# Episodes Before Thirty/Chapter 11

CHAPTER XI
Kay and I arrived in New York on a crisp, sunny afternoon with sixty dollars in hand out of the original hundred set by for the purpose, and took a room in the Imperial Hotel, Broadway, which someone had recommended. We knew no one, had no letters of introduction. We were tanned the colour of Red Indians, in perfect physical condition, but with a very scanty wardrobe.
The furious turmoil of the noisy city, boiling with irrepressible energies, formed an odd contrast to the peace and stillness of the forests. There was indifference in both cases, but whereas there it was tolerant and kindly, here it seemed intolerant and aggressive. "Get a hustle on, or get out," was the note. Nature welcomed, while human nature resented, the intrusion of two new atoms. Nostalgia for the woods swept over me vehemently, but at the same time an eager anticipation to get work. We studied the papers at once for rooms, choosing a boarding house in East 19th Street, between Broadway and 4th Avenue. Something in the wording caught us. An hour after our arrival we interviewed Mrs. Bernstein and engaged the third floor back, breakfast included, for eight dollars a week. It was cheap. The slovenly, emotional, fat Jewess, with her greasy locks, jewellery, and tawdry finery, had something motherly about her that appealed. She smiled. She did not ask for payment in advance.
"What's your work," she inquired, gazing up at me.
"Oh, I'm going on the newspapers," I said offhand, taking the first idea that offered, but little dreaming it was to prove true.
"I shall be on the stage," Kay promptly added, "as soon as my arrangements are made."
Mrs. Bernstein smiled. She knew the power of the ​Press and favoured reporters. "My hospand," she informed Kay sympathetically, "is an artist too, a moosician. He has his own orghestra."
While Kay studied the theatrical papers, I took the elevated railway down-town. I wanted to stand on Brooklyn Bridge again. Since first seeing it with my father a few years before, and again on my arrival eighteen months ago, en route for Toronto, the place had held my imagination. Something sentimental lay in this third journey, for I wanted to go alone.
Halfway across, at the highest point, I stood looking down upon the great waterway between the two cities of the new world, and the feeling of a fresh chapter in life, with its inevitable comparisons, rose in me.... The sun was sinking behind the hills of New Jersey, and the crowded bay lay a sheet of golden shimmer. Huge, double-ended ferry boats, plying between the wooded shores of Staten and Manhattan Islands and Brooklyn, rushed to and fro with great snortings and hootings; little tugs dashed in every direction with vast importance; sail-boats, yachts, schooners and cat-boats dotted the water like a thousand living things; and threading majestically through them all steamed one or two impressive Atlantic liners, immense and castle-like, towering above all else, as they moved slowly out toward the open sea. The deep poetry which ever frames the most prosaic things, lending them their real significance, came over me with the wind from that open sea.
I stood watching the fading lights beyond the bay, while behind me the crowded trains, at the rate of one a minute, passed thundering across the bridge, and thousands upon thousands of tired workers thronged to their Brooklyn homes after their day in the bigger city. The great bridge swayed and throbbed as the dense masses of pedestrians climbed uphill to the centre, then swarmed in a thick black river down the nether slope. I had never seen such numbers, or such speed of nervous movement, and the eager, tense faces, usually strained, white, drawn as well, touched an unpleasant note. New York, I felt, was not to be trifled ​with; the human element was strenuously keen; no loafing or dreaming here; work to the last ounce, or the city would make cat's meat of one! Whereupon, by contrast, stole back again the deep enchantment of the silent woods, and the longing for the great, still places rose; I saw our little island floating beneath glittering stars; a loon was laughing farther out; the Northern Lights went flashing to mid-heaven; there was a sound of wind among the pines. The huge structure that reared above me seemed unreal; the river of men and women slipped past like silent shadows; the trains and boats became remote and hushed; and the ugly outer world about me merged in the substance of a dream and was forgotten....
