Up in the Old Hotel (Vintage Classics)

by Joseph Mitchell

  One afternoon not long ago an official of the bank gave me permission to go through the file of letters written by John S. Smith’s deluded beneficiaries. The file is kept in the company’s main office at 1 Wall Street. First, however, I had to promise that I would not mention any of the names signed to the letters; the official feared that such mention might in some cases expose the writers to ridicule.

  The first letter I read was from a waitress in a café at a tourist camp on U.S. Highway 11, near Gadsden, Alabama. It was written in pencil on two sheets of ruled tablet paper and dated March 27, 1936. She wrote that a few nights ago she had given a ham-and-egg sandwich to ‘a raggedy old man in his sixties or seventies with a pack on his back.’ Just before he left he handed her two slips of paper. One was a check for $25,000 and the other was a check for $1,000. This combination of checks turned up often. Possibly the check for $1,000 was Santa Claus Smith’s idea of a tip.

  ‘I naturally thought the old man was a nut going through the country,’ the waitress wrote, ‘but I studied the matter over, and it got my curiosity up, and I want to know has he got any money in your bank. As you know, strange things happen. If these checks are O.K., please send the money as I sure can use it to advantage. If not, please return same, as I desire to keep them for souvenirs.’

  The next letter I pulled out of the file was from a farmer’s wife on Route 1, Metamora, Indiana. She also enclosed a check for $25,000 and one for $1,000.

  ‘Just a word of information please,’ she wrote. ‘Is there a man by the name of John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe, that has dealings with your bank? I will explain to you. Late one evening last July about the 18th [1935] there was an old man with a long beard and a very kind face turned in our lawn. He seemed to be a tramp. It was almost dusk. He asked if there was a chance to get a piece of bread. It has always been my custom to give to tramps if I have anything I can handy give. He was carrying a pack on his back so I told him to set down on the lawn. I had a nice warm supper cooked so I served him on the lawn. He seemed to be very hungry. I gave him a second serving. When he finished he took from his pack two checks copied on brown paper looked like they were cut from paper bags. He came forward and handed these to me with his plate. His face was so kind it is hard to believe he meant anything false.’

  A similar confidence in the old man was displayed by a farmer of Silsbee, Texas, who wrote, ‘I received these checks from an old gentleman who ate breakfast at our home and I asked the bank here to handle same for me, and they seemed to think they were no good. I am different. This man had no reason to give us these checks knowing they were no good. So I still believe he wanted us to have this amount of money and we sure need it. Wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.’ The letter was dated December 20, 1937.

  * * *

  The majority of the letter-writers, however, are not so confident. They are suspicious but hopeful. Their letters follow a pattern. First the writers indicate that they are far too worldly-wise to believe that the checks are good; then in the next sentence they give the bank explicit instructions for forwarding the money. A waitress in San Antonio sent in a check for $7,000 and wrote, ‘I know this is just a joke, but a girl friend dared me to send it to you, so here it is. If he has an account with you, please send me the money by registered mail.’ A rather snippety waitress in a truck-drivers’ café in Muncie, Indiana, wrote, ‘Enclosed you will find one cheque for $1,000 given me by an uncouth beggar on your bank. If it has any value to it, open an account for me in your bank and deposit amount of check.’ A waitress in a restaurant on South Halsted Street, Chicago, was blunter. To a check for $270,000 she attached a note: ‘I guess the old nut who gave me this is fresh out of the nut house, but send me the money if true.’ A woman in Alabama City, Alabama, sent in a check for $21,000 via air mail and special delivery. Her letter contained an interesting description of old John S. ‘He was baldheaded wearing an overcoat and whiskers all over his face and I could not understand anything much he said, and he also had a walking stick,’ she wrote.

  Some of the correspondents were not only suspicious of John S. Smith; they also showed that they did not entirely trust the Irving National Bank of New York. I found seven letters from people who sent photostatic copies of checks and said they would deposit the originals in their local banks if John S. Smith was sufficiently solvent. Also in the file were letters from banks in which people had tried to cash or deposit his checks. A bank in Kansas City wrote, ‘A customer of ours has high hopes that the enclosed paper is an order on your bank for the payment of $15,000. We have looked it over and our foreign-exchange teller has examined it, but none of us have quite figured it out. If you can throw any light on the matter, we will appreciate it.’

