“Boys,” swore Pop, “I’m a peach! On the dead level, I’m a peach.”
“By golly, I believe the old Indian can run,” said one to the other, as if they were alone in conference.
“That’s what I can,” cried Pop.
The Kids said: “Well, so long, old man.” They went to a table, and sat down. They ordered a salad. They were always ordering salads. This was because one Kid had a wild passion for salads, and the other did not care much. So at any hour of the day or night they might be seen ordering a salad. When this one came, they went into a sort of executive session. It was a very long consultation. Some of the men noted it; they said there was deviltry afoot. Occasionally the Kids laughed in supreme enjoyment of something unknown. The low rumble of wheels came from the street. Often could be heard the parrot-like cries of distant venders. The sunlight streamed through the green curtains and made some little amber-colored flitterings on the marble floor. High up among the severe decorations of the ceiling, — reminiscent of the days when the great building was a palace, — a small white butterfly was wending through the cool air-spaces. The long billiard-hall stretched back to a vague gloom. The balls were always clicking, and one could see endless elbows crooking. Beggars slunk through the wicker doors, and were ejected by the nearest waiter.
At last the Kids called Pop to them. “Sit down, Pop! Have a drink!”
They scanned him carefully. “Say, now, Pop, on your solemn oath, can you run?”
“Boys,” said Pop, piously, and raising his hand, “I can run like a rabbit.”
“On your oath?”
“On my oath.”
“Can you beat Freddie?”
Pop appeared to look at the matter from all sides. “Well, boys, I’ll tell you: no man is cock-sure of anything in this world, and I don’t want to say that I can best any man; but I’ve seen Freddie run, and I’m ready to swear I can beat ‘im. In a hundred yards I’d just about skin ‘im neat — you understand — just about neat. Freddie is a good average runner, but I — you understand — I’m just — a little — bit — better.”
The Kids had been listening with the utmost attention. Pop spoke the latter part slowly and meaningly. They thought that he intended them to see his great confidence.
One said: “Pop, if you throw us in this thing, we’ll come here and drink for two weeks without paying. We’ll back you, and work a josh on Freddie! But oh — if you throw us!”
To this menace Pop cried: “Boys, I’ll make the run of my life! On my oath!”
The salad having vanished, the Kids arose. “All right, now,” they warned him. “If you play us for duffers, we’ll get square. Don’t you forget it!”
“Boys, I’ll give you a race for you money. Bank on that. I may lose — understand, I may lose — no man can help meeting a better man, but I think I can skin ‘im, and I’ll give you a run for your money, you bet.”
“All right, then. But look here,” they told him. “You keep your face closed. Nobody but us gets in on this. Understand?”
“Not a soul,” Pop declared.
They left him, gesturing a last warning from the wicker doors.
In the street they saw Benson, his cane gripped in the middle, strolling among the white-clothed, jabbering natives on the shady side. They semaphored to him eagerly, their faces ashine with a plot. He came across cautiously, like a man who ventures into dangerous company.
“We’re going to get up a race — Pop and Fred. Pop swears he can skin ‘im. This is a tip; keep it dark, now. Say, won’t Freddie be hot?”
Benson looked as if he had been compelled to endure these exhibitions of insanity for a century. “Oh, you fellows are off. Pop can’t beat Freddie. He’s an old bat. Why, it’s impossible. Pop can’t beat Freddie.”
“Can’t he? Want to bet he can’t?” said the Kids. “There, now; let’s see — you’re talking so large.”
“Well, you—”
“Oh, bet! Bet, or else close your trap. That’s the way!”
“How do you know you can pull off the race? Seen Freddie?”
“No; but—”
“Well, see him, then. Can’t bet now, with no race arranged. I’ll bet with you all right, all right. I’ll give you fellows a tip, though — you’re a pair of asses. Pop can’t run any faster than a brick school-house.”
The Kids scowled at him, and defiantly said: “Can’t he?”
They left him, and went to the “Casa Verde.” Freddie, beautiful in his white jacket, was holding one of his innumerable conversations across the bar. He smiled when he saw them. “Where you boys been?” he demanded in a paternal tone. Almost all the proprietors of American cafes in the city used to adopt a paternal tone when they spoke to the Kids.
