a long and checkered season, he was.

So, in the assaults which the opposing newspapers, led by the Courier, were making upon the Democracy there was no hint of detraction of the Judge. How could there be? They contented themselves with the assumption that the respected and able jurist had been imposed upon. To be sure, Shaughnessy, having become notorious, had been sacrificed by his keen associates in their own interest. Should they be successful at the polls, the argument was made that Judge Boynton and some of his well meaning associates upon the ticket, despite their good intentions, would be powerless to cleanse the Augean stables because they would be prevented from so doing by forces within their own party. Fusion would furnish a new broom, guaranteed to sweep clean.

This was strong and logical reasoning, but there were signs that it was ineffective. There was a strong retort to be made, which was that the purifying movement in the Democracy had come from within. The leaders named were above suspicion; some of them were recognized bitter enemies of Shaughnessy. Men of influence who had joined the Fusionists, though Democrats, openly returned, holding that the necessity for Fusion no longer existed. As the Democrats had a natural ascendency in the city, the outlook for Fusion was on the whole growing rather depressing.

Following his humiliation in the convention, Shaughnessy had left the city for several days. Upon returning, he apparently took up the life of a recluse. He confined himself strictly to the affairs of his wholesale house, dividing his time equally between the office and his lodgings. He was no longer at headquarters, where the sight of him was once so familiar; he had apparently dropped all interest in politics, though nobody dared to ask him anything about it. When Shaughnessy first struck the town, said the old stagers, he was quite decently approachable, but he had ceased so to be for years past. It was noted, however, by some who chanced to meet him upon the street and glanced curiously at him, that he was ghastlier than ever, with sunken cheeks and dull eyes. He looked ill.

But there was one who had not ceased to regard Mr. Shaughnessy with suspicion, a suspicion that grew day by day, and that was Micky O'Byrn. When Shaughnessy left town after his rout, O'Byrn muttered, "Up to more deviltry. Wonder what it is now?" When he returned, and quietly forsook his old political haunts, Micky's sandy eyebrows were skeptically elevated and he murmured, "Underground! He'll come up somewhere." For Micky relied upon the evidence of his keen Irish eyes. Whether the act was committed through arrangement or involuntarily, Shaughnessy had winked. O'Byrn reasoned that winks by a man of Shaughnessy's calibre were not wasted. Curious that a "slick duck" like Grady, as Micky characterized that smooth orator, had required a wink. Perhaps he hadn't, perhaps Shaughnessy had simply grown over-anxious during the short interval between the speeches. Well, if Shaughnessy had grown unwittingly careless, that was his look-out, his and O'Byrn's. O'Byrn was looking out. He had said nothing and he was devoutly hopeful that he would have a chance to saw wood.

He was at Maisie's one evening, one of his customary "off-nights." These nights were coming to him of late as oases in the deserts of weeks. They had chatted, talked seriously of their plans, sung together to Maisie's accompaniment on the little organ, and now Micky regretfully rose, with a glance at his watch. "Well, girl," said he, "I've got to slide. It's gettin' late. Your pa'll be assistin' me."

She watched him with wistful blue eyes, loth that he leave, though she knew the hour beckoned his departure. He stood near the big lamp with its red shade, his queer features being mellowed, so to speak, in the ruddy glow. He grinned benignly at her as he reached for his coat. Anticipating him, she helped him into it.

"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed rebelliously, "isn't it the worst ever, this newspaper business! And a morning paper at that, with your hours turned wrong side out and a night off only once in an age! Micky, dear, why don't you get into something civilized?"

"You know, Maisie, the Constitution says all men were created equal," he observed soberly.

"Sure it does, but what's that got to do with it? What are you up to now?"

"Why, nothin'," he replied, an impish twinkle in his eye, "only it depends. One man may be as good as another, but it's up to him to prove it. A bunch of Socialist Democrats, in a town I was in once, put up a hostler for city judge against a couple of old lawyers on the regular tickets. Said a hostler was as good as a lawyer in this free country. True enough, in a limited sense. I know a lot of hostlers that are better hostlers than a lot of lawyers that are lawyers. I suppose you follow me? But, all the same, these fellows were lame in their argument for this reason. Their hostler candidate might have had horse sense to burn, but he hadn't read law. There's a lot of difference between horse sense and the law, Maisie. They finally took the hostler off and put a cobbler on, who came in last. Now don't strike me, Maisie, that last was accidental. Really, I didn't intend it."

"I should hope not!" with sincerity. "But I don't see what all this rigmarole has to do with what we are saying, or were. Have you lost your mind?"

"If ever I did, the finder would return it," he retorted whimsically. "It would make him dizzy. But to return to cases, what I said has got everything to do with what we said. Can't see it? Well, men may be created equal but most of 'em never learn arithmetic. The fellow who does has got 'em stopped. He keeps on addin', while they--oh, they're just multiplyin' every minute. They're all around you, I'm one of 'em myself. The mathematical sharp, who made a specialty on finance and knows the idiosyncrasies of a dollar better than a mother knows her child, keeps on subtractin' the other fellows from their money. When it comes to the division, why they're all workin' for him. That's Rockefeller, and by the same token, that's me. We're the limit on the extremes. He's got everything and I'm livin' on the rest. I've got nothin' and he's got it. See?

