Part 7

Swollen with vanity and streaming with sweat, Mr. Feuerstein sat down. "Good, Mr. Feuerstein--ah! it is grand!" said Brauner. Hilda looked at her lover proudly. Otto felt that the recitation was idiotic--"Nobody ever carried on like that," he said to himself. But he also felt the pitiful truth, "I haven't got a ghost of a chance."

He rose as soon as he could muster the courage. "I must get back and help Schwartz open up," he said, looking round forlornly. "It's five o'clock."

"You must stay to coffee," insisted Mrs. Brauner. It should have been served before, but Mr. Feuerstein's exhibition had delayed it.

"No--I must work," he replied. "It's five o'clock."

"That's right," said Brauner with an approving nod. "Business first! I must go in myself--and you, too, Hilda." The late Sunday afternoon opening was for a very important trade.

Hilda blushed--the descent from the romantic to the practical jarred upon her. But Mr. Feuerstein rose and took leave most graciously. "May I return this evening?" he said to Brauner.

"Always glad to see our friends," answered Brauner with a shamefaced, apologetic look at Otto.

At seven o'clock that evening Otto, just closing his shop, saw Mr. Feuerstein and Hilda pass on their way toward Tompkins Square. A few minutes later Sophie came along. She paused and tried to draw him into conversation. But he answered briefly and absently, gradually retreating into the darkness of his shop and pointedly drawing the door between him and her. Sophie went on her way downcast, but not in the least disheartened. "When Hilda is Mrs. Feuerstein," she said to herself.

A BOLD DASH AND A DISASTER

Mr. Feuerstein's evening was even more successful than his afternoon. Brauner was still grumbling. Mr. Feuerstein could not possibly be adjusted in his mind to his beloved ideals, his religion of life--"Arbeit und Liebe und Heim." Still he was yielding and Hilda saw the signs of it. She knew he was practically won over and was secretly inclined to be proud that his daughter had made this exalted conquest. All men regard that which they do not know either with extravagant awe or with extravagant contempt. While Brauner had the universal human failing for attaching too much importance to the department of human knowledge in which he was thoroughly at home, he had the American admiration for learning, for literature, and instead of spelling them with a very small "l," as "practical" men sometimes do with age and increasing vanity, he spelled them with huge capitals, erecting them into a position out of all proportion to their relative importance in the life of the human animal.

Mr. Feuerstein had just enough knowledge to enable him to play upon this weakness, this universal human susceptibility to the poison of pretense. All doubt of success fled his mind, and he was free to indulge his vanity and his contempt for these simple, unpretending people. "So vulgar!" he said to himself, as he left their house that night--he who knew how to do nothing of use or value. "It is a great condescension for me. Working people--ugh!"

As he strolled up town he was spending in fancy the income from at least two, perhaps all three, flat-houses--"The shop's enough for the old people and that dumb ass of a brother. I'll elevate the family. Yes, I think I'll run away with Hilda to-morrow--that's the safest plan."

Otto had guessed close to the truth about Feuerstein's affairs. They were in a desperate tangle. He had been discharged from the stock company on Saturday night. He was worthless as an actor, and had the hostility of the management and of his associates. His landlady had got the news promptly from a boarder who paid in part by acting as a sort of mercantile agency for her in watching her very uncertain boarders. She had given him a week's notice, and had so arranged matters that if he fled he could not take his meager baggage. He was down to eighty-five cents of a borrowed dollar. He owed money everywhere in sums ranging from five dollars to twenty-five cents. The most of these debts were in the form of half-dollar borrowings. He had begun his New York career with loans of "five dollars until Thursday--I'm a little pressed." Soon it became impossible for him to get more than a dollar at a time even from the women, except an occasional windfall through a weak or ignorant new acquaintance. He clung tenaciously to the fifty-cent basis--to go lower would cheapen him. But for the last two weeks his regular levies had been of twenty-five cents, with not a few descents to ten and even five cents.

He reached Goerwitz's at ten o'clock and promenaded slowly through both rooms twice. Just as he was leaving he espied an acquaintance who was looking fiercely away from him as if saying: "I don't see you, and, damn you, don't you dare see me!" But Feuerstein advanced boldly. Twelve years of active membership in that band of "beats" which patrols every highway and byway and private way of civilization had thickened and toughened his skin into a hide. "Good evening, Albers," he said cordially, with a wave of the soft, light hat. "I see you have a vacant place in your little circle. Thank you!" He assumed that Albers had invited him, took a chair from another table and seated himself. Social courage is one of the rarest forms of courage. Albers grew red but did not dare insult such a fine-looking fellow who seemed so hearty and friendly. He surlily introduced Feuerstein to his friends--two women and two men. Feuerstein ordered a round of beer with the air of a prince and without the slightest intention of paying for it.

