The Second Class Passenger: Fifteen Stories

up against a pile of books on his table, when the noises from the street reached him, and interrupted his m

unenterprising face, neatly bearded, and generally a little vacant. The accident that gave him a Russian mother was his main qualification for the post he now held-that of representative

an with a rapt, uncertain face and a tumbled mane of black hair. There were also a little, grave wife and a fat, grave baby; and these, when they were visible, received separate and distinctive nods, and always returned them. The hide-sellers and tanners were, for the most par

er that held him gazing and apprehensive; it had a harsher note than mirth. It seemed to him, too, that some of the men in the doorway were in uniform; he could see them only in outline, mere black silhouettes against the interior lights; but t

lute nervously. And, as though in answer to his remonstrance

his," he told hims

ons in which women screamed on that tense note of anguish and terror; he had never done a violent thing in all his days. There was no clear purpose in his mind as he pulled open his door to go out-merely

n the instrument proved too long for his pocket, and we

ere acclimatized to the darkness he smelt sheepskin coats and tan-bark. He touched one big man on the arm and

ew that the police are clearing ou

" said Lucas,

here was no more screaming. He had a sense that unless he hurried he might be too late for what was in preparation. The crowd seemed to be waiting for some culminating scen

d breathlessly, as

sound of strife. Lucas put up an uncertain hand to guard the blow. It, was the

ghterer, arrested by t

eat clothes, his genera

you?" he

!" repeat

erer in his suspicion that this

s Excellency. Let his Excellency come through! Don't

path, and drove through like a snow-plough. Lucas followed along

the people within the bright windows; he saw something that had the look of a struggle. Voices babbled, and the crowd pressed closer; and suddenly, from the open doorway, two figures reeled forth, clutching and thrusting. One was in uniform, the other was a

ty of resource. He was directly in the flying woman's path, and she rushed at him as to a refuge. He was the sole thing in that narrow arena of dread which she did not recognize as a figure of oppression; and s

in the pitiful idiom o

Lucas vaguely, and pu

of force and potency in his blood; he stood upright with a start to confront the policeman who was on the woman's heels. The man was grinning still, fatuously and co

poke in a low tone, and the

ed at him, amazed

ed; "Excellency-t

the flute across the bowed head of the woma

r," said Lucas, in the same tone of icy ang

an. "Get up," he s

The peering crowd made a ring of brute faces about them, full of menace and mystery, but the new power in him moved them to right and left at his gesture, and they ga

iculties might have been increased. He peered in the darkness, and was visible as a narrow, black-moustached face, with heavy eyebrows and a brutal m

" he said, "

ouch aided him to use big words. As a resident in Tambov he knew the officer by sight, and had always been a li

he said. "I saw wh

swung open. He motioned the woman to enter,

ented a click

d a step. Lucas extended an arm and the h

that! You can go to the Governor, if you like, and I wil

udying his antagonist. "If you wish to aid her, you must

. "Can't I?!" he demanded threateningly. "But I have taken her, man.

duty," persi

am not a woman who can be insulted with safety; my arrest will have to be explained to St. Petersburg, and you will have t

the absorbed audience of this conference. "Move away, there," he

could speak unheard by them. Then he turned to Lucas

want with h

meaning reached him he trembled. "I don't want her," he cried. "I don't want her. Y

officer, but there was

said

a provincial police official to attract notice in remote St. Petersburg. For all he knew, this flimsy little man, who had snatched his Jewess from him, might

speak with the chief?" he suggested. "Yo

t," said Lu

. It needed an effort to maintain an assured and uncompromising front. Behind him, on the unlighted stairs, the woman breathed heavily. He

seize him; there was an urgent necessity for some action that should quell him. Like all weak men

have heard what I had to s

officer, at the sudden lifting of his arm, made

lf ecstasy he smote, and the flute bea

ulated the offic

es to the doorway. The officer was not quick enough to see his panic-stricken retirement. He recovered his sight only to see the slam of the door, which seeme

tsteps on the cobbles as he departed. He waited, hardly daring to relax his mind to ho

t some disorder of her hair and dress to betoken her troubles. Even the child in her arms, worn out with weeping perhaps, had fallen asleep. He stared at the pair of them vacantly. H

rious way she had a certain striking beauty.

