| There
was something so peculiarly unprofessional about the
painting and wording of John Scantleberry’s sign
that a passer-by would usually carry away some remembrance
of it. It was so because John Scantleberry was a tailor,
not a painter. He had elaborated the wording and arrangement
of his sign with much thought, and when he produced
his conception the result was unusual and quaint. Ignoring
the existing literature of sign writers, the legend
which he chose to describe his employment embodied in
an obscure way the peculiar cast of his personality.
This would not be evident until a close observation
had been rewarded by some glimpse of his character,
and therefore to the majority of persons this secret
in the wording would remain forever hidden.
“John Scantleberry,
working merchant tailor, a great specialty of pantaloons.”
As if to emphasize this declaration there hung from
the upper edge of the square of tin, upon which the
letters were painted, a dwarf pair of pantaloons. They
were of careful workmanship, and might have been a perfect
fit for some pigmy of fashionable tastes and graceful
figure.
The tailor had, perhaps,
spent more time on the sign than he had on the pantaloons,—cutting
the letters out of posters on the walls, trimming them
finely with his shears, pencilling their outline on
the tin, which had first received a coat of white, and
then filling in the letters with black paint. That was
done some years before the incident happened, which
might have made him famous; but although he had moved
and removed his quarters, living in all parts of the
city and in every conceivable sort of apartment; and,
although the diminutive pair of trousers had been many
times renewed, yet the sign remained the same. Every
morning, rain or shine, wherever he happened to be,
the first act of his renewed life was to hang out his
tin sign, and when the labours of his day were ended
he returned it to its place on the bed-post. I dare
say that many an imp, with designs of the dreams of
some innocent sleeper, has happened on the couch where
he lay stretched, with his name and title hung at his
feet, like no common mortal; [Page 27]
and I doubt not that the intruder has read the same,
and trying on the pair of trousers, which would fit
him to a nicety, has envied the race which wore such
garments, and has left its benefactor with untroubled
visions.
To say John
Scantleberry was an uncommon mortal is perhaps not quite
so near the truth as to say that he was an uncommon
tailor. It is not the custom of these workmen to set
up each his separate shop, and to carry on a business
with such a show of independence. It is not their habit
to change their place of abode as often as the fit seizes
them, without regard to the interests of their trade
or the convenience of their customers, and it is certainly
not their prevalent characteristic to refuse to enlarge
the circle of their patrons. But all these peculiarities
centered in John Scantleberry; he moved his shop with
an irregularity and unreasonableness, which surprised
his landlords, and he often refused to deal with a stranger,
for whom he happened to conceive a sudden suspicious
dislike.
If John Scantleberry
could have narrated the story of his past life, it might
have been possible to account for his oddities, for
his ignorant independence, for his shyness and reticence,
for his blind hatred of restraint; but he had no memory,
and all the incidents of his childhood and youth were
as darkness to him. His mental scenery had no vistas,
no distances ending in glamour and haze; he walked from
one room of life into the next, and knew only the four
walls and the floor; he never looked up to the ceiling.
He did not even remember to whom he owed the knowledge
of his trade, and he went from one of his lodgings to
the other, as an Indian moves his camp. Although he
could read he took no comfort from it, and only used
his knowledge in perusing some old newspaper, which
had wrapped a bundle, or sometimes a torn scrap, blown
by the wind within reach of his hand. Of friends he
had not one. If he ever felt the need of companionship
he was warned by the distress of his mind that some
past experience had been disastrous, and he would allow
the feeling to lapse.
That dim recollection
of his may be sharpened to give some idea of the suspicious
shyness of his mind. At a time when his wanderings had
led him down into the outskirts of the city, he was
established in an upstairs chamber of a certain house
there. It suited him well; he had no view from the window
and no great noise to disturb him, only the ringing
and tapping of a tinsmith’s shop underneath. Occasionally
in the evenings he would go down and walk along the
wide shaky platform, in front of the house, in his bare
feet. The tinsmith was a bachelor, like himself, and
extremely chary of speech. Scantleberry may have been
attracted by this, and he in turn may have expected
something from the tailor’s look of innocent intelligence.
