"I have a notion that he is spending the afternoon with Miss Marcia Van Wyck," he said with a smile.

CHAPTER IX

FOOT-WORK

I should very much like to have been present while Jerry made some of his visits to the house of the girl Marcia in order to have heard with my own ears what she said to Jerry in those first few weeks of their acquaintance. Some of it, a very little, I did learn from Jerry's letters to me, but much more from Jack Ballard, who visited the lady upon his own account and supplied the missing links in my information as to the growing friendship. But the nature of Jerry's feelings toward her I can only surmise by my knowledge of the character of the boy himself through which I tried to peer as with my own eyes, at the personality of this extraordinary female. That she was more than ordinarily clever there was no reason to doubt; that she was attractive to the better cla.s.s of young men in her own set was beyond dispute; that she was thoroughly unscrupulous as to the means by which she attained her ends (whatever they were) seemed more than probable.

Perhaps she did not differ greatly from other young female persons in her own walk of life, but I would have been better pleased if Jerry's education in the ways of the world could have proceeded a little more slowly. It seemed to me as I compared them, that the girl Una, who had called herself Smith, brazen as she was, would have been a much saner companion. I could not believe, of course, that either of them could sway Jerry definitely from the path of right thinking, but I realized that the eleven years during which Jerry had been all mine were but a short period of time when compared to the years that lay before him.

From the description I had of her, the Van Wyck girl was not at all the kind of female that I thought Jerry would like. She was an exotic, and was redolent, I am sure, of faint sweet odors which would perplex Jerry, who had known nothing but the smell of the forest balsams. She was effete and oriental, Jerry clean and western.

But, of course, I had not met the girl and my opinion of her was based upon the merest guesses as to her habits and character. She seemed to be, according to Ballard, essentially feminine (whatever he meant by that) and in spite of her protestations to Jerry as to her self-sufficiency and soundness, to have a faculty for ingratiating herself into the fullest confidence of the young men who came into her net.

In looking over the above, it occurs to me that I may be accused of prejudice against or unfairness to this girl of whom I really knew so little, for if I do not tell the truth, this work has no value. But upon consideration I have decided to let my opinions stand, leaving my own personal point of view to weigh as little or as much as it may in the mind of my reader. To say that I was jealous of Jerry's attentions to any young woman would be as far from the truth as to say that I was not jealous for his happiness. But as several weeks went by and Jerry did not appear at the Manor, his notes meanwhile becoming more and more fragmentary, I found a conviction slowly growing in my mind that my importance in Jerry's scheme of things was diminishing with the days. One afternoon just before the dinner hour I was reading Heminge and Condell's remarkable preface to the "Instauratio Magna" of Bacon, which advances the theory that the state of knowledge is not greatly advancing and that a way must be opened for the human understanding entirely different from any known. In the midst of my studies Jerry rushed in, flushed with his long drive in the open air, and threw his great arms around my neck, almost smothering me.

"Good old Dry-as-dust! Thought I'd surprise you. Glad to see me?

Anything to eat? By George! You're as yellow as a kite's foot. Been reading yourself into a mummy, haven't you?"

It was good to see him. He seemed to bring the whole of outdoors in with him.

I took him by the shoulders and held him off from me, laughing in pure happiness.

"Well. What are you looking at? Expect to see my spots all changed?"

"I think you've actually grown."

"In four weeks? Rubbish! I think I've contracted. If there's anything to make a fellow feel small it's rubbing elbows with four million people. Good old Roger! Seems as if I'd been away for a lifetime. Then again it seems as if I'd never been away at all, as if New York was all a dream. Well, here I am, like Shadrach, past the fiery furnace and not even scorched. It's a queer place--New York--full of queer people, living on shelves, like the preserves in a pantry. Great though! I'm getting to understand 'em a little, though they don't understand me. I suppose I'm queer to them. Funny, isn't it? 'Old fashioned,' a fellow called me the other day. I didn't know whether to hit him or take him by the hand. I think he meant it as a compliment.

I had been polite, that's all. Most people don't understand you when you say, 'Thank you' or 'Excuse me.' They just stare, and then dash on. I used to wonder where they were all going and why they were rushing. I don't now. I rush like the rest of 'em, even when I've got nothing to do of a morning but to buy a new cravat. By Jove, I'm rattling on. Is dinner ready?"

It was. We dined on Horsham Manor's simple fare, but Jerry ate it as though he had never been away. And when dinner was over we adjourned to the library and talked far into the night. I observed for one thing, that he was now smoking cigarettes with perfect facility. I made no comment, but could not help recalling the fact that it was in this, too, that Eve had tempted and Adam fallen. He ran on at a great rate, but said little of the girl Marcia, or indeed of any women. I think he hadn't been able to forget my att.i.tude toward them, and in the light of his new contacts considered himself vastly superior to me in experience of the world. But the mere fact that he now avoided mention of the Van Wyck girl advised me that his thoughts of her were of a sort which he thought I could not possibly comprehend.