The young woman of the party was seated next to him. Even before he sat he recognized her as the daughter of Ganser, a rich brewer of the upper East Side. He had placed himself deliberately beside her, and he at once began advances. She showed at a glance that she was a silly, vain girl. Her face was fat and dull; she had thin, stringy hair. She was flabby and, in the lazy life to which the Gansers' wealth and the silly customs of prosperous people condemned her, was already beginning to expand in the places where she could least afford it.

He made amorous eyes at her. He laughed enthusiastically at her foolish speeches. He addressed his pompous platitudes exclusively to her. Within an hour he pressed her hand under the table and sighed dramatically. When she looked at him he started and rolled his great eyes dreamily away. Never before had she received attentions that were not of the frankest and crudest practical nature. She was all in a flutter at having thus unexpectedly come upon appreciation of the beauties and merits her mirror told her she possessed. When Mrs. Schoenberg, her aunt, rose to go, she gave Feuerstein a chance to say in a low aside: "My queen! To-morrow at eleven--at Bloomingdale's." Her blush and smile told him she would be there.

All left except Feuerstein and a youth he had been watching out of the corner of his eyes--young Dippel, son of the rich drug-store man. Feuerstein saw that Dippel was on the verge of collapse from too much drink. As he still had his eighty-five cents, he pressed Dippel to drink and, by paying, induced him to add four glasses of beer to his already top-heavy burden.

"Mus' go home," said Dippel at last, rising abruptly.

Feuerstein walked with him, taking his arm to steady him. "Let's have one more," he said, drawing him into a saloon, gently pushing him to a seat at a table and ordering whisky. After the third large drink, Dippel became helpless and maudlin and began to overflow with generous sentiments. "I love you, Finkelstern, ol' man," he declared tearfully. "They say you're a dead beat, but wha' d'I care?"

"Finkelstern," affecting drunkenness, shed tears on Dippel's shoulder, denied that he was a "beat" and swore that he loved Dippel like a brother. "You're my frien'," he said. "I know you'd trust me to any amount."

Dippel took from his trousers pocket a roll of bills several inches thick. Feuerstein thrilled and his eyes grew eloquent as he noted tens and twenties and at least one fifty. Slowly, and with exaggerated care, Dippel drew off a ten. "There y'are, ol' dead beat," he said. "I'll stake you a ten. Lots more where that came from--soda-fountain counter's reg'lar gol' mine."

In taking off the ten, he dropped a twenty. It fluttered to the floor and the soldier of fortune, the scorner of toil and toilers, slid his foot over it as swiftly and naturally as a true aristocrat always covers an opportunity to get something somebody else has earned. He put the ten in his pocket, when Dippel's eyes closed he stooped and retrieved the twenty with stealth--and skill. When the twenty was hidden, and the small but typical operation in high finance was complete, he shook Dippel. "I say, old man," he said, "hadn't you better let me keep your money for you? I'm afraid you'll lose it."

Dippel slowly unclosed one eye and gave him a look of glassy cunning. He again drew the roll from his pocket, and, clasping it tightly in his fist, waved it under Feuerstein's nose. As he did it, he vented a drunken chuckle. "Soda fountain's gol' mine, Fishenspiel," he said thickly. "No, you don't! I can watch my own roll." He winked and chuckled.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Fishy," he went on, with a leer. Then he took off another ten and handed it to Feuerstein. "Good fel', Fishy," he mumbled, "'f y' are a dead beat."

Feuerstein added the ten to the thirty and ordered more whisky. Dippel tried to doze, but he would not permit it. "He mustn't sleep any of it off," he thought.

When the whisky came Dippel shook himself together and started up. "G'-night," he said, trying to stand, look and talk straight. "Don't f'rget, y'owe me ten dollarses--no, two ten dollarses."

"Oh, sit down," coaxed Feuerstein, taking him by the arm. "It's early yet."

Dippel shook him off with much dignity. "Don' touch me!" he growled. "I know what I'm 'bout. I'm goin' home." Then to himself, but aloud: "Dippy, you're too full f'r utterance--you mus' shake this beat." Again to Feuerstein: