Under Orders: The story of a young reporter Page 5

  CHAPTER III.

  THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE OXYGEN.

  POOR Myles had met with so many rebuffs and disappointments, and hisown opinion of himself had been so decidedly lowered that afternoon,that he was fully prepared to have his offer of service refused by thecity editor of the _Phonograph_. He was therefore not at all surprisedwhen Mr. Haxall began in his kindly but unmistakable way to tell himthat there was no vacancy. He had already made up his mind to giveup trying for a reporter’s position and make an effort in some otherdirection, when, to his amazement, he found himself accepted andordered to report for duty the following day. It was incomprehensible.What had Van Cleef said to influence the city editor so remarkably?

  There was no chance to ask just then, for Mr. Haxall had alreadyresumed his reading of the evening papers, a great pile of which layon his desk, and Myles realized that the short interview, by whichthe whole course of his life was to be affected, was at an end. So hemerely said: “Thank you, sir, I’ll be on hand,” and turned to followVan Cleef, who had already started toward the door.

  The boy’s mind was in a conflicting whirl of thoughts, and he wasconscious of a decided sense of exaltation. He had actually got intobusiness and was to receive a salary. To be sure, it was only promisedfor one week; but even in that short time he felt that he could proveso useful that the city editor would wonder how he had ever got alongwithout him.

  As they passed into the anteroom of the office Van Cleef introducedhis companion to a Mr. Brown, a stout, middle-aged man, who occupieda dingy little den, in which he was busily writing by the light of asingle gas-jet. Mr. Brown was affably condescending, was pleased tomake Mr. Manning’s acquaintance, and hoped he would like the office.

  As they bade him good-evening and started downstairs Myles asked:

  “Who is this Mr. Brown, Van? Is he one of the editors?”

  “Bless you, no,” laughed Van Cleef. “He is the janitor of the building.”

  “The janitor!” exclaimed Myles, with a slight tone of contempt in hisvoice. “Why, I thought he must be the managing editor at the veryleast. What on earth did you want to introduce me to the janitor for?I’m not in the habit of knowing such people.”

  “Oh, you are not, aren’t you!” replied Van Cleef, a little scornfully.“Well, the sooner you form the habit the better you will get along asa reporter. It’s no use putting on airs, old man,” he continued, morekindly. “A reporter has got to be on friendly terms with all sorts ofmen, from presidents to janitors, and a good deal lower in the socialscale than that too. Besides, Brown is a mighty good fellow, as youwill find out when you come to know him. He also occupies a position inwhich he can smooth your path or make you uncomfortable in many littleways, as he takes a notion. Why, for one thing, he has charge of allthose rascals of office-boys, and they will treat you respectfully orthe reverse according as they see that you are in Brown’s good or badgraces. That seems a little thing, but you will find that it makes agreat difference to your peace of mind. Oh, yes, you must cultivateBrown by all means.”

  When they were seated in the elevated train on their way up-town Mylessuddenly remembered his companion’s mysterious communication to thecity editor, and asked him what he had said to cause Mr. Haxall toalter his decision so completely.

  “It was evident,” he continued, “that he was about to give me apolite dismissal, but you whispered a word or two in his ear and heimmediately engaged me. What was it? Did you tell him I was one of theprincipal stockholders in the paper?”

  Van Cleef burst into a fit of laughter so uncontrollable that it was afull minute before he could answer. At last he said:

  “No, indeed; I didn’t tell him that you were a stockholder in thepaper; for, in the first place, I didn’t know that you were. In thesecond place, the stockholders are the bane of his existence, and worryhim more than anybody else by forcing worthless fellows, who have someclaim upon them, into his department. Oh, no, I wasn’t going to ruinyour chances by representing you in any such unfavorable light asthat.”

  “What did you tell him then?”

  “Why, I simply mentioned that you owned a dress-suit.”

  For a moment Myles stared at his companion in speechless amazement.Finally he gasped out:

  “A dress-suit! You told him that I owned a dress-suit! What in thename of common sense could that have to do with his taking me on as areporter? Or are you only joking?”