  John S. Smith is far more generous to waitresses and housewives than he is to the motorists and truck-drivers with whom he hitches daylong rides. Evidently he places little value on transportation. He has never given a check exceeding $1,000 for an automobile ride; for a hamburger he has gone as high as $600,000.

  The old straggler is a cat-lover. On July 6, 1934, he went into a café in Groton, South Dakota, and asked the wife of the proprietor to care for a cat he was carrying. She said she would. Then he wrote out two checks. One, for $4,000, was made payable ‘to person who upkeep the black and white cat name Smiles from John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe.’ On the other, which was for $1,000, he wrote, ‘Pay to anyone assisting care of cat.’

  The letters do not throw much light on the mystery of John S. Smith’s past. He told a woman in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that he left home in 1934 and began to wander because the depression got on his mind. This woman expressed a belief that ‘there is something wrong with the old man’s head.’ ‘I think he got loose from an institution and has been lost ever since,’ she wrote. He built up a romantic picture of himself for a young woman in San Antonio. She wrote, ‘I befriended a poorly dressed man who insisted upon writing me the attached order for $6,000. I put this paper away and attached no importance to it until recently when it occurred to me that so many strange things do happen that this might possibly be another instance. He stated that he purposely wore ragged clothes and rewarded those who helped him when he asked for help only through such an instrument as the attached as arrangements had been made with your bank to honor these and no others.’

  For a few minutes on the morning of July 19, 1936, it looked as if the mystery might be solved. On that day a letter from John S. Smith was delivered to the Irving Trust. The official on whose desk it was placed became excited. The envelope was postmarked Wabash, Indiana. Inside there was a letter scribbled wildly on the backs of seven lunchroom menus. It began, ‘Irv. Nat. Bank of N.Y. Dear Sir,’ and then became illegible. The official was exasperated. He glanced through page after page and none of the writing made sense. The letter had been written with an indelible pencil and had come in contact with water; most of the words had beome ugly purple blots. Also, it was evident that John S. Smith had carried the letter around in his pocket for days before mailing it. The sheets were mottled with grease and there were tobacco crumbs in the folds. The official got a magnifying glass and he and a colleague went to work. After a considerable amount of agonizing labor, they isolated the following phrases: ‘listen those three waitress,’ ‘put something in that bank,’ ‘in USA for 26 yrs 30 yrs 22,’ ‘mortgage and now,’ ‘to see about cats,’ ‘waitress girl in that place in Ohio,’ and ‘all over USA.’ To make matters worse, two of his ubiquitous checks were pinned to the letter. Both were made payable to the Irv. Nat. Bank and both were written on the Irv. Nat. Bank. One was for $6,000, the other was for $15,000.

  When I finished reading the letters in the file I realized that I did not have a clear impression of John S. Smith. At first he reminded me vaguely of W. C. Fields, but that impression soon disappeared; for one thing, I found no letters indicating that he had ever given checks to bartenders. For a day or so after I read the letters I thought of him as a benevolent old screwb
all. Then I began to be troubled by the memory of those crude, grinning faces with which he decorated so many of the checks. I began to think of the vain hopes he raised in the breasts of the waitresses who had graciously given him hundreds of meals and the truck-drivers who had hauled him over a hundred highways, and to feel that about John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe, there is something a little sinister.

  (1940)

