in a hash joint.”
“Maybe he can get us some.”
“I’ll say he can!”
“B’lieve me, I’m goin’ to get this darn uniform off me tomorra. Never get me in it again, neither. I’m goin’ to get me some regular clothes.”
“Say, maybe I’m not.”
As their combined finances were something less than five dollars, this intention can be taken largely as a pleasant game of words, harmless and consoling. It seemed to please both of them, however, for they reinforced it with chuckling and mention of personages high in biblical circles, adding such further emphasis as “Oh, boy!” “You know!” and “I’ll say so!” repeated many times over.
The entire mental pabulum of these two men consisted of an offended nasal comment extended through the years upon the institution—army, business, or poorhouse—which kept them alive, and toward their immediate superior in that institution. Until that very morning the institution had been the “government” and the immediate superior had been the “Cap’n”—from these two they had glided out and were now in the vaguely uncomfortable state before they should adopt their next bondage. They were uncertain, resentful, and somewhat ill at ease. This they hid by pretending an elaborate relief at being out of the army, and by assuring each other that military discipline should never again rule their stubborn, liberty-loving wills. Yet, as a matter of fact, they would have felt more at home in a prison than in this newfound and unquestionable freedom.
Suddenly Key increased his gait. Rose, looking up and following his glance, discovered a crowd that was collecting fifty yards down the street. Key chuckled and began to run in the direction of the crowd; Rose thereupon also chuckled and his short bandy legs twinkled beside the long, awkward strides of his companion.
Reaching the outskirts of the crowd they immediately became an indistinguishable part of it. It was composed of ragged civilians somewhat the worse for liquor, and of soldiers representing many divisions and many stages of sobriety, all clustered around a gesticulating little Jew with long black whiskers, who was waving his arms and delivering an excited but succinct harangue. Key and Rose, having wedged themselves into the approximate parquet, scrutinized him with acute suspicion, as his words penetrated their common consciousness.
“—What have you got outa the war?” he was crying fiercely. “Look arounja, look arounja! Are you rich? Have you got a lot of money offered you?—no; you’re lucky if you’re alive and got both your legs; you’re lucky if you came back an’ find your wife ain’t gone off with some other fella that had the money to buy himself out of the war! That’s when you’re lucky! Who got anything out of it except J. P. Morgan an’ John D. Rockerfeller?”
At this point the little Jew’s oration was interrupted by the hostile impact of a fist upon the point of his bearded chin and he toppled backward to a sprawl on the pavement.
“God damn Bolsheviki!” cried the big soldier-blacksmith, who had delivered the blow. There was a rumble of approval, the crowd closed in nearer.
The Jew staggered to his feet, and immediately went down again before a half-dozen reaching-in fists. This time he stayed down, breathing heavily, blood oozing from his lip where it was cut within and without.
There was a riot of voices, and in a minute Rose and Key found themselves flowing with the jumbled crowd down Sixth Avenue under the leadership of a thin civilian in a slouch hat and the brawny soldier who had summarily ended the oration. The crowd had marvellously swollen to formidable proportions and a stream of more non-committal citizens followed it along the sidewalks lending their moral support by intermittent huzzas.
“Where we goin’?” yelled Key to the man nearest him
His neighbor pointed up to the leader in the slouch hat.
“That guy knows where there’s a lot of ’em! We’re goin’ to show ’em!”
“We’re goin’ to show ’em!” whispered Key delightedly to Rose, who repeated the phrase rapturously to a man on the other side.
Down Sixth Avenue swept the procession, joined here and there by soldiers and marines, and now and then by civilians, who came up with the inevitable cry that they were just out of the army themselves, as if presenting it as a card of admission to a newly formed Sporting and Amusement Club.
Then the procession swerved down a cross street and headed for Fifth Avenue and the word filtered here and there that they were bound for a Red meeting at Tolliver Hall.
“Where is it?”
The question went up the line and a moment later the answer floated hack. Tolliver Hall was down on Tenth Street. There was a bunch of other sojers who was goin’ to break it up and was down there now!
But Tenth Street had a faraway sound and at the word a general groan went up and a score of the procession dropped out. Among these were Rose and Key, who slowed down to a saunter and let the more enthusiastic sweep on by.
“I’d rather get some liquor,” said Key as they halted and made their way to the sidewalk amid cries of “Shell hole!” and “Quitters!”
“Does your brother work around here?” asked Rose, assuming the air of one passing from the superficial to the eternal.
“He oughta,” replied Key. “I ain’t seen him for a coupla years. I been out to Pennsylvania since. Maybe he don’t work at night anyhow. It’s right along here. He can get us some o’right if he ain’t gone.”
They found the place after a few minutes’ patrol of the street—a shoddy tablecloth restaurant between Fifth Avenue and Broadway. Here Key went inside to inquire for his brother George, while Rose waited on the sidewalk.
“He ain’t here no more,” said Key emerging. “He’s a waiter up to Delmonico’s.”
Rose nodded wisely, as if he’d expected as much. One should not be surprised at a capable man changing jobs occasionally. He knew a waiter once—there ensued a long conversation as they waited as to whether waiters made more in actual wages than in tips—it was decided that it depended on the social tone of the joint wherein the waiter labored. After having given each other vivid pictures of millionaires dining at Delmonico’s and throwing away fifty-dollar bills after their first quart of champagne, both men thought privately of becoming waiters. In fact, Key’s narrow brow was secreting a resolution to ask his brother to get him a job.
“A waiter can drink up all the champagne those fellas leave in bottles,” suggested Rose with some relish, and then added as an afterthought, “Oh, boy!”
By the time they reached Delmonico’s it was half past ten, and they were surprised to see a stream of taxis driving up to the door one after the other and emitting marvelous, hatless young ladies, each one attended by a stiff young gentleman in evening clothes.
“It’s a party,” said Rose with some awe. “Maybe we better not go in. He’ll be busy.”
“No, he won’t. He’ll be o’right.”
After some hesitation they entered what appeared to them to be the least elaborate door and, indecision falling upon them immediately, stationed themselves nervously in an inconspicuous corner of the small dining-room in which they found themselves. They took off their caps and held them in their hands. A cloud of gloom fell upon
