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Tales of the Jazz Age

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Peter crossed over, opened the door and welcomed in Private Key, very
suspicious and uncertain and guilty. Chairs were found and the three
took their seats around the punch bowl. Peter gave them each a
highball and offered them a cigarette from his case. They accepted
both with some diffidence.

"Now," continued Peter easily, "may I ask why you gentlemen prefer to
lounge away your leisure hours in a room which is chiefly furnished,
as far as I can see, with scrubbing brushes. And when the human race
has progressed to the stage where seventeen thousand chairs are
manufactured on every day except Sunday--" he paused. Rose and Key
regarded him vacantly. "Will you tell me," went on Peter, "why you
choose to rest yourselves on articles, intended for the transportation
of water from one place to another?"

At this point Rose contributed a grunt to the conversation.

"And lastly," finished Peter, "will you tell me why, when you are in a
building beautifully hung with enormous candelabra, you prefer to
spend these evening hours under one anemic electric light?"

Rose looked at Key; Key looked at Rose. They laughed; they laughed
uproariously; they found it was impossible to look at each other
without laughing. But they were not laughing with this man--they were
laughing at him. To them a man who talked after this fashion was
either raving drunk or raving crazy.

"You are Yale men, I presume," said Peter, finishing his highball and
preparing another.

They laughed again.

"Na-ah."

"So? I thought perhaps you might be members of that lowly section of
the university known as the Sheffield Scientific School."

"Na-ah."

"Hm. Well, that's too bad. No doubt you are Harvard men, anxious to
preserve your incognito in this--this paradise of violet blue, as the
newspapers say."

"Na-ah," said Key scornfully, "we was just waitin' for somebody."

"Ah," exclaimed Peter, rising and filling their glasses, "very
interestin'. Had a date with a scrublady, eh?"

They both denied this indignantly.

"It's all right," Peter reassured them, "don't apologize. A
scrublady's as good as any lady in the world."

Kipling says 'Any lady and Judy O'Grady under the skin.'"

"Sure," said Key, winking broadly at Rose.

"My case, for instance," continued Peter, finishing his glass. "I got
a girl up here that's spoiled. Spoildest darn girl I ever saw. Refused
to kiss me; no reason whatsoever. Led me on deliberately to think sure
I want to kiss you and then plunk! Threw me over! What's the younger
generation comin' to?"

"Say tha's hard luck," said Key--"that's awful hard luck."

"Oh, boy!" said Rose.

"Have another?" said Peter.

"We got in a sort of fight for a while," said Key after a pause, "but
it was too far away."

"A fight?--tha's stuff!" said Peter, seating himself unsteadily.
"Fight 'em all! I was in the army."

"This was with a Bolshevik fella."

"Tha's stuff!" exclaimed Peter, enthusiastic. "That's, what I say!
Kill the Bolshevik! Exterminate 'em!"

"We're Americuns," said Rose, implying a sturdy, defiant patriotism.

"Sure," said Peter. "Greatest race in the world! We're all Americans!
Have another."

They had another.


VI

At one o'clock a special orchestra, special even in a day of special
orchestras, arrived at Delmonico's, and its members, seating
themselves arrogantly around the piano, took up the burden of
providing music for the Gamma Psi Fraternity. They were headed by a
famous flute-player, distinguished throughout New York for his feat of
standing on his head and shimmying with his shoulders while he played
the latest jazz on his flute. During his performance the lights were
extinguished except for the spotlight on the flute-player and another
roving beam that threw flickering shadows and changing kaleidoscopic
colors over the massed dancers.

Edith had danced herself into that tired, dreamy state habitual only
with débutantes, a state equivalent to the glow of a noble soul after
several long highballs. Her mind floated vaguely on the bosom of her
music; her partners changed with the unreality of phantoms under the
colorful shifting dusk, and to her present coma it seemed as if days
had passed since the dance began. She had talked on many fragmentary
subjects with many men. She had been kissed once and made love to six
times. Earlier in the evening different under-graduates had danced
with her, but now, like all the more popular girls there, she had her
own entourage--that is, half a dozen gallants had singled her out or
were alternating her charms with those of some other chosen beauty;
they cut in on her in regular, inevitable succession.

Several times she had seen Gordon--he had been sitting a long time on
the stairway with his palm to his head, his dull eyes fixed at an
infinite spark on the floor before him, very depressed, he looked, and
quite drunk--but Edith each time had averted her glance hurriedly. All
that seemed long ago; her mind was passive now, her senses were lulled
to trance-like sleep; only her feet danced and her voice talked on in
hazy sentimental banter.

