CHAPTER III.
Bigger crowds ran to fires, big or little, in those days than now. Theblaze which had well-nigh destroyed an old frame stable in NineteenthStreet that rainy Saturday afternoon before a single fire companyreached the scene, and that drew to the spot in the course of half anhour at least twenty companies,--engine, hose, or hook andladder,--would be handled now by one compact little battalion withone-tenth the loss, with no more than forty men, without an unnecessarysound, and in much less than half the time. Although aided bysympathizing hands, Shorty had barely time to get Snipe on his shakylegs and in the lee of a sheltering tree-box when another company cametearing around from upper Fourth Avenue,--their old friends of ZephyrHose,--close followed by Engine 28, and Shorty lifted up his voice in ayodel that instantly brought two or three panting young fellows to hisside,--big boys who had run with their pet company the half-mile fromTwenty-eighth Street. Instant suspicion, mingled with wrath, gleamed intheir eyes at sight of Snipe's pale face and bleeding temple. "Yes, theHulker fellows!" sobbed Shorty, now half mad with indignation andexcitement. "I saw just the two that did it. One of them belongs to thefirst nine of the Metamoras,--the juniors,--and had a row with Snipe theday of the match. Briggs was with them. Wait till we tend to Snipe, thenwe can fix him."
The youngster's heart was beating hard and savagely, for the outrage wasbrutal. There had been angry words between the rival clubs, the Uncasand the Metamora, the day of their great game, and hosts of otherjuniors had gathered about the wrangling nines, not utterly displeasedat the idea of a falling out between two of the strongest and, asjuniors went in those days, "swellest" organizations on the list. Then,as luck would have it, several of the older boys of both clubs weredevoted followers, even "runners," of two rival hose companies, theUncas almost to a man pinning their fortunes on the white Zephyr, whosehome was but three short blocks above Pop's school, and one of whoseactive members, the son of a Fifth Avenue millionaire, was the biggestand oldest--and stupidest--of Pop's pupils, though not in the classicaldepartment. The Metamoras, in like manner, swore by the swell hosecompany of that name, whose carriage was housed on Fifth Avenue itself,diagonally over across the way from the impressively dignified andaristocratic brownstone mansion of the Union Club. And what Pop's boys,the First Latin, at least, were well-nigh a unit in condemning was thatjust two of their own number, residents of that immediate neighborhood,were known to be in league with the Metamora crowd, even to the extent,it was whispered, of secretly associating with the Hulkers, and by theHulkers was meant a little clique led by two brothers of that name, big,burly young fellows of nineteen and eighteen respectively, sons of awealthy widow, who let them run the road to ruin and bountifully paidtheir way,--two young scapegraces who were not only vicious andwell-nigh worthless themselves, but were leading astray half a score ofothers who were fit for better things. No wonder the hearts of the Uncaswere hot against them.
Into the area doorway of a neighboring dwelling, with faces of gloom,they had led their wounded comrade. Sympathizing, kind-hearted womenbathed his forehead and smoothly bandaged it, even as the uproar withoutincreased, and companies from far down-town kept pouring into thecrowded street. By this time half a dozen streams were on the blaze andthe black smoke had turned to white steam, but still they came, Gulickand Guardian, hose and engine, from under the Jefferson tower, and natty55 Hose,--the "Harry Howards,"--from away over near the Christopherferry, and their swell rivals of 38, from Amity Street, close at theheels of Niagara 4, with her handsome Philadelphia double-deck engine,and "3 Truck," from Fireman's Hall, in Mercer Street, and another bigdouble-decker, 11, from away down below the Metropolitan Hotel, racedevery inch of the mile run up Broadway by her east side rival, Marion 9.Fancy the hundreds of shouting, struggling, excited men blockingLexington Avenue and Eighteenth Street for two hundred yards in everydirection from what we would call to-day a "two-hundred-dollar fire,"and you can form an idea of the waste of time, money, material, andenergy, the access of uproar, confusion, and, ofttimes, rowdyism, thataccompanied an alarm in the days before the war. Remember that all this,too, might result from the mere burning out of a chimney or the ignitionof a curtain in a garret window, and you can readily see why tax-payers,thinking men, and insurance companies finally decided that the oldvolunteer department must be abolished.
But until the war came on there was nothing half so full of excitementin the eyes of young New York, and Pop's boys, many of them at least,thought it the biggest kind of fun outside of school, where they had funof their own such as few other boys saw the like of.
It was inside the school, however, on the following Monday morning, thatthe young faces were grave and full of import, for Snipe was there,still bandaged and a trifle pale, and Shorty, scant of breath but fullof vim and descriptives, and time and again had he to tell the story ofthe Hulkers' attack to classmates who listened with puckered brows andcompressed lips, all the while keeping an eye on two black sheep, whofollowed with furtive glances Snipe and Shorty wherever they went; andone of these two was the Pariah of the school.
