A master hand — Reading Companion

They were all intimate friends, and it is as well I should tell something about them here as another time, for they are destined to play more or less conspicuous parts in the miserable affair which is the occasion of this book.

To begin with my host--Arthur White was an attractive, lovable fellow when in his brighter moods, but weak and variable. A man of good impulses, I think, but so fond of luxury and idleness that he was often selfish in his self-indulgence; of that sort of men that other men feel something akin to affection for, such as for a younger brother or a woman, so easily led and dependent do they seem. He was still young, not yet out of his twenties, and, living in extravagant idleness and dissipation, was spending pretty rapidly a bequest of a hundred thousand dollars he had inherited, about two years before, from an uncle.

The bequest had created some little comment at the time, because thereby the only son of the testator, who was named in the will as residuary legatee, was reported to have inherited little or nothing.

However, the son had always been a "bad lot" and neglected the old man, whereas Arthur had lived with him, and, after his lazy fashion, cared for and helped him in his affairs. So the busy world shrugged its shoulders and passed the episode by, and only prosy moralists dwelt upon it to point the Fifth Commandment.

How Arthur reconciled it with his conscience to keep all the money, I never heard him say, but any sacrifice, I fancy, would have seemed hard to one so self-indulgent. In any event, whatever may have been the right or wrong of it, he was making the most of his fortune while it lasted, and his friends were incidentally getting some benefit therefrom too, as our invitation for the evening testified.

While White was the youngest of the quartette I was to join, Gilbert Littell was the oldest--old enough and worldly-wise enough, too, to have been a valuable friend and adviser to the young man, if the latter would have listened to, or been by any one diverted from the rapid pace he was going. He did try, I thought, to steady him sometimes, but would always abandon the effort and say in his quiet way that he guessed the boy would have to sow his wild oats and waste his dollars before he could be brought up; which was also the general opinion among us.

Littell was a clubman and a man of the world; long and shrewd observations of men and things--for he was past sixty and had lived thoroughly--had given him a keen insight into character and a knowledge of the trend of things that made him a delightful and instructive companion. A little skeptical, perhaps, of the motives of men and particularly of the virtues they affected, and doubting of the seriousness of life and disposed to get the most out of it; his views and criticisms, while often keen and rarely orthodox, were never harsh or uncharitable, and at the most were but mildly cynical. I always felt he was advised whereof he spoke, and his judgment sound, and I had formed a habit of looking to him for advice and help in worldly affairs. He seemed to take the interest in me such as an older man might in a junior and looked me up often at my office or the club. The fact that he was a lawyer, though a retired one, gave us much in common, and we had many pleasant hours together.

Every one has known men like Ned Davis; well meaning and hard working, but without great ability, and fond of pleasure and extravagant living; he was incapable of real success at anything, and was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. His resources were always something of a puzzle to his intimates, for while occupying some nondescript position with a prominent firm of brokers, he associated with men of large means and extravagant habits and played high at cards. Still I never heard that he failed to pay his debts, and if he borrowed, only the lenders knew of it, so the public had no ground for criticism. With all his shortcomings, he was a good fellow to know and be with; of a bright disposition, ready at any time for anything, unselfish and affectionate by nature, he was only his own enemy. The world has known many like him, but when it has spoken kindly of them, it has said all.

Oscar Van Bult was a man of a totally different stamp. Strong, self-contained, and a little serious, you felt in his presence the reserve force that was in him and with it respect. He was, perhaps, forty years of age, and unlike Littell and Davis, who had been New Yorkers from birth, was a stranger among us. Less than two years before he had appeared, none seemed to know from where, and had made friends and become one of us before we were quite aware of it. That the man was a gentleman in the worldly sense of the term was unmistakable; he was a handsome, manly fellow, too, and agreeable, and so was welcome for himself. Of his antecedents and resources, no one knew anything, nor was it likely much would be learned through Van Bult, who never sought nor offered confidences. One frequently meets such men. They come and they go, and generally things are none the better nor worse for them. I like them; for the time being they furnish me a new interest, something to observe, to study; but then I know I am getting older now and surfeited of the things of daily life, and look for entertainment too much to things outside of myself, my habits and friends now prone to sameness through long acquaintanceship. It was different with me in the days of which I am writing. Then I was learning, and it is more agreeable to learn than to know. Knowledge of the world advantages sometimes, but it rarely entertains. As a glass through which to observe men and things, it is a help to the vision, but it is the defects it magnifies, and the colors in which it shows things are rarely bright or beautiful. But to this point of view I had not then attained.

Graduating from the Harvard Law School some twelve years earlier, I had practised my profession in a desultory way in New York, until about a year before, when I had secured a position as a deputy with the District Attorney. In my work there I found so much to occupy and interest me professionally that other things, such as my social and club life, became of only secondary importance. I was absorbed in my new duties.

The crimes and criminals of a great city are a study of fascinating interest. In each case, if we only knew it, is to be found a lesson in character, method, and motive. He who would cope properly with the subject must have been trained, not only long and faithfully but intelligently, to his work.

Noting, as I thought, deficiencies in the several departments which were auxiliary to ours, I had taken hold of my duties with vigor and with a purpose to lift the work of our administration, from the police officer up, to a higher and more intelligent plane of operation. Alas for such ambitions of youth, they seldom prove more than dreams.

My dinner that evening was at length finished; absorbed in my thoughts, I had dallied over the meal and not eaten very heartily; but, if I remember aright, I enjoyed it rather more than usual, though I was without company, and had left my magazine unread. After all there is no companion like one's self when taken in the right hour and mood, and the secret of happiness, learned as we grow old, is to choose our time and to control and direct our moods.

As I arose from the table, Brown pulled back my chair saying:

"I hope dinner pleased you, sir?"

I nodded an indifferent assent, but I would have been more appreciative, I think, if I had known how long it was to be before I should again dine with a mind so free from care.

It was ten o'clock when I had finished my cigar and coffee in the library--where I had gone after dining--and I left the club and started for White's. It was a rainy, sloppy night, such as New York often provides in winter, and I hurried over the few blocks that separated me from my destination.

As I approached the house, I saw the light shining beneath the shade--which was not quite down--at the front window, and it held out promise of cheerful warmth within.

As I have said, White's rooms were on Nineteenth Street; they were on the ground floor of a house about midway of the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and on the north side of the street.

He had the entire first floor, which consisted of two rooms connected by a short passageway. The front room was the sitting-room, and the back his bedroom. With the latter I was not familiar at that time, but the sitting-room was a thoroughly delightful apartment. The floor was carpeted with Eastern rugs, and the walls, papered a Pompeiian red, were hung with old prints and weapons. To the right of the door, as you entered, was a well selected library; to the left a piano.

The rear of the room was largely taken up by two doors--one leading to the bedroom through a short passageway, and the other to the bathroom, which again opened into the bedroom. Between these doors stood a handsome desk with the usual paraphernalia.

Opposite the entrance was a large fireplace adorned with brass andirons and fender, and over the mantel a mirror. To the left of the fireplace was a divan, reaching from the wedge of the chimney almost to the passage door, and on the other side, an antique mahogany sideboard, laden with silver and glass.

In front of the window was a small table holding a lamp, and in the centre of the room another and larger one, designed to be used for cards when required, but generally strewn with books and papers. A number of armchairs, each of its own old pattern, but all adapted for comfort, completed the furniture. Everything betokened a man of luxury but also a man of taste.

Reaching the house, I mounted the two or three steps that led to the entrance, and stepping into the vestibule, rang the bell. The door was promptly opened by White's servant, Benton,--for it was but a step from his sitting-room door to the front door,--and I entered the hall and room.

As I expected, my four friends were engaged at their game around the centre table, White and Littell playing against Van Bult and Davis. White rose and greeted me, while the others nodded informally; my presence was too usual an event to call for any special demonstration, and after White had directed Benton to look after my wants, the game was promptly resumed.

I lighted a fresh cigar, took a brandy and soda, and selecting a comfortable chair, pulled it up between my host--who was to my left--and Van Bult to my right, and settled myself back to look on. The score-card stood at my elbow, and a glance at it showed that the host and Littell were winning. The game proceeded in comparative silence, now and then some one interrupting to ask for a cigar or drink. I noticed that White's orders were rather more frequent than the others, and that the man himself was not looking well. In fact he had not been looking well for some time, as his friends had remarked, but it was passed by with the suggestion that he was "going pretty fast."

After, perhaps, an hour of play, at the conclusion of one of the "rubs," White pushed back his chair and declined to play longer. As it still wanted some time of twelve o'clock, the others suggested that the play be continued, and Davis, who, with Van Bult, had lost considerably, rather insisted that they be afforded some opportunity to recoup; but White, without regarding him, got up from the table and directed the man to serve supper, and Van Bult thereupon counted out four crisp new fifty-dollar bills, and left them on the table in settlement of his losses. Neither Littell nor White took them up, and Davis in rather an embarrassed way told Littell he would settle with him next day, that he had not the money with him. I felt sorry for Davis, as I knew the loss, comparatively trifling to Van Bult, must mean some inconvenience to him, but he accepted it gracefully. By this time Benton was ready with supper and the game was apparently forgotten.

I do not know why it was, but the usual good spirits that prevailed at our little gatherings seemed lacking this night. Perhaps it was due to the mood of our host, who was evidently out of humor over something. Littell ventured one or two remarks to which we responded perfunctorily, but White was moodily silent. I noticed he was watching me rather closely, and was not surprised when after a while he addressed me, but for his question I was unprepared.

"Dallas," he said, "you are in a public prosecutor's office and know something of the evil doings of men; do you think the consciousness of a wrong done a fellow-man clings to the wrong-doer all his life, or that in time he may forget it?"

