Young Van Bibber broke one of his
rules of life one day and came down-town. This
unusual journey into the marts of trade and finance
was in response to a call from his lawyer, who wanted
his signature to some papers. It was five years
since Van Bibber had been south of the north side
of Washington Square, except as a transient traveller
to the ferries on the elevated road. And as he
walked through the City Hall Square he looked about
him at the new buildings in the air, and the bustle
and confusion of the streets, with as much interest
as a lately arrived immigrant.
He rather enjoyed the novelty of the
situation, and after he had completed his business
at the lawyer’s office he tried to stroll along
lower Broadway as he did on the Avenue.
But people bumped against him, and
carts and drays tried to run him down when he crossed
the side streets, and those young men whom he knew
seemed to be in a great hurry, and expressed such amused
surprise at seeing him that he felt very much out
of place indeed. And so he decided to get back
to his club window and its quiet as soon as possible.
“Hello, Van Bibber,” said
one of the young men who were speeding by, “what
brings you here? Have you lost your way?”
“I think I have,” said
Van Bibber. “If you’ll kindly tell
me how I can get back to civilization again, be obliged
to you.”
“Take the elevated from Park
Place,” said his friend from over his shoulder,
as he nodded and dived into the crowd.
The visitor from up-town had not a
very distinct idea as to where Park Place was, but
he struck off Broadway and followed the line of the
elevated road along Church Street. It was at the
corner of Vesey Street that a miserable-looking, dirty,
and red-eyed object stood still in his tracks and
begged Van Bibber for a few cents to buy food.
“I’ve come all the way from Chicago,”
said the Object, “and I haven’t tasted
food for twenty-four hours.”
Van Bibber drew away as though the
Object had a contagious disease in his rags, and handed
him a quarter without waiting to receive the man’s
blessing.
“Poor devil!” said Van
Bibber. “Fancy going without dinner all
day!” He could not fancy this, though he tried,
and the impossibility of it impressed him so much
that he amiably determined to go back and hunt up
the Object and give him more money. Van Bibber’s
ideas of a dinner were rather exalted. He did
not know of places where a quarter was good for a
“square meal,” including “one roast,
three vegetables, and pie.” He hardly considered
a quarter a sufficiently large tip for the waiter
who served the dinner, and decidedly not enough for
the dinner itself. He did not see his man at
first, and when he did the man did not see him.
Van Bibber watched him stop three gentlemen, two of
whom gave him some money, and then the Object approached
Van Bibber and repeated his sad tale in a monotone.
He evidently did not recognize Van Bibber, and the
clubman gave him a half-dollar and walked away, feeling
that the man must surely have enough by this time with
which to get something to eat, if only a luncheon.
This retracing of his footsteps had
confused Van Bibber, and he made a complete circuit
of the block before he discovered that he had lost
his bearings. He was standing just where he had
started, and gazing along the line of the elevated
road, looking for a station, when the familiar accents
of the Object again saluted him.
When Van Bibber faced him the beggar
looked uneasy. He was not sure whether or not
he had approached this particular gentleman before,
but Van Bibber conceived an idea of much subtlety,
and deceived the Object by again putting his hand
in his pocket.
“Nothing to eat for twenty-four
hours! Dear me!” drawled the clubman, sympathetically.
“Haven’t you any money, either?”
“Not a cent,” groaned
the Object, “an’ I’m just faint for
food, sir. S’help me. I hate to beg,
sir. It isn’t the money I want, it’s
jest food. I’m starvin’, sir.”
“Well,” said Van Bibber,
suddenly, “if it is just something to eat you
want, come in here with me and I’ll give you
your breakfast.” But the man held back
and began to whine and complain that they wouldn’t
let the likes of him in such a fine place.
“Oh, yes, they will,”
said Van Bibber, glancing at the bill of fare in front
of the place. “It seems to be extremely
cheap. Beefsteak fifteen cents, for instance.
Go in,” he added, and there was something in
his tone which made the Object move ungraciously into
the eating-house.
It was a very queer place, Van Bibber
thought, and the people stared very hard at him and
his gloves and the gardenia in his coat and at the
tramp accompanying him.
“You ain’t going to eat
two breakfasts, are yer?” asked one of the very
tough-looking waiters of the Object. The Object
looked uneasy, and Van Bibber, who stood beside his
chair, smiled in triumph.
“You’re mistaken,”
he said to the waiter. “This gentleman is
starving; he has not tasted food for twenty-four hours.
Give him whatever he asks for!”
The Object scowled and the waiter
grinned behind his tin tray, and had the impudence
to wink at Van Bibber, who recovered from this in
time to give the man a half-dollar and so to make of
him a friend for life. The Object ordered milk,
but Van Bibber protested and ordered two beefsteaks
and fried potatoes, hot rolls and two omelettes,
coffee, and ham with bacon.
“Holy smoke! watcher think I
am?” yelled the Object, in desperation.
“Hungry,” said Van Bibber,
very gently. “Or else an impostor.
And, you know, if you should happen to be the latter
I should have to hand you over to the police.”
Van Bibber leaned easily against the
wall and read the signs about him, and kept one eye
on a policeman across the street. The Object was
choking and cursing through his breakfast. It
did not seem to agree with him. Whenever he stopped
Van Bibber would point with his stick to a still unfinished
dish, and the Object, after a husky protest, would
attack it as though it were poison. The people
sitting about were laughing, and the proprietor behind
the desk smiling grimly.
“There, darn ye!” said
the Object at last. “I’ve eat all
I can eat for a year. You think you’re
mighty smart, don’t ye? But if you choose
to pay that high for your fun, I s’pose you
can afford it. Only don’t let me catch
you around these streets after dark, that’s all.”
And the Object started off, shaking his fist.
“Wait a minute,” said
Van Bibber. “You haven’t paid them
for your breakfast.”
“Haven’t what?”
shouted the Object. “Paid ’em!
How could I pay him? Youse asked me to come in
here and eat. I didn’t want no breakfast,
did I? Youse’ll have to pay for your fun
yerself, or they’ll throw yer out. Don’t
try to be too smart.”
“I gave you,” said Van
Bibber, slowly, “seventy-five cents with which
to buy a breakfast. This check calls for eighty-five
cents, and extremely cheap it is,” he added,
with a bow to the fat proprietor. “Several
other gentlemen, on your representation that you were
starving, gave you other sums to be expended on a breakfast.
You have the money with you now. So pay what
you owe at once, or I’ll call that officer across
the street and tell him what I know, and have you put
where you belong.”
“I’ll see you blowed first!” gasped
the Object.
Van Bibber turned to the waiter.
“Kindly beckon to that officer,” said
he.
The waiter ran to the door and the
Object ran too, but the tough waiter grabbed him by
the back of his neck and held him.
“Lemme go!” yelled the
Object. “Lemme go an’ I’ll pay
you.”
Everybody in the place came up now
and formed a circle around the group and watched the
Object count out eighty-five cents into the waiter’s
hand, which left him just one dime to himself.
“You have forgotten the waiter
who served you,” said Van Bibber, severely pointing
with his stick at the dime.
“No, you don’t,” groaned the Object.
“Oh, yes,” said Van Bibber, “do
the decent thing now, or I’ll ”
The Object dropped the dime in the
waiter’s hand, and Van Bibber, smiling and easy,
made his way through the admiring crowd and out into
the street.
“I suspect,” said Mr.
Van Bibber later in the day, when recounting his adventure
to a fellow-clubman, “that, after I left, fellow
tried to get tip back from waiter, for I saw him come
out of place very suddenly, you see, and without touching
pavement till he lit on back of his head in gutter.
He was most remarkable waiter.”