"There's a happy medium, but it doesn't help the majority much, for most of us are on pay rolls. For instance, one man owns the Courier and the rest of us are working for him. If I changed to something else, I'd still be workin' for someone. Why? Because the only line in arithmetic in which I could make good was a sequence of ciphers with no bigger figure before it. You catch the point, don't you? It's due to the mercenary age. Nominally I'm free and equal. Actually I'm about a 'steenth of one per cent. See? But what's the dif'? What you need in this dizzy old world is philosophy. I've got it to burn, but Standard Oil can't scorch it. Here's a motto for you, Maisie, and you can paste it in that funny new jigger you call a hat. It'll keep you smilin' on wash day, and that's a test for a woman. It's just this: take it as it comes, and, if it doesn't come, don't take it."

He was gone, this queer little man-gamin of vagrant moods, shifting as the winds, yet for the most bubbling with reckless cheeriness. Humor was the predominant note of his being. Its broad grace mellowed him; would keep him sound and sweet at heart, whatever the sum of the coming years. Did the winds blow fair or ill, he had within him the essence of logical living; a whimsical sense of proportion that enabled him to view himself impartially with all others, one of myriad puppets in the show. A success or a failure he might become, as the world judges, but until the end he would be too large for that littleness which is too often a hallmark of success, the littleness of petty vanity. So, with this greatest gift the Creator can give one of his children, the humorous sense of proportion that can make if need be a joke of futility, Micky would go on to the end, to success or failure; alike with heart uncankered and a laugh on his lips. There would never transpire a misanthropic Micky.

For a long time after O'Byrn's departure, Maisie sat still in the Morris chair, a pensive look on her pretty face, with vague eyes bent dreamily on the flaming wood in the tiny fireplace; for the nights had grown chill with the first presage of winter and the fenders glowed with warm hospitality on company nights. The busy flames licked the blackened slabs; hurrying over the charred, desolate spaces; leaping in triumph as a conquered fragment fell, under the espionage of a shower of scintillant sparks. The tongues of flame, with redoubled energy, again lapped the wood, eating into its vitals, withering its fibres with fiery breath, crumbling it piecemeal in a crematory of elemental ashes. At last, always working upward, the flames burst exultantly from scorched fissures in the topmost slab and curled in weird shapes above it; shapes that now approached a certain sane coherence; that again were indeterminate and distorted, vaguely writhing in a dim haze, like one's future. Finally the fire, spending its force, dulled and died, the ruddy flames slowly paling like the fading roses of a summer sunset. Then there was the black, desolate end; all light extinguished save for the baleful, red-eyed glare of a few scattered embers, dying on the hearth. Maisie sat erect with a sudden start, stealing an apprehensive glance at the clock. With a long sigh and a little shiver, she rose slowly, extinguished the low-turned lamp and departed for bed.

Meanwhile, Micky, a red-eyed cigar in a corner of his mouth, had walked leisurely and thoughtfully toward the city. His hands thrust deep in his overcoat pockets, he strode unheedingly on, lost in a wistful reverie. What a flower was this little girl of his, to be sure! And he--what had he done to deserve her? A little self-examination is good for a man, especially if it be followed by a little proper self-disgust. O'Byrn walked on in singularly chastened mood. The past? Ah, it was done; why waste time in regrets when one is young? The present was of sunshine in a blue sky; the future--

O'Byrn's shoulders rose in a little, involuntary, uneasy shrug. He turned a corner just then and looked up. The next instant he had retired unobtrusively into a dark hallway, where he stood, staring across the street.

O'Byrn could scarcely have explained his definite impulse for doing this. It was simply the half-unconscious manifestation of the news instinct. Without any needed pause for reasoning, Micky's news faculty had connected two apparently irrelevant facts as significantly allied with each other, prompting him to remain in the hope of securing something worth while. The wholesale liquor establishment of Shaughnessy stood just across the street. The curtains of the office were drawn, but O'Byrn saw the reflection of a light behind them. Furthermore, the sound which had brought Micky to a realization of his surroundings, a moment before, was that of a carriage, which had been halted a little way up the dark street, the corner of which O'Byrn had just turned. So O'Byrn stood in the shadow, watching Shaughnessy's office.

He had not long to wait. A few moments and he beheld the corner of one of the office window shades drawn slightly to one side. Somebody was evidently looking out. Nobody was in sight, for the street was a quiet one and was deserted at that hour. The next moment the door was opened cautiously and a man emerged. Crossing the street swiftly he passed by O'Byrn so closely that the reporter could have touched him, and turned the corner. Then was soon audible the sound of receding wheels.

O'Byrn whistled softly as he resumed his walk toward the city. The light of the aroused news instinct was in his eyes. Here was something tangible, bearing out surmises that had seemed wild to himself. What need had Judge Boynton, the esteemed Democratic candidate for mayor, to be secretly in the office of the deposed boss, Shaughnessy? Deposed, indeed! Micky laughed softly, then clenched his hands.

"Oh, if I can only get onto it!" he breathed savagely. "Whew! Lord! Lord! What a story!"

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