Gradually Raggles became conscious of certain types. One was an elderly gentleman with a snow–white, short beard, pink, unwrinkled face and stony, sharp blue eyes, attired in the fashion of a gilded youth, who seemed to personify the city's wealth, ripeness and frigid unconcern. Another type was a woman, tall, beautiful, clear as a steel engraving, goddess–like, calm, clothed like the princesses of old, with eyes as coldly blue as the reflection of sunlight on a glacier. And another was a by–product of this town of marionettes—a broad, swaggering, grim, threateningly sedate fellow, with a jowl as large as a harvested wheat field, the complexion of a baptized infant and the knuckles of a prize–fighter. This type leaned against cigar signs and viewed the world with frappéd contumely.
A poet is a sensitive creature, and Raggles soon shrivelled in the bleak embrace of the undecipherable. The chill, sphinx–like, ironical, illegible, unnatural, ruthless expression of the city left him downcast and bewildered. Had it no heart? Better the woodpile, the scolding of vinegar–faced housewives at back doors, the kindly spleen of bartenders behind provincial free–lunch counters, the amiable truculence of rural constables, the kicks, arrests and happy–go–lucky chances of the other vulgar, loud, crude cities than this freezing heartlessness.
Raggles summoned his courage and sought alms from the populace. Unheeding, regardless, they passed on without the wink of an eyelash to testify that they were conscious of his existence. And then he said to himself that this fair but pitiless city of Manhattan was without a soul; that its inhabitants were manikins moved by wires and springs, and that he was alone in a great wilderness.
Raggles started to cross the street. There was a blast, a roar, a hissing and a crash as something struck him and hurled him over and over six yards from where he had been. As he was coming down like the stick of a rocket the earth and all the cities thereof turned to a fractured dream.
Raggles opened his eyes. First an odor made itself known to him—an odor of the earliest spring flowers of Paradise. And then a hand soft as a falling petal touched his brow. Bending over him was the woman clothed like the princess of old, with blue eyes, now soft and humid with human sympathy. Under his head on the pavement were silks and furs. With Raggles's hat in his hand and with his face pinker than ever from a vehement burst of oratory against reckless driving, stood the elderly gentleman who personified the city's wealth and ripeness. From a nearby café hurried the by–product with the vast jowl and baby complexion, bearing a glass full of a crimson fluid that suggested delightful possibilities.
«Drink dis, sport,» said the by–product, holding the glass to Raggles's lips.
Hundreds of people huddled around in a moment, their faces wearing the deepest concern. Two flattering and gorgeous policemen got into the circle and pressed back the overplus of Samaritans. An old lady in a black shawl spoke loudly of camphor; a newsboy slipped one of his papers beneath Raggles's elbow, where it lay on the muddy pavement. A brisk young man with a notebook was asking for names.
A bell clanged importantly, and the ambulance cleaned a lane through the crowd. A cool surgeon slipped into the midst of affairs.
«How do you feel, old man?» asked the surgeon, stooping easily to his task. The princess of silks and satins wiped a red drop or two from Raggles's brow with a fragrant cobweb.
«Me?» said Raggles, with a seraphic smile, «I feel fine.»
He had found the heart of his new city.
In three days they let him leave his cot for the convalescent ward in the hospital. He had been in there an hour when the attendants heard sounds of conflict. Upon investigation they found that Raggles had assaulted and damaged a brother convalescent—a glowering transient whom a freight train collision had sent in to be patched up.
«What's all this about?» inquired the head nurse.
«He was runnin' down me town,» said Raggles.
«What town?» asked the nurse.
«Noo York,» said Raggles.
VANITY AND SOME SABLES
When «Kid» Brady was sent to the rope by Molly McKeever's blue–black eyes he withdrew from the Stovepipe Gang. So much for the power of a colleen's blanderin' tongue and stubborn true–heartedness. If you are a man who read this, may such an influence be sent you before 2 o'clock to–morrow; if you are a woman, may your Pomeranian greet you this morning with a cold nose—a sign of doghealth and your happiness.
The Stovepipe Gang borrowed its name from a sub–district of the city called the «Stovepipe,» which is a narrow and natural extension of the familiar district known as «Hell's Kitchen.» The «Stovepipe» strip of town runs along Eleventh and Twelfth avenues on the river, and bends a hard and sooty elbow around little, lost homeless DeWitt Clinton park. Consider that a stovepipe is an important factor in any kitchen and the situation is analyzed. The chefs in «Hell's Kitchen» are many, and the «Stovepipe» gang, wears the cordon blue.
The members of this unchartered but widely known brotherhood appeared to pass their time on street corners arrayed like the lilies of the conservatory and busy with nail files and penknives. Thus displayed as a guarantee of good faith, they carried on an innocuous conversation in a 200–word vocabulary, to the casual observer as innocent and immaterial as that heard in clubs seven blocks to the east.
But off exhibition the «Stovepipes» were not mere street corner ornaments addicted to posing and manicuring. Their serious occupation was the separating of citizens from their coin and valuables. Preferably this was done by weird and singular tricks without noise or bloodshed; but whenever the citizen honored by their attentions refused to impoverish himself gracefully his objections came to be spread finally upon some police station blotter or hospital register.
The police held the «Stovepipe» gang in perpetual suspicion and respect. As the nightingale's liquid note is heard in the deepest shadows, so along the «Stovepipe's» dark and narrow confines the whistle for reserves punctures the dull ear of night. Whenever there was smoke in the «stovepipe» the tasselled men in blue knew there was fire in «Hell's Kitchen.»
«Kid» Brady promised Molly to be good. «Kid» was the vainest, the strongest, the wariest and the most successful plotter in the gang. Therefore, the boys were sorry to give him up.
But they witnessed his fall to a virtuous life without protest. For, in the Kitchen it is considered neither unmanly nor improper for a guy to do as his girl advises.
Black her eye for love's sake, if you will; but it is all–to–the–good business to do a thing when she wants you to do it.
«Turn off the hydrant,» said the Kid, one night when Molly, tearful, besought him to amend his ways. «I'm going to cut out the gang. You for mine, and the simple life on the side. I'll tell you, Moll—I'll get work; and in a year we'll get married. I'll do it for you. We'll get a flat and a flute, and a sewing machine and a rubber plant and live as honest as we can.»
«Oh, Kid,» sighed Molly, wiping the powder off his shoulder with her handkerchief, «I'd rather hear you say that than to own all of New York. And we can be happy on so little!»
The Kid looked down at his speckless cuffs and shining patent leathers with a suspicion of melancholy.
«It'll hurt hardest in the rags department,» said he. «I've kind of always liked to rig out swell when I could. You know how I hate cheap things, Moll. This suit set me back sixty–five. Anything in the wearing apparel line has got to be just so, or it's to the misfit parlors for it, for mine. If I work I won't have so much coin to hand over to the little man with the big shears.»