However it was, they occasionally might have been sitting
some distance [Page 28] apart in the
tinsmith’s shop,—he on a high stool, beside
a higher desk, his bushy eyebrows and protruding lips
strongly illumined by a coal-oil lamp, and his visitor
somewhere below him, in the shadow, clasping his knees
and looking mildly at the silly tins, bright with reflected
light. Their conversation was, on the one side laconic
and on the other shy, but they were both satisfied,
and if the tinsmith had not been a singer their acquaintance
might have hardened into a sort of dumb friendship.
But on Saturday nights this vocal tinsmith completed
the muddling of his accounts and accompanied the same
with music. The first Saturday he had contented himself
with humming, and although John Scantleberry had felt
uneasy on his chair and had glanced furtively under
the desk at the tinsmith’s legs, as if he thought
he might somehow be making the noise with them against
the stool, he did not actively resent the gentle humming.
The next Saturday night he was not there, and the solitary
tinsmith roared over his additions and multiplications,
and had all the tin pans vibrating like so many cymbals.
This indulgence made him forgetful, and the next Saturday
night, as Scantleberry was unsuspectingly below him,
he burst into a flood of sacred song. John looked up
sideways, his face expressing incredulity and protest.
The smith in the flush of his multiplication had forgotten
him, the lamp glared in his face, he had drawn down
his bushy eyebrows with immense earnestness, and was
shooting his lips out with the vigour of his song.
“Remember
sinful youth
(“Two tins for two-pence four-pence)
“That
you must die.
(“Two pans for a yorker)
“That
you must die.
(“One watering can for Philemon Thomson; that’ll
never be
paid for; God have mercy on his soul.”)
Then with
renewed vigour and volume,
“Remember
sinful youth
“That you must die.”
Disturbed
in his ecstasy by some movement of rising, the alarmed
tinsmith looked down obliquely with an expression of
inquiry and shamefacedness. John Scantleberry had passed
through all the stages from surprise to personal application.
He resented that he should be asked to remember that
he was a sinful youth and must die. His rising had disturbed
the flow of song and calculation, and he drifted out
upon the shaky [Page 29] sidewalk amid
a silence so perfect that the tinsmith, whose hearing
became abnormally acute, could distinguish the dying
vibration of his own pans. The next morning the tailor
was gone.
Sooner or later
as it seemed, for one reason or another, he would leave
every room where he set his foot. Wayfarers who, on
Monday morning, saw him stretched on his board asleep,
curling his toes when the flies walked up and down his
bare soles, might not see him there on Saturday night.
But at last
it seemed as if, after all his experiments, he had found
a spot to his liking, and his astonished customers returned
once and twice to find his sign on the same doorway.
For a whole year he had remained the sole occupant of
the topmost flat of the “Globe Building,”
in Newth street, which is given over to second rate
offices and obscure brokers’ dens. The region
was so unpopular that the offices never passed the second
story. Once a broken-down lawyer was forced up into
the third, but this was only caused by a temporary pressure,
which was soon relieved by a bailiff’s seizure
of the effects of one of the second floorers. In fact,
a comparison might be made between the building and
a spider’s web full of unfortunate flies, with
a bailiff spider dropping in every now and then to seize
a new victim. But as these melancholy visitations never
occurred above the second flat, John Scantleberry remained
unaffected by them. He was the sole possessor of a whole
empty flat, with another empty flat below him, and in
the large back room, where there was no noise, no great
light, and no stretch of view to alarm him, he was contented
to stay. Moreover, he could drop in at the office and
pay his rent to a clerk, who asked no questions, and
who was neither friendly nor solicitous.
As it was in
this room that he passed through the great crisis of
his life it might be well to describe it. It was not
quite square, as one of the partitions ran obliquely
to allow for a passage[;] there was one window to the
north, which admitted no sunshine; the floor was irregular
and full of holes, where the knots had dropped through;
there were also holes where the rats had gnawed the
surbase, which were mostly plugged up with round stones.