  The Don’t-Swear Man

  ONE DANK AFTERNOON I dropped into Shannon’s, an Irish saloon on the southeast corner of Third Avenue and Seventy-sixth Street, and ordered a split of Guinness. ‘Fine pneumonia weather we’re having,’ the bartender remarked. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s one hell of a day.’ A portly old man standing a few feet up the bar gave a grunt, abruptly put down his beer glass, turned to me, and said, ‘My boy, a profane word never yet had any effect on the weather.’ The remark irritated me. I was in extremely low spirits; my shoes had been sopping wet all day and I felt certain that I was going to catch a cold and die. However, I nodded perfunctorily and said, ‘I guess that’s right, Mister.’ ‘Oh, don’t apologize,’ the old man said. Then he dug into a pocket of his coat and pulled out a small, pale-pink card. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘read this and think it over.’ The card said, ‘NEW HOPE FOR THE WORLD. GOD BLESS AMERICA AND OUR HOMES. HAVE NO SWEARING. BOYCOTT PROFANITY! PLEASE DO NOT SWEAR, NOR USE OBSCENE OR PROFANE LANGUAGE. THESE CARDS ARE FOR DISTRIBUTION. SEND FOR SOME – THEY ARE FREE. ANTIPROFANITY LEAGUE. A. S. COLBORNE, PRES. 185 EAST SEVENTY-SIX STREET.’

  After reading this, I took a good look at the old man. He was over six feet tall and he had a double chin and a large paunch. His cheeks were ruddy and his eyes, behind steel-rimmed glasses, were clear and utterly honest. Instead of a vest, he wore a brown sweater. In the knot of his polka-dot tie there was a horseshoe stickpin. Three pencils and a fountain pen were clipped to his breast pocket. He had placed his hat on the bar, upside down, to dry off. He had a white mustache and a fine head of white hair, several locks of which had been brushed down across his forehead, old bartender style. He looked, in fact, like a dignified, opinionated, old-fashioned bartender on his day off. I have always had a high regard for that kind of man, and I said, ‘If I offended you, sir, I’m sorry, only what makes you think “hell” is a profane word?’

  ‘Well, I tell you,’ he said gravely, ‘it might not be one-hundred-per-cent profanity, but it’s a leader-on. You start out with “hell,” “devil take it,” “Dad burn it,” “Gee whizz,” and the like of that, and by and by you won’t be able to open your trap without letting loose an awful, awful, blasphemous oath. It’s like the cocaine dope habit. I know. I talked real rough myself when I was a young squirt, but I had the mother wit to quit. I haven’t uttered a solitary profane word since a Sunday morning in the winter of 1886. I was running to catch a ferryboat and I got left, and let an oath out of me so awful I broke down and cried like a baby.’

  I was about to ask what the oath was, but thought better of it. Instead I said, ‘You remind me a lot of a man who used to work behind the bar at the Murray Hill Hotel. Are you a bartender?’

  The old man did not answer me. He picked up his glass and finished his beer. Then, after a resounding smack of the lips, he said, ‘Profanity! Blasphemy! Evil tongues a-wagging and a-wagging! That’s why the world is headed for wrack and ruin! Let me introduce myself. Name is Arthur Samuel Colborne. I’m the founder and head of the Anti-Profanity League. Founded 1901. An international organization. If the truth was known, I’m also the founder of the Safe and Sane Fourth of July movement. Founded 1908. On the Fourth I used to stand on the steps of City Hall and read the Declaration of Independence to all that would listen. People called me a crank, but I told them I wasn’t crank enough to spend good money on firecrackers. Others took up the Safe and Sane, and I kept plugging away with the Anti-Profanity. I’ve spent the better part of forty years cleaning up profanity conditions. I and my members have passed out six million cards like the one I handed you. We call them profanity-exterminators. Six million. Think of it! I’m past seventy, but I’m a go-getter, fighting the evil on all fronts. Keeps me busy. I’m just after seeing a high official at City Hall. There’s some Broadway plays so profane it’s a wonder to me the tongues of the actors and the actresses don’t wither up and come loose at the roots and drop to the ground, and I beseeched this high official to take action. Said he’d do what he could. Probably won’t do a single, solitary thing. I wanted to have a chat with Mayor La Guardia, but they told me he’d just stepped out. That’s what they always say. The Mayor’s a pompish little fellow, as strutty as a duck. I’ve heard that he gets so profane when he loses his temper it’s enough to make your head swim. You think that’s true?’

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me a bit,’ I said.

  Mr Colborne pursed his lips and sadly shook his head from side to side. ‘He ought to be ashamed of hisself,’ he said.

