Traffic In Souls Part 18

"Well, evidently his charity begins at home!" thought the young man as he stepped toward the desk.

Tiring of the wait he addressed the absorbed reader.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Trubus, but I was announced and told to come in here to see you."

Trubus raised his eyebrows, and slowly turned in his chair. His eyes opened wide with surprise as he peered over the gold rims at the newcomer.

"Well, well, well! So you were, so you were."

He put down his gla.s.s reluctantly.

"You must pardon me, but I always spend my noon hour gaining inspiration from the great Source of all inspiration. What can I do for you? I understand that you are a policeman--am I mistaken?"

"No, sir; I am a policeman, and I have come to you to get your aid. I understand that you receive a great deal of money for your campaign for purifying the city, and so I think you can help me in a certain work."

Trubus waved the four-carat ring deprecatingly.

"Ah, my young friend, you are in great error. I do not receive much money. We toil very ardently for the cause, but worldly pleasures and the selfishness of our fellow citizens interfere with our solving of the great task. We are far behind in our receipts. How lamentably little do we get in response to our requests for aid to charity!"

He followed Bobbie's incredulous glance at the luxurious furnis.h.i.+ngs of his office.

"Yes, yes, it is indeed a wretched state of affairs. Our efforts never cease, and although we have fourteen stenographers working constantly on the lists of people who could aid us, with a number of devout a.s.sistants who cover the field, our results are pitiable."

He leaned back in his leather-covered mahogany desk chair.

"Even I, the president of this a.s.sociation, give all my time to the cause. And for what? A few hundred dollars yearly--a bare modic.u.m. I am compelled to eat this frugal luncheon of crackers and grape juice.

I have given practically all of my private fortune to this splendid enterprise, and the results are discouraging. Even the furniture of this office I have brought down from my home in order that those who may come to discuss our movement may be surrounded by an environment of beauty and calm. But, money, much money. Alas!"

Just at this juncture the door opened and the telephone girl brought in a basket full of letters, evidently just received from the mail man.

"Here's the latest mail, Mr. Trubus. All answers to the form letters, to judge from the return envelopes."

Trubus frowned at her as he caught Burke's twinkling glance.

"Doubtless they are insults to our cause, not replies to our importunities, Miss Emerson!" he hurriedly replied.

He looked sharply at Burke.

"Well, sir, having finished what I consider my midday devotions, I am very busy. What can I do for you?"

"You can listen to what I have to say," retorted Burke; resenting the condescending tone. "I come here to see you about some actual conditions. I have read some of your literature, and if you are as anxious to do some active good as you write you are, I can give you enough to keep your entire organization busy."

It was a very different personality which shone forth from those sharp black eyes now, than the smug, quasi-religious man who had spoken before.

"I don't like your manner, young man. Tell me what you have to say, and do it quickly."

"Well, yours is the Purity League. I happen to have run across a gang of procurers who drug girls, and make their livelihood off the shame of the girls they get into their clutches. I can give you the names of these men, their haunts, and you can apply the funds and influence of your society in running them to earth, with my a.s.sistance and that of a number of other policemen I know."

Trubus rose from his chair.

"I have heard this story many times before, my young friend. It does not interest me."

"What!" exclaimed Burke, "you advertise and obtain money from the public to fight for purity and when a man comes to you with facts and with the gameness to help you fight, you say you are not interested."

Trubus waved his hand toward the door by which Burke had entered.

"I have to make an address to our Board of Directors this afternoon,"

he said, "and I don't care to a.s.sociate my activities nor those of the cause for which I stand with the police department. You had better carry your information to your superiors."

"But, I tell you I have the leads which will land a gang of organized procurers, if you will give me any of your help. The police are trying to do the best they can, but they have to fight district politics, saloon men, and every sort of pull against justice. Your society isn't afraid of losing its job, and it can't be fired by political influence.

Why don't you spend some of your money for the cause that's alive instead of on furniture and stenographers and diamond rings!"

The cat was out of the bag.

Trubus brought his fist down with a bang which spilled grape juice on his neat piles of papers.

"Don't you dictate to me. You police are a lot of grafters, in league with the gangsters and the politicians. My society cares for the unfortunate and seeks to work its reforms by mentally and spiritually uplifting the poor. We have the support of the clergy and those people who know that the public and the poor must be brought to a spiritual understanding. Pah! Don't come around to me with your story of 'organized traffic.' That's one of the stories originated by the police to excuse their inefficiency!"

Burke's eyes flamed as he stood his ground.

"Let me tell you, Mr. Trubus, that before you and your clergy can do any good with people's souls you've got to take more care of their bodies. You've got to clean out some of the rotten tenement houses which some of your big churches own. I've seen them--breeding places for tuberculosis and drunkenness, and crime of the vilest sort. You've got to give work to the thousands of starving men and women, who are driven to crime, instead of spending millions on cathedrals and altars and statues and stained gla.s.s windows, for people who come to church in their automobiles. A lot of your churches are closed up when the neighborhood changes and only poor people attend. They sell the property to a saloonkeeper, or turn it into a moving-picture house and burn people to death in the rotten old fire-trap. And if you don't raise your hand, when I come to you fair and square, with an honest story--if you dare to order me out of here, because you've got to gab a lot of your charity drivel to a board of directors, instead of taking the interest any real man would take in something that was real and vital and eating into the very heart of New York life, I'm going to show you up, and put you out of the charity business----so help me G.o.d!"

Burke's right arm shot into the air, with the vow, and his fist clenched until the knuckles stood out ridged against the bloodless pallor of his tense skin.

Trubus looked straight into Burke's eyes, and his own gaze dropped before the white flame which was burning in them.

Burke turned without a word and walked from the office.

After he had gone Trubus rang the buzzer for his telephone girl.

"Miss Emerson, did that policeman leave his name and station?"

"No, sir; but I know his number. He's mighty fresh."

"Well, I must find out who he is. He is a dangerous man."

Trubus turned toward his mail, and with a slight tremor in his hand which the shrewd girl noticed began to open the letters.

Check after check fluttered to the surface of the desk, and the great philanthropist regained his composure by degrees. When he had collected the postage offertory, carefully indorsed them all, and a.s.sembled the funds sent in for his great work, he slipped them into a generously roomy wallet, and placed the latter in the pocket of his frock coat.

He opened a drawer in his desk, and drew forth a tan leather bank book.

Taking his silk hat from the bronze hook by the door, he closed the desk, after slamming the Bible shut with a sacrilegious impatience, quite out of keeping with his manner of a half hour earlier.

"I am going to the bank, Miss Emerson. I will return in half an hour to lead in the prayer at the opening of the directors' meeting. Kindly inform the gentlemen when they arrive."

He slammed the door as he left the offices.

The telephone operator abstractedly chewed her gum as she watched his departure.