  “Not a bit of it,” answered Van Cleef. “It honestly was the dress-suit,and nothing else, unless it was your manner and personal appearancethat fixed the business for you. You see, there are lots of places towhich a city editor wishes to send a reporter where only fellows infull evening dress are admitted. Now, most reporters are too poor toown dress-suits, or else they have so little use for such luxuries thatthey don’t care to go to the expense. Thus it is often hard for thecity editor to find a man for some important bit of work just on thisaccount. He therefore keeps a list of all the reporters on the staffwho own swallow-tails, and is mighty glad to add to it, especially ifthe proposed addition is evidently a gentleman. I saw that he wasn’tgoing to give you a show, and just then it occurred to me to suggestthe only special recommendation I could think of. But what makes youlook so downcast? It worked all right, didn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes,” answered Myles, whose self-esteem had just received theseverest shock of the day by learning the secret of his recent success,which he had fondly imagined was owing to something far different.“Yes, it worked all right; but I’ve always heard that clothes did notmake the man, while here is proof positive that clothes can at leastmake a reporter. It is awfully humiliating, and the worst of it is thatI haven’t a dress-suit.”

  “Why, I have seen you wear it time and again?” exclaimed Van Cleef.

  “Yes, but I found it necessary to raise a little ready money to-day,”answered Myles, though he hated to make the admission; “so I sold italong with some other things I thought I should never need again toJohnny, the ‘old-clo’ man.’”

  “You don’t mean it!” cried Van Cleef. “Well, that is bad, and the onlything for you to do is to go to Johnny first thing in the morning andmake him let you have it back.”

  “But I am afraid I haven’t money enough to redeem it,” said Myles, witha heightened color. In the set to which he had so recently belongedpoverty was the thing most sneered at, and Myles had not yet learnedthat it was one of the last things to be ashamed of.

  “Oh, I can make that all right,” answered the other, cheerfully. “Ihave a few dollars put away against next year’s term-bills, and you aremore than welcome to them. Yes, indeed, you must take them,” he added,earnestly, as he saw the shadow of a refusal in his companion’s face.“We must get hold of that dress-suit again if it is a possible thing.It will really be doing me a favor besides; for while I have themI’m always tempted to spend those dollars. If they are invested as aloan, though, I can’t spend them, and I shall have the satisfaction ofknowing they are safe.”

  Myles had tried, unsuccessfully, to borrow a small sum of money thatmorning from several of his wealthy classmates. Now, to have thisgenerous offer made by one of the very poorest among them was sooverwhelming that he hardly knew what to say. He hated to accept moneyfrom one who was so little able to spare it. He also feared to hurthis friend’s feelings by refusing, and he realized the importance ofrecovering that dress-suit. These thoughts flashed through his mindin an instant, and then he did exactly the right thing, by heartilythanking Van Cleef for his kind offer and accepting it.

  The “Oxygen” was a club occupying a small but well appointedclub-house, supported by one of the college Greek-letter fraternitiesof which Myles had recently been made a member. He was very proudof belonging to this, his first club, but he foresaw that, with hisaltered circumstances, it was a luxury that he could no longer afford.He had therefore made up his mind to hand in his resignation that veryevening.

  After a particularly nice little dinner, for Myles, like many another,was inclined to be very generous in the expenditure of his last dollar,and after he had written a line to his mother, the friends sat in thereading-room. Here they talked in low tones of their future plans andof their college life, which, to Myles, already seemed to belong tothe dim past. The only other occupant of the room was a small, ratherinsignificant looking old gentleman, who was carelessly glancing oversome papers at a table near them. Finally Van Cleef asked to be excusedfor a short time, as he had an errand that would take him a few blocksfrom there, and which must be done that evening.

  He had hardly left when the old gentleman looked up from his papers andsaid to Myles:

  “I beg your pardon, but are you not Mr. Manning, captain of the X——College ’Varsity crew?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Myles, “I am—that is, I was—I mean my name isManning, and I was until this morning captain of the crew; but I haveresigned.”