I turned and looked out over New York. I saw its lofty spires, its massed buildings, gigantic in the sky; I saw the opening of the great Hudson River, and the darkening water of the bay; I heard, like a sinister multiple voice out of the future, the strident cry of this wonderful and terrible capital of the New World, and the deep pulsings of its engines of frantic haste and untiring energy. The general note, I remember, was alarming rather; a touch of loneliness, of my own stupid incompetence to deal with its aggressive spirit, in which gleamed something merciless, almost cruel--this was the response it stirred in me. I suddenly realized I had no trade, no talents to sell, no weapons with which to fight. My heart sank a little. Among these teeming millions, with their tearing speed, their frenzied energy, their appalling practical knowledge, I possessed but one friend, Kay, and some sixty dollars between us. New York would eat me up unless I "got a hustle on."
Next morning, our capital much reduced, we moved into the lodging house. The idea of sharing a bed, in view of our size and the narrowness of the bed, amused us, but without enthusiasm. The sofa was too small to sleep on. "We'll move," announced Kay, "as soon as we get jobs." A telegram was sent to Toronto giving our address, and a few days later a packing case arrived with our Toronto possessions, and ten dollars to pay out of our ​small total. We found close at hand, in 20th Street, a cheap clean German restaurant--Krisch's--where a meal of sorts could be had for 30 cents, tip 5 cents; it had a sanded floor and was half bier-stube, and one of its smiling waiters, Otto--he came from the Black Forest where I had been to school--proved a true friend later, allowing us occasional credit at his own risk; a Chinese laundry was looked up in Fourth Avenue; I spent one of our precious dollars in a small store of fiddle strings against a possible evil day--a string meant more to me than a steak--and we were then ready for our campaign.
Not a minute was lost. Kay, in very sanguine mood, the Irving wig, I shrewdly suspected, in his pocket, went out to interview managers; while I took a train down-town to interview Harper's, as being the most important publishing house I knew. This step was the result of many discussions with Kay, who said he was sure I could write. The Red Indian advice of the Edinburgh "spirit" had impressed him. "That's your line," he assured me. "Try the magazines." I felt no similar assurance, no desire to write was in me; we had worked ourselves up to a conviction that bold, immediate action was the first essential of our position; to get pupils for my two languages or shorthand seemed impossible in a city like New York; therefore I hurried down, with vague intentions but a high heart, to Harper's.
There was the Magazine, the Weekly, and Harper's Young People. One of them surely would listen to my tale. I chose the Weekly for some unknown reason. For some equally unknown reason I was admitted to the editor's sanctum, and, still more strange, Richard Harding Davis listened to my tale. His success as a novelist had just begun; he had left the Evening Sun, where his "Van Bibber" stories had made him first known; his popularity was rising fast, though I had never heard of him.
My tale was brief, having been rehearsed in the train. It took, perhaps, three minutes at most to rattle it off--my parentage, my farm and hotel, my interest in Eastern Thought, my present destitution, and I remember adding, ​"You see, I cannot possibly go home to England again until I have made good somehow."
"Have you written anything?" he asked, after listening patiently with raised eyebrows.
"Well--no, I haven't, not yet, I'm afraid." I explained that I wanted to begin, though what I really wanted was only paid employment.
The author of "Van Bibber" and "A Soldier of Fortune" looked me up and down and then chuckled. After a moment's silence, he got up, led me across the hall to another door, opened it without knocking and said to a man who was seated at a table smothered in papers:
"This is Mr. Blackwood, an Englishman, who wants to write something for you. He is prepared to write anything--from Eastern philosophy to 'How to run a hotel in Canada.'"
The door closed behind me, with no word of farewell, and I learned that the man facing me was the editor of Harper's Young People. His name, if I remember rightly, was Storey, and he was an Englishman, who, curiously enough, almost at once mentioned my father. He had been an employé of the G.P.O. in London. He was unpleasant, supercilious, patronizing and off-hand, proud of his editorial power. He gave me, however, my first assignment--to write a short, descriptive article about a cargo of wild animals that had just arrived for the New York "Zoo." I hurried off to the steamer, bought some paper, wrote the article in a pew of Trinity Church in Lower Broadway, and returned three hours later to submit it. Storey read it and said without enthusiasm it would do, but when I asked "Is it good?" he shook his head with the comment "Well--some men would have made more of it perhaps." It was printed, however, and in due course I got ten dollars for it. I inquired if I could do something else. He took my address. No further results followed. Evidently, I realized, writing was not my line, and both Kay and the Red Indian Medicine Man were mistaken. ​ Kay's report of his luck, when we met again that evening was meagre; he had met an English Shakespearean actor, Bob Mantell, and a Toronto acquaintance, the "Duke." The actor, however, had given him an introduction or two, and the Duke had asked us to play next day in a cricket match on Staten Island. It was an eleven of Actors v. the Staten Island Club, and Kay would meet useful people. In sanguine mood we agreed to go. It proved a momentous match for me.
