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"I've adopted her. The office-boy on our paper got her away from a
dog this morning, and gave her to me."
"Your paper?"
"Cosy Moments," said Billy Windsor, with a touch of shame.
"Cosy Moments?" said Psmith reflectively. "I regret that the
bright little sheet has not come my way up to the present. I must
seize an early opportunity of perusing it."
"Don't you do it."
"You've no paternal pride in the little journal?"
"It's bad enough to hurt," said Billy Windsor disgustedly. "If you
really want to see it, come along with me to my place, and I'll
show you a copy."
"It will be a pleasure," said Psmith. "Comrade Jackson, have you
any previous engagement for to-night?"
"I'm not doing anything," said Mike.
"Then let us stagger forth with Comrade Windsor. While he is
loading up that basket, we will be collecting our hats. . . . I am
not half sure, Comrade Jackson," he added, as they walked out,
"that Comrade Windsor may not prove to be the genial spirit for
whom I have been searching. If you could give me your undivided
company, I should ask no more. But with you constantly away,
mingling with the gay throng, it is imperative that I have some
solid man to accompany me in my ramblings hither and thither. It is
possible that Comrade Windsor may possess the qualifications
necessary for the post. But here he comes. Let us foregather with
him and observe him in private life before arriving at any
premature decision."
CHAPTER IV
BAT JARVIS
Billy Windsor lived in a single room on East Fourteenth Street.
Space in New York is valuable, and the average bachelor's
apartments consist of one room with a bathroom opening off it.
During the daytime this one room loses all traces of being used for
sleeping purposes at night. Billy Windsor's room was very much like
a public-school study. Along one wall ran a settee. At night this
became a bed; but in the daytime it was a settee and nothing but a
settee. There was no space for a great deal of furniture. There was
one rocking-chair, two ordinary chairs, a table, a book-stand, a
typewriter--nobody uses pens in New York--and on the walls a mixed
collection of photographs, drawings, knives, and skins, relics of
their owner's prairie days. Over the door was the head of a young
bear.
Billy's first act on arriving in this sanctum was to release the
cat, which, having moved restlessly about for some moments, finally
came to the conclusion that there was no means of getting out, and
settled itself on a corner of the settee. Psmith, sinking
gracefully down beside it, stretched out his legs and lit a
cigarette. Mike took one of the ordinary chairs; and Billy Windsor,
planting himself in the rocker, began to rock rhythmically to and
fro, a performance which he kept up untiringly all the time.
"A peaceful scene," observed Psmith. "Three great minds, keen,
alert, restless during business hours, relax. All is calm and
pleasant chit-chat. You have snug quarters up here, Comrade
Windsor. I hold that there is nothing like one's own roof-tree.
It is a great treat to one who, like myself, is located in one of
these vast caravanserai--to be exact, the Astor--to pass a few
moments in the quiet privacy of an apartment such as this."
"It's beastly expensive at the Astor," said Mike.
"The place has that drawback also. Anon, Comrade Jackson, I think
we will hunt around for some such cubby-hoIe as this, built for
two. Our nervous systems must be conserved."
"On Fourth Avenue," said Billy Windsor, "you can get quite good
flats very cheap. Furnished, too. You should move there. It's not
much of a neighbourhood. I don't know if you mind that?"
"Far from it, Comrade Windsor. It is my aim to see New York in all
its phases. If a certain amount of harmless revelry can be whacked
out of Fourth Avenue, we must dash there with the vim of
highly-trained smell-dogs. Are you with me, Comrade Jackson?"
"All right," said Mike.
"And now, Comrade Windsor, it would be a pleasure to me to peruse
that little journal of which you spoke. I have had so few
opportunities of getting into touch with the literature of this
great country."
Billy Windsor stretched out an arm and pulled a bundle of papers
from the book-stand. He tossed them on to the settee by Psmith's
side.
"There you are," he said, "if you really feel like it. Don't say I
didn't warn you. If you've got the nerve, read on."
Psmith had picked up one of the papers when there came a shuffling
of feet in the passage outside, followed by a knock upon the door.
The next moment there appeared in the doorway a short, stout young
man. There was an indescribable air of toughness about him, partly
due to the fact that he wore his hair in a well-oiled fringe almost
down to his eyebrows, which gave him the appearance of having no
forehead at all. His eyes were small and set close together. His
mouth was wide, his jaw prominent. Not, in short, the sort of man
you would have picked out on sight as a model citizen.
His entrance was marked by a curious sibilant sound, which, on
acquaintance, proved to be a whistled tune. During the interview
which followed, except when he was speaking, the visitor whistled
softly and unceasingly.
