The East End, strangely enough, appealed to him more than the West. He took expeditions down among the docks, and sat in squalid public-houses listening to the coa.r.s.e conversation of their habitues. There was always something new to shock, or interest, the eyes. It was no strange thing to find a woman performing certain domestic avocations before a pot of beer.
Some of them brought potatoes and peas, peeling and sh.e.l.ling these in the bar in preference to the hovels which they inhabited. The "pub" was their club and general meeting-house.
Once he managed to get into conversation with one of these products of "the hub of the Universe." Her point of view staggered him. Her meek acceptance of her lot sickened him. Why didn"t she fly--she and her man--away to green fields and fresh air, away from this plague-ridden, dismal city? The suggestion brought from her a peal of mirthless laughter.
Later he arrived at the truth. These people suffered from the greatest disease of all--_The Fear of Living_. Their hearts were rotten. They lived and died, rooted to some few acres of mud and muck because they feared what lay beyond. Like children they feared the unknown. Daylight lay beyond the jungle, but they believed it to be the pit of doom--of empty stomachs and endless tribulation.
Nothing could be done for them until the system was smashed.
Unsophisticated, uncultured as he was, he succeeded in grasping the root of the problem--Education. They were living a lie. The very environment conspired to perpetuate that lie. When one among them stood up and averred that Life meant something more than this, that Man was not made to eke out his life in bitter misery, that the result of the toil of the worker was filched by some inexplicable process, he was immediately voted "balmy."
They were not ripe for fighting. There was as yet no clearly seen Cause that would rouse them from their torpor. But one day the flood would burst the dam of besotted ignorance, and the human cataract would descend with appalling force.
Colorado Jim, born out of Nature, succored by the sweet winds of heaven, was learning things. When at nights he stood at his window, at the top of the hotel, and gazed over the vastness of this squat monster, London, Colorado seemed very far away.
Hitherto he had been a poor reader; he had had no time for books. Now a book came into his hands. Feeling lonely, he dipped into it. It was Reade"s "Martyrdom of Man." All night long he sat and read. All the civilizations of earth pa.s.sed before him in perspective. It gave him a new interest in life. He wanted to go out and take this London by the throat. It was a mockery of what civilization should be. It was an insult to dead generations of men. Man had fought and suffered and died for--this! Humanity had labored for tens of centuries to give birth to--this!
But his healthy mind recoiled from morbid speculation. He took a trip into Devonshire, and found there a recrudescence of the old calm joyousness that he believed had somehow left him. He roved the Devon hills in wind and rain, drew into his lungs the fragrant breath of the moorland, and felt a better man. He sang as he walked--a great deep song that went echoing along the valleys. s.p.a.ce--s.p.a.ce! There was the magic potion. What were Money, Success, Power, compared to the free delights of Nature?
On his return to London he seriously reflected upon the advisability of going back to Medicine Bow. Man is a gregarious animal, and Jim was feeling the need of friends. What envy was his when he perceived little groups of friends, gathered together around some table, laughing and making merry! He had found the big London clubs astonishingly exclusive. A man had to be proposed and seconded, and what not, by existing members, who had to vouch for his moral or social standing. Jim felt an outsider; an alien among strange people, whose ways were not his ways. It might have been Colorado for him but for a totally unexpected occurrence.
He was returning from a trip to the Crystal Palace, and was waiting on the railway platform for his train, when a drunken man started a commotion a few paces from him. Exhibiting signs of violence, two porters came forward to remove him. That was, apparently, exactly what he wanted. He slipped off his coat and danced round in ungainly fashion. The porters advanced.
He lunged out and caught the foremost man a heavy blow under the chin. The man reeled back and collided violently with an immaculately dressed man who was standing on the edge of the platform. The latter staggered, lost his balance, and fell on to the line. A frenzied voice screamed:
"Oh, my G.o.d, the train!"
The locomotive arrived with a roar. The man on the line tried to rise, but the sight of the approaching doom paralyzed him. Women shrieked and men stood rooted to the spot. No one saw the big form of Jim descend like a thunderbolt on the back of the terrified man. An instant later the engine pa.s.sed over them....
Underneath the moving ma.s.s Jim"s fourteen stone of human tissue was pressed close to the form beneath him. He was scarcely conscious of taking the leap. His brain had yelled one distinct order to his active limbs: "Keep him down flat!" He had obeyed that subconsciously. For a second or so it was pure oblivion, and then he realized what had happened. If there should not be enough clearance?... Any considerable projection would mean....