I answered as I believed, that it depended entirely upon the temperament of the man, but suggested that a reparation of the injury, where that was possible, should help matters.

"Yes," he said, "but that is not always possible."

I had nothing more to suggest on a subject so totally foreign to the occasion and so offered no further opinion. But evidently White was in a psychological mood, for he next directed his questions to Littell.

"Do you agree with Dallas," he asked him, "that a man's temperament determines the matter, and that where one may find forgetfulness in security, another cannot rid himself of the recollection of a wrong he has done?"

Littell, indulging White's mood, replied that he had never been a public prosecutor and was therefore denied my opportunities of speaking from actual observation of criminals, but that if he might draw conclusions from his own experience of men, he thought there were very few of them whose consciences, after they had lived long enough to enjoy the opportunity, were not freighted with some evil act or other, and yet his acquaintanceships led him to conclude that few of them were troubled much with their past misdeeds.

"Indeed," he continued, "I find little entertainment in minutely reviewing my own history and therefore seldom indulge myself in the luxury. As to my fellow-men, if they don't brand themselves criminals or malefactors, I am willing to take them as they seem, as I think is the rest of the world."

Van Bult, who had been listening with evident amusement to the rather lugubrious conversation, here suggested in a whimsical tone that he was glad to learn that such was the disposition of the world, and of New Yorkers in particular, as it assured him immunity from undue curiosity.

"That's so, Van," said White; "if we insisted upon knowing our friends' credentials even, you might prove a difficult subject."

This was rather a daring speech to make to Van Bult, who had never encouraged any disposition to familiarity or confidence, and I felt some little concern as to how he might take it, but my fears were groundless, for he responded very pleasantly, that any investigator in his case would be poorly repaid for his trouble, and then more heartily, that the unquestioning regard of his friends was a source of much gratification to him. White could not continue his ill-humored tone with Van Bult after this answer, and I was about to tell Van that it was best to like a man for himself as we did him, or something to that effect, when White demanded that we all fill our glasses and drink to what we didn't know of each other, adding that while it might not be a great deal, he knew it would be interesting.

"If that be so," said Littell, "it will be because evil is more interesting than good."

"Then," said Van Bult, "we will abbreviate White's toast, and drink to _evil_."

White hesitated a moment, and then drained his glass, and threw it into the fireplace with a crash. We all looked a little surprised, I think, but no one offered any comment. Van Bult and Littell laughed and drank the toast. I did not altogether fancy the spirit of the thing, and quietly replaced my glass on the table, but Davis openly declared that he did not like the toast and would not drink it. This seemed to incense White, who by this time was very plainly showing the effects of the liquor he had taken, and he told Davis not to be a fool; that it ill became him to pose as a paragon of virtue.

Davis made no answer, and Littell, after a moment's awkward silence, suggested our going. We said good-night to White, who seemed to recover himself for the moment and murmured some apologies, mainly addressed to Davis, for his ill-humor. He also asked the latter, who lived in the same house, to remain with him for a while.

As we were going out, he called after me that he wanted to come to my office the next day to talk to me about something, to which I acceded. Littell delayed a moment for a last word with him, and then joined Van Bult and myself on the sidewalk and we walked together toward Fifth Avenue.

Van Bult was the first to speak:

"What is the matter with White?" he said; "he does not seem like himself."

"He has probably some trifling matter on his mind," I suggested, "the seriousness of which he morbidly exaggerates. He is a nervous fellow anyhow, and has several times hinted to me that he wanted to make a confidant of me about something. I am inclined to believe," I continued, expressing a thought I had entertained before, "that he feels he has been guilty of an injustice to his cousin, Winters, in taking the bulk of his uncle's fortune, and suffers some remorse when he sees the poor fellow going to the bad. For that matter, however," I concluded, "he would have gone there anyhow, and all the faster for a little money."

"It may be there is a woman in the case," said Littell; "it seems to me I have heard of an entanglement of some sort."

"So they say," I answered, "but I don't see why an affair of that sort should give him cause for much worry."

"Well, whatever it is," said Van Bult, "he had better pull himself together and go away for a change. One of you fellows suggest it to him, you know him better than I do. He may give you an opportunity to-morrow, Dallas," he continued, "if he goes to see you as he said he would."

By this time we had reached Fifth Avenue, where our ways separated, Van Bult living on Washington Square, Littell at the Terrace Hotel, at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street, and I, as I have said, at the Crescent Club, on Madison Square. We stood, however, talking for a few minutes, and while doing so Benton passed us, going east toward Broadway. Van Bult stopped him to ask how his master was. The man said he had dismissed him soon after we left, and had thrown himself down on the sofa without undressing, and had apparently gone to sleep.

Littell asked if Davis was still with him, and the man replied, "No"; that "Mr. Davis had been leaving at the same time." He then bade us good-night, and went on.

Van Bult here left us, and Littell and I walked as far as Madison Square together, where I crossed over and Littell continued on.

As I entered the club and went up to my room, it was still a little before one o'clock.