CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
AT SHANDY"S
On a late-summer evening in New York the atmosphere surrounding a certain corner table at Shandy"s cheap restaurant in Fourteenth Street was stirred by a sense of excitement.
The corner table in question was the favourite meeting place of a group of young men of the G. Selden type, who usually took possession of it at dinner time--having decided that Shandy"s supplied more decent food for fifty cents, or even for twenty-five, than was to be found at other places of its order. Shandy"s was "about all right," they said to each other, and patronised it accordingly, three or four of them generally dining together, with a friendly and adroit manipulation of "portions"
and "half portions" which enabled them to add variety to their bill of fare.
The street outside was lighted, the tide of pa.s.sers-by was less full and more leisurely in its movements than it was during the seething, working hours of daylight, but the electric cars swung past each other with whiz and clang of bell almost unceasingly, their sound being swelled, at short intervals, by the roar and rumbling rattle of the trains dashing by on the elevated railroad. This, however, to the frequenters of Shandy"s, was the usual accompaniment of every-day New York life and was regarded as a rather cheerful sort of thing.
This evening the four claimants of the favourite corner table had met together earlier than usual. Jem Belter, who "hammered" a typewriter at Schwab"s Brewery, Tom Wetherbee, who was "in a downtown office," Bert Johnson, who was "out for the Delkoff," and Nick Baumgarten, who having for some time "beaten" certain streets as a.s.sistant salesman for the same ill.u.s.trious machine, had been recently elevated to a "territory" of his own, and was therefore in high spirits.
"Say!" he said. "Let"s give him a fine dinner. We can make it between us. Beefsteak and mushrooms, and potatoes hashed brown. He likes them.
Good old G. S. I shall be right glad to see him. Hope foreign travel has not given him the swell head."
"Don"t believe it"s hurt him a bit. His letter didn"t sound like it.
Little Georgie ain"t a fool," said Jem Belter.
Tom Wetherbee was looking over the letter referred to. It had been written to the four conjointly, towards the termination of Selden"s visit to Mr. Penzance. The young man was not an ardent or fluent correspondent; but Tom Wetherbee was chuckling as he read the epistle.
"Say, boys," he said, "this big thing he"s keeping back to tell us when he sees us is all right, but what takes me is old George paying a visit to a parson. He ain"t no Young Men"s Christian a.s.sociation."
Bert Johnson leaned forward, and looked at the address on the letter paper.
"Mount Dunstan Vicarage," he read aloud. "That looks pretty swell, doesn"t it?" with a laugh. "Say, fellows, you know Jepson at the office, the chap that prides himself on reading such a lot? He said it reminded him of the names of places in English novels. That Johnny"s the biggest sn.o.b you ever set your tooth into. When I told him about the lord fellow that owns the castle, and that George seemed to have seen him, he nearly fell over himself. Never had any use for George before, but just you watch him make up to him when he sees him next."
People were dropping in and taking seats at the tables. They were all of one cla.s.s. Young men who lived in hall bedrooms. Young women who worked in shops or offices, a couple here and there, who, living far uptown, had come to Shandy"s to dinner, that they might go to cheap seats in some theatre afterwards. In the latter case, the girls wore their best hats, had bright eyes, and cheeks lightly flushed by their sense of festivity. Two or three were very pretty in their thin summer dresses and flowered or feathered head gear, tilted at picturesque angles over their thick hair. When each one entered the eyes of the young men at the corner table followed her with curiosity and interest, but the glances at her escort were always of a disparaging nature.
"There"s a beaut!" said Nick Baumgarten. "Get onto that pink stuff on her hat, will you. She done it because it"s just the colour of her cheeks."
They all looked, and the girl was aware of it, and began to laugh and talk coquettishly to the young man who was her companion.
"I wonder where she got Clarence?" said Jem Belter in sarcastic allusion to her escort. "The things those lookers have fastened on to them gets ME."
"If it was one of US, now," said Bert Johnson. Upon which they broke into simultaneous good-natured laughter.
"It"s queer, isn"t it," young Baumgarten put in, "how a fellow always feels sore when he sees another fellow with a peach like that? It"s just straight human nature, I guess."
The door swung open to admit a newcomer, at the sight of whom Jem Belter exclaimed joyously: "Good old Georgie! Here he is, fellows! Get on to his glad rags."
"Glad rags" is supposed to buoyantly describe such attire as, by its freshness or elegance of style, is rendered a suitable adornment for festive occasions or loftier leisure moments. "Glad rags" may mean evening dress, when a young gentleman"s wardrobe can aspire to splendour so marked, but it also applies to one"s best and latest-purchased garb, in contradistinction to the less ornamental habiliments worn every day, and designated as "office clothes."