The walls had been covered with paper, exhibiting repetitions
of a mountain, with a loaded donkey and two Spaniards
in short cloaks coming down the slope, but it was mostly
shredded away when John Scantleberry took possession,
and he carefully removed every trace of it. His furniture
was scanty; his board, a coal oil stove on which to
heat his irons and warm food, his bed, his trunk, and
a set of shelves with a web or two of cloth. Here John
Scantleberry made his last great stand for happiness,
fighting his [Page 30] few enemies
with what desperation and cunning he could muster, and
conquering after a fashion with the aid of fate.
It was only
necessary for John to have tasted the approximate happiness
his high chamber had brought him, to rebel against those
troubles which he was before content to endure. Among
his customers was one old man, by name, J.B. Dagon.
Regularly, twice a year, this old man presented himself
before the tailor and demanded a suit of clothes, and
no money ever passed between them, but only great talk
on old Dagon’s part about interest and principal,
of which John did not understand a single word. The
tailor was the soul of honour; in all his countless
flittings he never left a landlord to mourn his departure.
Upon one unfortunate occasion, driven to desperation
by some unbearable annoyance, he had rushed into the
clutches of old Dagon, borrowed money of him, paid the
rent and departed. And ever since then he had been in
bondage to the money-lender, loaded with the chains
of interest, which grew heavier and heavier every year.
When he was constantly in trouble from other causes
the apparition of his master demanding clothes for interest
did not give him any great distress. But so soon as
these conditions were removed, and he was so favourably
settled, he began to chafe under his one infliction.
To return to
the former simile, caught in the top strands of the
web, he was visited by his own particular spider, who
refused to eat him, but only drew a little blood each
time. He commenced to reflect, so far as his limited
power would allow, that there was no reason why this
thing should not continue forever,—why Mr. J.B.
Dagon might not come into his room, year after year,
and extract his suits of clothes. He had no imagination,
and it was the labour of weeks for his mind to advance
from the stand-point of vague distrust to the fixed
conclusion that he was unalterably in the power of the
object of his hatred. When he had mastered his thought
it possessed him with a perfect tyranny, and sometimes
filled his mind with such terrible and unusual distinctness,
that he would give a little moan of surprise and wipe
his wet forehead.
Old Mr. Dagon
was a short man, with a stoutish figure; he had rather
a benevolent face, perfectly smooth, with a bland satisfied
expression. His fleshiness gave one an impression of
unwholesomeness; there was something puffy and unsubstantial
about it; although his face was round and full, it was
not firm, and had a disagreeable sallowness, like greasy
ivory. His eyes were light blue and watery.
This was the
figure that presented itself, panting and exuding moisture,
before the horrified tailor. “God bless my soul,”
he cried, in a loose phlegmy voice, “God bless
my soul and body, where next! Up in the attic, [Page
31] down in the cellar, up stairs and down
stairs, and in my ladie’s chamber. Scantlingberry,
you’re a sly dog, a deep dog, with your dodgings
and your doublings. It’s as much as I can do to
keep track of you, but I do—I do keep track of
you; if you’re a sly dog I’m a long winded
one, don’t you see, Scantlingberry, and here we
are again.” Puffing as if he was a short winded
dog indeed, old Dagon gathered the moisture off his
face with a handkerchief. “Blast your stairs,”
he broke out again after a pause, “why don’t
you get an elevator? I’m perfectly used up and
done for.” “But,” he continued, with
malicious slowness, dropping into a gurgling distinctness,
“if you think you’re going to get rid of
me and my lawful rights by dodging into the eaves-troughs
you’re mistaken; I know you, Scantlingberry, I
know you for a deep, slippery, dodging rascal, but I
have the whip hand of you.”
John looked
up at him with that look of mild intelligence and listened
to his discourse, measured him, and heard him go softly
down stairs. But when he was gone something strange
happened; he went into a sort of paroxysm, and fell,
reeling over toward his bed, clutching the air, and
flinging down heavily, where he lay, making a feeble
meaningless moan. After about an hour of uneasy drowsing,
he recovered and went on with his work, dazed and troubled.
The next week,
when he had already cut out Mr. Dagon’s coat,
and was putting it together, he was suddenly alarmed
by hearing a soft foot on the stairs and the familiar
wheezing. He dropped his needle and listened; there
were voices on the landing, and he felt relieved to
hear a more positive step; when they moved along the
hall he shuffled over to the door and listened. He did
not notice how his knees trembled, or how numb his hands
were. It was the janitor showing someone the rooms;
he could hear him say: “Nobody up here but a cracked
tailor.” A voice replied, “lots of room
to fling round in,” and they both went down stairs.
