An Officer and a Lady (18 page)

The first act Mr. Chidden regarded as rather slow. He got the impression of a lot of empty talk, but nothing happened. By the end of the act he had gathered a hazy idea that the man with the beard and the gray spats was trying to induce the wife of the little chap in the dressing gown to run away from her husband; but he was unable to decide whether the wife was the lady in the blue velvet suit with white furs or the one that lay on the divan smoking cigarettes with a cynical smile. Altogether it was disappointing; and, as the curtain fell, Mr. Chidden turned to his colleagues and said so.

“Shut up and clap!” returned Mr. Mintz, without glancing at him.

Mr. Chidden perceived that he was neglecting his duty. Anxious to make up for lost time, he brought the palms of his hands together with a succession of thunderous reports, forgetting, in his excitement, the results of his experiments in the cellar during the afternoon. He was brought up sharply by hearing Mr. Mintz growl in his ear:

“Not so loud, you boob!”

Mr. Chidden eased up a little, and continued with moderation. But when the tumult had died down and the curtain had fallen on the last recall, he leaned over and whispered, in a firm tone:

“I am not a boob, Mr. Mintz.”

Mr. Mintz paid no attention whatever. He did not move his head; he did not utter a word. Mr. Chidden stared at him for a moment, then turned to the program, which occupied his time throughout the intermission.

The second act was better. The man with the beard and the gray spats started something at the very first by spiriting the lady in the blue velvet suit with white furs to a private room in a restaurant. At first the lady tried to escape, then she calmly sat down and fanned herself, evidently resolving to make the best of a disagreeable situation. Enter husband, through a French window. Small as he was, he appeared not at all frightened by the presence of the man with the beard. Instead he calmly asked his wife if she had finished her supper, offered his arm, and escorted her out. Mr. Chidden was rather of the opinion that the man with the beard should have been knocked down with a chair or something, but decided that it was perhaps just as well not. The instant the curtain began to fall, he burst out into loud applause, genuine and sustained.

“You began too soon,” said Mr. Mintz, when the applause had died away.

“The sooner, the better,” returned Mr. Chidden. “Enthusiasm, sir.”

Mr. Mintz glared, while his whisper became a growl.

“I say you began too soon. After this wait for me.”

Mr. Chidden had a mind to argue the question, but felt the futility of it and decided to hold his peace, observing to himself that it was quite evident that Mr. Mintz was totally lacking in the quality of artistic perception. He appeared to regard his position of claquer merely as a job, an ordinary and not too interesting means of making a dollar. Mr. Chidden glanced at him with a sort of pity.

“Brutish fellow!” he murmured under his breath. “Still, I suppose he needs the money.”

These reflections occupied his mind till the beginning of the third act.

Mr. Chidden was looking forward to this third act with a pleasant sense of expectation. He was acquainted with the rules of drama as well as any other patron of the Eighth Avenue Stock Company, and he knew very well what was coming. This was the act in which the man with the beard and the gray spats should receive a tremendous jolt on the jaw delivered by the little chap in the dressing gown, who would then take his weeping wife in his arms and announce, in broken tones: “I forgive you, Nellie.” These scenes always aroused the greatest enthusiasm in Mr. Chidden’s breast, and he was looking forward to this one with keen relish.

The curtain rose, discovering the man with the beard lying in an easy-chair, reading and smoking. The door opened R. Entered the lady with the blue velvet suit with white furs. Breathing through her nose, she announced, in a trembling voice, that she had come—she couldn’t stay away. The man with the beard arose and carelessly threw his arms around her and kissed her. Mr. Chidden trembled with indignation. He kissed her again.

The door opened L. Entered husband.

“Ah!” cried Mr. Chidden. “Now for it!”

Husband walked up to wife, whose face was white.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“Because—I—love—him,” she replied, clinging to the man with the beard.

“Oh, really?” said the husband. “Humph! Well, that makes a difference. All right, Nellie; suit yourself. By the way, Jones, old man, have you got a cigarette about?”

