At last he perceived a shadow, a form, which he knew to be Jones. The adorable Jones, the supremely wise Jones, was walking in this strange land without fear or care, erect and tranquil. Kelcey murmured in admiration and affection, and fell toward his friend. Jones’s voice sounded as from the shores of the unknown.
‘Come, come, of man, this will never do. Brace up.’
It appeared after all that Jones was not wholly wise.
‘Oh, I’m—all ri’, Jones! I’m all ri’! I wan’ shing song! T ha’s all—I wan’ shing song!’
Jones was stupid.
‘Come, now, sit down an’ shut up.’
It made Kelcey burn with fury.
‘Jones, le’ me alone, I tell yeh! Le’ me alone! I wan’ shing song er te’ story! G’l’m’n, I lovsh girl live down my shtreet. Thash reason ‘m drunk—‘tis! She—’
Jones seized him and dragged him toward a chair. He heard him laugh. He could not endure these insults from his friend. He felt a blazing desire to strangle his companion.
He threw out his hand violently, but Jones grappled him close, and he was no more than a dried leaf. He was amazed to find that Jones possessed the strength of twenty horses. He was forced skilfully to the floor.
As he lay he reflected in great astonishment upon Jones’s muscle. It was singular that he had never before discovered it. The whole incident had impressed him immensely. An idea struck him that he might denounce Jones for it. It would be a sage thing. There would be a thrilling and dramatic moment in which he would dazzle all the others.
But at this moment he was assailed by a mighty desire to sleep. Sombre and soothing clouds of slumber were heavily upon him. He closed his eyes with a sigh that was yet like that of a babe.
When he awoke there was still the battleful clamour of the revel. He half arose, with a plan of participating, when O’Connor came and pushed him down again, throwing out his chin in affectionate remonstrance, and saying, ‘Now, now!’ as to a child.
The change that had come over these men mystified Kelcey in a great degree. He had never seen anything so vastly stupid as their idea of his state. He resolved to prove to them that they were dealing with one whose mind was very clear.
He kicked and squirmed in O’Connor’s arms, until, with a final wrench, he scrambled to his feet and stood tottering in the middle of the room. He would let them see that he had a strangely lucid grasp of events.
‘G’l’m’n, I lovsh girl! I ain’ drunker’n yeh all are! She—’
He felt them hurl him to a corner of the room and pile chairs and tables upon him until he was buried beneath a stupendous mountain. Far above, as up a mine’s shaft, there were voices, lights, and vague figures. He was not hurt physically, but his feelings were unutterably injured.
He, the brilliant, the good, the sympathetic, had been thrust fiendishly from the party. They had had the comprehension of red lobsters. It was an unspeakable barbarism. Tears welled piteously from his eyes. He planned long diabolical explanations!
CHAPTER X
At first the gray lights of dawn came timidly into the room, remaining near the windows, afraid to approach certain sinister corners. Finally, mellow streams of sunshine poured in, undraping the shadows to disclose the putrefaction, making pitiless revelation. Kelcey awoke with a groan of undirected misery. He tossed his stiffened arms about his head for a moment, and then, leaning heavily upon his elbow, stared blinking at his environment. The grim truthfulness of the day showed disaster and death. After the tumults of the previous night the interior of this room resembled a decaying battlefield. The air hung heavy and stifling with the odours of tobacco, men’s breaths, and beer half filling forgotten glasses. There was ruck of broken tumblers, pipes, bottles, spilled tobacco, cigar stumps. The chairs and tables were pitched this way and that way, as after some terrible struggle. In the midst of it all lay old Bleecker, stretched upon a couch in deepest sleep, as abandoned in attitude, as motionless, as ghastly, as if it were a corpse that had been flung there.
A knowledge of the thing came gradually into Kelcey’s eyes. He looked about him with an expression of utter woe, regret, and loathing. He was compelled to lie down again. A pain above his eyebrows was like that from an iron clamp.
As he lay pondering, his bodily condition created for him a bitter philosophy, and he perceived all the futility of a red existence. He saw his life-problems confronting him like granite giants, and he was no longer erect to meet them. He had made a calamitous retrogression in his war. Spectres were to him now as large as clouds.
Inspired by the pitiless ache in his head, he was prepared to reform and live a white life. His stomach informed him that a good man was the only being who was wise. But his perception of his future was hopeless. He was aghast at the prospect of the old routine. It was impossible. He trembled before its exactions.
Turning toward the other way, he saw that the gold portals of vice no longer enticed him. He could not hear the strains of alluring music. The beckoning sirens of drink had been killed by this pain in his head. The desires of his life suddenly lay dead, like mullein stalks. Upon reflection, he saw, therefore, that he was perfectly willing to be virtuous if somebody would come and make it easy for him.
When he stared over at old Bleecker, he felt a sudden contempt and dislike for him. He considered him to be a tottering old beast. It was disgusting to perceive aged men so weak in sin. He dreaded to see him awaken, lest he should be required to be somewhat civil to him.
Kelcey wished for a drink of water. For some time he had dreamed of the liquid, deliciously cool. It was an abstract, uncontained thing that poured upon him and tumbled him, taking away his pain like a kind of surgery. He arose and staggered slowly toward a little sink in a corner of the room. He understood that any rapid movement might cause his head to split.
The little sink was filled with a chaos of broken glass and spilled liquids. A sight of it filled him with horror, but he rinsed a glass with scrupulous care, and, filling it, took an enormous drink. The water was an intolerable disappointment. It was insipid and weak to his scorched throat, and not at all cool. He put down the glass with a gesture of despair. His face became fixed in the stony and sullen expression of a man who waits for the recuperative power of morrows.
Old Bleecker awakened. He rolled over and groaned loudly. For awhile he thrashed about in a fury of displeasure at his bodily stiffness and pain. Kelcey watched him as he would have watched a death agony.
‘Good Gawd!’ said the old man, ‘beer an’ whisky make th’ devil of a mix! Did yeh see th’ fight?’
‘No,’ said Kelcey stolidly.
‘Why, Zeusentell an’ O’Connor had a great old mill. They were scrappin’ all over th’ place. I thought we were all goin’ t’ get pulled. Thompson, that fellah over in th’ corner, though, he sat down on th’ whole business. He was a dandy! He had t’ poke Zeusentell! He was a bird! Lord, I wish I had a Manhattan!’
Kelcey remained in bitter silence while old Bleecker dressed. ‘Come an’ get a cocktail,’ said the latter briskly. This was part of his aristocracy. He was the only man of them who knew much about cocktails. He perpetually referred to them. ‘It’ll brace yeh right up! Come along! Say, you get full too soon. You oughter wait until later, me boy! You’re too speedy!’ Kelcey wondered vaguely where his companion had lost his zeal for polished sentences, his iridescent mannerisms.
‘Come along,’ said Bleecker.
Kelcey made a movement of disdain for cocktails, but he followed the other to the street. At the corner they separated. Kelcey attempted a friendly parting smile and then went on up the street. He had to reflect to know