John had held
himself at a terrible tension, and when he tried to
turn away from the door he struggled to keep his footing,
reached toward his bed, caught at his collar, reeled
and plunged down against his board, carrying the stand
and the coal-oil stove with him. When he recovered he
sat up amid the confusion his fall had caused. The coal-oil
stove had gone out; a goose had fallen on his shears,
breaking one blade, and had rested against his leg,
burning his trousers and blistering his flesh. He got
up as well as he could and lay down on his bed, where
he slept the night through. In the morning, as he set
things to rights, he noticed that Mr. Dagon’s
coat was pinned firmly to the floor with the unbroken
blade of the shears. He pulled it out and blind-stitched
the rent, but something in the look of the steel in
the cloth haunted him, and he put the blade aside. [Page
32]
Mr. Dagon came
and got his clothes, and the new lodger came and took
possession of one of the vacant rooms. He was the driver
of an express-waggon, and came in late at night and
went out early in the morning. He caused John no uneasiness
until Sunday, when he banged about a good deal, and
smoked.
But in the
meantime, from that obscure memory of the steel through
the cloth into the floor, John Scantleberry had filled
in a picture of old Mr. Dagon inside the coat and of
the blade through the cloth—into what? From such
a seed sown in the darkness of his mind, this wan unnatural
plant had sprung and was growing up, spreading its bloodless
and terrible shoot toward the light. As yet his own
figure was not in the picture, and it was only after
he had once struck manfully for himself that he drew
it in.
One Sunday
the driver had been very noisy, and, toward evening,
the liquor that he had been drinking all day got thorough
control of him. He threw his door open, and sitting,
doubled up on the floor, his back against one post,
his toes against the other, he spat down the well of
the stairs and roared one line of a song over and over.
John stood it as long as he could and then, setting
his door ajar, he seized a cocoanut shell, in which
he kept water standing to wet his seams, and advanced
into the hall. It was dark, but, judging by the glimmer
from the driver’s door, he flung the shell with
all his force. It was set into a lead foot to keep it
steady, and flew through the air with great force and
struck the express-man on the head. He jumped up with
an oath and felt around through the darkness. The tailor,
frightened out of his life, skipped up the step-ladder
that led to the roof. As the infuriated driver struck
the ladder he thought he was discovered, and putting
forth all his strength he raised the trap-door and stepped
out upon the roof. The oaths went silent on an instant;
looking up suddenly John Scantleberry saw, stretched
limitless above him, the profound deeps of night trembling
with innumerable stars. He drew his breath in sharply
through his teeth, as if the sight pained him. He dropped
his head and pinched his eyes tight shut, asking himself
the question: “Where have I seen this before?”
And now his memory achieved one miracle, and struck
sharp out of the dimness of his mind this perfect impression:
on a road at night, dry coolness, white dust, someone
crying, the words “dear little boy;” then,
as he threw his face up in the cool air, the limitless
heavens and the flashing stars. That was all; a vision
of some moment in childhood passed and was gone forever.
He shivered slightly, and then looking up again he said
softly to himself: "“It[’]s like a
cushion full of pins.” He was the working merchant
tailor once more, but even as he subsided his mind threw
off the only simile that [Page 33]
ever occurred to it. When he went down the driver was
quiet, and the next day he took himself off bag and
baggage.
John Scantleberry
had struck a bold stroke with his cocoanut bowl, and
slowly he sketched himself into the picture, slowly
and carefully, until so distinct did his figure become
that he took the long shear-blade out of his trunk and
went up on the roof. There, night after night, he wore
it against the rough stones of the chimney, making it
sharp and dagger-like. To such a fearful thing had the
plant grown in the darkness of his mind, stretching
up, striving to bear its terrible fruit.
