To Him That Hath

Again the Mayor stared, and again his face took on its stern look. "So you're that man!" he said slowly. "I remember about it. The Mission ain't far from here. Well, friend, one o' my waiters'd fire me out o' here for disorderly conduct if I told you in plain English what I think o' that trick. But it was a dirty, low-down piece o' business, and what came to you is only a little part o' what you should 'a' got."

David rose. It was as he had expected – another refusal. "I see you care to do nothing for me. Good morning."

"Did I say so? Set down. You're talkin' the truth – that's somethin'. At least it don't sound much like one o' them fancy little lies a fellow makes up to make a good impression. Well, what d'you want from me?"

David sat down. He spoke quickly, desperately. "I came back from prison determined to live honestly. I've been trying for four months to get work. No one will have me. I won't tell you what I've been through. I must have work, if I'm to live at all. I've come to you because I thought you might help me get work – any kind of work."

For a minute or more the Mayor silently studied David's thin features. Then he said abruptly: "Excuse me for leavin' your troubles, but I been out in this cold air and I'm as empty as my hat. I've got to have a bite to eat, or I'll all cave in. And you'll have some with me. I don't like to eat alone.

"Oh, John!" the deep voice roared out. "Say, John, fetch us some eggs. How'll you have your eggs? Scrambled? Scrambled eggs, John, bacon, rolls and coffee for two.

"Now back to your troubles, friend." He shook his head slowly. "You're up against a stiff proposition. There ain't much of a demand for ex-crooks right now."

He once more began to scrutinise David's face. "Don't let this bother you, friend; I'm just seein' what's inside you," he said, and continued his stare.

One minute passed, two minutes, and that fixed gaze did not shift. David grew weak with suspense. He knew he was on trial, and that the next moment would hear his sentence.

Suddenly the Mayor thrust a big hand across the table and grasped David's. "It ain't the icy mitt for you. Jobs are scarce, but – let's see. What kind o' work have you done? I remember readin' about you; wasn't you a professor, or somethin' in that line o' business?"

David swam in a vertigo of vast relief; his hand instinctively clutched the edge of the table; the Mayor's face looked blurred, far away… "I was a writer … for magazines."

"My pull wouldn't help a lot with the literary push." The Mayor's eyes again became keen. "And I suppose you now want somethin' o' the same sort – somethin' fancy?"

The dizziness was subsiding. "Anything – so it's work!"

The Mayor meditated a moment. "Well, I only know o' one job just now, and you wouldn't have it."

"What is it?" demanded David, tensely.

"The agent o' the house where I live told me a couple o' days ago he wanted a new janitor."

"I'll take it!"

"Sweepin' – scrubbin' – sortin' rubbish – everybody cussin' you – twelve dollars a month."

The wages made David hesitate. He calculated. "I'll take it – if the agent will have me."

"He'll have you. Rogers's got a special interest in chaps that're makin' the fight you're makin'."

David half rose. "Hadn't I better see him at once?" he asked, anxiously. "The job may be taken any minute."

"Set down, young man. That job ain't goin' to run away. Here comes breakfast. I'll go with you when we're through. Gee, I could eat a house."

David made no boasts, but when he rose from his first meal since the midnight supper with Kate Morgan thirty-three hours before, he had effaced his share of the breakfast. He noted that the Mayor's portion had hardly been touched, and the Mayor saw he observed this. "I had a sudden turn o' the stomach," the Mayor explained. "I never know when it's goin' to let me eat, or when it's goin' to say there's nothin' doin'."

They walked away through a deep cross street of red tenements with fire-escapes climbing the walls like stark, grotesque vines. David was filled with dread lest he might find the position already occupied. He wanted to run. But despite his suspense he had to notice that the Mayor was smiling at all the women on both sides of the street, and that every pretty one who passed was followed by a look over the Mayor's shoulder.

At the end of five minutes they turned into a tenement of the better sort, on the large front window of whose first floor David read in gilt letters, "John Rogers – Real Estate."

"Here's where I live – on the floor above," said the Mayor. "You just wait here in the hall a minute or two while I have a chat with Rogers."