"Mr. Windsor?" he said to the company at large.
Psmith waved a hand towards the rocking-chair. "That," he said, "is
Comrade Windsor. To your right is Comrade Jackson, England's
favourite son. I am Psmith."
The visitor blinked furtively, and whistled another tune. As he
looked round the room, his eye fell on the cat. His face lit up.
"Say!" he said, stepping forward, and touching the cat's collar,
"mine, mister."
"Are you Bat Jarvis?" asked Windsor with interest.
"Sure," said the visitor, not without a touch of complacency, as of
a monarch abandoning his incognito.
For Mr. Jarvis was a celebrity.
By profession he was a dealer in animals, birds, and snakes. He had
a fancier's shop in Groome street, in the heart of the Bowery. This
was on the ground-floor. His living abode was in the upper story of
that house, and it was there that he kept the twenty-three cats
whose necks were adorned with leather collars, and whose numbers
had so recently been reduced to twenty-two. But it was not the fact
that he possessed twenty-three cats with leather collars that made
Mr. Jarvis a celebrity.
A man may win a purely local reputation, if only for eccentricity,
by such means. But Mr. Jarvis's reputation was far from being
purely local. Broadway knew him, and the Tenderloin. Tammany Hall
knew him. Long Island City knew him. In the underworld of New York
his name was a by-word. For Bat Jarvis was the leader of the famous
Groome Street Gang, the most noted of all New York's collections of
Apaches. More, he was the founder and originator of it. And,
curiously enough, it had come into being from motives of sheer
benevolence. In Groome Street in those days there had been a
dance-hall, named the Shamrock and presided over by one Maginnis,
an Irishman and a friend of Bat's. At the Shamrock nightly dances
were given and well attended by the youth of the neighbourhood at
ten cents a head. All might have been well, had it not been for
certain other youths of the neighbourhood who did not dance and so
had to seek other means of getting rid of their surplus energy. It
was the practice of these light-hearted sportsmen to pay their ten
cents for admittance, and once in, to make hay. And this habit, Mr.
Maginnis found, was having a marked effect on his earnings. For
genuine lovers of the dance fought shy of a place where at any
moment Philistines might burst in and break heads and furniture. In
this crisis the proprietor thought of his friend Bat Jarvis. Bat at
that time had a solid reputation as a man of his hands. It is true
that, as his detractors pointed out, he had killed no one--a defect
which he had subsequently corrected; but his admirers based his
claim to respect on his many meritorious performances with fists
and with the black-jack. And Mr. Maginnis for one held him in the
very highest esteem. To Bat accordingly he went, and laid his
painful case before him. He offered him a handsome salary to be on
hand at the nightly dances and check undue revelry by his own
robust methods. Bat had accepted the offer. He had gone to Shamrock
Hall; and with him, faithful adherents, had gone such stalwarts as
Long Otto, Red Logan, Tommy Jefferson, and Pete Brodie. Shamrock
Hall became a place of joy and order; and--more important
still--the nucleus of the Groome Street Gang had been formed. The
work progressed. Off-shoots of the main gang sprang up here and
there about the East Side. Small thieves, pickpockets and the
like, flocked to Mr. Jarvis as their tribal leader and protector
and he protected them. For he, with his followers, were of use to
the politicians. The New York gangs, and especially the Groome
Street Gang, have brought to a fine art the gentle practice of
"repeating"; which, broadly speaking, is the art of voting a number
of different times at different polling-stations on election days.
A man who can vote, say, ten times in a single day for you, and who
controls a great number of followers who are also prepared, if they
like you, to vote ten times in a single day for you, is worth
cultivating. So the politicians passed the word to the police, and
the police left the Groome Street Gang unmolested and they waxed
fat and flourished.
Such was Bat Jarvis.
* * *
"Pipe de collar," said Mr. Jarvis, touching the cat's neck "Mine,
mister."
"Pugsy said it must be," said Billy Windsor. "We found two fellows
setting a dog on to it, so we took it in for safety."
Mr. Jarvis nodded approval.
"There's a basket here, if you want it," said Billy.
"Nope. Here, kit."
Mr. Jarvis stooped, and, still whistling softly, lifted the cat. He
looked round the company, met Psmith's eye-glass, was transfixed by
it for a moment, and finally turned again to Billy Windsor.
"Say!" he said, and paused. "Obliged," he added.
He shifted the cat on to his left arm, and extended his right hand
to Billy.
"Shake!" he said.
Billy did so.