But as if his
quiet was never to be left quite undisturbed, a new
and more unbearable noise arose from the court,—the
intermittent screaming of a child. Looking down into
this court or yard he could see it partitioned by fences
into irregular divisions; in one of these the earth,
deprived of the sun, had broken out into a green eruption,—one
was piled high with boxes, and another was the outlet
to the kitchen of a new restaurant, which had opened
on the next street. From this yard, or from the adjoining
lane, the wailing arose, sometimes in fretful whinings,
sometimes in frantic shrieks of rage or pain. For long
spaces the little girl, who tormented him, would be
happy, and would leave him happy, for her innocent prattle
to her rag-doll, or her confidences with the sticks
she gathered and played with, did not reach his window.
He thought she must go away in these intervals of peace,
but on looking out he discovered her picking the squeezed
lemons out of a tub of refuse and arranging them in
little piles. He could not hear her animated conversation
with the empty skins, he only heard her mournful wail,
as an elderly woman, in a striped jacket, snatched her
out of the lane.
Watching closely,
endeavouring to maintain the peace of his abode, he
observed that she was often thrust out in the same fashion,
and it was then that her shrieks arose, painful and
unheeded. All his efforts for weeks were to find some
means to stop this noise, and if he had not been prompted
by an accident he might have failed and sought rest
elsewhere. He had gone around and examined the restaurant.
“Bohemian Restaurant,” the sign said, “by
Calixe Bellemare; meals at all hours of the day and
night; try our fried oysters, by Madame Bellemare; omelette
belgique, by Maddle. Bellemare; steaks and chops by
the chef,” and so on, exactly like a play-bill.
He was too timid to approach the enemy from that quarter,
but the next time he thrust his head out of the window,
to learn the cause of the clamour which had disturbed
him, he knocked an empty spool off the window-ledge,
and it fell in front of the unfortunate child. She stopped
crying, attracted by the bright red object, picked it
up and fell to playing with it. [Page 34]
In a few days
John had formed a plan of action, and one evening, when
his work was done, he went out and bought a small basket
and some sugar-candy. When he returned to his room he
fastened a long piece of cord to the handle. When, on
the following day, the familiar cries arose, John put
a stick of barley-sugar into the basket and lowered
it to the ground. It rested in front of the child, she
saw the candy, picked it out, broke a bit off, stopped
crying, and looked away up to heaven, where she was
sure it came from. John dodged in, but the child had
caught a glimpse of him. Thus he commenced to play angel,
and, as he had before triumphed by force over the driver,
he now secured himself by a dull cunning.
Little by little
a curious feeling of interest sprang up in John Scantleberry’s
heart for the little mortal for whom he played angel.
Lowering away his sweets, day after day, he began to
draw up in return pebbles, bits of coloured glass, lemon
skins, a door knob, the label of a ginger-ale bottle,
scraps of newspaper, and whatever else the busy thankful
little girl could gather. He fell to thinking what would
come up next, and one morning, as he saw the child unwrap
the half of a stale tart, saved from her scanty supper,
place it in the basket, and watch him draw it up with
her hands clasped in wonder at the greatness of her
own sacrifice, John Scantleberry’s eyes were moistened
for the first time in years, and something stirred warmly
at his heart. So, strangely enough, a sweet human feeling
had taken root there, and was striving for life; while
in the gloom of his mind he was nourishing that noxious
pallid plant. Night after night, as he sat rubbing his
callous ankles, he would trim it and water it until,
behold! what terrible fruit was coming to maturity,
for his shear-blade was as keen and eager as a dagger,
and he had wrapped the thumb-hole with cloth for a firmer
hold.
And as the
days go by interest is heaping up, and at last brings
Mr. J.B. Dagon, the particular spider, to the top strands
of the web, ready for the feast. “Here we are
again, Scantlingberry, steady as a clock, about run
down though with your beastly stairs; my wind pinches
my throat and I wheeze as if I was foundered. You’ll
be going up a smoke-stack next, but you don’t
catch me,—up I go in a balloon, and if you go
into a coal mine down I go in the basket.” He
burst into a perspiration instead of laughing at his
own joke. John looked confidently at him with his sober,
innocent expression. He might have been a new convert,
receiving a call from his class-leader, so wistful was
he, so benevolent was Mr. Dagon.