But Edith was not nearly so tired as to be incapable of moral
indignation when Peter Himmel cut in on her, sublimely and happily
drunk. She gasped and looked up at him.

"Why, _Peter_!"

"I'm a li'l' stewed, Edith."

"Why, Peter, you're a _peach_, you are! Don't you think it's a
bum way of doing--when you're with me?"

Then she smiled unwillingly, for he was looking at her with owlish
sentimentality varied with a silly spasmodic smile.

"Darlin' Edith," he began earnestly, "you know I love you, don't you?"

"You tell it well."

"I love you--and I merely wanted you to kiss me," he added sadly.

His embarrassment, his shame, were both gone. She was a mos' beautiful
girl in whole worl'. Mos' beautiful eyes, like stars above. He wanted
to 'pologize--firs', for presuming try to kiss her; second, for
drinking--but he'd been so discouraged 'cause he had thought she was
mad at him----

The red-fat man cut in, and looking up at Edith smiled radiantly.

"Did you bring any one?" she asked.

No. The red-fat man was a stag.

"Well, would you mind--would it be an awful bother for you to--to take
me home to-night?" (this extreme diffidence was a charming affectation
on Edith's part--she knew that the red-fat man would immediately
dissolve into a paroxysm of delight).

"Bother? Why, good Lord, I'd be darn glad to! You know I'd be darn
glad to."

"Thanks _loads_! You're awfully sweet."

She glanced at her wrist-watch. It was half-past one. And, as she said
"half-past one" to herself, it floated vaguely into her mind that her
brother had told her at luncheon that he worked in the office of his
newspaper until after one-thirty every evening.

Edith turned suddenly to her current partner.

"What street is Delmonico's on, anyway?"

"Street? Oh, why Fifth Avenue, of course."

"I mean, what cross street?"

"Why--let's see--it's on Forty-fourth Street."

This verified what she had thought. Henry's office must be across the
street and just around the corner, and it occurred to her immediately
that she might slip over for a moment and surprise him, float in on
him, a shimmering marvel in her new crimson opera cloak and "cheer him
up." It was exactly the sort of thing Edith revelled in doing--an
unconventional, jaunty thing. The idea reached out and gripped at her
imagination--after an instant's hesitation she had decided.

"My hair is just about to tumble entirely down," she said pleasantly
to her partner; "would you mind if I go and fix it?"

"Not at all."

"You're a peach."

A few minutes later, wrapped in her crimson opera cloak, she flitted
down a side-stairs, her cheeks glowing with excitement at her little
adventure. She ran by a couple who stood at the door--a weak-chinned
waiter and an over-rouged young lady, in hot dispute--and opening the
outer door stepped into the warm May night.

VII

The over-rouged young lady followed her with a brief, bitter
glance--then turned again to the weak-chinned waiter and took up her
argument.

"You better go up and tell him I'm here," she said defiantly, "or I'll
go up myself."

"No, you don't!" said George sternly.

The girl smiled sardonically.

"Oh, I don't, don't I? Well, let me tell you I know more college
fellas and more of 'em know me, and are glad to take me out on a
party, than you ever saw in your whole life."

"Maybe so--"

"Maybe so," she interrupted. "Oh, it's all right for any of 'em like
that one that just ran out--God knows where _she_ went--it's all
right for them that are asked here to come or go as they like--but
when I want to see a friend they have some cheap, ham-slinging,
bring-me-a-doughnut waiter to stand here and keep me out."

"See here," said the elder Key indignantly, "I can't lose my job.
Maybe this fella you're talkin' about doesn't want to see you."

"Oh, he wants to see me all right."

"Anyways, how could I find him in all that crowd?"

"Oh, he'll be there," she asserted confidently. "You just ask anybody
for Gordon Sterrett and they'll point him out to you. They all know
each other, those fellas."

She produced a mesh bag, and taking out a dollar bill handed it to
George.

"Here," she said, "here's a bribe. You find him and give him my
message. You tell him if he isn't here in five minutes I'm coming up."

George shook his head pessimistically, considered the question for a
moment, wavered violently, and then withdrew.

In less than the allotted time Gordon came down-stairs. He was drunker
than he had been earlier in the evening and in a different way. The
liquor seemed to have hardened on him like a crust. He was heavy and
lurching--almost incoherent when he talked.

"'Lo, Jewel," he said thickly. "Came right away, Jewel, I couldn't get
that money. Tried my best."

"Money nothing!" she snapped. "You haven't been near me for ten days.
What's the matter?"

He shook his head slowly.

"Been very low, Jewel. Been sick."