Mr. Jarvis continued to stand and whistle for a few moments more.
"Say!" he said at length, fixing his roving gaze once more upon
Billy. "Obliged. Fond of de kit, I am."
Psmith nodded approvingly.
"And rightly," he said. "Rightly, Comrade Jarvis. She is not
unworthy of your affection. A most companionable animal, full of
the highest spirits. Her knockabout act in the restaurant would
have satisfied the most jaded critic. No diner-out can afford to be
without such a cat. Such a cat spells death to boredom."
Mr. Jarvis eyed him fixedly, as if pondering over his remarks. Then
he turned to Billy again.
"Say!" he said. "Any time you're in bad. Glad to be of service.
You know the address. Groome Street. Bat Jarvis. Good night.
Obliged."
He paused and whistled a few more bars, then nodded to Psmith and
Mike, and left the room. They heard him shuffling downstairs.
"A blithe spirit," said Psmith. "Not garrulous, perhaps, but what of
that? I am a man of few words myself. Comrade Jarvis's massive
silences appeal to me. He seems to have taken a fancy to you,
Comrade Windsor."
Billy Windsor laughed.
"I don't know that he's just the sort of side-partner I'd go out of
my way to choose, from what I've heard about him. Still, if one got
mixed up with any of that East-Side crowd, he would be a mighty
useful friend to have. I guess there's no harm done by getting him
grateful."
"Assuredly not," said Psmith. "We should not despise the humblest.
And now, Comrade Windsor," he said, taking up the paper again "let
me concentrate myself tensely on this very entertaining little
journal of yours. Comrade Jackson, here is one for you. For sound,
clear-headed criticism," he added to Billy, "Comrade Jackson's name
is a by-word in our English literary salons. His opinion will be
both of interest and of profit to you, Comrade Windsor."
CHAPTER V
PLANNING IMPROVEMENTS
"By the way," said Psmith, "what is your exact position on this
paper? Practically, we know well, you are its back-bone, its
life-blood; but what is your technical position? When your
proprietor is congratulating himself on having secured the ideal
man for your job, what precise job does he congratulate himself on
having secured the ideal man for?"
"I'm sub-editor."
"Merely sub? You deserve a more responsible post than that, Comrade
Windsor. Where is your proprietor? I must buttonhole him and point
out to him what a wealth of talent he is allowing to waste itself.
You must have scope."
"He's in Europe. At Carlsbad, or somewhere. He never comes near
the paper. He just sits tight and draws the profits. He lets the
editor look after things. Just at present I'm acting as editor."
"Ah! then at last you have your big chance. You are free,
untrammelled."
"You bet I'm not," said Billy Windsor. "Guess again. There's no
room for developing free untrammelled ideas on this paper. When
you've looked at it, you'll see that each page is run by some one.
I'm simply the fellow who minds the shop."
Psmith clicked his tongue sympathetically. "It is like setting a
gifted French chef to wash up dishes," he said. "A man of your
undoubted powers, Comrade Windsor, should have more scope. That is
the cry, 'more scope!' I must look into this matter. When I gaze at
your broad, bulging forehead, when I see the clear light of
intelligence in your eyes, and hear the grey matter splashing
restlessly about in your cerebellum, I say to myself without
hesitation, 'Comrade Windsor must have more scope.'" He looked at
Mike, who was turning over the leaves of his copy of Cosy Moments
in a sort of dull despair. "Well, Comrade Jackson, and what is your
verdict?"
Mike looked at Billy Windsor. He wished to be polite, yet he could
find nothing polite to say. Billy interpreted the look.
"Go on," he said. "Say it. It can't be worse than what I think."
"I expect some people would like it awfully," said Mike.
"They must, or they wouldn't buy it. I've never met any of them
yet, though."
Psmith was deep in Lucia Granville Waterman's "Moments in the
Nursery." He turned to Billy Windsor.
"Luella Granville Waterman," he said, "is not by any chance your
nom-de-plume, Comrade Windsor?"
"Not on your life. Don't think it."
"I am glad," said Psmith courteously. "For, speaking as man to man,
I must confess that for sheer, concentrated bilge she gets away
with the biscuit with almost insolent ease. Luella Granville
Waterman must go."
"How do you mean?"
"She must go," repeated Psmith firmly. "Your first act, now that
you have swiped the editorial chair, must be to sack her."
"But, say, I can't. The editor thinks a heap of her stuff."
"We cannot help his troubles. We must act for the good of the
paper. Moreover, you said, I think, that he was away?"
"So he is. But he'll come back."