The Mayor entered the office, and David paced the narrow hallway. Would he get the job? No – this Rogers would never hire a thief. Anyhow, even if Rogers would, someone else had the job already. It couldn't be true that at last he was to gain a foothold – even so poor a foothold. No, this was to be merely one more rejection.

At length the Mayor came out, carefully smoothing the few hairs that lined his crown like a sheet of music paper. "Rogers is waitin' for you; go right in. See you soon. Good-bye." He shook hands and went out, cautiously replacing his hat.

David entered, palpitant. The office was bare, save for real estate maps on the walls, a few chairs and a desk. Mr. Rogers turned in his swivel chair and motioned David to a seat beside him. "Mr. Hoffman has told me about you," he said, briefly, and for a moment he silently looked David over; and David, for his part, did the same by the man whose "yes" or "no" was about to re-create or destroy him. Mr. Rogers was a slight, spectacled man with dingy brown hair and a reddish pointed beard; and his plain wrinkled clothes were instantly suggestive of mediocrity. His face had the yellowish pallor of old ivory, and its apparent stolidity would have confirmed the impression of his clothes, had there not gleamed behind his spectacles a pair of quick watchful eyes.

"Do you mind if I ask you about yourself?" Mr. Rogers said, quietly.

"Ask anything you please."

"Mr. Hoffman has told me of your – unfortunate experience of the last four or five years. Since coming out you have made a real effort at finding work?"

David outlined the struggles of the past four months. Mr. Rogers heard him through without show of emotion other than an increased brightness of the eyes, then asked: "Have you not, under such hard circumstances, been tempted to steal again?"

David paled, and hesitated. A reformed thief who had attempted theft no later than yesterday, would certainly not be employed. He saw his chance, so near, fade suddenly away. But he had determined upon absolute frankness.

"Yes," he admitted in a low tone. Then his voice became tremulous with appeal: "But I yielded only once! I was in the act of stealing – but I stopped myself. I could not. I took nothing! – not a thing!"

David expected to see the yellow face harden, but it did not change. "You know the character of the work," Mr. Rogers resumed. "It is not pleasant."

David's hope rushed back. "That makes no difference to me!"

"And the pay is small – only twelve dollars a month and your rent."

"Yes! Yes! That's all right!"

"Then," concluded the low, even voice, "if it's convenient to you, I should like to have you begin at once."

CHAPTER II

THE SAVING LEDGE

David, in a kind of trance, followed Mr. Rogers over the six-story house, hardly hearing the agent's discourse upon his duties and the tenants. Twenty-four families and a considerable number of boarders lived in the tenement – in all, close to a hundred and a half souls. They were mostly Germans and Jews – tailors, furriers, jewellers, shop-keepers; people who were beginning to gain a fair footing in their adopted country. David's work was to be much as the Mayor had outlined. The halls were to be daily swept and frequently scrubbed, minor repairs to be executed, the furnace to be attended to, and ashes, waste-paper and kitchen-refuse to be separated and prepared for the city's ash and garbage wagons.

The tour of installation ended, David started for his old home to begin the removal, armload at a time, of his few belongings. As he walked among the school-hurrying children, over snow grimed by ten thousand feet, he felt dazed for fear that this world of hope he had entered might suddenly vanish. Failure had been his so constantly that this beginning of success seemed unreal. He dared allow himself to feel only a tentative exultation.

At the entrance of his old tenement he met Kate Morgan coming out. He had not seen her since she had glided past him through Mr. Allen's hall, suit-case in hand. He stopped, at a loss what to do or say, wondering how she would receive him.

"Good afternoon," he said, heavily.

She paled, looked him squarely in the face and passed without a word. With a pang he watched her walk stiffly away. Her friendship, save for Tom's, was the only friendship he had known since he had left prison. Now it was lost.

An hour later, as he was coming from his room with his last armload, he met her again. She sneered in his face. "Coward!" she snapped out and brushed him by. He called after her, but she marched on and into her door without looking back.

David had thought his "rent" would be a single room, but it had proved to be a five-room flat in the basement. In the front room of this, during the odd moments his afternoon's work allowed him, he arranged his belongings, to which Mr. Rogers had added a bed, a table and a couple of chairs. When all was in order he found the room looked bare, beyond his needs. After all, his "rent" might as well have been but a single room. Little good to him were the four rooms behind, locked and vacant.

