Part 27

He did.

"I thought you were going to get out here," I called. "Are you sure you don't belong in Sing Sing, Mr. Moriway?"

I can see his face yet, Mag, and every time I think of it, it makes me nearly die of laughing. He had actually been fooled another time. It was worth the trip up there, to make a guy of him once more.

And whether it was or not, Mag, it was all I got, after all. For--would you believe Tom Dorgan would turn out such a sorehead? He's kicked up such a row ever since he got there, that it's the dark cell for him, and solitary confinement. Think of it--for Tom!

I begged, I bluffed, I cried, I coaxed, but many's the Nance Olden that has played her game against the rules of Sing Sing, and lost. They wouldn't even let me leave the things for him, or give him a message from me. And back to the station I had to carry the basket, and all the schemes I had to make old Tom Dorgan grin.

All the way back I had him in my mind. He's a tiger--Tom--when he's roused. I could see him, shut up there by himself, with not a soul to talk to, with not a human eye to look into, with not a thing on earth to do--Tom, who's action itself! He never was much of a thinker, and I never saw him read even a newspaper. What would he do to kill the time? Can't you see him there, at bay, back on his haunches, cursing and cursed, alone in the everlasting black silence?

I saw nothing else. Wherever I turned my eyes, that terrible picture was before me. And always it was just on the verge of becoming something else--something worse. He could throttle the world with his bare hands, if it had but one neck, in the mood he must be in now.

It was when I couldn't bear it a moment longer that I set my mind to find something else to think of.

I found it, Mag. Do you know what it was? It was just three words--of Obermuller's: "Earn it now."

After all, Miss Monahan, this graft of honesty they all preach so much about hasn't anything mysterious in it. All it is, is putting your wits to work according to the rules of the game and not against them. I was driven to it--the thought of big Tom crouching for a spring in the dark cell up yonder sent me whirling out into the thinking place, like the picture of the soul in the big book at Latimer's I read out of. And first thing you know, 'pon honor, Mag, it was as much fun planning how to "earn it now" as any lifting I ever schemed. It's getting the best of people that always charmed me--and here was a way to fool 'em according to law.

So busy I was making it all up, that the train pulled into the station before I knew it. I gave a last thought to that poor old hyena of a Tom, and then put him out of my mind. I had other fish to fry. Straight down to Mother Douty I went with my basket.

"A fool girl, mother, on her way up to Sing Sing, lost her basket, and Nance Olden found it; it ought to be worth a good deal."

She grinned. You couldn't make old Douty believe that the Lord himself wouldn't steal if He got a chance. And she knows the chances that come butting up against Nancy Olden.

Why did I lie to her? Not for practice, I assure you. She'd have beaten me down to the last cent if she thought it was mine, but she always thinks there'll be a find for her in something that's stolen. So I let her think I'd stolen it in the railway station, and we came to terms.

With what she gave me I bought a wig. Mag, I want you some day, when you can get off, to come and see that wig. I shouldn't wonder but you'd recognize it. It's red, of very coarse hair, but a wonderful color, and so long it--yes, it might be your own, Mag Monahan, it's so much like it. I went to the theater and got my Charity rig, took it home, and sat for hours there just looking at 'em both. When evening came I was ready to "earn it now."

You see, Obermuller had given me the whole day to be away, and neither Gray nor the other three Charities expected me back. I had to do it on the sly, you sassy Mag! Yes, it was partly because I love to cheat, but more because I was bound to have my chance once whether anybody else enjoyed it or not.

I came to the theater in my Charity rig and the wig. It looked as if I'd slept in it, and it came down to the draggled hem of the skirt. All the way there I walked like you, Mag. Once, when a newsboy grinned at me and shouted "Carrots!" I grinned back--your own, old Cruelty grin, Mag. I vow I felt so much like you--as you used to be--that when I lurched out on the stage at last, stumbling over my shoe laces and trying to push the hair out of my eyes, you'd have sworn it was little Mag Monahan I making her debut in the Cruelty room.

Oh, Mag, Mag, you darling Mag! Did you ever hear a whole house, a great big theater full of a peevish vaudeville audience, just rise at you, give one roar of laughter they hadn't expected at all to give, and then settle down to giggle at every move you made?

Girl alive, I just had 'em! They couldn't take their eyes off me. If I squirmed, they howled. If I stood on one foot, scratching the torn leg of my stocking with the other--you know, Mag!--they yelled. If I grinned, they just roared.

Oh, Mag, can't you see? Don't you understand? I was It. The center of the stage I carried round with me--it was just Nancy Olden. And for ten minutes Nancy had nothing to do but to play with 'em. 'Pon my life, Mag, it's just like stealing; the old graft exactly; it's so fascinating, so busy, and risky, except that they play the game with you and pay you and love you to fool 'em.

When the curtain fell it was different. Grays followed by the Charities, all clean and spick-and-span and--not in it; not even on the edge of it--stormed up to Obermuller standing at the wings.

"I'll quit the show here and now," she squawked. "It's a shame, a beastly shame. How dare you play me such a trick, Fred Obermuller? I never was treated so in my life--to have that dirty little wretch come tumbling on like that, without even so much as your telling me you'd made up all this new business for her! It's indecent, anyway. Why, I lost my cue. There was a gap for a full minute. The whole act was such a ghastly failure that I--"

"That you'd better go out now and make your prettiest bow, Gray. Phew! Listen to the house roar. That's what I call applause. Go on now."

She went.

Me? I didn't say a word. I looked at Obermuller and--and I just did like this. Yes, winked, Mag Monahan. I was so crazily happy I had to, didn't I?

But do you know what he did? Do you know what he did?

Well, I suppose I am screaming and the Troyons will put me out, but--he just--winked--back!

And then Gray came trailing back into the wings, and the shrieking and thumping and whistling out in front just went on--and on--and on--and on. Um! I just listened and loved it--every thump of it. And I stood there like a demure little kitten; or more like Mag Monahan after she'd had a good licking, and was good and quiet. And I never so much as budged till Obermuller said: