The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories
Page 21
He stumbled slightly on a chair, held his breath, listened, went on, found the hall, found the stairs, started up; the seventh stair creaked at his step, the ninth, the fourteenth. He was counting them automatically. At the third creak he paused again for over a minute—and in that minute he felt more alone than he had ever felt before. Between the lines on patrol, even when alone, he had had behind him the moral support of half a billion people; now he was alone, pitted against that same moral pressure—a bandit. He had never felt this fear, yet he had never felt this exultation.
The stairs came to an end, a doorway approached; he went in and listened to regular breathing. His feet were economical of steps and his body swayed sometimes at stretching as he felt over the bureau, pocketing all articles which held promise—he could not have enumerated them ten seconds afterward. He felt on a chair for possible trousers, found soft garments, women’s lingerie. The corners of his mouth smiled mechanically.
Another room . . . the same breathing, enlivened by one ghastly snort that sent his heart again on its tour of his breast. Round object—watch; chain; roll of bills; stick-pins; two rings—he remembered that he had got rings from the other bureau. He started out, winced as a faint glow flashed in front of him, facing him. God!—it was the glow of his own wrist-watch on his outstretched arm.
Down the stairs. He skipped two creaking steps but found another. He was all right now, practically safe; as he neared the bottom he felt a slight boredom. He reached the dining-room—considered the silver—again decided against it.
Back in his room at the boarding-house he examined the additions to his personal property:
Sixty-five dollars in bills.
A platinum ring with three medium diamonds, worth, probably, about seven hundred dollars. Diamonds were going up.
A cheap gold-plated ring with the initials O. S. and the date inside—’ 03—probably a class-ring from school. Worth a few dollars. Unsalable.
A red-cloth case containing a set of false teeth.
A silver watch.
A gold chain worth more than the watch.
An empty ring-box.
A little ivory Chinese god—probably a desk ornament.
A dollar and sixty-two cents in small change.
He put the money under his pillow and the other things in the toe of an infantry boot, stuffing a stocking in on top of them. Then for two hours his mind raced like a high-power engine here and there through his life, past and future, through fear and laughter. With a vague, inopportune wish that he were married, he fell into a deep sleep about half past five.
VI
Though the newspaper account of the burglary failed to mention the false teeth, they worried him considerably. The picture of a human waking in the cool dawn and groping for them in vain, of a soft, toothless breakfast, of a strange, hollow, lisping voice calling the police station, of weary, dispirited visits to the dentist, roused a great fatherly pity in him.
Trying to ascertain whether they belonged to a man or a woman, he took them carefully out of the case and held them up near his mouth. He moved his own jaws experimentally; he measured with his fingers; but he failed to decide: they might belong either to a large-mouthed woman or a small-mouthed man.
On a warm impulse he wrapped them in brown paper from the bottom of his army trunk, and printed FALSE TEETH on the package in clumsy pencil letters. Then, the next night, he walked down Philmore Street, and shied the package onto the lawn so that it would be near the door. Next day the paper announced that the police had a clue—they knew that the burglar was in town. However, they didn’t mention what the clue was.
VII
At the end of a month “Burglar Bill of the Silver District” was the nurse-girl’s standby for frightening children. Five burglaries were attributed to him, but though Dalyrimple had only committed three, he considered that majority had it and appropriated the title to himself. He had once been seen—“a large bloated creature with the meanest face you ever laid eyes on.” Mrs. Henry Coleman, awaking at two o’clock at the beam of an electric torch flashed in her eye, could not have been expected to recognize Bryan Dalyrimple at whom she had waved flags last Fourth of July, and whom she had described as “not at all the daredevil type, do you think?”
When Dalyrimple kept his imagination at white heat he managed to glorify his own attitude, his emancipation from petty scruples and remorses—but let him once allow his thought to rove unarmored, great unexpected horrors and depressions would overtake him. Then for reassurance he had to go back to think out the whole thing over again. He found that it was on the whole better to give up considering himself as a rebel. It was more consoling to think of every one else as a fool.
His attitude toward Mr. Macy underwent a change. He no longer felt a dim animosity and inferiority in his presence. As his fourth month in the store ended he found himself regarding his employer in a manner that was almost fraternal. He had a vague but very assured conviction that Mr. Macy’s innermost soul would have abetted and approved. He no longer worried about his future. He had the intention of accumulating several thousand dollars and then clearing out—going east, back to France, down to South America. Half a dozen times in the last two months he had been about to stop work, but a fear of attracting attention to his being in funds prevented him. So he worked on, no longer in listlessness, but with contemptuous amusement.
VIII
Then with astounding suddenness something happened that changed his plans and put an end to his burglaries.
Mr. Macy sent for him one afternoon and with a great show of jovial mystery asked him if he had an engagement that night. If he hadn’t, would he please call on Mr. Alfred J. Fraser at eight o’clock. Dalyrimple’s wonder was mingled with uncertainty. He debated with himself whether it were not his cue to take the first train out of town. But an hour’s consideration decided him that his fears were unfounded and at eight o’clock he arrived at the big Fraser house in Philmore Avenue.
Mr. Fraser was commonly supposed to be the biggest political influence in the city. His brother was Senator Fraser, his son-in-law was Congressman Demming, and his influence, though not wielded in such a way as to make him an objectionable boss, was strong nevertheless.
He had a great, huge face, deep-set eyes, and a barn-door of an upper lip, the melange approaching a worthy climax in a long professional jaw.
During his conversation with Dalyrimple his expression kept starting toward a smile, reached a cheerful optimism, and then receded back to imperturbability.
“How do you do, sir?” he said, holding out his hand. “Sit down. I suppose you’re wondering why I wanted you. Sit down.”
Dalyrimple sat down.
“Mr. Dalyrimple, how old are you?”
“I’m twenty-three.”
“You’re young. But that doesn’t mean you’re foolish. Mr. Dalyrimple, what I’ve got to say won’t take long. I’m going to make you a proposition. To begin at the beginning, I’ve been watching you ever since last Fourth of July when you made that speech in response to the loving-cup.”
Dalyrimple murmured disparagingly, but Fraser waved him to silence.
“It was a speech I’ve remembered. It was a brainy speech, straight from the shoulder, and it got to everybody in that crowd. I know. I’ve watched crowds for years.” He cleared his throat, as if tempted to digress on his knowledge of crowds—then continued. “But, Mr. Dalyrimple, I’ve seen too many young men who promised brilliantly go to pieces, fail through want of steadiness, too many high-power ideas, and not enough willingness to work. So I waited. I wanted to see what you’d do. I wanted to see if you’d go to work, and if you’d stick to what you started.”
Dalyrimple felt a glow settle over him.
“So,” continued Fraser, “when Theron Macy told me you’d started down at his place, I kept watching you, and I followed your record through him. The first month I was afraid for a while. He told me you were getting restless, too good for your job, hinting around for a
raise——”
Dalyrimple started.
“—But he said after that you evidently made up your mind to shut up and stick to it. That’s the stuff I like in a young man! That’s the stuff that wins out. And don’t think I don’t understand. I know how much harder it was for you, after all that silly flattery a lot of old women had been giving you. I know what a fight it must have been——”
Dalyrimple’s face was burning brightly. He felt young and strangely ingenuous.
“Dalyrimple, you’ve got brains and you’ve got the stuff in you— and that’s what I want. I’m going to put you into the State Senate.”
“The what?”
“The State Senate. We want a young man who has got brains, but is solid and not a loafer. And when I say State Senate I don’t stop there. We’re up against it here, Dalyrimple. We’ve got to get some young men into politics—you know the old blood that’s been running on the party ticket year in and year out.”
Dalyrimple licked his lips.
“You’ll run me for the State Senate?”
“I’ll put you in the State Senate.”
Mr. Fraser’s expression had now reached the point nearest a smile and Dalyrimple in a happy frivolity felt himself urging it mentally on—but it stopped, locked, and slid from him. The barn-door and the jaw were separated by a line straight as a nail. Dalyrimple remembered with an effort that it was a mouth, and talked to it.
“But I’m through,” he said. “My notoriety’s dead. People are fed up with me.”
“Those things,” answered Mr. Fraser, “are mechanical. Linotype is a resuscitator of reputations. Wait till you see the Herald, beginning next week—that is if you’re with us—that is,” and his voice hardened slightly, “if you haven’t got too many ideas yourself about how things ought to be run.”
“No,” said Dalyrimple, looking him frankly in the eyes. “You’ll have to give me a lot of advice at first.”
“Very well. I’ll take care of your reputation then. Just keep yourself on the right side of the fence.”
Dalyrimple started at this repetition of a phrase he had thought of so much lately. There was a sudden ring at the door-bell.
“That’s Macy now,” observed Fraser, rising. “I’ll go let him in. The servants have gone to bed.”
He left Dalyrimple there in a dream. The world was opening up suddenly—The State Senate, the United States Senate—so life was this after all—cutting corners—cutting corners—common sense, that was the rule. No more foolish risks now unless necessity called—but it was being hard that counted—Never to let remorse or self-reproach lose him a night’s sleep—let his life be a sword of courage—there was no payment—all that was drivel—drivel. He sprang to his feet with clinched hands in a sort of triumph.
“Well, Bryan,” said Mr. Macy stepping through the portières.
The two older men smiled their half-smiles at him.
“Well, Bryan,” said Mr. Macy again.
Dalyrimple smiled also.
“How do, Mr. Macy?”
He wondered if some telepathy between them had made this new appreciation possible—some invisible realization. . . .
Mr. Macy held out his hand.
“I’m glad we’re to be associated in this scheme—I’ve been for you all along—especially lately. I’m glad we’re to be on the same side of the fence.”
“I want to thank you, sir,” said Dalyrimple simply. He felt a whimsical moisture gathering back of his eyes.
The Four Fists
At the present time no one I know has the slightest desire to hit Samuel Meredith; possibly this is because a man over fifty is liable to be rather severely cracked at the impact of a hostile fist, but, for my part, I am inclined to think that all his hitable qualities have quite vanished. But it is certain that at various times in his life hitable qualities were in his face, as surely as kissable qualities have ever lurked in a girl’s lips.