Before it came off, however, something else had happened that may seem very small beer, but that provided me with a recurrent horror for many months to come, a horror perhaps disproportionate to its cause. It filled me, at any rate, with a peculiar loathing as of some hideous nightmare. I had never seen the things before; their shape, their ungainly yet rapid movement, their uncanny power of disappearing in a second, their number, their dirty colour, above all their smell, now gave me the sensations of acute nausea. Kay's laughter, though he too felt disgust and indignation, brought no comfort. We eventually got up and lit the gas. We caught it. I had my first view of the beast. We stared at each other in horror. Then Kay sniffed the air. "That explains it," he said, referring to a faint odour of oil we had both noticed when engaging the room. "They put it in the woodwork to kill them," he added. "It's the only thing. But it never really gets rid of them, I'm afraid."
The anger of Mrs. Bernstein when we accused her in the morning, her indignant denials, her bluster about "insoults," and that "never had sooch a t'ing been said of her house pefore," were not half as comic as her expression when I suddenly produced the soap-dish with its damning evidence--17 all told.
She stared, held her breath a second, then very quietly said "Ach, Ach! If you stay, chentelmen, I take von tollar off the price."
It was impossible not to laugh with her; there was something kind and motherly, something good and honest and decent about her we both liked; she would do her best, ​we believed; possibly she really would exterminate the other tenants. We stayed on.
Of the cricket match on Staten Island, beyond the pretty ground with its big trees, and that we got a good lunch without paying for it, no memory remains. What stands out vividly is the tall figure of Arthur Glyn Boyde, a fast bowler and a good bat, and one of the most entertaining and sympathetic companions I had ever met. His clothes were shabby, but his graceful manners, his voice, his smile, everything about him, in fact, betrayed the English gentleman. He was about thirty years of age, of the most frank and engaging appearance, with kindly, honest blue eyes, in one of which he wore an eyeglass. I remember the little fact that he, Kay and myself were measured for a bet after the match, and that he, like Kay, was six feet two inches, being one inch shorter than myself.
I took to him at once, and he to me. His real name was a distinguished one which he shared, it turned out, with some cousins of my own. We were, therefore, related. The bond was deepened. Times had gone hard with him, it seemed, but at the moment he was on the stage, being understudy to Morton Selton as Merivale in "Captain Lettarblair," which E. H. Sothern's company was then playing. In "The Disreputable Mr. Reagen," by, I think, Richard Harding Davis he had also played the rôle of the detective. He was waiting, however, for a much better post, as huntsman to the Rockaway Hunt, a Long Island fashionable club, and this post, oddly enough, was in the gift, he told me, of Davis. It had been practically promised to him, he might hear any day.... The story of his many jobs and wanderings interested us, and his theatre work promised to be helpful in many ways to what was called my "room-mate." Boyde's experience of New York generally was invaluable to us both, and the fact that he had nowhere to sleep that night (having been turned out by his landlady) gave us the opportunity to invite him to our humble quarters. We mentioned the other tenants, but he said that made no difference, he would sleep on the sofa. He dined with us at ​Krisch's; he was extremely hard up; luckily, we still had enough to invite a friend. His only luggage was a small bag, for he told us, with a rueful smile, that his clothes were all in pawn. I had an extra suit or two which, being of about my size, he was able to wear.