The only son of a wealthy broker, Leonard Hoover at eighteen years ofage had every advantage that the social position of his parents and abig allowance could give him, but he stood in Pop's school that saddestof sights,--a friendless boy. Always immaculately dressed and booted andgloved, he was a dullard in studies, a braggart in everything, and asuccess in nothing. For healthful sports and pastimes he had no usewhatever. Books were his bane, and at eighteen he knew less of Latinthan boys in the fourth form, but Pop had carried him along for years,dropping him back thrice, it was said in school traditions, until atlast he had to float him with the First Latin, where he sat week afterweek at the foot of the class. It was said that between the reveredrector of the school and the astute head of the firm of Hoover, Hope &Co. a strong friendship existed, but whatever regard "the Doctor"entertained for the father he denied the son. Long years of observationof the young fellow's character had convinced this shrewd student of boynature that here was a case well-nigh without redeeming feature. Lazy,shifty, lying, malevolent, without a good word or kind thought for ahuman being, without a spark of gratitude to the father who had pulledhim through one disgrace after another, and who strove to buy him a waythrough life, young Hoover was, if truth were confessed, about asabhorrent to the Doctor as he was obnoxious to the school. A plague, abully, a tyrant to the little fellows in the lower classes, a cheat andcoward among his fellows, filled with mean jealousy of the lads who yearafter year stepped over his head to the upper forms, stingy though hispockets were lined with silver, sneaking, for he was never known to door say a straightforward thing in his life, it had come to pass by thetime he spent his sixth year with Pop that Hoover was the school-boysynonym for everything disreputable or mean. And, as though theProvidence that had endowed him through his father with everything thatwealth and influence could command was yet determined to strike abalance somewhere, "Len" Hoover had been given a face almost asrepellent as his nature. His little black eyes were glittering andbeady, which was bad enough, but in addition were so sadly andsingularly crossed that the effect was to distort their true dimensionsand make the right optic appear larger and fuller than the left, whichat times was almost lost sight of,--a strange defect that even Pop hadhad the weakness to satirize, and, well knowing that Hoover would neverunderstand the meaning, had in a moment of unusual exasperation referredto him as "Cyclops," or Polyphemus, a name that would have held amongthe boys had it not been too classical and not sufficientlycontemptuous. An ugly red birth-mark added to his facial deformity, butwhat more than anything else gave it its baleful expression was thesneer that never seemed to leave his mouth. The grin that sometimes,when tormenting a little boy, distended that feature could never by anypossibility be mistaken for a smile. Hoover's white, slender, shapelyhands were twitching and tremulous. New boys, who perhaps had to shakehands with him, said they were cold and clammy. He walked in hishigh-heeled boots in a rickety way that baffled imitation. H
e never ran.He never took part in any sport or game. He never subscribed a cent toany school enterprise,--base ball, cricket, excursion, or debate. Henever even took part in the customary Christmas gifts to the teachers,for in the days of this class of Snipe's and Shorty's and others whosescholarly attainments should have won them first mention, there weresome beloved men whom even mischief-loving lads delighted to remember inthat way. One Christmas-tide Hoover had appeared just before the holidaybreak-up, followed by a servant in dark livery, a thing seldom seenbefore the war, and that servant solemnly bore half a dozen packages ofwhich Hoover relieved him one at a time, and personally took to the deskof the master in each one of the five rooms, left it there without aword of explanation, but with an indescribable grin, bade the servanthand the sixth to the open-mouthed janitor, and disappeared. Aperplexed lot were Pop's several assistants when school closed thatafternoon. John, the janitor aforesaid, declared they held an informalcaucus in the senior master's room (Othello was the pet name borne atthe time by this gifted teacher and later distinguished divine), andthat three of the number, who had smilingly and gracefully thanked theboys for the hearty little tribute of remembrance and good will withwhich the spokesman of the class had wished each master a MerryChristmas, declared they could accept no individual gift from any pupil,much less Hoover, and that he, John, believed the packages had beenreturned unopened.
And this was the state of feeling at the old school towards its oldestscholar, in point of years spent beneath its roof, on the bleak Novembermorning following Snipe's and Shorty's disastrous run to the fire, whenat twelve o'clock the First Latin came tumbling down-stairs for recess.Ordinarily they went with a rush, bounding and jostling and playing allmanner of pranks on each other and making no end of noise, then racingfor doughnuts at Duncan's, two blocks away. But this time there wasgravity and deliberation, an ominous silence that was sufficient initself to tell the head-master, even before he noted the fact thatHoover was lingering in the school-room instead of sneaking off _solus_for a smoke at a neighboring stable, that something of an unusual naturewas in the wind.
"Why don't you go out to recess, Hoover?" said he, shortly. "If any ladneeds fresh air, it's you."