Darkness had fallen and he was sitting in his room wondering how he would live through the month that must elapse before his salary would be due, when Mr. Rogers came in.

"It has occurred to me that perhaps you could use a little ready money," Mr. Rogers said in his low voice, and he laid several bills upon David's table. "There's one month's wages in advance." And before David had recovered from his surprise, Mr. Rogers was out of the room.

While David was still staring at this money, there was another knock. He opened the door upon the Mayor of Avenue A. The Mayor walked in and lowered himself into the one rocking-chair.

"Well, I see you've landed with Rogers," he called out, as though David were a block away. "You'll find Rogers quiet, but the real thing. He's got a heart that really beats."

He looked about. "Just usin' this one room, I see. What're you doin' with the others?"

"Nothing."

"Why don't you rent 'em?"

"D'you think I can?"

"Can? You can't help it. Why, only yesterday a family was askin' me to help 'em find a cheap flat. Le's see how much them four rooms would be worth. I pay thirty a month up on the second floor; this might fetch sixteen or eighteen. You've got the best room; take that off and say – well, say twelve a month. How'd that suit you?"

"If I could only get it!"

The Mayor drew out a fat wallet. "That fixes my family up, then. Here's your twelve."

"You're in earnest?" David asked, slowly.

"Sure. The family'll be in to-morrow."

"But I can't take the money in advance – and from you."

"It ain't my money. It's theirs. And advance! – nothin'! Rent's always in advance. And if I don't cinch the bargain now, somebody'll come along and offer you thirteen, and then where'll I be? Here, stick this in your pants and shut up!"

David took the money. "Mr. Hoffman, I don't know how I can ever thank you for your favours – "

"Oh, this ain't no favour. This's business. But if you think it's a favour – well, some day I may be on my uppers. Remember it then." A pillowy hand drew forth his watch, lit up with diamonds. "Well, by George, if I don't chase right over to my joint I won't even have any uppers. My blamed waiters's always forgettin' to water the soup!"

When he was alone David sat with eyes looking at his fortune, which he had heaped upon the table, and with mind looking at the situation in which he now found himself. Five years before he would have regarded this janitor's position much as a man on a green, sun-lit bank of a cliff-walled torrent would regard a little bare ledge below against which the water frothed in anger – as something not worth even a casual thought. But he had been in that stream, which sweeps its prey onward to destruction; his hands had slipped from its smooth walls; and just as he had been going down he had caught the little ledge and dragged himself upon it – and now this bare rock to him was the world. He did not think of the green fields and the sun above, toward which he must try to climb; he could only, as it were, lie gasping upon his back, and marvel at the miracle of his escape.

He was still sitting so when there was still another knock. He had asked his landlady to send Tom over when the boy returned, and as he crossed the room he hoped he would find Tom at the door. Sure enough, there stood the boy. He came in quietly, with hesitation, for during the past week and more the two had hardly spoken – they had merely been aware of one another's existence.

"What's all dis mean?" he asked slowly, looking round in amazement.

In a rush of spirits David clapped his hands on Tom's shoulders. "It means, my boy, that we're going to begin to live! See this room? The rent's paid for as long as we stay here. And look at the table!"

Tom looked instead at David's face. "Gee, pard, if you ain't got a grin!" he cried. Forthwith a grin appeared on his own face. He turned to the table – and stared.

"Say, look at de bank!" he gasped.

"That's something to eat, Tom. And new clothes. There's twenty-four dollars in that pile, and twenty-four coming in every month, with no rent to pay."

"Don't say nuttin, pard. If dis is a dream, just let me sleep. But what's de graft? How did you get next to all dis?"

David related his day's experience. When he had ended Tom did a few steps of a vaudeville dance, then seized David's hand.

"Well, ain't dis luck! It's like God woke up. But what you goin' to do wid all de coin?"

"Oh, buy railroads and such things!"

David held on to the hand the boy had given him and took the other. "Tom," he said gravely, looking down into the boy's face, "I've got an idea neither of us is very proud of all the things he's done lately. D'you think so?"

The boy's eyes fell to the floor.