And this fiend of a husband got his cigarette, lit it, said farewell to his wife in a bored, careless tone, and departed. Then the other man turned and—

But Mr. Chidden could stand it no longer. Already he was on his feet. His lips were parted, his teeth were set together, and from the instrument thus fashioned there came forth a sound as if gallons of water had been poured on a bed of red-hot coals. So superlative, so aggressive, so pronounced a hiss had never before been heard on Broadway. The entire audience turned from the stage and bestowed their attention on this critic from Eighth Avenue. Some laughed; others said, “Sh-sh-h!” in shocked tones; the remainder merely stared. Mr. Chidden felt someone pulling at his sleeve, and the voice of Mr. Mintz sounded in his ear:

“Sit down, you boob! Sit down!”

But Mr. Chidden, encouraged by opposition, like all brave and sincere men, only hissed the louder. Laughter was heard on all sides, punctuated by cries of “Shame!” “Put him out!” “Sit down!” Half the audience was on its feet, stretching necks to see. Somewhere to the left a woman screamed. Mr. Chidden was jerked back violently into his seat, and the voice of Mr. Mintz sounded in his ear:

“Cut it out, you boob!”

“I won’t!” yelled Mr. Chidden furiously. “It’s a rotten show, Mintz, and you know it! Let me go! Let me go!”

And once more Mr. Chidden began to hiss desperately, violently.

Then everything happened at once. The curtain was rung down. Ushers came leaping down the aisles. The theater was filled with a hubbub of laughter and shouts. It was a crisis, but Mr. Mintz proved himself equal to it. He placed his arms firmly around Mr. Chidden’s waist, lifted his struggling form to his shoulders, pushed his way through to the aisle, and ran swiftly toward the entrance, with Mr. Chidden hissing all the way. He did not halt until he reached the outer door of the lobby, where he hurled his burden onto the sidewalk and stood panting for breath.

“Go on, you boob!” he called wrathfully. “Get out of here, you boob!”

Mr. Chidden slowly arose to his feet. Passersby had halted to stare curiously, but he paid no attention to them. For several seconds he stood regarding the entrance to the lobby with thoughtful seriousness, and now and then the soft suggestion of a hiss came from his lips. He even took a tentative step toward the blazing lights of the entrance, when suddenly the face of Mr. Burrie appeared just within the glass doors. Mr. Chidden hesitated, stopped, and turned.

“Rotten show!” he muttered gloomily, and moved away.

Twenty minutes later he had reached the rooming house and let himself in. All was dark and silent. He made his way up one, two, three flights, to a little room in the rear at the very top—a cold, bare, cheerless room. Slowly he undressed himself. Then, with a sigh, he reached for the alarm clock and set it for a quarter past five.

“Miserable slave!” murmured Mr. Chidden.

M
R.
C
HIDDEN HAD NOT FELT
very well that morning. He thought it must be an attack of biliousness. Or was it merely an unusually acute stroke of the gloomy melancholy which he had acquired in twenty years of service as handyman in his sister’s rooming house?

Not that he wasted any time arguing the matter with himself. He merely felt that he did not feel well. After breakfast, he had spent an hour sifting the ashes from the furnace. Then he had brought up coal for the kitchen range, swept off the stoop and sidewalk, set out the garbage and ash cans, shined the brass doorknobs and rail, and beat four rugs. These tasks completed, he went in search of his sister to ask for forty cents to buy gas mantles.

“She’s upstairs, sewing,” said Minnie, the kitchen girl.

Mr. Chidden mounted two flights and passed down the narrow hall to the rear end, where a door stood half open—the door to his sister’s room. In front of it, he paused. There were two reasons for this. He always paused for courage when about to face his sister, even when his errand was perfectly disinterested; but this time his hesitation came partly from surprise. Why did he not hear the sewing machine, with its monotonous, aggressive whir? And whose was the voice—certainly not his sister’s—whose unintelligible mumble came vaguely to his ears through the half-open door? Presumably it was someone talking to his sister. Who could it be? For two minutes Mr. Chidden stood motionless, listening and wondering.

And then suddenly came another sound, as the voice halted—the sound of a smacking kiss!

Mr. Chidden gasped with profound amazement. And before he could close his mouth again, he heard the sound of swift footsteps, the door was flung open from within, and a man rushed from the room, dashed to the stairs, and descended, two steps at a time. But, despite the rapidity of his flight, Mr. Chidden recognized him. It was Comicci, the Italian sculptor, who occupied a bedroom studio in the third-floor front.