G. Selden"s economies had not enabled him to give himself into the hands of a Bond Street tailor, but a careful study of cut and material, as spread before the eye in elegant coloured ill.u.s.trations in the windows of respectable shops in less ambitious quarters, had resulted in the purchase of a well-made suit of smart English cut. He had a nice young figure, and looked extremely neat and tremendously new and clean, so much so, indeed, that several persons glanced at him a little admiringly as he was met half way to the corner table by his friends.
"h.e.l.lo, old chap! Glad to see you. What sort of a voyage? How did you leave the royal family? Glad to get back?"
They all greeted him at once, shaking hands and slapping him on the back, as they hustled him gleefully back to the corner table and made him sit down.
"Say, garsong," said Nick Baumgarten to their favourite waiter, who came at once in answer to his summons, "let"s have a porterhouse steak, half the size of this table, and with plenty of mushrooms and potatoes hashed brown. Here"s Mr. Selden just returned from visiting at Windsor Castle, and if we don"t treat him well, he"ll look down on us."
G. Selden grinned. "How have you been getting on, Sam?" he said, nodding cheerfully to the man. They were old and tried friends. Sam knew all about the days when a fellow could not come into Shandy"s at all, or must satisfy his strong young hunger with a bowl of soup, or coffee and a roll. Sam did his best for them in the matter of the size of portions, and they did their good-natured utmost for him in the affair of the pooled tip.
"Been getting on as well as can be expected," Sam grinned back. "Hope you had a fine time, Mr. Selden?"
"Fine! I should smile! Fine wasn"t in it," answered Selden. "But I"m looking forward to a Shandy porterhouse steak, all the same."
"Did they give you a better one in the Strawnd?" asked Baumgarten, in what he believed to be a correct c.o.c.kney accent.
"You bet they didn"t," said Selden. "Shandy"s takes a lot of beating."
That last is English.
The people at the other tables cast involuntary glances at them. Their eager, hearty young pleasure in the festivity of the occasion was a healthy thing to see. As they sat round the corner table, they produced the effect of gathering close about G. Selden. They concentrated their combined attention upon him, Belter and Johnson leaning forward on their folded arms, to watch him as he talked.
"Billy Page came back in August, looking pretty b.u.m," Nick Baumgarten began. "He"d been painting gay Paree brick red, and he"d spent more money than he"d meant to, and that wasn"t half enough. Landed dead broke. He said he"d had a great time, but he"d come home with rather a dark brown taste in his mouth, that he"d like to get rid of."
"He thought you were a fool to go off cycling into the country," put in Wetherbee, "but I told him I guessed that was where he was "way off. I believed you"d had the best time of the two of you."
"Boys," said Selden, "I had the time of my life." He said it almost solemnly, and laid his hand on the table. "It was like one of those yarns Bert tells us. Half the time I didn"t believe it, and half the time I was ashamed of myself to think it was all happening to me and none of your fellows were in it."
"Oh, well," said Jem Belter, "luck chases some fellows, anyhow. Look at Nick, there."
"Well," Selden summed the whole thing up, "I just FELL into it where it was so deep that I had to strike out all I knew how to keep from drowning."
"Tell us the whole thing," Nick Baumgarten put in; "from beginning to end. Your letter didn"t give anything away."
"A letter would have spoiled it. I can"t write letters anyhow. I wanted to wait till I got right here with you fellows round where I could answer questions. First off," with the deliberation befitting such an opening, "I"ve sold machines enough to pay my expenses, and leave some over."
"You have? Gee whiz! Say, give us your prescription. Glad I know you, Georgy!"
"And who do you suppose bought the first three?" At this point, it was he who leaned forward upon the table--his climax being a thing to concentrate upon. "Reuben S. Vanderpoel"s daughter--Miss Bettina! And, boys, she gave me a letter to Reuben S., himself, and here it is."
He produced a flat leather pocketbook and took an envelope from an inner flap, laying it before them on the tablecloth. His knowledge that they would not have believed him if he had not brought his proof was founded on everyday facts. They would not have doubted his veracity, but the possibility of such delirious good fortune. What they would have believed would have been that he was playing a hilarious joke on them. Jokes of this kind, but not of this proportion, were common entertainments.
Their first impulse had been towards an outburst of laughter, but even before he produced his letter a certain truthful seriousness in his look had startled them. When he laid the envelope down each man caught his breath. It could not be denied that Jem Belter turned pale with emotion.
Jem had never been one of the lucky ones.
"She let me read it," said G. Selden, taking the letter from its envelope with great care. "And I said to her: "Miss Vanderpoel, would you let me just show that to the boys the first night I go to Shandy"s?"
I knew she"d tell me if it wasn"t all right to do it. She"d know I"d want to be told. And she just laughed and said: "I don"t mind at all. I like "the boys." Here is a message to them. "Good luck to you all."""
"She said that?" from Nick Baumgarten.
"Yes, she did, and she meant it. Look at this."
This was the letter. It was quite short, and written in a clear, definite hand.