Which was a very foolish thought for a man that worked in a cage to dream. Very foolish, even if the cage were of gla.s.s. Just about that time the Pippin went out in a black smolder, and from a nearby church, hidden between great sky-sc.r.a.pers, a big ding-dong bell said resonantly that it was half-past one.
He returned to the office. Every afternoon, now, was a tingling trial. He worked with head down, sweating with repression. An obsession tormented him. He wanted to walk out of his gla.s.s cage. Out, not through the door, but through the gla.s.s. Not gently, like Alice going into Wonderland, but with ostentation and violence, with a heralding crash of shattered panes, scandalously. Out of his cage, into the next; out of that, into the next; from one end of the big room, in fact, to the other, crashingly, through cage after cage--and then out upon the street through the plate front.
Half-past five finally freed him; and taking his place in a packed herring-box on wheels, he was rolled back to Dolly--and the shearing.
Thus for a while did the young people live securely on a clown"s tissue-paper hoop. Then one evening, just as Charles-Norton, after successfully resisting all day his anarchistic gla.s.s-smashing impulse, was watching the hands of the clock approach the minute that was to free him, his chief, raising his bald head at the end of his long, thin neck, said casually, "We work all night, to-night, you know, Mr. Sims."
CHAPTER VII
"We work all night to-night, Mr. Sims." It is always with just such a sentence, quiet, drab, and seemingly insignificant, that Mr. Catastrophe introduces himself.
"Yes?" said Charles-Norton, adjusting his neck-tie and looking at the calendar.
He was not surprised, for this happened twice a year. Twice a year, on a day in December and a day in June, a part of the force worked all night to prepare a statistical table for the benefit of the stockholders.
He telephoned to Dolly. Her voice came to him over the wire in a scared little squeak. "Oh, Goosie," she pleaded; "come up before starting in again. I"ll let you go off right away. But please come up, please do!"
"Can"t," shouted Charles-Norton. "We"re allowed only an hour for dinner, and it would take more than that just to go up and back."
"They won"t care if you are a little late," suggested Dolly.
"No, can"t come up," said Charles-Norton, astonished at his own firmness (it is much easier to be firm over a telephone, anyway). "There"s too much to do. I"ll be up in the morning, maybe."
"But Goo-oo-sie----"
"Nope. Can"t. Good-by, dearie," said Charles-Norton, and hung up the receiver, and with a bad conscience and a soaring heart, went off to dinner. No shearing to-night--gee! He ordered a dinner which made the red-headed waitress gasp. "Must have got a raise, eh?" she diagnosed.
"No, not a raise, not a raise," hummed Charles-Norton; "skip now; I"m hungry."
The night was a long and toilsome one, but an inexhaustible bubble was at the pit of Charles-Norton"s being; gradually through the night he felt, beneath his coat, his shoulders deliciously swelling. And when in the morning he stepped out upon the sidewalk, a cry left his lips.
It had showered during the night, and to the rising sun the whole city was glowing as with a golden dew. The air was fresh; Charles-Norton gulped it down. He felt as though a broad river were streaming through him--a clear, cool river. Suddenly, his heels snapped together, his head went back; his hands rose to his armpits and his arms began to vibrate up and down. A policeman came running across the street. "Say, wot de "ell are you doing?" he bellowed, red-faced and outraged.
"I"m going to breakfast," answered Charles-Norton, c.o.c.kily.
He went into the bakery, his hat a-tilt, with the air of a conqueror. For he had decided not to go up to the flat, but to breakfast right here and to spend an hour in the square before going back to the gla.s.s cage at nine. His chest pouted; his eyes glistened; wine ran in his veins. He ordered ham-and-eggs and hot-cakes. An orgy!
He was eating fast, in a hurry for the Pippin and the loll on the bench, when he felt someone sit down by him. There was a pause; then, "h.e.l.lo, chicken!" piped a thin voice in his ear.
"h.e.l.lo, Pinny," answered Charles-Norton, even before looking. He had recognized the voice of the pale youth whom he had elbowed on the L a few weeks before, and whom later he had placated here in the bakery.
"S"pose you"re a millionaire by this time, chicken," said the youth, jocularly.
"Sure, Pinny," answered Charles-Norton.
"But really, honest, did yuh win anything?" went on Pinny, more seriously.
"Win?" Suddenly Charles-Norton remembered the lottery ticket that he had bought. He had forgotten it completely. "The drawings was three days ago," Pinny was saying; "got "em here," and out of his pocket he drew a soiled newspaper clipping.
Charles-Norton also was searching his pockets with much contortion; and it was some time before his hand flashed out triumphantly with a piece of dog-eared, yellow cardboard. "Wot"s your number?" asked Pinny.
"Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven," Charles-Norton read.
Pinny was perusing the clipping in his hand. "Wot did you say," he piped suddenly; "_wot"s_ the number?"
"Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven," repeated Charles-Norton.
The pale youth seemed to collapse. His chin went forward on his green tie, his back slid down the back of his chair, his hands dropped limp upon the table. "Well, I"ll be eternally dod-gum-good-blasted," he said weakly.
"You"ve done it," he continued, solemnly; "you"ve gone and done it." He looked at his clipping again. "Lemme see your ticket," he said. He placed the ticket and the clipping side by side; his stubby, black-fringed finger slid from one to the other.
"You"ve done it, partner," he repeated, with the same funereal intoning.
"Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven! And I"ve held that ticket in my hands, right in these hands! Eight hundred dollars.--Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven wins eight hundred dollars"--his tongue lingered, as if it tasted it, upon each opulent number--"Eight hundred dollars; that"s what you win. And all owing to me, too."
Charles-Norton had forgotten his ham-and-eggs. He took the ticket and the clipping from Pinny"s nerveless fingers and compared them. 19897! That was right. He had won eight hundred dollars. "Where do you cash in?" he exclaimed with a sudden ferocity.
"I"ll take you to it," murmured Pinny, still in a daze. "Gee--and I had that ticket in this here pair of hands. I"ll take yuh to it. It"s down town. No trouble getting the money. You"ll treat on it, eh? You"ll treat, won"t yuh?"
His sharp face was almost beneath Charles-Norton"s chin; his pale eyes rolled upward wistfully. A sudden gust of pity went through Charles-Norton. "Surely," he said. "Better than that; we"ll share."
He paused, coughed. A wave of prudence was modifying his impulse--the prudence that inevitably comes with wealth. "I"ll give you--I"ll give you twenty-five dollars!" he announced.
"Come on!" said Pinny; "come on--we"re losing time, eating in this joint.
Say, you"ll have all you want to eat now, won"t yuh--oysters and wine and grape-fruit and everything. And girls, eh? Autos and wine and girls--Gee!"
And his eyes remained fixed on the vision of splendor, of the splendor of Charles-Norton, missed so narrowly by himself.
Together they went down to the offices of the Little Texas, where after having been warmly congratulated by an oily man with a diamond stud, and after signing seven feet of doc.u.ments and testimonials, Charles-Norton was given a long yellow check, which was forthwith photographed, as was also Charles-Norton. Then the fat, oily man, the clerk who had prepared the doc.u.ments, Pinny, and Charles-Norton went downstairs and, standing up against a polished walnut counter, drank to the long life of the Little Texas and to the success of Charles-Norton. After which the courteous oily man introduced Charles-Norton to the cashier of a bank, where Charles-Norton deposited his check, receiving in return a little yellow deposit-book, and a long green check-book.
With Pinny, Charles-Norton rode back toward the office. They stopped at the square, and stood a while watching the fountain, each a bit uncertain. Finally Pinny put out his hand. "Well, so long, old man," he said; "so long."
"So long," said Charles-Norton, indecisively.
But Pinny still stood there, abashed and uncertain. "You was going to--but you"ve changed yer mind, I suppose; I suppose you"ve changed yer mind--You was going to----" His eyes were on the ground; he shuffled one foot gently. "You was going to----"
"Oh, of course!" cried Charles-Norton. "I was going to give you a share of the swag--of course, of course, of course!"
They sat on a bench. Charles-Norton took out of his pocket the long check-book and opened it out, with a little crackling sound, on its first clean page. He took out his fountain pen. "No. 1," he wrote down with great decision. He paused, looking about him for a moment, in enjoyment of this new occupation. "June 19," he wrote on, slowly, languorously.
"Pay to the order of," the page said next. "Of _Frank Theodore Pinny_,"
wrote Charles-Norton. "Dollars," the check said next, at the end of a blank line. Charles-Norton paused, pen poised above paper.
"Twenty-five," he thought. That is what he had promised. "_T-w-e-n-t-y_,"
he wrote. The pen stopped again, hovering hesitatingly above the paper.
"Twenty-five is a whole lot," he thought. "Just for selling a ticket.
Just for selling a piece of cardboard!" And eight hundred dollars was not so much, either. An hour before, eight hundred dollars had seemed an immense sum. Now it seemed a modest amount, a very modest amount. And twenty-five, twenty-five to give away--that seemed quite big. "Pay to the order of Frank Theodore Pinny," he re-read, "twenty----"
The pen made a sudden descent. "And no-hundredths," it wrote swiftly.