# Firecrackers/Chapter 3

The following foreday Campaspe found it imperative to employ the telephone twice. First, she called up Paulet to ask him to bring his boiler-mender to luncheon. He was, it was simple to deduce from the timbre of his voice, in a highly shattered mood, as nervous as a race-horse pawing the turf before the tape. Nothing, he assured her, would give him more pleasure than the ability to satisfy her desire, but he happened to be ignorant of the address of his esoteric guest. Should he come alone? The reply to this proposal was a decorous but curt No. Having thus summarily concluded this extremely unsatisfactory interview, Campaspe demanded another number from the recalcitrant operator. Laura Everest was the second person Mrs. Lorillard honoured with her early morning voice. She inquired if Consuelo might lunch with her at the Ritz—Basil, home from school convalescing after a slight illness, was coming too. However much this request may have disturbed Laura, she assented to the plan, and so a little before one the Lorillard motor stopped in front of the East Sixty-eighth Street house, where the Everests made their home, to pick up Consuelo.
Once the child was settled beside her in the car, ​Campaspe offered to buy her orchids. Couldn't we, she suggested, find the florist who sold you those magnificent flowers yesterday? Consuelo clapped her hands. I'll see Mr. O'Grady again, was her happy rejoinder. Campaspe hoped and believed she would, but when she spoke again it was merely to demand directions for finding the place. There occurred, just here, a hitch in the arrangements. Consuelo, it appeared, was uncertain as to the exact locality. She recalled that Aunt Jessie's car had turned from Thirty-sixth Street into Fifth Avenue, and that they had driven north for several blocks, but somewhere or other a caprice of the chauffeur had occasioned them to make a slight detour, so that a few hundred yards on Madison Avenue, together with two side streets, had been included in the route. The possibility that the flowers had been purchased on one of these increased the child's perplexity. Campaspe, who experienced a fierce desire to shake her, contented herself with urging gently, Try to recall the neighbourhood, dear. Doesn't a sign or the appearance of an adjacent shop come into your mind? Consuelo, who had her own compelling reasons for making this tour of rediscovery successful, was obliged to admit that her mind was apparently a complete blank in regard to these matters. Before they had entered the florist's door she had been in a listless mood and had given no heed to her surroundings, and after they had come out her state of excitement had equally ​prevented her from paying attention to marks of identification for which she could summon up no immediate interest. The child wracked her brains for a potential clue. It would have proved amusing, had Campaspe's impatience given her leave to enjoy such an emotion, to observe the miniature knit of the parthenic brow, to watch the little girl bury her frail face fecklessly in her hands with their tapering fingers. Basil, as usual, was silent. In any case he could be of no assistance. While these desperate sacrifices were being offered on the altar of Mnemosyne, the automobile rested dormant before the door of the Sixty-eighth Street house.
I know! Consuelo cried at last, as the light of a new intelligence shone in her eyes. There were stuffed doves in the window.
It seemed a remote beacon, but as it was unique, Campaspe ordered Ambrose to follow the trail. Now, while the chauffeur drove the car forward, every nose was snubbed against a pane, every eye sought for the vision of a stuffed dove. Consuelo was vague in regard to the number of blocks to be traversed on Madison Avenue, but she issued general directions which proved to be the reverse of helpful. When, after they had been held up at nearly every crossing by a policeman regulating traffic, they attained Thirty-sixth Street without having encountered a single stuffed dove, the quest appeared to be vain. Campaspe, however, was not to be so easily discouraged. Were it necessary she was ​quite prepared to engage a secretary merely for the purpose of calling up every florist listed in the classified telephone directory to inquire which of them kept stuffed doves. It was still possible to demand first aid of Jessie Hardy or her chauffeur, but, for the moment, while Ambrose drew up the car in front of Page and Shaw's, Campaspe contented herself by appealing to Consuelo to pray ardently once more to the mother of the Muses. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the prayer was answered. There had been, Consuelo was at last aware, a silversmith next door, in whose show-window silver pheasants and chased metal kings with ivory faces were displayed. To Campaspe, who was as well acquainted with this part of New York as she was with her own mind, this was an adequate signal. She gave Ambrose the requisite commands and soon the motor paused before the proper portal. The doves—inquiry elicited this information—had been removed only that morning in favour of fresher decorations. O'Grady, too, had taken his departure. Orchids, however, were obviously still in stock.
Very odd, Mrs. Lorillard, the shop-keeper was explaining, a very odd case. O'Grady was here yesterday and he is gone today. The best salesman I ever had. Willingly, I would have offered him twice the money to stay with me.
