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Pelham Grenville Wodehouse >> Psmith, Journalist
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"Yes, my name's Windsor," Billy was saying.
The waiter bowed and retired to one of the tables where a young man
in evening clothes was seated. Psmith recollected having seen this
solitary diner looking in their direction once or twice during
dinner, but the fact had not impressed him.
"What is happening, Comrade Windsor?" he inquired. "I was musing
with a certain tenseness at the moment, and the rush of events has
left me behind."
"Man at that table wanted to know if my name was Windsor," said
Billy.
"Ah?" said Psmith, interested; "and was it?
"Here he comes. I wonder what he wants. I don't know the man from
Adam."
The stranger was threading his way between the tables.
"Can I have a word with you, Mr. Windsor?" he said.
Billy looked at him curiously. Recent events had made him wary of
strangers.
"Won't you sit down?" he said.
A waiter was bringing a chair. The young man seated himself.
"By the way," added Billy; "my friend, Mr. Smith."
"Pleased to meet you," said the other.
"I don't know your name," Billy hesitated.
"Never mind about my name," said the stranger. "It won't be
needed. Is Mr. Smith on your paper? Excuse my asking."
Psmith bowed. "That's all right, then. I can go ahead." He bent
forward.
"Neither of you gentlemen are hard of hearing, eh?"
"In the old prairie days," said Psmith, "Comrade Windsor was known
to the Indians as Boola-Ba-Na-Gosh, which, as you doubtless know,
signifies Big-Chief-Who-Can-Hear-A-Fly-Clear-Its-Throat. I too can
hear as well as the next man. Why?"
"That's all right, then. I don't want to have to shout it. There's
some things it's better not to yell."
He turned to Billy, who had been looking at him all the while with
a combination of interest and suspicion. The man might or might not
be friendly. In the meantime, there was no harm in being on one's
guard. Billy's experience as a cub-reporter had given him the
knowledge that is only given in its entirety to police and
newspaper men: that there are two New Yorks. One is a modern,
well-policed city, through which one may walk from end to end
without encountering adventure. The other is a city as full of
sinister intrigue, of whisperings and conspiracies, of battle,
murder, and sudden death in dark by-ways, as any town of mediaeval
Italy. Given certain conditions, anything may happen to any one in
New York. And Billy realised that these conditions now prevailed in
his own case. He had come into conflict with New York's
underworld. Circumstances had placed him below the surface, where
only his wits could help him.
"It's about that tenement business," said the stranger.
Billy bristled. "Well, what about it?" he demanded truculently.
The stranger raised a long and curiously delicately shaped hand.
"Don't bite at me," he said. "This isn't my funeral. I've no kick
coming. I'm a friend."
"Yet you don't tell us your name."
"Never mind my name. If you were in my line of business, you
wouldn't be so durned stuck on this name thing. Call me Smith, if
you like."
"You could select no nobler pseudonym," said Psmith cordially.
"Eh? Oh, I see. Well, make it Brown, then. Anything you please. It
don't signify. See here, let's get back. About this tenement thing.
You understand certain parties have got it in against you?"
"A charming conversationalist, one 'Comrade Parker, hinted at
something of the sort," said Psmith, "in a recent interview. Cosy
Moments, however, cannot be muzzled."
"Well?" said Billy.
"You're up against a big proposition."
"We can look after ourselves."
"Gum! you'll need to. The man behind is a big bug."
Billy leaned forward eagerly.
"Who is he?"
The other shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know. You wouldn't expect a man like that to give himself
away."
"Then how do you know he's a big bug?"
"Precisely," said Psmith. "On what system have you estimated the
size of the gentleman's bughood?"
The stranger lit a cigar.
"By the number of dollars he was ready to put up to have you done
in."
Billy's eyes snapped.
"Oh?" he said. "And which gang has he given the job to?"
"I wish I could tell you. He--his agent, that is--came to Bat
Jarvis."
"The cat-expert?" said Psmith. "A man of singularly winsome
personality."
"Bat turned the job down."
"Why was that?" inquired Billy.
"He said he needed the money as much as the next man, but when he
found out who he was supposed to lay for, he gave his job the
frozen face. Said you were a friend of his and none of his fellows
were going to put a finger on you. I don't know what you've been
doing to Bat, but he's certainly Willie the Long-Lost Brother with
you."
"A powerful argument in favour of kindness to animals!" said
Psmith. "Comrade Windsor came into possession of one of Comrade
Jarvis's celebrated stud of cats. What did he do? Instead of having
the animal made into a nourishing soup, he restored it to its
bereaved owner. Observe the sequel. He is now as a prize
tortoiseshell to Comrade Jarvis."