Mr. Chidden stood for a moment struck dumb, then came to with a start as the street door banged below. Simultaneously came the whir of the sewing machine from within the room. He tiptoed to the stairs and began to descend noiselessly. On the fourth step, he halted and stood still, and finally he turned abruptly, remounted to the landing, walked briskly to the open door, and entered the room.

“Well?” said his sister, stopping the machine to look across at him.

Miss Maria Chidden was a raw-boned, red-faced woman of forty-two, with dim gray eyes, hard cheeks, and shiny skin. Particularly, her face was very red; but, as Mr. Chidden looked at her, after a quick glance around to see if she was alone, it appeared to him that her color was even higher than usual. This, and the fact that there was no one else in the room, pointed to a simple and certain conclusion. Mr. Comicci had kissed her, or attempted to kiss her. But it was inconceivable to Mr. Chidden that any man in the world, for any reason whatever, would kiss his sister Maria. He was as much puzzled as amazed.

“Well?” Miss Maria repeated impatiently.

“I want forty cents for gas mantles,” said Mr. Chidden, from the middle of the room.

Without a word, she arose, unlocked a drawer of a dingy, old-fashioned desk, and took out a big black pocketbook. From this she extracted two quarters, which she handed to her brother. His amazement increased. Never before had she given him one cent over the exact amount required. She must be horribly agitated. She might even—

He cleared his throat, stuck the fifty cents into his pocket, and spoke:

“Also, I want three dollars.”

Miss Chidden paused in the act of returning the pocketbook to the drawer.

“What for?” she demanded.

“For myself.”

“What for?”

“Imperial necessity,” said Mr. Chidden, trying to make a joke of it.

“I suppose it’s clothes.”

Her tone was maddening. The flush was leaving her face now, and her lips were straightening out. These ominous signs, and the smart sarcasm of her voice, plunged Mr. Chidden quite suddenly into the depths of exasperated despair. From her appearance of nervous embarrassment, he had thought to take her by surprise and get the three dollars out of her before she realized what she was doing. But he knew that hope was gone as he saw her lips meet in the familiar straight line. Very well, he would fight for it.

“Yes, it’s clothes,” he replied, with sudden passion. “Why shouldn’t it be? I want three dollars.”

“You can’t have it.” Miss Maria returned the pocketbook to the drawer. “And, what’s more, you don’t need it.”

“No? I don’t?” shouted Mr. Chidden, advancing a step and pointing indignantly to a certain portion of his clothing. “Look at that! Just look at it! Perhaps there is men who can wear a pair of pants three years, Maria Chidden, but I’m not one of ’em. It’s unwholesome. Give me three dollars.”

For reply, Miss Maria closed and locked the drawer, returned to her chair, inserted the edge of a sheet under the hemmer, and started the machine. Her only audible comment was a grunt as she hitched the chair up closer.

Mr. Chidden choked with the helpless rage of the timid and oppressed.

“That’s right!” he yelled. “Shut your mouth and look mad. You can’t scare me. I need a pair of pants, and you know it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’ve got rich off of this boarding house, and I’ve slaved for you morning, noon and night for twenty years, and got nothing. What’s three dollars to you? Anyway, I’ve got it coming to me. I’ve earned it. Ain’t I? Haven’t I earned it?”

“Maybe,” was the calm reply. “But you’re not going to get it.”

“No? I won’t get it? All right! All right, then, I won’t get it!”

And Mr. Chidden, tasting defeat, sought for revenge. He tried to think of something to say that would give this tyrant pain. And what he found was:

“What was that little dago doing in here? I saw him come out.”

The machine stopped. Miss Maria arose. Her look was awful. Mr. Chidden met it bravely for three seconds, then began a precipitate retreat toward the door. He was halted by her voice. Anyone would have been.

“Robert!”

“Well?” he murmured, turning.

“Let me tell you right now, Mr. Comicci is no dago. He’s a gentleman. Dago, indeed! A worthless little thing like you to call him names! And you stand right up and insinuate your own sister! Yes, you did! And if ever I—Robert! Robert, come back here!”

But the call went unheeded. With his revenge, Mr. Chidden had swiftly flown—into the hall and down three flights of stairs to the cellar. There he halted and seated himself on an old box behind the coal pile. Almost immediately he jumped up again, ran to the cellar door, and bolted it. Then he returned to the box. This was the refuge he always sought when he required solitude. He took a pipe from his pocket, filled it, lit it, and leaned back against the whitewashed wall to puff and think.