Had he been with you long? the furious Campaspe demanded.
​Only since yesterday morning. I had advertised for a salesman and he walked in about eight o'clock, along with ten other fellows. I engaged O'Grady; he worked all day; and last night he walked out. Nothing is missing; he did not even ask for his wages. He simply walked out and hasn't come back. I can't understand it!
Consuelo's disappointment was as keen as Campaspe's, but, after all, there was the matter of her orchids. She broached the subject.
The florist opened the glass doors of his brilliantly illuminated refrigerator.
Didn't you take down his address? Campaspe persisted.
No. I can't think why. It's the first time such a thing has ever happened. We always take down our employees' addresses. Stupid girl! He shook his fist at the cashier. That self-sufficient blonde was busily engaged in reading a novel by J. S. Fletcher and her absorption spared her a knowledge of the insulting gesture.
He was a particularly nice young man, Consuelo asseverated with dignity. I think, Mrs. Lorillard, I prefer the green ones to the mauve ones.
Are the orchids for the little girl? the florist inquired. In that case let me unpack a few white sprays that have just come in.
Pray, don't trouble, Consuelo remarked, a trifle scornfully. I prefer the green ones.
​As the troop evacuated, Basil spoke at last.
Mama, he begged, may I have chocolate ice-cream at the Ritz?
Paul, in the meantime, deprived of Campaspe's company at luncheon, ate a silent meal across the table from Vera. Several times she attempted to tell him about Consuelo's adventure in the flower-shop, but he was too preoccupied to listen. As soon as possible he returned to what had been his employment a good part of the morning, pacing up and down his little library, or at any rate the room which was his little library now. This chamber had originally been the pride of Bristol Whittaker, who had enjoyed a fancy for fine bindings and had indulged this taste extensively in orders and purchases from Rene Kieffer, Leon Gruel, Cobden Sanderson, Marius Michel, Noulhac, Canape, Mercier, Lortic, and the dealers in the work of dead binders. So long as the toolings were elaborate Whittaker had cared nothing about the contents of his collection and the volumes were indifferently by Ernest Renan, Pierre Loti, Gyp, Eliphas Lévi, Wilkie Collins, Mark Twain, and Henry James. It was doubtful if Paul would ever read these books. Even his own books, scattered over the great Sheraton desk, were largely neglected.
On this particular day Paul was not thinking about ​books at all. He chose to be in this room merely because it was more sympathetic to him than any other chamber in the house. For the first time in his life, he really believed, he was experiencing an emotion quite foreign to his temperament, the emotion of unsatisfied curiosity. There was, after all, he had discovered quite unwittingly, something more in life after you had become convinced that there was nothing, another turn around a strange corner, another contingency of interest, but the apparition which had imparted this important knowledge to him had disappeared before he had been given a fair opportunity to discover wherein its special properties lay. The fellow had decamped with a couple of books, too, but Paul was not fretting over this loss. I'd give him the books, he muttered, just to have him here again.
On the whole, it seemed improbable to Paul that he would be able to gratify this desire. An interview with the furnace company which had supplied the young man had yielded barren results. O'Grady—that, apparently, was the fellow's inappropriate cognomen—had, beyond doubt, worked for the firm for ten days, giving, it appeared, almost a nimiety of satisfaction. He was, the boss informed Paul in an astonishing flow of language which seemed to spurt from Roget, a gem of the first water, a treasure, one in a thousand, a find, a nonesuch, a prodigy, and the salt of the earth. There was, indeed, no question but that he might success​fully have demanded a substantial raise in wages. Instead, in the very middle of the week he had walked out, leaving no address behind him. Yes, it was customary for the firm to register the addresses of employees, but in this instance—the only case of the kind the boss could recall—some one had been careless. No, Mr. Moody could not possibly wish to find the fellow more than the furnace company did. The boss swore that he was almost ready to offer a reward for his apprehension. Possibly, O'Grady had met with foul play, even, perhaps, have been murdered, at least held in detention by some miscreant or other. There were, it was likely Mr. Moody had noted in the newspapers, kidnappers abroad. No hope of ransom in this case? The boss disillusioned Mr. Moody. He assured his questioner that he would be overjoyed to pay the ransom himself.
At least, from this interview, Paul had gleaned the suggestion of an advertisement. His first idea in regard to this public notice was worded in the following manner:
If the young man who dined with Mr. Moody at 73 East Fifty-fifth Street on Wednesday evening will kindly communicate with Mr. Moody at that address he will learn something to his advantage.
