Prattling to himself, always broadly grinning, pleased by the roar and movement of the barbarous city into which the steamship cut-rates had shunted him, the alien strayed away from the sea, which he hated, as far as the district covered by Engine Company No. 99. Light as a cork, he was kept bobbing along by the human tide, the crudest atom in all the silt of the stream that emptied into the reservoir of Liberty.
While crossing Third avenue he slowed his steps, enchanted by the thunder of the elevated trains above him and the soothing crash of the wheels on the cobbles. And then there was a new, delightful chord in the uproar the musical clanging of a gong and a great shining juggernaut belching fire and smoke, that people were hurrying to see.
This beautiful thing, entrancing to the eye, dashed past, and the protoplasmic immigrant stepped into the wake of it with his broad, enraptured, uncomprehending grin. And so stepping, stepped into the path of No. 99s flying hose-cart, with John Byrnes gripping, with arms of steel, the reins over the plunging backs of Erebus and Joe.
The unwritten constitutional code of the fireman has no exceptions or amendments. It is a simple thing as simple as the rule of three. There was the heedless unit in the right of way; there was the hose-cart and the iron pillar of the elevated railroad.
John Byrnes swung all his weight and muscle on the left rein. The team and cart swerved that way and crashed like a torpedo into the pillar. The men on the cart went flying like skittles. The drivers strap burst, the pillar rang with the shock, and John Byrnes fell on the car track with a broken shoulder twenty feet away, while Erebus beautiful, raven-black, best-loved Erebus lay whickering in his harness with a broken leg.
In consideration for the feelings of Engine Company No. 99 the details will be lightly touched. The company does not like to be reminded of that day. There was a great crowd, and hurry calls were sent in; and while the ambulance gong was clearing the way the men of No. 99 heard the crack of the S. P. C. A. agents pistol, and turned their heads away, not daring to look toward Erebus again.
When the firemen got back to the engine-house they found that one of them was dragging by the collar the cause of their desolation and grief. They set it in the middle of the floor and gathered grimly about it. Through its whiskers the calamitous object chattered effervescently and waved its hands.
Sounds like a seidlitz powder, said Mike Dowling, disgustedly, and it makes me sicker than one. Call that a man! that hoss was worth a steamer full of such two-legged animals. Its a immigrant thats what it is.
Look at the doctors chalk mark on its coat, said Reilly, the desk man. Its just landed. It must be a kind of a Dago[343] or a Hun[344] or one of them Finns[345], I guess. Thats the kind of truck that Europe unloads onto us.
Think of a thing like that getting in the way and laying John up in hospital and spoiling the best fire team in the city, groaned another fireman. It ought to be taken down to the dock and drowned.
Somebody go around and get Sloviski, suggested the engine driver, and lets see what nation is responsible for this conglomeration of hair and head noises.
Sloviski kept a delicatessen store around the corner on Third avenue, and was reputed to be a linguist.
One of the men fetched him a fat, cringing man, with a discursive eye and the odors of many kinds of meats upon him.
Take a whirl at this importation with your jaw-breakers, Sloviski, requested Mike Dowling. We cant quite figure out whether hes from the Hackensack[346] bottoms or Hongkong-on-the-Ganges[347].
Sloviski addressed the stranger in several dialects that ranged in rhythm and cadence from the sounds produced by a tonsilitis gargle to the opening of a can of tomatoes with a pair of scissors. The immigrant replied in accents resembling the uncorking of a bottle of ginger ale.
I have you his name, reported Sloviski. You shall not pronounce it. Writing of it in paper is better. They gave him paper, and he wrote, Demetre Svangvsk.
Looks like short hand, said the desk man.
He speaks some language, continued the interpreter, wiping his forehead, of Austria and mixed with a little Turkish. And, den, he have some Magyar[348] words and a Polish or two, and many like the Roumanian, but not without talk of one tribe in Bessarabia[349]. I do not him quite understand.
Would you call him a Dago or a Polocker[350], or what? asked Mike, frowning at the polyglot description.
He is a answered Sloviski he is a I dink he come from I dink he is a fool, he concluded, impatient at his linguistic failure, and if you pleases I will go back at mine delicatessen.
Whatever he is, hes a bird, said Mike Dowling; and you want to watch him fly.
Taking by the wing the alien fowl that had fluttered into the nest of Liberty, Mike led him to the door of the engine-house and bestowed upon him a kick hearty enough to convey the entire animus of Company 99. Demetre Svangvsk hustled away down the sidewalk, turning once to show his ineradicable grin to the aggrieved firemen.