"So Bat wouldn't stand for it?" said Billy.
"Not on his life. Turned it down without a blink. And he sent me
along to find you and tell you so."
"We are much obliged to Comrade Jarvis," said Psmith."
"He told me to tell you to watch out, because another gang is dead
sure to take on the job. But he said you were to know he wasn't
mixed up in it. He also said that any time you were in bad, he'd
do his best for you. You've certainly made the biggest kind of hit
with Bat. I haven't seen him so worked up over a thing in years.
Well, that's all, I reckon. Guess I'll be pushing along. I've a
date to keep. Glad to have met you. Glad to have met you, Mr.
Smith. Pardon me, you have an insect on your coat."
He flicked at Psmith's coat with a quick movement. Psmith thanked
him gravely.
"Good night," concluded the stranger, moving off. For a few
moments after he had gone, Psmith and Billy sat smoking in silence.
They had plenty to think about.
"How's the time going?" asked Billy at length. Psmith felt for his
watch, and looked at Billy with some sadness.
"I am sorry to say, Comrade Windsor--"
"Hullo," said Billy, "here's that man coming back again."
The stranger came up to their table, wearing a light overcoat over
his dress clothes. From the pocket of this he produced a gold
watch.
"Force of habit," he said apologetically, handing it to Psmith.
"You'll pardon me. Good night, gentlemen, again."
CHAPTER XII
A RED TAXIMETER
THE Astor Hotel faces on to Times Square. A few paces to the right
of the main entrance the Times Building towers to the sky; and at
the foot of this the stream of traffic breaks, forming two
channels. To the right of the building is Seventh Avenue, quiet,
dark, and dull. To the left is Broadway, the Great White Way, the
longest, straightest, brightest, wickedest street in the world.
Psmith and Billy, having left the Astor, started to walk down
Broadway to Billy's lodgings in Fourteenth Street. The usual crowd
was drifting slowly up and down in the glare of the white lights.
They had reached Herald Square, when a voice behind them exclaimed,
"Why, it's Mr. Windsor!"
They wheeled round. A flashily dressed man was standing with
outstetched hand.
"I saw you come out of the Astor," he said cheerily. "I said to
myself, 'I know that man.' Darned if I could put a name to you,
though. So I just followed you along, and right here it came to
me."
"It did, did it?" said Billy politely.
"It did, sir. I've never set eyes on you before, but I've seen so
many photographs of you that I reckon we're old friends. I know
your father very well, Mr. Windsor. He showed me the photographs.
You may have heard him speak of me--Jack Lake? How is the old man?
Seen him lately?"
"Not for some time. He was well when he last wrote."
"Good for him. He would be. Tough as a plank, old Joe Windsor. We
always called him Joe."
"You'd have known him down in Missouri, of course?" said Billy.
"That's right. In Missouri. We were side-partners for years. Now,
see here, Mr. Windsor, it's early yet. Won't you and your friend
come along with me and have a smoke and a chat? I live right here
in Thirty-Third Street. I'd be right glad for you to come."
"I don't doubt it," said Billy, "but I'm afraid you'll have to
excuse us."
"In a hurry, are you?"
"Not in the least."
"Then come right along."
"No, thanks."
"Say, why not? It's only a step."
"Because we don't want to. Good night."
He turned, and started to walk away. The other stood for a moment,
staring; then crossed the road.
Psmith broke the silence.
"Correct me if I am wrong, Comrade Windsor," he said tentatively,
"but were you not a trifle--shall we say abrupt?--with the old
family friend?"
Billy Windsor laughed.
"If my father's name was Joseph," he said, "instead of being
William, the same as mine, and if he'd ever been in Missouri in his
life, which he hasn't, and if I'd been photographed since I was a
kid, which I haven't been, I might have gone along. As it was, I
thought it better not to."
"These are deep waters, Comrade Windsor. Do you mean to intimate?"
"If they can't do any better than that, we shan't have much to
worry us. What do they take us for, I wonder? Farmers? Playing off
a comic-supplement bluff like that on us!"
There was honest indignation in Billy's voice.
"You think, then, that if we had accepted Comrade Lake's
invitation, and gone along for a smoke and a chat, the chat would
not have been of the pleasantest nature?"
"We should have been put out of business."
"I have heard so much," said Psmith, thoughtfully, "of the lavish
hospitality of the American."
"Taxi, sir?"
A red taximeter cab was crawling down the road at their side. Billy
shook his head.