  “Indeed! I am very sorry to hear it,” replied the old gentleman,with an air of interest. “Would you mind telling me why you found itnecessary to do so? I am an old X—— College man myself, and take agreat interest in all its athletic sports, especially its boating. Ihave been much pleased with the performance thus far of this year’screw under your captaincy, and regret seriously that you feel obligedto give it up.”

  Encouraged by the old gentleman’s friendly manner, and very gratefulfor his sympathy and kindly interest in himself, Myles readily answeredhis questions, and within a few minutes was surprised to find howfreely he was talking to this stranger. He could not have told how itwas brought about, but before their conversation ended he had confidedto the other all his trials, plans, and hopes, including the facts thathe was on the morrow to begin life as a reporter on the _Phonograph_,and that he intended resigning from the Oxygen that evening.

  When Myles realized that he was becoming almost too confidential, andchecked himself as he was about to relate the dress-suit incident, theold gentleman said:

  “I have been greatly interested in all this, and now, to show that Iappreciate the confidence you have reposed in me, I am going to ask afavor of you.”

  “Which I shall be only too happy to grant, sir, provided it lies withinmy power,” answered Myles, who had taken a great fancy to the oldgentleman.

  “It is that you will not resign from the Oxygen.”

  “But I must, sir, much as I hate to.”

  “Not necessarily,” replied the other. “You know that at the businessmeetings of the club all members are allowed to vote by proxy if theyare unable to be personally present. Now I am nearly always compelledto be absent from these meetings. In fact, I rarely find time to visitthe club at all; but, as one of its founders, I am most anxious for itssuccess, and desirous of still having a voice in the conduct of itsaffairs. This I can only do by appointing a regular proxy, and if youwill kindly consent to act as such for me I will gladly pay your duesto the club, and shall still consider myself under an obligation toyou.”

  The temptation to accept this friendly proposal was so great that Mylesonly protested feebly against it. His faint objections were quicklyoverruled by the old gentleman, who had no sooner gained the other’sconsent to remain in the club and act as his proxy than he looked athis watch and, exclaiming, “Bless me, it is later than I thought!” badeMyles a cordial good-night and hurried away.

  “What did you say his name was?” asked Van Cleef, after he had returnedand listened to Myles’ enthusiastic description of his new friend andaccount of their interview.

  “His name?” repeated Myles, hesitatingly, “why, I don’t believe hementioned it. I’ll go and ask the door-tender.”

  But the door-tender had just been relieved and gone home, while the boywho acted in his place of course knew nothing of who had come or gonebefore he went on duty.

  “Well, that is good,” laughed Van Cleef, when Myles returned and, witha crestfallen air, announced that he could not discover the name ofthe person for whom he had just consented to act as proxy. “The oldgentleman has shown himself to be a better reporter, or detective,which is much the same thing, than you, Manning. He has gained a fullknowledge of you and your plans, while you have learned absolutelynothing about him. He may be an impostor, for all you know.”

  “Not much he isn’t,” answered Myles, somewhat indignantly; “I’d trusthis face for all that he claimed, and a good deal more beside. Anyhowhe is a _Psi Delt_, for he had the grip.”

  “Oh, well,” said Van Cleef, good-naturedly, seeing that his companionwas a little provoked at being thought easily imposed upon, “I dare sayit’s all right, and you’ll hear from him in some way or other.”

  As the friends thus talked they were walking rapidly toward the firstof the many police-stations that Van Cleef was obliged to visit everynight, for it wanted but a few minutes of ten o’clock.

  The plain brick building situated in the middle of a block and usedas a police-station could be distinguished from the houses on eitherside of it at a long distance up or down the street by the twogreen lights on the edge of the sidewalk in front of it. Reachingit, the reporters ran up a short flight of steps, and entered a bigsquare room, the silence of which was only broken by the ticking ofa telegraph instrument in one corner. The room was brightly lightedand scrupulously clean. An officer in a sort of undress uniform, whois known as a “door-man,” whose business it is to take care of thestation-house and of the cells beneath it, saluted Van Cleef as heentered. Returning the salute, the reporter stepped up to a stoutrailing that ran the whole length of the room at one side, and,addressing another officer, who sat at a big desk writing in an immensebook, said:

  “Good-evening, sergeant.”