But something happened which drove the specter of fear away. There came a sharp pain in his back. It grew to intense torture. A small, red-hot cinder from the engine was eating into his flesh. He wanted to raise his head, to put out his arm and remove this merciless thing. But Will prevailed. The pain grew less. The roar ceased. He realized that the train had stopped. He could hear the excited murmur of voices. Everyone seemed to be talking at once.
"There"s another there--that big man. I tell you...."
"Mary, come away...."
"It went right over him. Oh, poor fellow!..."
"The big man was holding him down. They"re safe, I tell you."
A quavering male voice--that of the guard--came down through the s.p.a.ce between the platform and the footboard of the train.
"Hel-lo, down there!"
"Yank your darned train out. There"s a cinder half-way through my back,"
growled Jim.
Shouts were heard and the train began to move. It seemed an eternity before the last coach pa.s.sed over them. By that time the cinder had grown cold. Jim kneeled up and gasped. He caught the other man in his arms and climbed on to the platform. The crowd rushed forward to shake him by the hand. He could have kissed any woman there without asking, but it never occurred to him. His one idea was to get away from this hand-shaking crowd. He made for the waiting-room, still carrying his man.
"For Gawd"s sake keep that crush out," he begged of the station-master.
The latter carried out this difficult task with ultimate success. When he came back the immaculate one had recovered his senses. He was still suffering from shock, but he found enough strength to wedge a monocle into his eye and to survey Jim, wonderingly.
"Great Scott--what a feat!" he exclaimed.
Jim was rubbing his injured back.
"My deah fellah, it was positively superhuman! You saved my life--what!"
"Oh, that"s all right."
"Bai Jove, I should think so! It was positively and indubitably the most courageous thing I have ever seen or read of."
His cultured lisping speech and his well-bred air interested Jim. Here was one of the upper ten thousand, the real flower of British aristocracy.
Jim"s eyes traveled over him, noting the cut of his clothes and his general air of careless la.s.situde. It had taken ten generations to produce that finished article, and the man from the "Wilds" wondered what was the real nature of the animal. Physically he was a degenerate. His hands were long and tapered, and his limbs were exceeding small. But he possessed grace of movement. Jim felt a sneaking admiration for the hundred-and-one little tricks of movement that characterized the Immaculate One. But was it only veneer? Were these polished externals without inward counterpart?
In the meantime the Immaculate One had taken stock of his saviour. He found much to admire in this amazing giant, with swells of muscle outlined behind the cloth that covered it. No man of his set could have done what this man had done. Sensitiveness, Culture, seemed to negate spontaneity of action. Reason had usurped the throne of Will. Colorado Jim only reasoned in his immature fashion. He acted without reason, on the impulse of the moment. Impulse had its advantages. Had he stopped to reason, the Immaculate One would have soon been the object of a Coroner"s jury. Jim found the slim white hand extended towards him. He shook it.
"I should--ah--like to know to whom I am indebted?"
"Jim Conlan, but it don"t matter a cuss."
"It matters a great deal--to me. I should like to give you my card."
He produced a gold card-case and extracted a thin piece of paste-board.
Jim scanned it: _Alfred Cholmondeley, Huntingdon Club_.
"I gather you are not the sort of fellah who loves a torrent of oral thanks," drawled Cholmondeley; "but if at any time I can be of the slightest service to you, you have only to command me."
It was then that an inspiration came to Jim. He scanned the card again.
"Say, you mean that?"
"Try me."
"Wal, if you"d like to balance the account good and proper, git me into this yere club."
Cholmondeley stared, and coughed.
"It"s--ah--it"s a deuced expensive club."
Jim"s face relaxed.
"I guess I can stand the pace."
Cholmondeley was at his wits" end. Of all the impossible things on earth Jim had asked the most impossible. The Huntingdon was the doyen of London clubs; its t.i.tled members could have filled a very large volume. And here was this primal man of the wilderness seeking admission!
"It don"t matter," said Jim, with a curl of his lip.
Cholmondeley set his teeth.
"I"ll do it," he said. "It"s going to be demned difficult, but it shall be done. What"s your address?"
"Hotel Cecil."