No answer for a moment. Hoover stood shuffling uneasily at the longwindow looking out on Fourth Avenue, every now and then peering up anddown the street.
Impatiently the master repeated his question, and then, sullen andscowling, Hoover answered,--
"I can have trouble enough--here."
"What do you mean?" asked Othello.
"They're layin' for me,--at least Snipe is."
"By Snipe you mean Lawton, I suppose. What's the trouble between you?"and the master sat grimly eying the ill-favored fellow.
"It's not a thing--I want to speak of," was the answer. "He knows that Iknow things that he can't afford to have get out,--that's all." Then,turning suddenly, "Mr. Halsey," said he, "there's things going on inthis school the Doctor ought to know. I can't tell him or tell you, butyou--you ask John where Joy's watch went and how it got there."
The master started, and his dark face grew darker still. That businessof Joy's watch had been the scandal of the school all October. Joy wasone of the leaders of the First Latin, a member of one of the oldestfamilies of Gotham, and this watch was a beautiful and costly thing thathad been given him on his birthday the year before. One hot Friday noonwhen the school went out to recess, Joy came running back up the stairsfrom the street below and began searching eagerly about the bookcases atthe back of the long school-room. A pale-faced junior master sat moppingthe sweat from his forehead, for the First Latin had executed its famouscharge but two minutes before, and he had striven in vain to quell thetumult.
"What's the matter, Joy?" he asked. "I _beg_ pardon. _Mr._ Joy, I shouldsay. I wonder that I am so forgetful as to speak to a young gentleman inthe First Latin as I would to boys in the other forms in the school."
At other times when the weakling who had so spoken gave voice to thissentiment it was the conventional thing for the First Latin to gazestolidly at him and, by way of acknowledgment of the sentiment, to uttera low, moaning sound, like that of a beast in pain, gradually rising toa dull roar, then dying away to a murmur again, accentuated occasionallyhere and there by deep gutturals, "Hoi! hoi! hoi!" and in thisinarticulate chorus was Joy ever the fugleman. But now, with troubledeyes, he stared at the master.
"My watch is gone, sir!"
"Gone, Mr. Joy? You terrify me!" said Mr. Meeker, whose habit it was touse exaggerated speech. "When--and how?"
"While we were--having that scrimmage just now," answered Joy, searchingabout the floor and the benches. "I had it--looked at it--not twominutes before the bell struck. You may remember, sir, you bade me putit up."
"I do remember. And when did you first miss it?"
"Before we got across Twenty-fifth Street, sir."
By this time, with sympathetic faces, back came Carey and Doremus andBertram and others of the First Latin, and John, the janitor, stood atthe door and looked on with puzzled eyes. It was not good for him thatvaluables should be lost at any time about the school. All four youngfellows searched, but there was no sign. From that day to this Joy hadseen no more of his beautiful watch. Detectives had sought in vain.Pawn-shops were ransacked. The Doctor had offered reward and Mr. Meeker,the master, his resignation, but neither was accepted.
And now Hoover, the uncanny, had declared he had information. It wasstill over an hour before the Doctor could be expected down from hismorning's work at Columbia. The head-master felt his fingers tinglingand his pulses quicken. He himself had had a theory--a most unpleasantone--with regard to the disappearance of that precious watch. He knewhis face was paling as he rose and backed the downcast, slant-eyed youthagainst the window-casing.
"Hoover," said he, "I've known you seven years, and will have nododging. Tell me what you know."
"I--I--don't _know_ anything, sir," was the answer, "but you ask John.He does."
"Stay where you are!" cried the master, as he stepped to his desk andbanged the gong-bell that stood thereon. A lumbering tread was heard onthe stairway, and a red-faced, shock-headed young man came clumsily intothe room. Mr. Halsey collared him without ado and shoved him upalongside Hoover. He had scant reverence for family rank and name, hadHalsey. In his eyes hulking John and sullen Hoover were about on a par,with any appreciable odds in favor of the janitor.
"Hoover tells me you know where Joy's watch went and who took it. Outwith the story!" demanded he.
"I d-don't," mumbled John, in alarm and distress. "I--I only saidthat--there was more'n one could tell where it went." And then, to Mr.Halsey's amaze and disgust, the janitor fairly burst into tears. For twoor three minutes his uncouth shape was shaken by sobs of unmistakabledistress. Halsey vainly tried to check him, and angrily demandedexplanation of this womanish conduct. At last John seemed about tospeak, but at that moment Hoover, with shaking hand, grabbed themaster's arm and muttered, "Mr. Halsey,--not now!"
Following the frightened glance of those shifting eyes, Halsey whirledand looked towards the stairs. Then, with almost indignant questionquivering on his lips, turned angrily on the pair. With a queerexpression on his white and bandaged face, Snipe Lawton stood gazing atthem from the doorway.