I felt immensely drawn to him, and his story touched my pity as well as stirred my admiration. It was a happy evening we all spent in the little bedroom, for he was not only well-read--he knew my various "Eastern books" and could talk about them interestingly--but had a fine tenor voice into the bargain. My fiddle came out of its case, and if the other lodgers disliked our duets, they did not, at any rate, complain. Boyde sang, he further told us, in the choir of the 2nd Avenue Baptist Church, and was assistant organist there as well, but made little out of this latter job, as he was only called upon when the other man was unable to attend. He even taught sometimes in the Sunday School--"to keep in the pastor's good books," as he explained with a laugh. But the chief thing he told us that night was the heartening information that, when all other chances failed, there was always a fair living to be earned by posing to artists at 50 cents an hour, or a dollar and a half for a full sitting of three hours. It was easy work and not difficult to get. He would gladly introduce us to the various studios, as soon as they opened, most of the artists being still in the country.
The search for work was a distressing business, when to the inevitable question "What can you do?" the only possible, but quite futile, reply was, "I'll do anything." I had collected the ten dollars from Harper's Young People, but a letter to Storey for more work brought no reply. The payment for the Toronto packing-case and for a week's rent of the rooms had reduced the exchequer so seriously that in a few days there was only the Harper's money in hand. Boyde, who stayed on at our urgent invitation, shared all he earned, and taught us, besides, the trick of using the free lunch-counters in hotels and saloons. For a glass of beer at five cents, a customer could eat such snacks as salted chip-potatoes, strips of ​spiced liver sausage, small squares of bread, and pungent almonds, all calculated to stimulate unnatural thirst. The hotels provided more sumptuous dishes, though the price of drink was higher, and the calm way Boyde would help himself deliberately to a plate and fork, with an ample supply of the best food he could find, then carry it all back to his glass of lager under the bar-tender's very nose, was an ideal we could only hope to achieve by practice as long as his own. It was a question of nerve. Our midday meal was now invariably of this kind. The free lunch brigade, to which we belonged, was tolerantly treated by the majority of bar-tenders. A thirty cents dinner at Krisch's in the evening, choosing the most bulky dishes, ended the long tiring day of disappointing search. Boyde also made us buy oatmeal, with tin pot and fixture for cooking over the gas-jet. He was invaluable in a dozen ways, always cheery, already on the right side of Mrs. Bernstein, and turning up every evening with a dollar or two he had earned during the day.
He further taught us--the moment had come, he thought--to pawn. The packing-case in the basement was opened and rummaged through (a half-used chequebook from Toronto days was a pathetic relic!) for things on which Ikey of 3rd Avenue might offer a few dollars. The tennis cups, won at little Canadian tournaments, seemed attractive, he thought, but our English overcoats would fetch most money. The weather was still comfortable ... we sallied forth, hoping Mrs. Bernstein would not see us, carrying two tennis cups and a couple of good overcoats. Everybody stared and grinned, it seemed, though actually of course, no one gave us a glance. Boyde, humming Lohengrin, was absolutely nonchalant. For me, the pawnbroker's door provided sensations similar to those I knew when first entering the Hub just a year before.
"I want ten dollars on these," said Boyde, in a firm voice. "What'll you give? I shall take 'em out next week."
The Jew behind the counter gave one glance at the tennis cups, then pushed them contemptuously aside; ​the overcoats he examined carefully, holding them up to the light for holes or threadbare patches, feeling the linings, turning the sleeves inside out.
"Good English cloth," mentioned Boyde. "Hardly used at all."
"A dollar each," said the man, laying them down as though the deal was finished. He turned to make out the tickets. He had not looked at us once yet.
Boyde picked them up and turned to go. "Two dollars," he said flatly, "I can get five in 4th Avenue."
"Go ged it," was the reply, the man's back still turned on us.
Boyde gave a cheery laugh. "Make it three dollars for the two," he suggested in an off-hand manner, "with another couple for the cups. They're prizes. We wouldn't lose them for worlds."
The man looked at us for the first time; we were fairly well dressed, obviously English, three hulking customers of a type he was not used to. Perhaps he really believed we might redeem the cups one day. "Worth less than nozzing," he said in his Yiddish accent. The keen, appraising look he gave us made me feel even less than that.