He did not
speak for a moment, then he said: “Mr. Dagon,
have you come for a suit?” Mr. Dagon stopped wiping
up the perspiration. “Heavens and earth, what
a question; of course I’ve come for a suit. Would
I climb up here to see you? Why, I own you, body and
bones; I could sell you out [Page 35]
of house and home, and I believe I will some day, and
wring your neck into the bargain, to make you a little
more civil.” “Mr. Dagon,” said the
tailor mildly, “it is very hard work to live;
I have to give you two whole suits every year.”
“Give me,—listen to the man,—Give
me,” cried Mr. Dagon, “when you don’t
pay me a cent of principal or interest; I rate you with
them, you dog, every one. Come, show up some of your
shoddy.” Scantleberry rose and took down his cloth.
“What colour will I have this time?” “Black,
I think,” said John. “Black, why black?”
“Because it is more suitable.” “More
suitable; you think I’m going to die? Well by
ginger, you think death is going to cut in and close
up the transaction?” He caught his breath, and
nervously rolled his handkerchief into a ball. “My
God, Scantlingberry, I think you’re more than
half right; my breath is shorter every day. Something
will happen to me sure. I’m afraid—I’ll
tell you—there’s nothing between us, man
to man—I’m afraid that apoplexy, or heart
disease, or some confounded thing or another, will choke
the life out of me.” He was terribly in earnest,
and the sweat was like dew fallen on his face. John
did not say a word. His usual look of mild intelligence
was just troubled by a consciousness of the truth in
Mr. Dagon’s words; the glance of his eye took
flight to his bed, under the mattress of which lurked
the curious implement designed to fulfil Mr. Dagon’s
prophecy.
The old man
chose his cloth, and set the day of the next week when
he should come to try his coat on. John held the door
ajar, and heard him go flopping from step to step like
a great toad, and in his innermost heart he laughed,
and his mouth was even curled by a satisfied smile.
He had overcome the rage of his hate, and no longer
fainted under it,—calmness and settled assurance
had taken its place, and day after day he worked contentedly,
if a little feverish, at his task. This unusual haste
left him with his coat basted, ready to try on, before
the time. Strange, too, he had forgotten something;
or had he forgotten it? Was it a new kind of garment
that he was designing for Mr. Dagon, or had that gentleman
himself ordered the left breast to remain unwadded?
However it was, John considered his task finished, for
he took to letting the hours slip by while he sat quietly,
looking as full of heavy thought as a sphinx; or sluggishly
observing how Mons. Bellemare, in a paper cap and white
over-apron, whisked custards in the yard below; or the
rats dart and sneak about the piled boxes in the express
yard. Now and again he would drop his basket into the
yard with some little gift, and not always to induce
silence. Such a well of human kindness had that come
to be to him.
But at last
one night of sleep would bring him into his great day,
and his long excitement would be over. On that night
strange and unaccountable [Page 36]
things visited his slumbers; calls and troubled noises;
and running on the stairs and in the streets; and great
hurried passages of wind or of men; and large smooth
sounds that fell away into almost silence; and then,
toward grey dawn, bell strokes that prolonged themselves
with sweet continuousness.
He took a long
time to get stirring in the morning, moving about slowly,
shivering sharply now and then. He made a little tea,
but only half drank what he poured out, and chewed a
dry crust of bread. It seemed to him that no time had
transpired when he heard Mr. Dagon’s spongy step
on the stairs. He whirled about, making his preparations
with his heart straining and choking his throat. Something
long and shining he thrust under a fold of cloth beside
him on the bench, and when Mr. Dagon opened the door
he was fussing with a skein of thread.
The old man
looked horribly pale and puffy, and his breath caught
noisily in his throat. He sat down, cursing at the stairs
and throwing out disjointed complaints on his uncertain
breath. John felt a ringing in his ears, as if his head
had been struck, and was vibrating into silence. He
rose without a word, handing up the new coat. His action
seemed to say: why wait, why these common moments, when
everything is ready. The old man got upon his feet slowly;
he laid off his coat and stood up in his shirt sleeves,
working his neck in his collar. John eased his arm with
the new coat-sleeve, and smoothed the coat along his
shoulders. Then he faced him, and pinned it across the
chest. He went behind again, pulling at the skirt all
around. His moment had arrived. Dropping on one knee
he took the blade lightly in his right hand and rose
up. Every nerve was so intensely strung that he seemed
to float away from the floor. Thrusting his hand under
the left arm he felt the heart beat where Mr. Dagon
was obligingly inflating his chest. It would be the
work of an instant to snatch away that hand, cover the
old man’s mouth with it, and at the same moment
strike down with his right arm. It was just done; he
towered over his victim; the blade hung above, ready
for the sweeping stroke, when, as vivid and fierce as
lightning cuts the dead night, a cry sprang upon the
silence.