Gunnar O'Grady: I don't want the books, but we did not finish our conversation. Will you come back?
Paul Moody.
He had caused this to be inserted in the New York World and the New York Times this very morning. In the meantime Paul's perplexity increased, and it would have afforded him infinite solace to lunch with Campaspe in order to discuss ways and means for unravelling this exceedingly tangled skein. Campaspe, however, apparently had been in no mood to receive anything less than exact information. She had definitely rejected his proposal. Palpably, he must go it alone.
Nevertheless, Paul was fully aware that pacing the floor, in the manner of an unhappy tiger in the zoo, would not help him to a solution of the mystery. He would end by suffering a splitting headache. As a matter of fact—and Paul was by no means ignorant of this idiosyncrasy—any attitude of mind save nonchalance was bad for him, morally, spiritually, and constitutionally. He determined, therefore, to make an effort to rid himself of this unpleasant mental condition. At least, while he paced, he might breathe fresh air. It was a warm day for the season of the year. The sun was shining and the pavements were dry. Paul drew on a light coat, grasped a Malacca stick, and ventured forth.
​At first he strolled aimlessly this way and that, up and down the familiar thoroughfares near his home, glancing now and again apprehensively at some conspicuous window behind which might lurk a pair of spying eyes. Would any one observing him be conscious of the possibility that he was quite mad? he wondered. Turning, after a time, south on Park Avenue, he increased his speed, for, after all, he considered, as I am walking nowhere, the sooner I arrive the better. Then, noting a passing taxi which flaunted a green flag proclaiming the vehicle vacant, impulsively signalling the chauffeur to stop, he deposited himself within the car, curled himself up comfortably in the back seat, and lighted a cigarette.
Where to? the driver demanded.
Hell, I don't care. Flushing—confronted with the man's stare—he amended this to, I don't know, concluding a little lamely—inspired probably by the sight of two small boys engaged in fisticuffs on a nearby corner—The Battery.
The chauffeur drove his machine in the desired direction while Paul closed his eyes and smoked in a futile attempt to concentrate on a method for the solution of his irritating problem. His mind chose rather to consider the truth of a certain proverb: What one doesn't know does one no harm. How false! How utterly and completely false! Paul mused. Aside from having arrived at this important conclusion, his mind was as empty when he ​arrived at the Battery as it had been when he engaged the taxi. In spite of this disappointing state of affairs, following another impulse, he got out, paid the man, and entered the Aquarium.
At first, the tanks of fish, which he had never before inspected, served as a distraction. In turn he examined, not without interest, the white-fish swimming like pale ghosts, the mudfish, with their great sapphire eyes, only elsewhere to be discovered in nature on the wings of gaudy moths, set near the bases of their tails, the bony gar, resembling a dirigible, with its long tawny body, its extensive bony nose, and its under-fins, the great Jewfish, propelling itself fastuously about like a fish of a thousand years, the iridescent grouper, momentarily changing its colour, the green moray, so like a long, live, constantly waving velvet ribbon, the pretty sea-robins, the miraculous angel-fish, with their trusting, doglike eyes, fish that might have been created by Benozzo Gozzoli, and the parrot-fish, saffron and purple and turquoise-blue. It was amusing to watch these scaly creatures, so entirely self-satisfied, nosing around stupidly, displaying their vulgarly brilliant fins and turbine tails with complacency and pride, seeking flies and crumbs and discovering too often only bubbles, the bubbles that ascended incessantly behind the protecting vitrine from the depths of the tanks to the heights, like bright fountains of notes in the music of Ravel. All the paraphernalia here again, Paul thought, for another allegory about ​life and mankind. And the only man who knew the other secret, who was wise enough to understand how to be happy and intelligent at the same time, had vanished. It was some small comfort, anyway, to be aware that there existed one who did know, one who could explain if he so desired, even if it were impossible to find him.
Paul regarded, in passing, the sleek seal in the centre of the room; he cast a glance in the direction of the tortoises and the tiny salamanders, creatures conceived by God apparently for the sole purpose of inspiring the artisans who worked for Francois I. At last, somewhat harassed by the combined odours of fish and garlic, he left the Aquarium behind him, and cut straight across the Bowling Green. On he went, up Broadway, past Trinity Church, with its ancient tombstones mouldering in the peaceful churchyard, protected from the incongruous rush of public feet on the sidewalk by an iron grating, until he stood in a great square, where he paused to admire the Woolworth Building, a golden tower of fancy glittering in the afternoon sun, and the City Hall itself, as perfect an example of early American architecture, he remembered he had been informed some time or other, as could be seen in New York, and Paul realized that he had never seen it before. He had never before, indeed, save in an automobile, travelled south of Fourteenth Street.