"I shouldn't care to tell you all I've done. Should you care to tell me?"

The tangled head shook.

"Well, from now on we're going to be straight – all on the level. Aren't we?"

Tom looked up. "I guess we are, pard," he said in a low voice.

They looked steadily into each other's eyes for a moment. Then David gave Tom a quick push. "On with your hat, my boy! Let's see if the grocery man won't take some of this money."

After their dinner had been bought, eaten, and the dishes cleared away, David began to tack up prints. Tom meditatively watched him for several minutes, then suddenly announced:

"I seen her to-day."

David turned sharply. He knew the answer, but he asked, "Saw who?"

"You know. De lady what I fetched up. I seen her on de street."

David tried to appear unconcerned. "Did she say anything?"

"She asked how you was."

"What did you tell her?"

"I didn't know what to say. I was afraid o' queerin' somet'ing you might 'a' told her. I just said you was better."

David tacked up another print, during which time Tom again watched him thoughtfully. Then Tom asked, abruptly:

"She's a friend o' yourn, ain't she?"

"No."

"I t'ought she was!" His voice was disappointed. "Why ain't she?"

"Well – I guess she don't like me."

"Don't like you!" cried Tom indignantly. "Den she's had a bum steer!" He thought. "I wonder what's queered her agin' you?"

"Oh, several things," David answered vaguely. Then obeying an impulse, born of the universal craving for sympathy, he went on: "For one thing, she believes I put you up to stealing."

"She t'inks you knew anyt'ing about dat!" he cried, springing up excitedly.

"She believes you were stealing regularly, and that it was all done under my direction."

"Is dat de way she sizes up de facts? Well, ain't dat just like a woman! Wouldn't it just freeze your eyeballs, de way goils do t'ings!

"But see here, pard. Swell friends can do a guy a lot o' good. Why don't you hang on to her? Why don't you put her wise?"

"She wouldn't believe me. My boy – " the tone tried to be light – "when the world is certain to regard your truth as a lie, it's just as well to keep still."

David went on with his tacking, and a minute or more went by before Tom asked, quietly: "But wouldn't you like her to know de facts? Wouldn't you like her to be your friend?"

"Oh, yes – why not?" David responded in his voice of affected unconcern.

Tom gazed steadily at David's back, his thin face wrinkled with thought. At length his head nodded, and he said to himself in a whisper: "So she t'inks he put me up to it, does she?"

CHAPTER III

A PROPHECY

At the end of the afternoon, a few days later, a fierce battle was being waged in the basement room that was the Aldrich home, when a knock made David lower his defensive fists.

"Ah, don't stop, pard," Tom begged of his cornered enemy. "Let 'em pound. It's just somebody else kickin' about de heat."

"We'll only stop a second. Ask what they want, and say I'll attend to it at once."

Tom, grumbling fiercely, opened the door. "What's de matter?" he demanded. "Ain't you got no heat?"

But it was not an angry tenant who stepped in from the darkness of the hall. It was Helen Chambers. She was flushed, and excitement quivered in her eyes. She looked from one pillow-fisted belligerent to the other, and said, smiling tremulously:

"I had thought there was no heat, but after looking at you I've decided there's plenty. Is this the way you always receive complainants?"

Tom glanced guiltily at David, then darted behind Helen and through the door. David gazed at her, loose-jawed. Suddenly he remembered his shirt-sleeves.

"I beg your pardon," he said, and in his bewilderment he tried to thrust his huge fists into his coat.

"Perhaps you can do that" – again the tremulous smile – "but I really don't think you can."

"I should take the gloves off, of course," he stammered. He frantically unlaced them, slipped into his coat, and then looked at her, throbbing with wonderment as to why she had come.

She did not leave him in an instant's doubt. She stepped toward him with outstretched hand, her smile gone, on her face eager, appealing earnestness.

"I have come to ask your forgiveness," she said with her old, direct simplicity. "I believed that you and the boy were – pardon me! – were stealing together; that you were letting yourself slip downward. This afternoon the boy came to me at St. Christopher's and told me the real story. I could hardly wait till I was free so that I could hurry to you and ask you to forgive me."

"Forgive you!" David said slowly.

