knowin’ nobody but a lot of ragged guys who don’t do nothin’ but soak up cheap booze and sleep and cuss. I’m sick of it all—see?”
He glanced contemptuously at his auditor, then moved his chair round and turned his back.
Somewhere below the unwashed surface of Sox’s poltroonery smoldered a spark of spunk. It flared up now defiantly.
“And who are you,” he cried hotly, “to talk about ragged pigs! What’re you, I’d like to know. You’re a fine-lookin’ swell, ain’t you! Huh!” He spat vigorously. “A fine-lookin’ swell! You look like a last year’s scarecrow daubed wit’ mud—”
He stopped, awed by his own temerity and the fact that Sammy had risen and was standing over him threateningly.
But the next second the malcontent had turned away and was striding toward the swinging doors. Near the end of the bar a group of frowsy men hailed and surrounded him jovially, but drew back as he made no response and let him pass in peace.
Several blocks down the street he stopped and sardonically eyed his reflection in a full-length mirror of a corner haberdasher’s. Not a very prepossessing reflection, modish reader, as you shall see.
From top to bottom thus: Hat of a derby species and an obsolete vintage, cracked and rusty its crown, and from its disjointed brim straggles of unkempt hair curling up over ears caked with the grime of many cities; the face as seamed and swollen as a twelve-cent chuck steak and thickly covered with a dark-red beard hacked to a convenient length with a pocket-knife; the eyes, faintly suggesting a bygone pride and intelligence, bloodshot from many potations; in lieu of linen, a greasy undershirt, insufficiently concealed by a buttonless waistcoat, faded and soiled beyond surmisal of its original pattern; the coat of a different hue; the trousers of another still; and woefully shielding his naked feet, shoes ragged and torn and precariously held together by wire and bits of twine.
Not in many years had Sammy seen a mirror larger than his hand, and now that he deliberately viewed himself from tattered tile to battered boot, an intense self-disgust welled up within him and he despised and loathed himself. He wheeled round suddenly, looked up and down the street, and strode savagely toward a brilliantly lighted hostelry in the next block.
A minute later Sammy the tramp, who for the greater part of his twenty-six years of life had shunned bathtubs as though they were vats swarming with rattlesnakes, was descending a marble staircase at the top of which blazed this sign:
TURKISH BATHS
An hour later, having meanwhile dispatched a messenger and twenty dollars to the corner haberdashery, he got into a barber’s chair and ordered everything from shoe-shine to shampoo. From the barbershop he went to a unique establishment in State Street, where, on short notice, one could be supplied with all the proper habiliments for evening wear. Silk hat, gloves, pumps, full-dress, all could be supplied while you waited—one hour.
So, after this space had elapsed, there stepped from this swift-aid-to-the-hurried firm a gentleman eminently correct in every detail, even to Inverness cape, gold-headed cane, and Turkish cigarette. His face was not unlike that of the average man of the world; its marks of dissipation had been softened, if not eradicated, by the barber’s massage; the mouth and chin were firm and well-shaped; his fingers carefully manicured; his hair freshly trimmed. And in a pocket of his white pique waistcoat was a crumpled ten-dollar bill—all he had in the world.
Probably not the keenest of his associates could have pierced the masquerade and discerned beneath its elegance Sammy the tramp.
As he stood there, drawing on his gloves with a leisurely air, a shambling object, shivering in rags, dropped from the hurrying street throng, slouched dejectedly a few feet away, then shuffled over and touched his arm
“Can’t you help us a bit, sir?” whined the object piteously. “S’help me, I’m starvin’, sir. I ain’t eat nothin’ in forty-eight hours—” The rest was lost in a meaningless mumble.
Without hesitation Sammy reached for the crumpled tenner. But quite as quickly changed his mind and interviewed his new watch.
Then he buttoned his coat, switched his cane up under his arm, and nodded to the beggar.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll dine together.”
CHAPTER II
At about the same moment Sammy was swearing at Sox in the saloon, one of two young men sitting in the library of a handsome home two miles away was acting rather uncivilly toward the other. His name was Hathaway Allison, and he belonged to a family rich enough to hire a professional genealogist to trace its lineage back to a tadpole.
“Are you asleep, Hathaway?” politely inquired his guest, who had repeated another question three times without eliciting even a monosyllabic response. “If you are, just say so, and I’ll quietly withdraw and leave you to your slumbers. I’m not exactly fond of hanging round where I’m not wanted, you know.”
Young Allison fidgeted impatiently and looked up with a little frown of annoyance.
“Oh, chop it, Bobby. No, I don’t know anything about—about what you asked me about.”
A servant entered and lighted the lamps. As the thickening dusk vanished before the soft light, Bobby gave a little gasp of astonishment and leaned forward, staring wonderingly at his friend’s face.
“Well, great Dowie!” he exclaimed as soon as the servant had gone. “What’re you doing to your face? I’ll bet you haven’t shaved in a week.”
“You lose,” said Allison quickly. “Three weeks.”
“And your hair! Hathaway, have you boycotted the barbers, or what?”
Hathaway laughed nervously, snipped the end from a cigar, lighted it, took three or four puffs, flung it in the fire, then rose and locked all the doors.
He returned to his seat and his puzzled visitor, and for several seconds sat with brows knitted thoughtfully, tapping his fingers on the arms of his chair.
“Bobby,” he said suddenly, “I think I’m going to tell you something—something I’ve kept secret a great many years. But I can’t keep it any longer, and I’ve got to tell somebody, and it may as well be you.”
“’Twas a dark and stormy night,’” reminded Bobby reprovingly. “But go ahead.”
“Some stage thunder and lightning or a little sobby music,” agreed Allison good-naturedly, “would not be inappropriate. For what I am about to reveal, Bobby, is as theatric as it is sensational; and I assure you it is sensational as a twenty-cent melodrama. Of course, I may rely upon your absolute secrecy. It won’t get past you.”
He paused.
“Go on, please.”
“Bobby”—his voice lowered, he leaned over and looked his hearer steadily, solemnly in the eye—“Bobby, my name is not Hathaway Allison.”
Bobby moved uneasily.
“The man and woman whom everybody thinks are my father and mother are not related to me in any way whatsoever.”
Bobby