His unpremeditated way now led him down Nassau Street and he noted the quaint names of the ​crossroads, Ann Street, John Street, Maiden Lane—he wondered if there might not be a Paul Place or a Campaspe Row. Cupid must work down here somewhere, was his pendent inspiration. That would be an idea, to call on Cupid. Determining to seek a drug-store where he might consult a telephone directory, he turned for this purpose into Ann Street. To Paul, this city by-way, with its Coca-Cola signs, pastry-shops, opticians, and billiardparlours, seemed as strange as an odd corner of old London. A sign caught his attention: Dress Suits and Cutaways to Hire. In another window a clearance sale of ties, offered to prospective buyers for twenty-nine cents each, was announced. On the corner a group of Salvation Army lassies was singing At the Cross, and a silent vendor peddled the Birth-Control Review. The sidewalk was crowded with pedestrians scurrying in full festinance in both directions, but in front of one window, three loiterers had collected, two shingle-haired stenographers and a Postal Telegraph messenger boy. Automatically, unreasonably, Paul joined them.
Behind the glass, across which was blazoned in gold letters: Morris Shidrowitz—Suits, a young man was engaged in drawing on and off a coat, pointing at intervals during the ceremony to descriptive placards. Cheap, Classy, Comfortable, read one recommendation; another, Warm, Practi​cal, Neat, Serviceable; while the third shrieked: See this detachable collar! The Warmknit Homespun Coat is the only coat made with a detachable collar. The actor in this utilitarian pantomime carried out his performance with the utmost gravity and efficiency. It was a pleasure to observe how one finger, poised at an identical angle with each repetition of the gesture, pointed to the succession of placards, how exactly similar was every like move the man made in every separate drawing on and off of the coat. Impelled, at last, to glance at the fellow's face, Paul very nearly shouted. It was he! The boiler-mender! Gunnar O'Grady, Esq. No other.
Paul tapped onthe pane. Gunnar, who until thus signalled appeared to be entirely oblivious of the fact that he acted before an audience, looked straight out, his eyes meeting Paul's. Breaking the rhythm of his exhibition long enough to give a sign of recognition, even a greeting, in which there indubitably lurked an expression of delight, he held up five fingers. Immediately thereafter, he returned to the studied routine of his job.
The five fingers, Paul argued with himself, might indicate one of two ideas: five minutes or five o'clock. After, therefore, he had waited in front of the window for a quarter of an hour longer and had observed no variation in the manœuvres—O'Grady had not even looked his way again—Paul ​entered the shop. The girls, meanwhile, had taken their departure, but the messenger boy, fascinated, lingered.
A pimply-faced clerk, with hands like the flippers of the seal in the Aquarium, hurried to Paul's side.
Do you want a coat, mister? he demanded.
No. I want to interview that fellow in your window.
Eyeing the false customer with suspicion, the clerk made no move.
I'm not a detective, Paul averred defensively. Reflecting afterwards, it seemed to him that this had been an idiotic remark to make.
The clerk beckoned to the shop-keeper, an old and bearded Jew who wore a long, black coat and a skull cap.
I am interested, Paul explained, in the young man in your window.
No, we don't want to buy nothing, Mr. Shidrowitz rejoined.
He's deef, the clerk offered by way of enlightenment. You have to yell.
I want to talk with the man in the window! Paul shouted.
No, we don't want nobody in the window. The old man shook his head cautelously. We got him already this morning.
The clerk, waving his unseemly flippers, came to the rescue. You can't see him now. He's workin'.
What time does he get through?
​Five o'clock.
Paul consulted his watch. It was now four. By way of making amends for his curious behaviour, he purchased two fiery red neckties, the first pair he picked up from a generous assortment, for fifty cents each. These, on his way out of the store, he promptly presented to the messenger boy, who accepted the gift, but not without grumbling that he wouldn't be caught drowneded in a red tie. Paul, after casting a long glance at the window for reassurance, started away. That last inspection had exposed to him Gunnar O'Grady in the act of underscoring the lines on the placard which descanted upon the superiority of the detachable collar of the Warmknit Homespun Coat. His ease and grace, his lack of self-consciousness, his facile assumption of this difficult and humiliating rele, were matters for Paul's consideration during his next perturbed hour.