I’m sure every one has met a man like that, been casually introduced, even made a friend of him, yet felt he was the sort who aroused passionate dislike—expressed by some in the involuntary clinching of fists, and in others by mutterings about “takin’ a poke” and “landin’ a swift smash in ee eye.” In the juxtaposition of Samuel Meredith’s features this quality was so strong that it influenced his entire life.
What was it? Not the shape, certainly, for he was a pleasant-looking man from earliest youth: broad-browed, with gray eyes that were frank and friendly. Yet I’ve heard him tell a room full of reporters angling for a “success” story that he’d be ashamed to tell them the truth, that they wouldn’t believe it, that it wasn’t one story but four, that the public would not want to read about a man who had been walloped into prominence.
It all started at Phillips Andover Academy when he was fourteen. He had been brought up on a diet of caviar and bell-boys’ legs in half the capitals of Europe, and it was pure luck that his mother had nervous prostration and had to delegate his education to less tender, less biassed hands.
At Andover he was given a roommate named Gilly Hood. Gilly was thirteen, undersized, and rather the school pet. From the September day when Mr. Meredith’s valet stowed Samuel’s clothing in the best bureau and asked, on departing, “hif there was hanything helse, Master Samuel?” Gilly cried out that the faculty had played him false. He felt like an irate frog in whose bowl has been put a goldfish.
“Good gosh!” he complained to his sympathetic contemporaries, “he’s a damn stuck-up Willie. He said, ‘Are the crowd here gentlemen? ’ and I said, ‘No, they’re boys,’ and he said age didn’t matter, and I said, ‘Who said it did?’ Let him get fresh with me, the ole pieface!”
For three weeks Gilly endured in silence young Samuel’s comments on the clothes and habits of Gilly’s personal friends, endured French phrases in conversation, endured a hundred half-feminine meannesses that show what a nervous mother can do to a boy, if she keeps close enough to him—then a storm broke in the aquarium.
Samuel was out. A crowd had gathered to hear Gilly be wrathful about his roommate’s latest sins.
“He said, ‘Oh, I don’t like the windows open at night,’ he said, ‘except only a little bit,’ ” complained Gilly.
“Don’t let him boss you.”
“Boss me? You bet he won’t. I open those windows, I guess, but the darn fool won’t take turns shuttin’ ’em in the morning.”
“Make him, Gilly, why don’t you?”
“I’m going to.” Gilly nodded his head in fierce agreement. “Don’t you worry. He needn’t think I’m any ole butler.”
“Le’s see you make him.”
At this point the darn fool entered in person and included the crowd in one of his irritating smiles. Two boys said, “ ’Lo, Mer’dith”; the others gave him a chilly glance and went on talking to Gilly. But Samuel seemed unsatisfied.
“Would you mind not sitting on my bed?” he suggested politely to two of Gilly’s particulars who were perched very much at ease.
“Huh?”
“My bed. Can’t you understand English?”
This was adding insult to injury. There were several comments on the bed’s sanitary condition and the evidence within it of animal life.
“S’matter with your old bed?” demanded Gilly truculently.
“The bed’s all right, but——”
Gilly interrupted this sentence by rising and walking up to Samuel. He paused several inches away and eyed him fiercely.
“You an’ your crazy ole bed,” he began. “You an’ your crazy——”
“Go to it, Gilly,” murmured some one.
“Show the darn fool——”
Samuel returned the gaze coolly.
“Well,” he said finally, “it’s my bed——”
He got no further, for Gilly hauled off and hit him succinctly in the nose.
“Yea! Gilly!”
“Show the big bully!”
“Just let him touch you—he’ll see!”
The month following bracketed the thirty most miserable days of his life. Every waking moment he was under the lashing tongues of his contemporaries; his habits and mannerisms became butts for intolerable witticisms and, of course, the sensitiveness of adolescence was a further thorn. He considered that he was a natural pariah; that the unpopularity at school would follow him through life. When he went home for the Christmas holidays he was so despondent that his father sent him to a nerve specialist. When he returned to Andover he arranged to arrive late so that he could be alone in the bus during the drive from station to school.
Of course when he had learned to keep his mouth shut every one promptly forgot all about him. The next autumn, with his realization that consideration for others was the discreet attitude, he made good use of the clean start given him by the shortness of boyhood memory. By the beginning of his senior year Samuel Meredith was one of the best-liked boys of his class—and no one was any stronger for him than his first friend and constant companion, Gilly Hood.
II
Samuel became the sort of college student who in the early nineties drove tandems and coaches and tallyhos between Princeton and Yale and New York City to show that they appreciated the social importance of football games. He believed passionately in good form—his choosing of gloves, his tying of ties, his holding of reins were imitated by impressionable freshmen. Outside of his own set he was considered rather a snob, but as his set was the set, it never worried him. He played football in the autumn, drank high-balls in the winter, and rowed in the spring. Samuel despised all those who were merely sportsmen without being gentlemen, or merely gentlemen without being sportsmen.