"Sufficient unto the day, Comrade Windsor. I have a suspicion that
he will be the first to approve your action. His holiday will have
cleared his brain. Make a note of improvement number one--the
sacking of Luella Granville Waterman."
"I guess it'll be followed pretty quick by improvement number
two--the sacking of William Windsor. I can't go monkeying about
with the paper that way."
Psmith reflected for a moment.
"Has this job of yours any special attractions for you, Comrade
Windsor?"
"I guess not."
"As I suspected. You yearn for scope. What exactly are your
ambitions?"
"I want to get a job on one of the big dailies. I don't see how
I'm going to fix it, though, at the present rate."
Psmith rose, and tapped him earnestly on the chest.
"Comrade Windsor, you have touched the spot. You are wasting the
golden hours of your youth. You must move. You must hustle. You
must make Windsor of Cosy Moments a name to conjure with. You must
boost this sheet up till New York rings with your exploits. On the
present lines that is impossible. You must strike out a line for
yourself. You must show the world that even Cosy Moments cannot
keep a good man down."
He resumed his seat.
"How do you mean?" said Billy Windsor.
Psmith turned to Mike.
"Comrade Jackson, if you were editing this paper, is there a single
feature you would willingly retain?"
"I don't think there is," said Mike. "It's all pretty bad rot."
"My opinion in a nutshell," said Psmith, approvingly. "Comrade
Jackson," he explained, turning to Billy, "has a secure reputation
on the other side for the keenness and lucidity of his views upon
literature. You may safely build upon him. In England when Comrade
Jackson says 'Turn' we all turn. Now, my views on the matter are as
follows. Cosy Moments, in my opinion (worthless, were it not backed
by such a virtuoso as Comrade Jackson), needs more snap, more go.
All these putrid pages must disappear. Letters must be despatched
to-morrow morning, informing Luella Granville Waterman and the
others (and in particular B. Henderson Asher, who from a cursory
glance strikes me as an ideal candidate for a lethal chamber) that,
unless they cease their contributions instantly, you will be
compelled to place yourself under police protection. After that we
can begin to move."
Billy Windsor sat and rocked himself in his chair without replying.
He was trying to assimilate this idea. So far the grandeur of it
had dazed him. It was too spacious, too revolutionary. Could it be
done? It would undoubtedly mean the sack when Mr. J. Fillken
Wilberfloss returned and found the apple of his eye torn asunder
and, so to speak, deprived of its choicest pips. On the other hand
. . . His brow suddenly cleared. After all, what was the sack? One
crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name, and
he would have no name as long as he clung to his present position.
The editor would be away ten weeks. He would have ten weeks in
which to try himself out. Hope leaped within him. In ten weeks he
could change Cosy Moments into a real live paper. He wondered that
the idea had not occurred to him before. The trifling fact that the
despised journal was the property of Mr. Benjamin White, and that
he had no right whatever to tinker with it without that gentleman's
approval, may have occurred to him, but, if it did, it occurred so
momentarily that he did not notice it. In these crises one cannot
think of everything.
"I'm on," he said, briefly.
Psmith smiled approvingly.
"That," he said, "is the right spirit. You will, I fancy, have
little cause to regret your decision. Fortunately, if I may say so,
I happen to have a certain amount of leisure just now. It is at
your disposal. I have had little experience of journalistic work,
but I foresee that I shall be a quick learner. I will become your
sub-editor, without salary."
"Bully for you," said Billy Windsor.
"Comrade Jackson," continued Psmith, "is unhappily more fettered.
The exigencies of his cricket tour will compel him constantly to be
gadding about, now to Philadelphia, now to Saskatchewan, anon to
Onehorseville, Ga. His services, therefore, cannot be relied upon
continuously. From him, accordingly, we shall expect little but
moral support. An occasional congratulatory telegram. Now and then
a bright smile of approval. The bulk of the work will devolve upon
our two selves."
"Let it devolve," said Billy Windsor, enthusiastically.
"Assuredly," said Psmith. "And now to decide upon our main scheme.
You, of course, are the editor, and my suggestions are merely
suggestions, subject to your approval. But, briefly, my idea is
that Cosy Moments should become red-hot stuff. I could wish its
tone to be such that the public will wonder why we do not print it
on asbestos. We must chronicle all the live events of the day,
murders, fires, and the like in a manner which will make our
readers' spines thrill. Above all, we must be the guardians of the
People's rights. We must be a search-light, showing up the dark
spot in the souls of those who would endeavour in any way to do the
PEOPLE in the eye. We must detect the wrong-doer, and deliver him
such a series of resentful buffs that he will abandon his little
games and become a model citizen. The details of the campaign we
must think out after, but I fancy that, if we follow those main
lines, we shall produce a bright, readable little sheet which will
in a measure make this city sit up and take notice. Are you with
me, Comrade Windsor?"