t?" he sai

e child down," she

head, as though in obedience to a command he had given, and carried the child out. Lucas watched he

t the child. He noticed that she left the door partly open to hear it

es on his face, and, without speaking, fell on her kne

vement she had held the child to him in frantic appeal, the simple soul within him flamed into splendor, and he was in touch with great passions a

," he told her. "Nobody

straight from God; she had seen him conquering a

"I am not afraid. To-morrow som

her. "Milk, too, if the child wants it. And nobody can come up

ea. "They would never dar

good-night, and found himself on the dark and chilly stairs without so much as a pillow or a blanket to make sleep possible. For lack of anything else in the shape of a wea

lute would still make music. It would not. It is too much to ask of any instrument that has been used as an instrument o

officer pretty hard,

rt L

They entered the room while he was entertaining the baby with a whistled selection from his repertoire of flute

e their eyes examined him shrewdly. They were bearded, aquiline persons, soft-spoken and wit

r of them, when formal greetings had been exchan

any thanks," p

anks he had already received tran

ent on. "I'm glad I could help. E

; "he is safe, therefore. But he spent the nig

ngue Lucas could not understand. He saw that she pointed to him and to the bedroo

we have more to thank you for than we th

Lucas. "You see, a lad

e spirit. And you do not want any thanks? So? But we Jews,

ucas answered him. "I'm gl

generous. But some day, perhaps, you will have a need-

child. She bowed her head and murmured something

," repeated the old Jew,

hen he was once more alone in his

chair, dimly realizing it, with vague and wordless regrets. Then, upon the table, he saw the flute, a

room at Tambov rises on Robert H. Lucas in New York, with the passage of time marked on him as clearly as on a clock. With grey in his beard and patches on his boots, and quarters in a boarding-house in Long Island City, he is still concerned with leather, but no longer prosperous. His work involves much calling on dealers and manufacturers, and their manner of receiving him has done nothin

trial of a man whom he had seen in the street cutting blood-spots out of his clothing. He had bought a paper which mentioned him to read on the ferry as he

eyed nothing to him. The body of the communication was typewritten, and stated that if Mr. Robert H.

st in the boarding-house was opposite to him, when he asked a question. "Say-d'you know what money

Lucas looked round

ferring to the letter, "that

suggested the young man opposite, with entir

ith incredulous interest to the talk that went on about the wealth, the greatness, the magnificence and power of the financi

nd he brought to his business efforts. They were near, but not in, Wall Street-a fact of some symbolic quality which he, of course, could not appreciate. He stood on the edge of the side-walk for some momen

in such an office as may have seen the first Rothschild make his first profits-a room austere as a chapel, rigidly confined to the needs of bus

ei

he central pigeon-hole, with eyes magnifi

rns with a jerk, and fumbled in his po

is de

h, and passed it over. The whiskered

at it's about,"

ave made a mistake in

he pigeon-hole, with malignant e

geted, with a sense that he was intrusive and petty and undesired. "Yes,

im forbiddingly. None spoke; they just looked as though in righteous indignation at his presence, with seventy-five cents

s, are you?" it inquired. "Den

aguely. "Let me see! 1886-yes!

. "An' now tell me aboud de man da

d Lucas. The other nodded. "Oh, hi

his v

her too," he answered. "I

last you h

, t

picion. The question had re-illuminated in his mind-perhaps for the first time since the event which it touched-that night of twen

emanded t

ords he told the story. He told it absently, languidly, for no words within his reach could convey the

he pigeon-hole h

ished. "You are de man. Ve do not

nd a pen which he laid on the

if you vill fill in and sign

was slow t

e other. "You fill it in-and s

om him in mere obedience to

ons are to ca

like the face of a wise and distrustful gnome, a

m I to writ

ions about de amou

"I might write fif

to cash de cheque ven

said

rote a cheque for the sum he had named-fifty thousand dollars.

t across the road to

he asked

ly: "No. It is because you went out

-"but that is a thing-why,

ions," said the man b

s

en a minute before. He had yet many calls to make, and, in the nature of things, many rebuffs to receive, before he went home to supper; and the money in his pock

dn't fail to respect a helpless

Yes. Because you gave up your ro

deal with a gentleman," he said. "I will make

figures clear and large. And then, with leisur

Robert H. Lucas, an