"Not that a taxi would be an unsound scheme," said Psmith.
"Not that particular one, if you don't mind."
"Something about it that offends your aesthetic taste?" queried
Psmith sympathetically.
"Something about it makes my aesthetic taste kick like a mule,"
said Billy.
"Ah, we highly strung literary men do have these curious
prejudices. We cannot help it. We are the slaves of our
temperaments. Let us walk, then. After all, the night is fine, and
we are young and strong."
They had reached Twenty-Third Street when Billy stopped. "I don't
know about walking," he said. "Suppose we take the Elevated?"
"Anything you wish, Comrade Windsor. I am in your hands."
They cut across into Sixth Avenue, and walked up the stairs to the
station of the Elevated Railway. A train was just coming in.
"Has it escaped your notice, Comrade Windsor," said Psmith after a
pause, "that, so far from speeding to your lodgings, we are going
in precisely the opposite direction? We are in an up-town train."
"I noticed it," said Billy briefly.
"Are we going anywhere in particular?"
"This train goes as far as Hundred and Tenth Street. We'll go up to
there."
"And then?"
"And then we'll come back."
"And after that, I suppose, we'll make a trip to Philadelphia, or
Chicago, or somewhere? Well, well, I am in your hands, Comrade
Windsor. The night is yet young. Take me where you will. It is
only five cents a go, and we have money in our purses. We are two
young men out for reckless dissipation. By all means let us have
it."
At Hundred and Tenth Street they left the train, went down the
stairs, and crossed the street. Half-way across Billy stopped.
"What now, Comrade Windsor?" inquired Psmith patiently. "Have you
thought of some new form of entertainment?"
Billy was making for a spot some few yards down the road. Looking
in that direction, Psmith saw his objective. In the shadow of the
Elevated there was standing a taximeter cab.
"Taxi, sir?" said the driver, as they approached.
"We are giving you a great deal of trouble," said Billy. "You must
be losing money over this job. All this while you might be getting
fares down-town."
"These meetings, however," urged Psmith, "are very pleasant."
"I can save you worrying," said Billy. "My address is 84 East
Fourteenth Street. We are going back there now."
"Search me," said the driver, "I don't know what you're talking
about."
"I thought perhaps you did," replied Billy. "Good night."
"These things are very disturbing," said Psmith, when they were in
the train. "Dignity is impossible when one is compelled to be the
Hunted Fawn. When did you begin to suspect that yonder merchant was
doing the sleuth-hound act?"
"When I saw him in Broadway having a heart-to-heart talk with our
friend from Missouri."
"He must be something of an expert at the game to have kept on our
track."
"Not on your life. It's as easy as falling off a log. There are
only certain places where you can get off an Elevated train. All
he'd got to do was to get there before the train, and wait. I
didn't expect to dodge him by taking the Elevated. I just wanted to
make certain of his game."
The train pulled up at the Fourteenth Street station. In the
roadway at the foot of the opposite staircase was a red taximeter
cab.
CHAPTER XIII
REVIEWING THE SITUATION
ARRIVING at the bed-sitting-room, Billy proceeded to occupy the
rocking-chair, and, as was his wont, began to rock himself
rhythmically to and fro. Psmith seated himself gracefully on the
couch-bed. There was a silence.
The events of the evening had been a revelation to Psmith. He had
not realised before the extent of the ramifications of New York's
underworld. That members of the gangs should crop up in the Astor
roof-garden and in gorgeous raiment in the middle of Broadway was a
surprise. When Billy Windsor had mentioned the gangs, he had formed
a mental picture of low-browed hooligans, keeping carefully to
their own quarter of the town. This picture had been correct, as
far as it went, but it had not gone far enough. The bulk of the
gangs of New York are of the hooligan class, and are rarely met
with outside their natural boundaries. But each gang has its more
prosperous members; gentlemen, who, like the man of the Astor
roof-garden, support life by more delicate and genteel methods than
the rest. The main body rely for their incomes, except at
election-time, on such primitive feats as robbing intoxicated
pedestrians. The aristocracy of the gangs soar higher.
It was a considerable time before Billy spoke.
"Say," he said, "this thing wants talking over."
"By all means, Comrade Windsor."
"It's this way. There's no doubt now that we're up against a mighty
big proposition."
"Something of the sort would seem to be the case."