  The bartender had poured my stout. I asked Mr Colborne to have a drink with me. He drew out a thick gold watch, glanced at it, and said, ‘Much obliged, but I seldom take more than two, and I’ve had that. Nothing wrong in beer. Good for your nerves. I’d have another, but I want to get home in time for a radio program. Hillbilly singing. I’m a great believer in it. Very wholesome. I’m also a great believer in opera music, Hawaiian music, Kate Smith, and Charlie McCarthy. Here a while back, this Bergen feller had Charlie saying “Doggone this” and “Doggone that” on the radio, and I wrote him and attached an exterminator to the letter. “Think it over, Mr Bergen,” I said. Got a speedy reply. “Won’t happen again,” he said.’

  ‘Is “doggone” a leader-on?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll say it is! One of the hardest to eradicate! Look here, my boy, I’d like to give you some exterminators to pass out to your friends, keep the ball rolling, but I’m cleaned out. Put a handful in my pocket this morning, but I gave some out on the subway, and I slipped a few into some cars that were parked in front of City Hall, including the Mayor’s car, and I left a couple with the Mayor’s secretary, and the one I handed you was the last of the lot. Drop into my headquarters sometime and I’ll give you a supply. My address is printed on the exterminator.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ I said.

  He waved his hand deprecatingly. ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said.

  He put on his hat, paid for his beers, shook hands with me, and nodded to the bartender. Halfway to the door, he turned and came back to the bar. ‘Interesting case out in Chicago here a while back,’ he said to me. ‘Two big German butchers had been working at the same block in a slaughterhouse for eighteen years. One morning one butcher took up his cleaver and split the other butcher’s head. Police asked him why he did it, and he said, “I just couldn’t stand his profanity any longer!”’ I laughed, and Mr Colborne gave an indignant snort. ‘Look here, my boy,’ he said, frowning at me, ‘first-degree murder’s not a laughing matter. If you look at it the right way, there’s a good lesson in that case. Think it over!’ Then he left.

  ‘Was the old gentleman kidding me?’ I asked the bartender, who had been listening.

  ‘Oh, no,’ the bartender said. ‘He’s a big reformer. He’s well known in the neighborhood. His headquarters are up the street half a block.’

  Mainly because he was the first beer-drinking reformer I had ever encountered, I resolved to visit Mr Colborne. Several afternoons later I did. The address printed on the exterminator he had given me turned out to be an old, red-brick apartment house, on the front of which, just left of the stoop, was nailed a foot-square tin sign reading, ‘HEADQUARTERS ANTI-PROFANITY LEAGUE. CARDS THAT READ DO NOT SWEAR CAN BE HAD FREE.’ A woman with a poodle in her arms was standing on the stoop. She watched me read the sign, and when I walked up the steps she said, ‘If you’re looking for the don’t-swear man, he lives down in the basement.’ I rang the basement bell and Mr Colborne let me in. Over his suit he had on a black, full-length apron, the kind printers wear. He held a frying pan in his left hand and a dish towel
in this right. ‘Come in and make yourself at home,’ he said. ‘Take a seat, and I’ll be with you soon as I finish washing up in the kitchen. This room here is the headquarters of the League. I sleep and eat in a couple of rooms in back. I’m a bachelor and I get my own meals. I’m a bit set in my ways, and I prefer the grub I cook for myself to the highest-class restaurant there is. Cleaner. While you’re waiting, look at my scrapbook. You’ll find it somewhere in that mess on my desk.’

  He went back to his kitchen and I took a look around the room. It was a long, narrow, low-ceilinged room. There were two windows, but not much light came through them. Both were shut, and there was a kitchen smell in the air. The floor was covered with linoleum. Running just below the ceiling were a couple of asbestos-sheathed steam-heat pipes. On the mantel stood a highly colored plaster statue of St Michael trampling the Devil. The statue was wrapped in cellophane, doubtless to keep off dust. Along one wall were two tables and a small iron safe. There was a typewriter on one table, and on the other were a radio and a tall vase of artificial roses; dust was thick on the red petals of the roses. Two walls were hung with oil paintings from baseboard to ceiling. At least half were religious, many of them portraits of saints and of the Virgin; other subjects included a windmill in the moonlight, a mother sewing beside a cradle, a thatched cottage, and a Jersey cow standing belly-deep in a lush meadow. All were in gilded frames.