  “Good-evening, Mr. Van Cleef.”

  “Any thing going on to-night?”

  “Nothing more than ordinary.”

  “You don’t mind my looking at the blotter?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Hello! what’s this drowning case?” inquired Van Cleef, as he ran hiseye down a page of the big book, on which were recorded the arrestsor other important incidents reported by the officers of that stationduring the day.

  “That? Oh, that’s nothing particular. It happened a couple of hoursago, and your head-quarters man has got all there is of it long beforethis.”

  Van Cleef asked no further questions, but, making a few notes of thecase, he bade the sergeant good-night, and he and Myles left thestation.

  As they gained the street Van Cleef said:

  “Head-quarters may or may not have got hold of that case, and it maynot amount to any thing anyway, but I think it’s worth looking up. Soif you don’t mind going a bit out of our way, we will see what we canfind out about it.”

  “What do you mean by head-quarters?” asked Myles.

  “Why, all the large papers keep a man at the Police Head-quarters onMulberry Street day and night, and he telegraphs all important policenews from there to them,” answered Van Cleef.

  Away over to Tenth Avenue they went. There they hunted some time beforethey found the right number. Then through a narrow, intensely darkand vile-smelling alley, across a dirty court, and into a tall backtenement swarming with human beings, up flight after flight of filthystairways they climbed to the very top of the house before they reachedthe room of which they were in search. Van Cleef knocked at the closeddoor, but, receiving no answer, he pushed it open and they entered.

  A single flaring candle dimly lighted the scene. The room was so barethat a rude bedstead, a ruder table, two chairs, and a rusty stoveconstituted all its furniture. On the bed, still in its wet clothing,lay the body of the drowned man. It was little more than a skeleton,and the cheeks were white and hollow. Beside the bed, with her faceburied in her hands, knelt a woman moaning, while from a corner twowretched children, huddled together on a pile of rags, stared at thevisitors with big, frightened eyes.

  As Van Cleef touched the kneeling woman on the shoulder and spoke toher, she ceased her moaning and lifted the most pitiful, haggard, andaltogether hopeless face Myles Manning thought he had ever seen.

  “Go away!” she cried, “and leave me alone to die with him! O Jim,my Jim! why couldn’t you take me with you? Why did you leave me,Jim—Jim—my Jim, the best husband that ever a woman had?” Then sheagain buried her face, and again began her heart-rending moaning.

  It was a long time before Van Cleef, using infinite patience, tact, andsoothing words could learn her story. It was an old one of a husbandand father broken down in health, thrown out of employment, too proudto seek public charity, and finally plunging into the river to escapethe piteous cries of his starving little ones. He had gone out thatevening to seek food, saying that he would either bring it or nevercome back alive. He knew that if he were dead his family would stand abetter chance of being cared for than while he was living.

  As Myles and Van Cleef left this place of sorrow and suffering, thelatter slipped a dollar into the woman’s hand and promised further aidon the morrow. Myles, poor fellow, was so affected by what he sawthat he would have given her his sole bit of wealth—a five-dollarbill,—but his companion restrained him.

  They had to hurry through with the half-dozen police-stations and twohospitals remaining on their route to make up for lost time.

  Trinity bells were chiming a quarter to one o’clock as they reachedthe _Phonograph_ office. The editorial rooms were ablaze with electriclights. Reporters and messenger-boys were dashing in and out. Men intheir shirt-sleeves were writing or editing copy at the long desks. Thewhole scene was the one of breathless haste and well ordered confusionthat always immediately precedes the going to press of a great daily.

  Van Cleef made his report to the night city editor, and was orderedto write out his story in full. While he was doing this, Myles satand watched him, wondering if he could possibly compose a readabledescription of what they had just seen amid such surroundings. At lastVan Cleef finished, handed in his copy, and at half-past two o’clockthe two weary fellows turned into bed, Myles sharing his companion’shumble lodgings for the night.