"Why didn't you tell me if you were sick. I don't care about the money
that bad. I didn't start bothering you about it at all until you began
neglecting me."

Again he shook his head.

"Haven't been neglecting you. Not at all."

"Haven't! You haven't been near me for three weeks, unless you been so
drunk you didn't know what you were doing."

"Been sick. Jewel," he repeated, turning his eyes upon her wearily.

"You're well enough to come and play with your society friends here
all right. You told me you'd meet me for dinner, and you said you'd
have some money for me. You didn't even bother to ring me up."

"I couldn't get any money."

"Haven't I just been saying that doesn't matter? I wanted to see
_you_, Gordon, but you seem to prefer your somebody else."

He denied this bitterly.

"Then get your hat and come along," she suggested. Gordon
hesitated--and she came suddenly close to him and slipped her arms
around his neck.

"Come on with me, Gordon," she said in a half whisper. "We'll go over
to Devineries' and have a drink, and then we can go up to my
apartment."

"I can't, Jewel,----"

"You can," she said intensely.

"I'm sick as a dog!"

"Well, then, you oughtn't to stay here and dance."

With a glance around him in which relief and despair were mingled,
Gordon hesitated; then she suddenly pulled him to her and kissed him
with soft, pulpy lips.

"All right," he said heavily. "I'll get my hat."


VII

When Edith came out into the clear blue of the May night she found the
Avenue deserted. The windows of the big shops were dark; over their
doors were drawn great iron masks until they were only shadowy tombs
of the late day's splendor. Glancing down toward Forty-second Street
she saw a commingled blur of lights from the all-night restaurants.
Over on Sixth Avenue the elevated, a flare of fire, roared across the
street between the glimmering parallels of light at the station and
streaked along into the crisp dark. But at Forty-fourth Street it was
very quiet.

Pulling her cloak close about her Edith darted across the Avenue. She
started nervously as a solitary man passed her and said in a hoarse
whisper--"Where bound, kiddo?" She was reminded of a night in her
childhood when she had walked around the block in her pajamas and a
dog had howled at her from a mystery-big back yard.

In a minute she had reached her destination, a two-story,
comparatively old building on Forty-fourth, in the upper window of
which she thankfully detected a wisp of light. It was bright enough
outside for her to make out the sign beside the window--the _New
York Trumpet_. She stepped inside a dark hall and after a second
saw the stairs in the corner.

Then she was in a long, low room furnished with many desks and hung on
all sides with file copies of newspapers. There were only two
occupants. They were sitting at different ends of the room, each
wearing a green eye-shade and writing by a solitary desk light.

For a moment she stood uncertainly in the doorway, and then both men
turned around simultaneously and she recognized her brother.

"Why, Edith!" He rose quickly and approached her in surprise, removing
his eye-shade. He was tall, lean, and dark, with black, piercing eyes
under very thick glasses. They were far-away eyes that seemed always
fixed just over the head of the person to whom he was talking.

He put his hands on her arms and kissed her cheek.

"What is it?" he repeated in some alarm.

"I was at a dance across at Delmonico's, Henry," she said excitedly,
"and I couldn't resist tearing over to see you."

"I'm glad you did." His alertness gave way quickly to a habitual
vagueness. "You oughtn't to be out alone at night though, ought you?"

The man at the other end of the room had been looking at them
curiously, but at Henry's beckoning gesture he approached. He was
loosely fat with little twinkling eyes, and, having removed his collar
and tie, he gave the impression of a Middle-Western farmer on a Sunday
afternoon.

"This is my sister," said Henry. "She dropped in to see me."

"How do you do?" said the fat man, smiling. "My name's Bartholomew,
Miss Bradin. I know your brother has forgotten it long ago."

Edith laughed politely.

"Well," he continued, "not exactly gorgeous quarters we have here, are
they?"

Edith looked around the room.

"They seem very nice," she replied. "Where do you keep the bombs?"

"The bombs?" repeated Bartholomew, laughing. "That's pretty good--the
bombs. Did you hear her, Henry? She wants to know where we keep the
bombs. Say, that's pretty good."

Edith swung herself onto a vacant desk and sat dangling her feet over
the edge. Her brother took a seat beside her.

"Well," he asked, absent-mindedly, "how do you like New York this
trip?"

"Not bad. I'll be over at the Biltmore with the Hoyts until Sunday.
Can't you come to luncheon to-morrow?"

He thought a moment.

"I'm especially busy," he objected, "and I hate women in groups."

"All right," she agreed, unruffled. "Let's you and me have luncheon
together."

"Very well."

"I'll call for you at twelve."

