The Trimmed Lamp, and Other Stories of the Four Million — John Shaqi
The Trimmed Lamp, and Other Stories of the Four MillionHenry, O.
Philosophy
The Trimmed Lamp, and Other Stories of the Four Million
Henry, O.
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
Morley had not a cent in his pockets; but he smiled pityingly at a
hundred grimy, unfortunate ones who had no more, and who would have no
more when the sun’s first rays yellowed the tall paper-cutter building
on the west side of the square. But Morley would have enough by then.
Sundown had seen his pockets empty before; but sunrise had always seen
them lined.
First he went to the house of a clergyman off Madison avenue and
presented a forged letter of introduction that holily purported to
issue from a pastorate in Indiana. This netted him $5 when backed up by
a realistic romance of a delayed remittance.
On the sidewalk, twenty steps from the clergyman’s door, a pale-faced,
fat man huskily enveloped him with a raised, red fist and the voice of
a bell buoy, demanding payment of an old score.
“Why, Bergman, man,” sang Morley, dulcetly, “is this you? I was just on
my way up to your place to settle up. That remittance from my aunt
arrived only this morning. Wrong address was the trouble. Come up to
the corner and I’ll square up. Glad to see you. Saves me a walk.”
Four drinks placated the emotional Bergman. There was an air about
Morley when he was backed by money in hand that would have stayed off a
call loan at Rothschilds’. When he was penniless his bluff was pitched
half a tone lower, but few are competent to detect the difference in
the notes.
“You gum to mine blace and bay me to-morrow, Mr. Morley,” said Bergman.
“Oxcuse me dat I dun you on der street. But I haf not seen you in dree
mont’. Pros’t!”
Morley walked away with a crooked smile on his pale, smooth face. The
credulous, drink-softened German amused him. He would have to avoid
Twenty-ninth street in the future. He had not been aware that Bergman
ever went home by that route.
At the door of a darkened house two squares to the north Morley knocked
with a peculiar sequence of raps. The door opened to the length of a
six-inch chain, and the pompous, important black face of an African
guardian imposed itself in the opening. Morley was admitted.
In a third-story room, in an atmosphere opaque with smoke, he hung for
ten minutes above a roulette wheel. Then downstairs he crept, and was
out-sped by the important negro, jingling in his pocket the 40 cents in
silver that remained to him of his five-dollar capital. At the corner
he lingered, undecided.
Across the street was a drug store, well lighted, sending forth gleams
from the German silver and crystal of its soda fountain and glasses.
Along came a youngster of five, headed for the dispensary, stepping
high with the consequence of a big errand, possibly one to which his
advancing age had earned him promotion. In his hand he clutched
something tightly, publicly, proudly, conspicuously.
Morley stopped him with his winning smile and soft speech.
“Me?” said the youngster. “I’m doin’ to the drug ’tore for mamma. She
dave me a dollar to buy a bottle of med’cin.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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