In three weeks John Byrnes was back at his post from the hospital. With great gusto he proceeded to bring his war map up to date. My money on the Japs every time, he declared. Why, look at them Russians theyre nothing but wolves. Wipe em out, I say and the little old jiu jitsu[351] gang are just the cherry blossoms to do the trick, and dont you forget it!
The second day after Byrness reappearance came Demetre Svangvsk, the unidentified, to the engine-house, with a broader grin than ever. He managed to convey the idea that he wished to congratulate the horse-cart driver on his recovery and to apologize for having caused the accident. This he accomplished by so many extravagant gestures and explosive noises that the company was diverted for half an hour. Then they kicked him out again, and on the next day he came back grinning. How or where he lived no one knew. And then John Byrness nine-year-old son, Chris, who brought him convalescent delicacies from home to eat, took a fancy to Svangvsk, and they allowed him to loaf about the door of the engine-house occasionally.
One afternoon the big drab automobile of the Deputy Fire Commissioner buzzed up to the door of No. 99 and the Deputy stepped inside for an informal inspection. The men kicked Svangvsk out a little harder than usual and proudly escorted the Deputy around 99, in which everything shone like my ladys mirror.
The Deputy respected the sorrow of the company concerning the loss of Erebus, and he had come to promise it another mate for Joe that would do him credit. So they let Joe out of his stall and showed the Deputy how deserving he was of the finest mate that could be in horsedom.
While they were circling around Joe confabbing, Chris climbed into the Deputys auto and threw the power full on. The men heard a monster puffing and a shriek from the lad, and sprang out too late. The big auto shot away, luckily taking a straight course down the street. The boy knew nothing of its machinery; he sat clutching the cushions and howling. With the power on nothing could have stopped that auto except a brick house, and there was nothing for Chris to gain by such a stoppage.
Demetre Svangvsk was just coming in again with a grin for another kick when Chris played his merry little prank. While the others sprang for the door Demetre sprang for Joe. He glided upon the horses bare back like a snake and shouted something at him like the crack of a dozen whips. One of the firemen afterward swore that Joe answered him back in the same language. Ten seconds after the auto started the big horse was eating up the asphalt behind it like a strip of macaroni.
Some people two blocks and a half away saw the rescue. They said that the auto was nothing but a drab noise with a black speck in the middle of it for Chris, when a big bay horse with a lizard lying on its back cantered up alongside of it, and the lizard reached over and picked the black speck out of the noise.
Only fifteen minutes after Svangvsks last kicking at the hands or rather the feet of Engine Company No. 99 he rode Joe back through the door with the boy safe, but acutely conscious of the licking he was going to receive.
Svangvsk slipped to the floor, leaned his head against Joes and made a noise like a clucking hen. Joe nodded and whistled loudly through his nostrils, putting to shame the knowledge of Sloviski, of the delicatessen.
John Byrnes walked up to Svangvsk, who grinned, expecting to be kicked. Byrnes gripped the outlander so strongly by the hand that Demetre grinned anyhow, conceiving it to be a new form of punishment.
The heathen rides like a Cossack, remarked a fireman who had seen a Wild West show theyre the greatest riders in the world.
The word seemed to electrify Svangvsk. He grinned wider than ever.
Yas yas me Cossack, he spluttered, striking his chest.
Cossack! repeated John Byrnes, thoughtfully, aint that a kind of a Russian?
Theyre one of the Russian tribes, sure, said the desk man, who read books between fire alarms.
Just then Alderman Foley, who was on his way home and did not know of the runaway, stopped at the door of the engine-house and called to Byrnes:
Hello there, Jimmy, me boy hows the war coming along? Japs still got the bear on the trot, have they?
Oh, I dont know, said John Byrnes, argumentatively, them Japs havent got any walkover. You wait till Kuropatkin gets a good whack at em and they wont be knee-high to a puddle-ducksky.
The Lost Blend
Since the bar has been blessed by the clergy, and cocktails open the dinners of the elect, one may speak of the saloon. Teetotalers need not listen, if they choose; there is always the slot restaurant[352], where a dime dropped into the cold bouillon aperture will bring forth a dry Martini[353].
Con Lantry worked on the sober side of the bar in Kenealys café. You and I stood, one-legged like geese, on the other side and went into voluntary liquidation with our weeks wages. Opposite danced Con, clean, temperate, clear-headed, polite, white-jacketed, punctual, trustworthy, young, responsible, and took our money.