Bartholomew was obviously anxious to return to his desk, but
apparently considered that it would be rude to leave without some
parting pleasantry.

"Well"--he began awkwardly.

They both turned to him.

"Well, we--we had an exciting time earlier in the evening."

The two men exchanged glances.

"You should have come earlier," continued Bartholomew, somewhat
encouraged. "We had a regular vaudeville."

"Did you really?"

"A serenade," said Henry. "A lot of soldiers gathered down there in
the street and began to yell at the sign."

"Why?" she demanded.

"Just a crowd," said Henry, abstractedly. "All crowds have to howl.
They didn't have anybody with much initiative in the lead, or they'd
probably have forced their way in here and smashed things up."

"Yes," said Bartholomew, turning again to Edith, "you should have been
here."

He seemed to consider this a sufficient cue for withdrawal, for he
turned abruptly and went back to his desk.

"Are the soldiers all set against the Socialists?" demanded Edith of
her brother. "I mean do they attack you violently and all that?"

Henry replaced his eye-shade and yawned.

"The human race has come a long way," he said casually, "but most of
us are throw-backs; the soldiers don't know what they want, or what
they hate, or what they like. They're used to acting in large bodies,
and they seem to have to make demonstrations. So it happens to be
against us. There've been riots all over the city to-night. It's May
Day, you see."

"Was the disturbance here pretty serious?"

"Not a bit," he said scornfully. "About twenty-five of them stopped in
the street about nine o'clock, and began to bellow at the moon."

"Oh"--She changed the subject. "You're glad to see me, Henry?"

"Why, sure."

"You don't seem to be."

"I am."

"I suppose you think I'm a--a waster. Sort of the World's Worst
Butterfly."

Henry laughed.

"Not at all. Have a good time while you're young. Why? Do I seem like
the priggish and earnest youth?"

"No--" she paused,"--but somehow I began thinking how absolutely
different the party I'm on is from--from all your purposes. It seems
sort of--of incongruous, doesn't it?--me being at a party like that,
and you over here working for a thing that'll make that sort of party
impossible ever any more, if your ideas work."

"I don't think of it that way. You're young, and you're acting just as
you were brought up to act. Go ahead--have a good time?"

Her feet, which had been idly swinging, stopped and her voice dropped
a note.

"I wish you'd--you'd come back to Harrisburg and have a good time. Do
you feel sure that you're on the right track----"

"You're wearing beautiful stockings," he interrupted. "What on earth
are they?"

"They're embroidered," she replied, glancing down; "Aren't they
cunning?" She raised her skirts and uncovered slim, silk-sheathed
calves. "Or do you disapprove of silk stockings?"

He seemed slightly exasperated, bent his dark eyes on her piercingly.

"Are you trying to make me out as criticizing you in any way, Edith?"

"Not at all-----"

She paused. Bartholomew had uttered a grunt. She turned and saw that
he had left his desk and was standing at the window.

"What is it?" demanded Henry.

"People," said Bartholomew, and then after an instant: "Whole jam of
them. They're coming from Sixth Avenue."

"People?"

The fat man pressed his nose to the pane.

"Soldiers, by God!" he said emphatically. "I had an idea they'd come
back."

Edith jumped to her feet, and running over joined Bartholomew at the
window.

"There's a lot of them!" she cried excitedly. "Come here, Henry!"

Henry readjusted his shade, but kept his seat.

"Hadn't we better turn out the lights?" suggested Bartholomew.

"No. They'll go away in a minute."

"They're not," said Edith, peering from the window. "They're not even
thinking of going away. There's more of them coming. Look--there's a
whole crowd turning the corner of Sixth Avenue,"

By the yellow glow and blue shadows of the street lamp she could see
that the sidewalk was crowded with men. They were mostly in uniform,
some sober, some enthusiastically drunk, and over the whole swept an
incoherent clamor and shouting.

Henry rose, and going to the window exposed himself as a long
silhouette against the office lights. Immediately the shouting became
a steady yell, and a rattling fusillade of small missiles, corners of
tobacco plugs, cigarette-boxes, and even pennies beat against the
window. The sounds of the racket now began floating up the stairs as
the folding doors revolved.

"They're coming up!" cried Bartholomew.

Edith turned anxiously to Henry.

"They're coming up, Henry."

From down-stairs in the lower hall their cries were now quite audible.

"--God Damn Socialists!"

"Pro-Germans! Boche-lovers!"

"Second floor, front! Come on!"