“Oh, been round,” they replied.
“Have a drink,” said the proprietor of the Casa Verde, forgetting his other social obligations.
During the course of this ceremony one of the Kids remarked: “Freddie, Pop says he can beat you running.”
“Does he?” observed Freddie, without excitement. He was used to various snares of the Kids.
“That’s what. He says he can leave you at the wire, and not see you again.”
“Well, he lies,” replied Freddie, placidly.
“And I’ll bet you a bottle of wine that he can do it, too.”
“Rats!” said Freddie.
“Oh, that’s all right,” pursued a Kid. “You can throw bluffs all you like; but he can lose you in a hundred-yard dash, you bet.”
Freddie drank his whisky, and then settled his elbows on the bar. “Say, now, what do you boys keep coming in here with some pipe-story all the time for? You can’t josh me. Do you think you can scare me about Pop? Why, I know I can beat ‘im. He’s an old man. He can’t run with me; certainly not.
Why, you fellows are just jollying me.”
“Are we, though?” said the Kids. “You dares n’t bet the bottle of wine.”
“Oh of course I can bet you a bottle of wine,” said Freddie, disdainfully. “Nobody cares about a bottle of wine, but—”
“Well, make it five, then,” advised one of the Kids.
Freddie hunched his shoulders. “Why, certainly I will. Make it ten if you like, but—”
“We do,” they said.
“Ten, is it? All right; that goes.” A look of weariness came over Freddie’s face. “But you boys are foolish. I tell you, Pop is an old man. How can you expect him to run? Of course I’m no great runner, but, then, I’m young and healthy, and — and a pretty smooth runner, too. Pop is old and fat, and, then, he does n’t do a thing but tank all day. It’s a cinch.”
The Kids looked at him, and laughed rapturously. They waved their finders at him. “Ah, there!” they cried. They meant that they had made a victim of him.
But Freddie continued to expostulate: “I tell you, he could n’t win — an old man like hi. You’re crazy! Of course I know that you don’t care about ten bottles of wine, but then to make such bets as that! You’re twisted.”
“Are we, though?” cried the Kids, in mockery. They had precipitated Freddie into a long and thoughtful treatise on every possible chance of the thing as he saw it. They disputed with him from time to time, and jeered at him. He labored on through his argument. Their childish faces were bright with glee.
In the midst of it Wilburson entered. Wilburson worked – not too much, though. He had hold of the Mexican end of a great importing house of New
York, and, as he was a junior partner, he worked — but not too much, though. “What’s the howl?” he said.
The Kids giggled. “We’ve got Freddie rattled.”
“Why,” said Freddie, turning to him, “these two Indians are trying to tell me that Pop can beat me running.”
“Like the devil?” said Wilburson, incredulously.
“Well, can’t he?” demanded a Kid.
“Why certainly not,” said Wilburson, dismissing every possibility of it with a gesture. “That old bat? Certain
ly not! I’ll bet fifty dollars that Freddie—”
“Take you,” said a Kid.
“What?” said Wilburson. “That Freddie won’t beat Pop?”
The Kid that had spoken now nodded his head.
“That Freddie won’t beat Pop?” repeated Wilburson.
“Yes; is it a go?”
“Why, certainly,” retorted Wilburson. “Fifty? All right.”
“Bet you five bottles on the side,” ventured the other Kid.
“Why, certainly,” exploded Wilburson, wrathfully. “You fellows must take me for something easy. I’ll take all those kind of bets that I can get. Cer-tain-ly.”
They settled the details. The course was to be paced off on the asphalt of one of the adjacent side-streets; and then, at about eleven o’clock in the evening, the match would be run. Usually in Mexico the streets of a city grow lonely and dark but a little time after nine o’clock. There are occasional lurking figures, perhaps, but no crowds, lights, noise. The course would doubtless be undisturbed. As for the policemen in the vicinity, they — well, they were conditionally amiable.
The Kids went to see Pop. They told him of the arrangements; and then in deep tones they said: “Oh, Pop, if you throw us!”
