The Bread Line Part 4

"Not this lamp!" protested Barrifield. "I'll bet ten dollars it was a cheap imitation. I'll write to President Bright to-night about it. He's a fine man. He'd take some stock in the 'Whole Family' in a minute, if we'd let him. It couldn't have been this lamp!"

"Maybe not," a.s.sented Van Dorn; "but they had a big card up, saying 'Bright & Sons' Stellar, sixty-seven cents,' and the lamps looked just like this."

The others said nothing, but their confidence in Barrifield's purchasing ability had received a distinct jar. Presently Perner noticed the head waiter watching them intently. He was about to mention this when the minion walked over and spoke to Barrifield in a whisper. Barrifield grew red and began to drag the things together as the waiter moved away.

"What's the matter? What did he say, Barry?" asked Van Dorn.

At first Barrifield did not answer. Then the humor of it seized him, and he chuckled all over, growing even redder as he hid away the things.

"Come, old man, what did he say?" urged Livingstone.

Barrifield could hardly steady his voice for laughter.

"It's too good to keep," he admitted.

"Out with it, then," said Perner.

"Why," said Barrifield, "he said that they had sample-rooms up-stairs, and that it was against the rules to show samples here in the dining-room."

"Hoo-ee!" shouted Van Dorn. "That calls for something."

"By gad! yes," said Livingstone, "it does!"

It was well along in the afternoon when the friends left the place, and Perner, Van Dorn, and Livingstone returned to their apartments. They went over at first and stood for some moments before the picture of the bread line.

"Why don't you finish it, Stony?" asked Perner. "Finish it up and sell it for enough to pay your part in the 'Whole Family.'"

"Good scheme-- I've thought of it," confessed Livingstone.

"Do you suppose there are any publishers in that line?" mused Van Dorn.

Livingstone laughed.

"I say, fellows, let's take a walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out the houses we're going to buy next year!"

As they turned to go, Van Dorn took up a blank piece of drawing-paper and a brush. He worked away a few moments, the others looking on. As they pa.s.sed out he tacked it to the outer door with pins. Then they all faced about, and, standing abreast, read in the fading light of the hall-way:

OFFICE OF

THE WHOLE FAMILY

A WEEKLY PAPER

FOR YOUNG AND OLD

V

A LETTER FROM MR. TRUMAN LIVINGSTONE OF NEW YORK TO MISS DOROTHY CASTLE OF CLEVELAND

MY DEAR, DEAREST DORRY: When I sit down to write to you there is always so much I want to say that I never know where to begin, and in the end I seem to tell you nothing at all except that I love you, which you have heard so much I am always afraid you will grow tired of hearing it again.

Then I turn cold at the thought, and rewrite the letter to leave out some of the times, but before I am done I find them all in again somewhere else; so it is no use, you see, and I generally send the first letter, after all. Then, when it is gone I want it back, though I don't know whether I want it to take out some of the times I've said it, or to put in some more that I didn't say.

"Oh, Dorry dear, I do love you, and often when I have thought of you in your beautiful home surrounded by luxury, and then remembered that I have asked you to leave it all and cast your fortunes with a chap whose fortunes depend on the whim of the public and the fancy of the art editor, it has made me feel so guilty that I have more than once put into those letters I didn't send something about letting you take it all back and not allowing you to make such a sacrifice for me, even though you are true and n.o.ble and willing.

"And then I didn't send those letters, and I'm glad now that I didn't, for the hard days are going to be over soon, and I feel that I shall be able to offer you comforts that will, perhaps, keep you from regretting altogether those you have left behind. I am glad you are so enthusiastic too, now, about the paper, though you didn't feel just that way at the start, and after I got your first letter I had to talk the scheme all over again with Barry and Perny and Van to get back my courage and to be sure the Bible premium was all right.

"You know, Dorry, that money is a great thing, or at least you don't know, because you never had to do without it, but it is, and especially here where it is so hard to get, and where it takes so much of it to live even respectably. All that you have so often said about the bohemian life is fine and beautiful, and true in a way, too, but there are unpleasant phases of it as well. The struggle is very hard sometimes, and even Perny and Van, who do not need much money, and who will never be anything different from what they are now, even they are glad that they will be worth a million at least by this time next year.

"Perny has some property out West that he'll be able to hire somebody to take off his hands then, and Van wants to buy another old bureau that we saw yesterday at an antique-shop, though he already has two, and nothing in them except fis.h.i.+ng-tackle that he gets every spring before it is time to go, and never uses. Then, Van thinks he'd like a house to keep his bureaus in, too, and Perny wants a place where he can have whatever he likes to eat, and a lot of people to help him eat it, while he recites his poetry to them.