"We'll get the sons--"

The next five minutes passed in a dream. Edith was conscious that the
clamor burst suddenly upon the three of them like a cloud of rain,
that there was a thunder of many feet on the stairs, that Henry had
seized her arm and drawn her back toward the rear of the office. Then
the door opened and an overflow of men were forced into the room--not
the leaders, but simply those who happened to be in front.

"Hello, Bo!"

"Up late, ain't you!"

"You an' your girl. Damn _you_!"

She noticed that two very drunken soldiers had been forced to the
front, where they wobbled fatuously--one of them was short and dark,
the other was tall and weak of chin.

Henry stepped forward and raised his hand.

"Friends!" he said.

The clamor faded into a momentary stillness, punctuated with
mutterings.

"Friends!" he repeated, his far-away eyes fixed over the heads of the
crowd, "you're injuring no one but yourselves by breaking in here
to-night. Do we look like rich men? Do we look like Germans? I ask you
in all fairness--"

"Pipe down!"

"I'll say you do!"

"Say, who's your lady friend, buddy?"

A man in civilian clothes, who had been pawing over a table, suddenly
held up a newspaper.

"Here it is!" he shouted, "They wanted the Germans to win the war!"

A new overflow from the stairs was shouldered in and of a sudden the
room was full of men all closing around the pale little group at the
back. Edith saw that the tall soldier with the weak chin was still in
front. The short dark one had disappeared.

She edged slightly backward, stood close to the open window, through
which came a clear breath of cool night air.

Then the room was a riot. She realized that the soldiers were surging
forward, glimpsed the fat man swinging a chair over his
head--instantly the lights went out and she felt the push of warm
bodies under rough cloth, and her ears were full of shouting and
trampling and hard breathing.

A figure flashed by her out of nowhere, tottered, was edged sideways,
and of a sudden disappeared helplessly out through the open window
with a frightened, fragmentary cry that died staccato on the bosom of
the clamor. By the faint light streaming from the building backing on
the area Edith had a quick impression that it had been the tall
soldier with tie weak chin.

Anger rose astonishingly in her. She swung her arms wildly, edged
blindly toward the thickest of the scuffling. She heard grunts,
curses, the muffled impact of fists.

"Henry!" she called frantically, "Henry!"

Then, it was minutes later, she felt suddenly that there were other
figures in the room. She heard a voice, deep, bullying, authoritative;
she saw yellow rays of light sweeping here and there in the fracas.
The cries became more scattered. The scuffling increased and then
stopped.

Suddenly the lights were on and the room was full of policemen,
clubbing left and right. The deep voice boomed out:

"Here now! Here now! Here now!"

And then:

"Quiet down and get out! Here now!"

The room seemed to empty like a wash-bowl. A policeman fast-grappled
in the corner released his hold on his soldier antagonist and started
him with a shove toward the door. The deep voice continued. Edith
perceived now that it came from a bull-necked police captain standing
near the door.

"Here now! This is no way! One of your own sojers got shoved out of
the back window an' killed hisself!"

"Henry!" called Edith, "Henry!"

She beat wildly with her fists on the back of the man in front of her;
she brushed between two others; fought, shrieked, and beat her way to
a very pale figure sitting on the floor close to a desk.

"Henry," she cried passionately, "what's the matter? What's the
matter? Did they hurt you?"

His eyes were shut. He groaned and then looking up said disgustedly--

"They broke my leg. My God, the fools!"

"Here now!" called the police captain. "Here now! Here now!"


IX

"Childs', Fifty-ninth Street," at eight o'clock of any morning differs
from its sisters by less than the width of their marble tables or the
degree of polish on the frying-pans. You will see there a crowd of
poor people with sleep in the corners of their eyes, trying to look
straight before them at their food so as not to see the other poor
people. But Childs', Fifty-ninth, four hours earlier is quite unlike
any Childs' restaurant from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine.
Within its pale but sanitary walls one finds a noisy medley of chorus
girls, college boys, debutantes, rakes, _filles de joie_--a not
unrepresentative mixture of the gayest of Broadway, and even of Fifth
Avenue.

In the early morning of May the second it was unusually full. Over the
marble-topped tables were bent the excited faces of flappers whose
fathers owned individual villages. They were eating buckwheat cakes
and scrambled eggs with relish and gusto, an accomplishment that it
would have been utterly impossible for them to repeat in the same
place four hours later.

Almost the entire crowd were from the Gamma Psi dance at Delmonico's
except for several chorus girls from a midnight revue who sat at a
side table and wished they'd taken off a little more make-up after the
show. Here and there a drab, mouse-like figure, desperately out of
place, watched the butterflies with a weary, puzzled curiosity. But
the drab figure was the exception. This was the morning after May Day,
and celebration was still in the air.

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