"Surest thing you know," said Billy with fervour.
CHAPTER VI
THE TENEMENTS
To alter the scheme of a weekly from cover to cover is not a task
that is completed without work. The dismissal of Cosy Moments'
entire staff of contributors left a gap in the paper which had to be
filled, and owing to the nearness of press day there was no time to
fill it before the issue of the next number. The editorial staff had
to be satisfied with heading every page with the words "Look out!
Look out!! Look out!!! See foot of page!!!!" printing in the space
at the bottom the legend, "Next Week! See Editorial!" and compiling
in conjunction a snappy editorial, setting forth the proposed
changes. This was largely the work of Psmith.
"Comrade Jackson," he said to Mike, as they set forth one evening
in search of their new flat, "I fancy I have found my metier.
Commerce, many considered, was the line I should take; and
doubtless, had I stuck to that walk in life, I should soon have
become a financial magnate. But something seemed to whisper to me,
even in the midst of my triumphs in the New Asiatic Bank, that
there were other fields. For the moment it seems to me that I have
found the job for which nature specially designed me. At last I
have Scope. And without Scope, where are we? Wedged tightly in
among the ribstons. There are some very fine passages in that
editorial. The last paragraph, beginning 'Cosy Moments cannot be
muzzled,' in particular. I like it. It strikes the right note. It
should stir the blood of a free and independent people till they
sit in platoons on the doorstep of our office, waiting for the next
number to appear."
"How about that next number?" asked Mike. "Are you and Windsor
going to fill the whole paper yourselves?"
"By no means. It seems that Comrade Windsor knows certain stout
fellows, reporters on other papers, who will be delighted to weigh
in with stuff for a moderate fee."
"How about Luella What's-her-name and the others? How have they
taken it?"
"Up to the present we have no means of ascertaining. The letters
giving them the miss-in-baulk in no uncertain voice were only
despatched yesterday. But it cannot affect us how they writhe
beneath the blow. There is no reprieve."
Mike roared with laughter.
"It's the rummiest business I ever struck," he said. "I'm jolly
glad it's not my paper. It's pretty lucky for you two lunatics that
the proprietor's in Europe."
Psmith regarded him with pained surprise.
"I do not understand you, Comrade Jackson. Do you insinuate that
we are not acting in the proprietor's best interests? When he sees
the receipts, after we have handled the paper for a while, he will
go singing about his hotel. His beaming smile will be a by-word in
Carlsbad. Visitors will be shown it as one of the sights. His only
doubt will be whether to send his money to the bank or keep it in
tubs and roll in it. We are on to a big thing, Comrade Jackson.
Wait till you see our first number."
"And how about the editor? I should think that first number would
bring him back foaming at the mouth."
"I have ascertained from Comrade Windsor that there is nothing to
fear from that quarter. By a singular stroke of good fortune
Comrade Wilberfloss--his name is Wilberfloss--has been ordered
complete rest during his holiday. The kindly medico, realising the
fearful strain inflicted by reading Cosy Moments in its old form,
specifically mentioned that the paper was to be withheld from him
until he returned."
"And when he does return, what are you going to do?"
"By that time, doubtless, the paper will be in so flourishing a
state that he will confess how wrong his own methods were and adopt
ours without a murmur. In the meantime, Comrade Jackson, I would
call your attention to the fact that we seem to have lost our way.
In the exhilaration of this little chat, our footsteps have
wandered. Where we are, goodness only knows. I can only say that I
shouldn't care to have to live here."
"There's a name up on the other side of that lamp-post."
"Let us wend in that direction. Ah, Pleasant Street? I fancy that
the master-mind who chose that name must have had the rudiments of
a sense of humour."
It was indeed a repellent neighbourhood in which they had arrived.
The New York slum stands in a class of its own. It is unique. The
height of the houses and the narrowness of the streets seem to
condense its unpleasantness. All the smells and noises, which are
many and varied, are penned up in a sort of canyon, and gain in
vehemence from the fact. The masses of dirty clothes hanging from
the fire-escapes increase the depression. Nowhere in the city does
one realise so fully the disadvantages of a lack of space. New
York, being an island, has had no room to spread. It is a town of
human sardines. In the poorer quarters the congestion is
unbelievable.
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