Pop appeared to be a trifle shaken by the weight of responsibility thrust upon him, but he spoke out bravely: “Boys, I’ll pinch that race. Now you watch me. I’ll pinch it!”
The Kids went then on some business of their own, for they were not seen again until evening. When they returned to the neighborhood of the Café Colorado, the usual evening stream of carriages was whirling along the calle. The wheels hummed on the asphalt, and the coachmen towered in their great sombreros. On the sidewalk a gazing crowd sauntered, the better classes self-satisfied and proud in their derby hats and cutaway coats, the lower classes muffling their dark faces in their blankets, slipping along in leather sandals. An electric light sputtered and fumed over the throng. The afternoon shower had left the pave wet and glittering; the air was still laden with the odor of rain on flowers, grass, leaves.
In the Café Colorado a cosmopolitan crowd ate, drank, played billiards, gossiped, or read in the glaring yellow light. When the Kids entered, a large circle of men that had been gesticulating near the bar greeted them with a roar:
“Here they are now!”
“Oh, you pair of peaches!”
“Say got any more money to bet with?”
The Kids smiled complacently. Old Colonel Hammigan, grinning, pushed his way to them. “Say, boys, we’ll all have a drink on you now, because you won’t have any money after eleven o’clock. You’ll be going down the back stairs in your stocking-feet.”
Although the Kids remained unnaturally serene and quiet, argument in the Café Colorado became tumultuous. Here and there a man who did not intend to bet ventured meekly that perchance Pop might win; and the others swarmed upon him in a whirlwind of angry denial and ridicule.
Pop, enthroned behind the bar, looked over at this storm with a shadow of anxiety upon his face; this wide-spread flouting affected him; but the Kids looked blissfully satisfied with the tumult they had stirred.
Blanco, honest man, ever worrying for his friends, came to them. “Say, you fellows, you are n’t betting too much? This thing looks kind of shaky, don’t it?”
The faces of the Kids grew sober, and after consideration one said: “No; I guess we’ve got a good thing, Blanco. Pop is going to surprise them, I think.”
“Well, don’t—”
“All right, old boy. We’ll watch out.”
From time to time the Kids had much business with certain orange, red, blue, purple, and green bills. They were making little memoranda on the backs of visiting-cards. Pop watched them closely, the shadow still upon his face. Once he called to them; and when they came, he leaned over the bar, and said intensely: “Say, boys, remember, now — I might lose this race. Nobody can ever say for sure, and if I do — why—”
“Oh, that’s all right, Pop,” said the Kids, reassuringly. “Don’t mind it. Do your durndest, and let it go at that.”
When they had left him, however, they went to a corner to consult. “Say, this is getting interesting. Are you in deep?” asked one, anxiously, of his friend.
“Yes; pretty deep,” said the other, stolidly. “Are you?”
“Deep as the devil,” replied the other in the same tone.
They looked at each other stonily, and went back to the crowd. Benson had just entered the café. He approached them with a gloating smile of victory. “Well, where’s all that money you were going to bet?”
“Right here,” said the Kids, thrusting into their vest pockets.
At eleven o’clock a curious thing was learned. When Pop and Freddie, the Kids, and all, came to the little side street, it was thick with people. It seems that the news of this great race had spread like the wind among the Americans, and they had come to witness the event. In the darkness the crowd moved, gesticulating and mumbling in argument.
The principals, the Kids, and those with them surveyed this scene with some dismay. “Say, here ‘s a go.” Even then a policeman might be seen approaching, the light from his little lantern flickering on his white cap, gloves, brass buttons, and on the butt of the old-fashioned Colt’s revolver which hung at his belt. He addressed Freddie in swift Mexican. Freddie listened, nodding from time to time. Finally Freddie turned to the others to translate: “He says he’ll get into trouble if he allows this race when all this crowd is here.”
There was a murmur of discontent. The policeman looked at them with an expression of anxiety on his broad brown face.
“Oh, come on. We’ll go hold it on some other fellow’s beat,” said one of the Kids.
The group moved slowly away, debating.