"Worth a lot to us, though," came Boyde's quick comment.
"Name?" queried the man, bending over a table with his back turned again.
"John Doe," came promptly, and a moment later, with the ticket, the Jew handed out four dirty dollar bills and fifty cents in coin. The interest was twelve per cent. per month, and the articles could be redeemed any time up to the end of a year.
"Never ask more than you really need at the moment," was Boyde's advice as we came out into the street. "I could have raised him a few dollars probably, but, remember, you'll have to get the coats out again before long."
When we got back to the room a Western Union telegram lay on the table for him; it was from Davis: "Please call to-morrow 3 o'clock without fail re Rock​ away," it read. And hope ran high. That night we spent half of our new money at Krisch's, giving a tip of thirty cents to Otto....
Some ten days to a fortnight had passed, and October with its cooler winds had come, though life was still possible without overcoats. Our dress-clothes were now in Ikey's, moth-balls beside them. The Chinese laundry had been paid, but not the second week's rent, for money was very low and dinners of the smallest. Practice at the free lunch counters had improved our methods of strolling up absent-mindedly, perceiving the food apparently for the first time, then picking up with quick fingers the maximum quantity. Kay, meanwhile, had secured a part in a touring company which was to start out for a series of one-night stands in about three weeks, his salary of fifteen dollars to begin with the first night. He was already rehearsing. My own efforts had produced nothing. Boyde, too, had not yet landed his huntsman job, which was to include comfortable quarters as well as a good salary. I had been down with him when he went to see Davis, waiting in the street till he came out, and the interview, though reassuring, he told me, involved a little further delay still. He, therefore, continued his odd jobs, calling at the theatre every night and matinée to see if he was wanted, playing the organ in church occasionally, and getting a small fee for singing in the choir. He shared with us as we shared with him; he slept on the sofa in our room; he was welcome to wear my extra suits of clothes--until Ikey might care to see them.
Then, quite suddenly, fate played a luckier card.
Kay and I were at the free lunch counter of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Boyde having been called away to do something at his Baptist church, when Bob Mantell strolled up, bringing a tall, grey-haired man with him. The next minute he was introducing me to Cecil Clay, with a remark to the effect that he must surely have known my father, and that I surely must know Mr. Clay's famous book on whist. Cecil Clay, anyhow, was a kindly old Englishman, and evidently was aware how the land lay ​with us, for a few minutes later he had given me a card to Laffan, manager of the New York Sun. "Go and see him the day after to-morrow," he said. "Meanwhile I'll write him a line about you."
Had it been possible to go then and there I should have felt more confidence and less nervousness than when I called at the appointed hour. The interval, with its hopeful anticipation and alternate dread, was a bad preparation for appearing at my best. After a few questions, however, Mr. Laffan, a man of very powerful position in the newspaper world, a great art collector and connoisseur, head, too, of the Laffan News Bureau, said that Mr. McCloy, managing editor of the Evening Sun, would give me a trial as a reporter, and I could start next Monday—four days away—at fifteen dollars a week. I had mentioned that I knew French and German, and could write shorthand. He spoke to me in both languages, but, luckily, he did not think of testing the speed and accuracy of my self-taught Pitman.
On the staff of a great New York newspaper! That it was anti-British and pro-Tammany did not bother me. A reporter! A starting salary of £3 a week that might grow! I wrote the news to my father that very afternoon, and that night Kay, Boyde and I had almost a festive dinner at Krisch's restaurant—that is, we ended with sweets and coffee. The following day I spent practising my rusty shorthand, about 90 words a minute being my best speed consistent with legibility. Would it be fast enough? I might have spared myself the trouble for all the use shorthand was to me on the Evening Sun during the two years I remained with it. Only once—much later, when I was with the New York Times, did it prove of value, securing for me on that occasion an increase of salary. . . . The slogan of the Sun, printed on each copy was, "If you See it in the Sun it is so!" accuracy the strong point. The Times preferred a moral tinge: "All the News that's Fit to Print." Both mottoes were faithfully observed and rigidly practised.