He told of some of the things already mentioned, with humor and some bewilderment. He had made it a habit to go and walk the streets for awhile every day when he could mingle with the crowds and try and get their point of view. He hadn't gotten very far yet, but he was learning. He knew the different parts of the city and chose for his walks the East side by preference. He had seen filth and squalor on one avenue and on the next one elegance and wealth. The contrasts were amazing.

"Something's wrong, Roger," he said again and again. "Something's wrong. It doesn't seem fair somehow. I'm sure the people on one street can't all be deserving and those on another all undeserving. The Fifth Avenue lot, the ones I a.s.sociate with in the clubs, are all very well in their way, but they seem to waste a lot of time. They don't produce anything, they're not helping to keep the world together. The real workers are elsewhere. I've seen 'em, talked to some of 'em. They've got vitality that the other chaps haven't. Flynn's friends are _great_. I've been sparring with 'em--some pretty good ones, too."

"How did you manage?"

"All right. You know, Flynn always said I gave promise of being a pretty good boxer, so I've been working a little in the afternoon at his gymnasium. I had to, Roger, to keep in shape. There are all sorts of chaps there, mostly professionals. You know he's training this new middleweight, Carty, for a fight next March. I didn't like to put on the gloves with any of 'em, but Flynn insisted."

Jerry paused and I saw a smile growing slowly at the corners of his lips. I knew that smile. Jerry wore it the day Skook.u.ms disobeyed orders and had the encounter with the skunk.

"You had a good go of it?" I asked.

He nodded.

"You see, there was a big Jew named Sagorski, 'Battling' Sagorski they call him, hanging around the place. He's a 'White Hope.' He's been sparring partner of one of the champions and he thinks a good deal of himself. Flynn doesn't like him a great deal--some dispute about a debt, I believe. I was sparring with Flynn, Sagorski watching.

"I heard someone make a remark and then Sagorski's voice sneering.

Flynn dropped his hands and turned.

"'Ye always c'ud talk, Sagorski,' said he. 'But talk's cheap. I'll match the bye again ye six rounds, fer points, double or quits, the same bein' the small amount that's been hangin' betune us the little matter of a year.'

"Sagorski was up in a moment, smiling rather disdainfully. 'Yer on,'

he growled.

"They fixed us up, seconds, timekeepers and all, and we went at it. He was a good one and strong but slow, Roger. You know, Flynn's lighter than I am, but lightning fast. Sagorski gave me more time, but he had a good left and an awful wallop with his right. Flynn had warned me to look out for that right and I did. The first round was slow. Each of us was feeling the other out. I landed a few and got one in the ribs.

The second round went faster. I avoided him by ducking and side-stepping, but he kept boring in, still smiling disagreeably. I didn't like that smile. He wanted to knock me out, I think, for he made several vicious swings that might have settled me, but I got away from them and kept him moving.

"'Wot's this, sonny?' he sneered at last, 'a foot race?'

"But he didn't make me mad--not then. I kept hitting him freely, not hard, you know, but piling up points nicely for Flynn. He couldn't really reach me at all and was getting madder and madder. It was funny. I think I must have let up a little then, for I think it was in the fourth round he got in past my guard and swung a hard right on my nose. The blow staggered me and I nearly went down. Anyway, Roger, it made me angry. It seemed a part of that ugly smile. I saw red for a moment and then I went for him with everything I had, straight-arms, swings, uppercuts--everything. I think I must have been in better shape than he was, for by the time the round was ended he was groggy.

"When we came up for the next I heard Flynn whispering at my ear, 'Finish him, Masther Jerry. If you don't, he'll put ye out.'

"I didn't need that warning. I sparred carefully for a minute, feeling out what he had left. He swung at me hard, just grazing my ear. Then I went after him again, feinted into an opening and caught him flush on the point of the chin."

He paused for breath. "I didn't want to, you know, Roger, but Flynn was so insistent--and, of course, having started--"

"'You bored in, that th' opposed might beware of thee,'" I paraphrased.

He laughed.

"Yes, I bored in. There was nothing else to do. Flynn didn't say much, but he was pleased as punch. It took ten minutes to bring the fellow around. I was bending over Sagorski, wetting his face, and as he looked up at me I told him I was awfully sorry. What do you think he said?

"'Aw, you go to h.e.l.l!' Impolite beggar, wasn't he?"

"You have been at least catholic in the choice of companions," I remarked, with a smile, recalling Flynn's prediction about Jerry's weight in wild cats.

"Oh, yes. All sorts of people. I think on the whole I understand the poorer cla.s.ses best. They do swear, I find, horribly at times, but they don't intend harm by it. I doubt if they really know what it means. 'h.e.l.l' is merely an expletive like 'Oh' or 'By Jove' with us chaps. Funny, isn't it?"

"That truck-driver didn't think so," I said.

"That was my first week. I know a lot more now. I've felt sorry about him."

"You needn't," I laughed.

And after a pause:

"And down town, Jerry," I inquired. "How are things going there?"

His expression grew grave at once.

"Oh, I've been going to the office pretty regularly, but it's slow work. I don't understand why, but I don't seem to get on at all."

"That's too bad," I said slowly. "You must get on, old man."