Suddenly the other Kid cried: “I know! The Paseo!”
“By jiminy!” said Freddie, “just the thing. We’ll get a cab, and go out to the Paseo. S-s-sh! Keep it quiet. We don’t want all this mob.”
Later they tumbled in a cab — Pop, Freddie, the Kids, old Colonel Hammigan, and Benson. They Whispered to the men who had wagered: “The Paseo.” The cab whirled away up the black street. There were occasional grunts and groans — cries of : “Oh, get off me feet!” and of: “Quit! You’re killing me!” Six people do not have fun in one cab. The principals spoke to each other with the respect and friendliness which comes to good men at such times.
Once a Kid put his head out of the window and looked backward. He pulled it in again, and cried: “Great Scott! Look at that, would you!”
The others struggled to do as they were bid, and afterward shouted: “Holy smoke!” “Well, I’ll be blowed!” “Thunder and turf!”
Galloping after them came innumerable other cabs, their lights twinkling, streaming in a great procession through the night. “The street is full of them,” ejaculated the old colonel.
The Paseo de la Reforma is the famous drive of the City of Mexico, leading to the castle of Chapultepec, which last ought to be well known in the United States.
It is a broad, fine avenue of macadam, with a much greater quality of dignity than anything of the kind we possess in our own land. It seems of the Old World where to the beauty of the thing itself is added the solemnity of tradition and history, the knowledge that feet in buskins trod the same stones, that cavalcades of steel thundered there before the coming of carriages.
When the Americans tumbled out of their cabs, the giant bronzes of Aztec and Spaniard loomed dimly above them like towers. The four rows of poplar-trees rustled weirdly off there in the darkness. Pop took out his watch, and struck a match. “Well, hurry up this thing. It’s almost midnight.”
The other cabs came swarming, the drivers lashing their horses; for these Americans, who did all manner of strange things, nevertheless always paid well for it. There was a might hubbub then in the darkness. Five or six men began to pace off the distance and quarrel. Others knotted their handkerchiefs together to make a tape. Men were swearing
over bets, fussing and fuming about the odds. Benson came to the Kids, swaggering. “You’re a pair of asses.” The cabs waited in a solid block down the avenue. Above the crowd, the tall statues hid their visages in the night.
At last a voice floated through the darkness: “Are you ready, there?” Everybody yelled excitedly. The men at the tape pulled it out straight. “Hold it higher, Jim, you fool!” A silence fell then upon the through. Men bended down, trying to pierce the darkness with their eyes. From out at the starting-point came muffled voices. The crowd swayed and jostled.
The racers did not come. The crowd began to fret, its nerves burning. “Oh, hurry up!” shrilled some one.
The voice called again: “Ready there?”
Everybody replied: “Yes; all ready! Hurry up!”
There was more muffled discussion at the starting-point. In the crowd a man began to make a proposition: “I’ll bet twenty—” But the throng interrupted with a howl: “Here they come!” The thickly packed body of men swung as if the ground had moved. The men at the tape shouldered madly at their fellows, bawling: “Keep back! Keep back!”
From the profound gloom came the noise of feet pattering furiously. Vaque forms flashed into view for an instant. A hoarse roar broke from the crowd. Men bended and swayed and fought. The Kids, back near the tape, exchanged another stolid look. A white form shone forth. It grew like a specter. Always could be heard the wild patter. A barbaric scream broke from the crowd: “By Gawd, it’s Pop! Pop! Pop’s ahead!”
The old man spun toward the tape like a madman, his chin thrown back, his gray hair flying. His legs moved like maniac machinery. And as he shot forward a howl as from forty cages of wild animals went toward the imperturbable chieftains in bronze. The crowd flung themselves forward. “Oh you old Indian! You savage! You cuss, you! Durn my buttons, did you ever see such running?”
“Ain’t he a peach? Well!”
“Say, this beats anything!”
“Where’s the Kids? H-e-y, Kids!”
“Look at ‘im, would you? Did you ever think?”
These cries flew in the air, blended in a vast shout of astonishment and laughter.
Complete Works of Stephen Crane Page 110