"It's like this. I'm going to see this through. It isn't only that
I want to do a bit of good to the poor cusses in those tenements,
though I'd do it for that alone. But, as far as I'm concerned,
there's something to it besides that. If we win out, I'm going to
get a job out of one of the big dailies. It'll give me just the
chance I need. See what I mean? Well, it's different with you. I
don't see that it's up to you to run the risk of getting yourself
put out of business with a black-jack, and maybe shot. Once you get
mixed up with the gangs there's no saying what's going to be doing.
Well, I don't see why you shouldn't quit. All this has got nothing
to do with you. You're over here on a vacation. You haven't got to
make a living this side. You want to go about and have a good time,
instead of getting mixed up with--"
He broke off.
"Well, that's what I wanted to say, anyway," he concluded.
Psmith looked at him reproachfully.
"Are you trying to sack me, Comrade Windsor?"
How's that?"
"In various treatises on 'How to Succeed in Literature,'" said
Psmith sadly, "which I have read from time to time, I have always
found it stated that what the novice chiefly needed was an editor
who believed in him. In you, Comrade Windsor, I fancied that I had
found such an editor."
"What's all this about?" demanded Billy. "I'm making no kick about
your work."
"I gathered from your remarks that you were anxious to receive my
resignation."
"Well, I told you why. I didn't want you be black-jacked."
"Was that the only reason?"
Sure."
"Then all is well," said Psmith, relieved. "For the moment I
fancied that my literary talents had been weighed in the balance
and adjudged below par. If that is all--why, these are the mere
everyday risks of the young journalist's life. Without them we
should be dull and dissatisfied. Our work would lose its fire. Men
such as ourselves, Comrade Windsor, need a certain stimulus, a
certain fillip, if they are to keep up their high standards. The
knowledge that a low-browed gentleman is waiting round the corner
with a sand-bag poised in air will just supply that stimulus. Also
that fillip. It will give our output precisely the edge it
requires."
"Then you'll stay in this thing? You'll stick to the work?"
"Like a conscientious leech, Comrade Windsor."
"Bully for you," said Billy.
It was not Psmith's habit, when he felt deeply on any subject, to
exhibit his feelings; and this matter of the tenements had hit him
harder than any one who did not know him intimately would have
imagined. Mike would have understood him, but Billy Windsor was too
recent an acquaintance. Psmith was one of those people who are
content to accept most of the happenings of life in an airy spirit
of tolerance. Life had been more or less of a game with him up till
now. In his previous encounters with those with whom fate had
brought him in contact there had been little at stake. The prize of
victory had been merely a comfortable feeling of having had the
best of a battle of wits; the penalty of defeat nothing worse than
the discomfort of having failed to score. But this tenement
business was different. Here he had touched the realities. There
was something worth fighting for. His lot had been cast in pleasant
places, and the sight of actual raw misery had come home to him
with an added force from that circumstance. He was fully aware of
the risks that he must run. The words of the man at the Astor, and
still more the episodes of the family friend from Missouri and the
taximeter cab, had shown him that this thing was on a different
plane from anything that had happened to him before. It was a fight
without the gloves, and to a finish at that. But he meant to see it
through. Somehow or other those tenement houses had got to be
cleaned up. If it meant trouble, as it undoubtedly did, that trouble
would have to be faced.
"Now that Comrade Jarvis," he said, "showing a spirit of
forbearance which, I am bound to say, does him credit, has declined
the congenial task of fracturing our occiputs, who should you say,
Comrade Windsor, would be the chosen substitute?"
Billy shook his head. "Now that Bat has turned up the job, it might
be any one of three gangs. There are four main gangs, you know.
Bat's is the biggest. But the smallest of them's large enough to
put us away, if we give them the chance."
"I don't quite grasp the nice points of this matter. Do you mean
that we have an entire gang on our trail in one solid mass, or will
it be merely a section?"
"Well, a section, I guess, if it comes to that. Parker, or whoever
fixed this thing up, would go to the main boss of the gang. If it
was the Three Points, he'd go to Spider Reilly. If it was the Table
Hill lot, he'd look up Dude Dawson. And so on."
"And what then?"
"And then the boss would talk it over with his own special
partners. Every gang-leader has about a dozen of them. A sort of
Inner Circle. They'd fix it up among themselves. The rest of the
gang wouldn't know anything about it. The fewer in the game, you
see, the fewer to split up the dollars."
"I see. Then things are not so black. All we have to do is to look
out for about a dozen hooligans with a natural dignity in their
bearing, the result of intimacy with the main boss. Carefully
eluding these aristocrats, we shall win through. I fancy, Comrade
Windsor, that all may yet be well. What steps do you propose to
take by way of self-defence?"
"Keep out in the middle of the street, and not go off the Broadway
after dark. You're pretty safe on Broadway. There's too much light
for them there."
"Now that our sleuth-hound friend in the taximeter has ascertained
your address, shall you change it?"
"It wouldn't do any good. They'd soon find where I'd gone to. How
about yours?"
"I fancy I shall be tolerably all right. A particularly massive
policeman is on duty at my very doors. So much for our private
lives. But what of the day-time? Suppose these sandbag-specialists
drop in at the office during business hours. Will Comrade Maloney's
frank and manly statement that we are not in be sufficient to keep
them out? I doubt it. All unused to the nice conventions of polite
society, these rugged persons will charge through. In such
circumstances good work will be hard to achieve. Your literary man
must have complete quiet if he is to give the public of his best.
But stay. An idea!"
"Well?"
"Comrade Brady. The Peerless Kid. The man Cosy Moments is running
for the light-weight championship. We are his pugilistic sponsors.
You may say that it is entirely owing to our efforts that he has
obtained this match with--who exactly is the gentleman Comrade
Brady fights at the Highfield Club on Friday night?"
"Cyclone Al. Wolmann, isn't it?"
"You are right. As I was saying, but for us the privilege of
smiting Comrade Cyclone Al. Wolmann under the fifth rib on Friday
night would almost certainly have been denied to him."
It almost seemed as if he were right. From the moment the paper had
taken up his cause, Kid Brady's star had undoubtedly been in the
ascendant. People began to talk about him as a likely man. Edgren,
in the Evening World, had a paragraph about his chances for the
light-weight title. Tad, in the Journal, drew a picture of him.
Finally, the management of the Highfield Club had signed him for a
ten-round bout with Mr. Wolmann. There were, therefore, reasons
why Cosy Moments should feel a claim on the Kid's services.
"He should," continued Psmith, "if equipped in any degree with
finer feelings, be bubbling over with gratitude towards us. 'But
for Cosy Moments,' he should be saying to himself, 'where should I
be? Among the also-rans.' I imagine that he will do any little
thing we care to ask of him. I suggest that we approach Comrade
Brady, explain the facts of the case, and offer him at a
comfortable salary the post of fighting-editor of Cosy Moments. His
duties will be to sit in the room opening out of ours, girded as to
the loins and full of martial spirit, and apply some of those
half-scissor hooks of his to the persons of any who overcome the
opposition of Comrade Maloney. We, meanwhile, will enjoy that
leisure and freedom from interruption which is so essential to the
artist."
"It's not a bad idea," said Billy.
"It is about the soundest idea," said Psmith, "that has ever been
struck. One of your newspaper friends shall supply us with tickets,
and Friday night shall see us at the Highfield."
CHAPTER XIV
THE HIGHFIELD
FAR up at the other end of the island, on the banks of the Harlem
River, there stands the old warehouse which modern progress has
converted into the Highfield Athletic and Gymnastic Club. The
imagination, stimulated by the title, conjures up a sort of
National Sporting Club, with pictures on the walls, padding on the
chairs, and a sea of white shirt-fronts from roof to floor. But the
Highfield differs in some respects from this fancy picture.
Indeed, it would be hard to find a respect in which it does not
differ. But these names are so misleading. The title under which
the Highfield used to be known till a few years back was "Swifty
Bob's." It was a good, honest title. You knew what to expect; and
if you attended seances at Swifty Bob's you left your gold watch
and your little savings at home. But a wave of anti-pugilistic
feeling swept over the New York authorities. Promoters of boxing
contests found themselves, to their acute disgust, raided by the
police. The industry began to languish. People avoided places where
at any moment the festivities might be marred by an inrush of large
men in blue uniforms armed with locust-sticks.
And then some big-brained person suggested the club idea, which
stands alone as an example of American dry humour. There are now no
boxing contests in New York. Swifty Bob and his fellows would be
shocked at the idea of such a thing. All that happens now is
exhibition sparring bouts between members of the club. It is true
that next day the papers very tactlessly report the friendly
exhibition spar as if it had been quite a serious affair, but that
is not the fault of Swifty Bob.
Kid Brady, the chosen of Cosy Moments, was billed for a "ten-round
exhibition contest," to be the main event of the evening's
entertainment. No decisions are permitted at these clubs. Unless a
regrettable accident occurs, and one of the sparrers is knocked
out, the verdict is left to the newspapers next day. It is not
uncommon to find a man win easily in the World, draw in the
American, and be badly beaten in the Evening Mail. The system leads
to a certain amount of confusion, but it has the merit of offering
consolation to a much-smitten warrior.
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