"Forgive me for my unjust judgment," she went on, a quaver in her voice. "I judged from mere appearance, mere guess-work. I was cold – horrid. I am ashamed. Forgive me."

Her never-expected coming, her never-expected words, rendered him for the moment speechless. He could only gaze into her fresh face, so full of earnestness, of appeal.

"You do not forgive me?" she asked.

David thrilled at the tremulous note in her voice. "I have nothing to forgive. You could not help judging as you did."

Her deep brown eyes, looking straight into his face, continued the appeal.

"I forgive you," he said in a low voice.

"Thank you," she said simply; and she pressed his hand.

"And I came for something else," she went on, "I came to assure you of my friendship, if it can mean anything to you – to tell you how much I admire your brave and bitter upward struggle. I'd be so happy if there was some way I could help you, and if you'd let me."

"You want to help me!" was all he could say.

"Yes. Won't you let me – please!"

He throbbed with exultation. "Then you believe I am now honest!"

"You have proved that you are – proved it by the way you have resisted temptation during these four terrible months."

His eyes suddenly sank from hers to the floor. Her words had brought back New Year's eve. She had come to him with friendship because she was certain of his unfallen determination to make his new life an honest life. If she knew of that night in Allen's house, would she be giving him this praise, this offer?

The temptation to say nothing rose, but he could not requite frankness and sincerity such as hers with the lie of silence – he could not accept her friendship under false pretenses. He looked up and gazed at her steadily.

"I am innocent where you thought me guilty, but" – he paused; the truth was hard – "but I am guilty where you think me innocent."

She paled. "What do you mean?" she asked in a fearing voice.

"I have not resisted temptation."

He saw that his words had hurt her, and there was a flash of wonder that a lapse of his should give her pain. An appeal, full of colour, of feeling, that would justify himself to her was rising to his lips, but before it passed them he suddenly felt himself so much the wronged that his confession came forth an abrupt outline of his acts, spoken with no shame.

"I had been starved, rebuffed, for over three months. I grew desperate. Temptation came. I yielded. I entered a house – entered it to steal. But I did not steal. I could not. I came away with nothing."

He paused. His guilt was out. He awaited her judgment, fearful of her condemnation, with resentment ready for it if it came.

"Is that all!" she cried.

Vast relief quivered through him. "You mean then that – " He hesitated.

"That you have been fiercely tempted, but you are not guilty."

"You see it so!"

"Yes. Had you conquered temptation on the outer side of the door, you would certainly have been guiltless. Since you conquered temptation on the inner side of the door, I cannot see that those few more steps are the difference between guilt and innocence."

They were both silent a moment.

"But don't you want to tell me something about yourself – about your plans?" she asked.

The friendship in her voice, in her frank face, warmed him through. "Certainly," he said. "But there's very little to tell."

He now became aware that all the while they had been standing. "Pardon my rudeness," he said, and set a chair for her beside the table, and himself took a chair opposite her.

"There is little to tell," he repeated. "I am what you see – the janitor of this house." As he spoke the word "janitor" it flashed upon him that there had been a time when, in his wild visions, he had thought of winning this woman to be his wife. He flushed.

"Yes, I know. But you have other plans – other ambitions."

"A week ago my ambition was to find work that would keep me alive," he returned, smiling. "I have just attained that ambition. I have hardly had time to dream new dreams."

"But you will dream them again," she said confidently.

"I had them when – when I came back, and I suppose they will return."

"Yes. Go on!"

He had thought, in his most hopeful moments, that some day she might regard him with a distant friendliness, but he had never expected such an interest as was shown in her eager, peremptory tone. "There were two dreams. One was this: I wondered, if I were honest, if I worked hard, if I were of service to those about me, could I, after several years, win back the respect of the world, or its semi-respect? You know the world is so thoughtless, so careless, so slow to forgive. And I wondered if perhaps, after several years, I could win back the respect of some of my old friends?"

"I was sure that was one dream, one plan," she said, quietly. "For myself – " She gave him her hand.

"Thank you!" he said, his voice low and threaded with a quaver.

"And though the world is thoughtless, and slow to forgive, and though the struggle will be hard, I'm certain that you are going to succeed." Her rich voice was filled with quiet belief. "And the other dream?"