John’s
head rang with it; he lost his sense of lightness, and
felt his knees and the floor under him, and he faltered
away weakly, hiding the blade under his coat. The shriek
did not sound over-loud to Mr. Dagon, but he looked
over his shoulder with a nervous suspicious smile. “Good
God, what’s the matter with the man;” he
cried, viewing his shrunken faltering figure. Scantleberry
had slunk to the window, and down what seemed a dizzy
depth, full of light and shot with flashes of fire,
he saw the child [Page 37] clinging
madly to one of the garbage barrels and being rent away
by the Chef himself, Mons. Bellemare.
Getting back
into the room again, and holding his arms tight on his
breast, to conceal the weapon, he tottered to his bed
and rolled over there. Old Mr. Dagon came and stood
over him in the basted coat; “By ginger, Scantlingberry,
this’ll never do. You’re enough to frighten
the wits out of a man with your infernal carryings on.
The devil will snap you up like a parched pea some day
if you don’t mend your ways.” John moaned
at him. “Go away, Mr. Dagon, go away; come tomorrow
or the next day, or whenever you like, only go away
now.”
Mr. Dagon went
away, cursing soundly; and John lay there for the rest
of the day, dozing and starting out of his dozes, trying
to rise, and failing, through weakness, for he had eaten
hardly anything for days, as if he was preparing for
a sacrament. Over and over again, as he would float
up through his depth of sleep to the surface of waking,
he would imagine the deed done, and would pull himself
on his elbow only to see the coat lying where Mr. Dagon
had flung it. Then he would ask the question—why
had he failed? He remembered now, something must have
struck him and jerked his hand down. But something,—what
something? Yes, yes, it was the little girl called him.
He had not counted on that. But never mind, there would
be another chance. Mr. Dagon would come again; he would
shut the window and everything would be all right.
The next day
he took some food, and he managed to work along through
the week in a dull frozen way. Mr. Dagon did not return,
and he waited for him in his sluggish way, without interest.
He did not notice the absence of noises from the yard,
but along towards the end of the second week he noticed
that the string of his basket hung outside the window;
he had forgotten when or why he had let it down.
It contained
a battered brass brooch, wrapped in a scrap of newspaper.
He turned the worthless ornament over in his hand and
then smoothed out the paper. He read it according to
his custom, and one word startled him into interest.
“SUDDEN
DEATH.—We regret to record the sudden death
of Mr. John Boyd Dagon, one of our most useful and
respected citizens. He was stricken with apoplexy
at the Globe Building, just as he was about to visit
a poor tailor, to whom he had been extremely kind.
The deceased was highly esteemed for his many good
qualities, and he leaves a large circle of friends
and acquaintances to mourn his loss.” [Page
38]
Thus
had the journal softened the character and reversed
the public judgment on Mr. J.B. Dagon.
That
evening, walking in the street, John Scantleberry noticed
that the enticing signs of the Bohemian Restaurant were
gone, that there was a notice of a bailiff’s sale
in the window, and that the Bellemares had fled. Going
back to his high room, he took his shear-blade, went
up on the roof, and let it drop down the chimney. The
basket, the cord and the trinkets he threw into the
yard; the coat he sold to another customer, so that
nothing remained to recall that violent time. As the
days went by he sank into his old lethargy, his mind
was dead and numb, his great passion-time had passed.
Like a poor instrument, which the hand of a master has
crashed down upon and shattered with irresistible power,
his soul lies broken and unresponsive. Only at times,
when he chances to hear the cry of a child, a light
flames up in some blind alley of his heart, and casts
a moving glamour and shadow on the darkness. [Page
39]
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