"You _know_ what I want a house for--a house that shall be a home for you and for me, and where, in the soft light of dim, quiet rooms, I shall sit by you and talk and listen while time slips on. Do you remember how the time used to fly when we were together? It seemed always as if some one must be turning the clock ahead for a joke. I am going to make a picture some day of two Lovers, and on the mantel above them Cupid laughing and turning up the clock-hands. We will make that picture together next year, for you will slip in and look over my shoulder, and you will take the pen or the brush and touch here and there; and the editors will like my pictures better because of those touches; and when they are printed in the books and papers I will sit dreaming over my own work because it will not be all mine, but part Dorry's, too.

"I have never told Perny and Van anything about you, because I have never quite found the opportunity to do it in the way I would like. But I think sometimes they suspect, for the other day, when we went out to look at houses, Perny said he didn't suppose I'd want my house very close to two old hardened sinners like them. Then we came to a vacant lot that was just about large enough for three houses, and I said we wouldn't buy houses at all, but would buy the lot and build there side by side and just to suit us. And I said we would have our studios on the same floor of each, and opening through into each other as they do now, and that Perny's should be between, because we both ill.u.s.trate his work sometimes, and that then we would be able to hire editors to run the 'Whole Family,' and we would work at the kind of work we liked to do and at no other. And I said that evenings we would sit together and talk just as we do now, and you would be there, too--though, of course, I didn't say that, but I know they understood and liked it, and you would like it too, sweetheart, for you have said so.

"And then Van said, 'Bully, old man!' and Perny didn't say anything, but he put his arms over Van and me when we came to the stairs, and we went up and took a look at my picture before dark. Perny wants me to finish it and sell it to get the money to put into the paper, and says he is going to buy it back with the first returns that come, to hang over his desk when we get into our new houses. But he isn't, because we are going to give it to him, you and I, when you come, and then we will all go together and try to make the originals of it happier because we are so happy ourselves.

The money I have been saving will be enough, I am sure, to pay my share in starting the paper, for we will only have a few little engraving and composition and stationery bills and postage, and maybe some salaries to pay, before the returns begin to come in. But I am going to finish the picture anyway, so's to have it ready, and Perny and Van both say it is the best thing, so far, I have ever done. We don't any of us work as much as we did, but then it has taken such a lot of time to plan for the paper that we couldn't, and, after all, a few dollars invested that way now will count so much for us all by and by. Perny is working at editing, too, a good deal, and Van and I help. We have already got some 'copy' at the printer's, and Van and I have designed some department headings and a t.i.tle-head that I will send you proofs of as soon as we get them engraved.

We are going to have a beautiful paper, and if we can only get presses to print them fast enough when the first issue goes out in November, we will have two or three million circulation anyway by the first of the year.

"I _know_ we will now, even if I have ever had any doubts of it before. I know, because we have a new scheme that simply _cannot fail_. I can't tell you just what it is in this letter, because I don't altogether understand it myself yet, but Van does, and Perny, for it is Van's scheme this time, and Perny helped him work it out. We are going to 'spring'

it on Barry to-morrow night, and it simply beats the premium idea to death, so Perny says, and he didn't sleep a wink all night thinking about it, nor Van either, and they have been explaining it to each other all day until I don't know 'where I'm at'; but they do, and they are sitting outside now, smoking and figuring up how many people there are in the world who read English. It is called CASH FOR NAMES, and will catch them all,--every one,--so Perny says; and as soon as we get it type-written I will send you a copy, so you can see just how great it is.

"And now, Dorry dear, I haven't told you anything at all, though I have written a long letter, and there is so much you would rather hear than all the things I have said. When I write I only think of you, Dorry, and how I hunger to see your beautiful face, and how long the time will be until I shall take you in my arms and never let you go again. Oh, sweetheart, I never, _never_ could give you up, unless, of course, something dreadful should happen, such as my going blind or being run over and half killed by a cable car, or if the paper should fail and wreck us all, which I know can't happen now. I have thought I ought to, sometimes, for your sake, but I know now I never could have done it, for, sleeping or waking, I am, Dorothy, through all eternity, your

"TRUE."

VI

CASH FOR NAMES

The air was charged with a burden of mystery and moment when the three who strove together in rooms near Union Square joined the man who did something in an editorial way at the latter's office, and proceeded with him to the Grand Union restaurant.

"We have a tale to unfold that will make your hair curl," said Perner, as they stepped out on the lighted street. "Van has had an inspiration.

Premiums are not in it with this!"

"By gad, no!" agreed Livingstone. "It's the greatest thing yet!"

"Good!" shouted Barrifield, above the crash of the street. "Good!"

Van Dorn modestly remained silent. Perner made an effort to keep up the conversation, but the roar of the cobble made results unsatisfactory and difficult. It was a good mile to the Grand Union, but Barrifield explained _sotto voce_ as they entered that it was the only place for steamed soft clams in town. Soft clams appealed to Perner, and any lingering doubts he may have had of Barrifield's ability as business manager disappeared at this statement. Livingstone, who was not quite so tall as the others, had kept up with some difficulty, and was puffing a little as they seated themselves at a table in one corner.