Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

I glanced at Clancy's corner. There was anxiety there. I think during the seventh round, Clancy had seen his fifteen thousand going a-glimmering and Riley was no less emphatic than Flynn. There were but three more rounds—three rounds in which the Sailor could regain his lost ground and the heavyweight laurels that seemed to be slipping from him.

When the gong clanged, it was immediately to be seen that Clancy's whole plan of battle had changed. From some hidden sources in that great hulk of a body he drew new forces of energy. You will see the same thing in any wild beast of the jungle, a hidden reserve of nervous power and viciousness, most dangerous apparently when nearest extinction. He was ugly—his jowls shot forward, his brow lowering, his long arms shooting like pistons—a jungle beast at bay. Jerry stopped his progress again—again—with straight thrusts and uppercuts, but the man only covered up, crouched lower, and came on again. Once he caught Jerry in the stomach and I saw the boy wince with pain; again he reached Jerry's head, a terrific blow which would have sent him to the floor had Jerry not been moving away. And all the while Jerry's blows were landing, cutting the man, blinding him, but still he came on. Was there no limit to the amount of punishment that he could endure? Jerry's blows were not the leads of a boxer, but fighting blows, and Clancy's face and body would bear testimony to their strength for many a day, but he always came on for more—a superbeast that as long as breath came and blood flowed, was untamed and unconquerable. Jerry was tiring now and throwing discretion to the winds was trying for a knockout. Two swings he missed by mere wildness and weariness of eye, and Flynn's voice rose above the wild clamor of the of the crowd. "Keep him off, Jerry—keep him off!" But Jerry did not hear or did not choose to hear, for he no longer avoided Clancy's blows or his advances, standing his ground and slugging wildly as Clancy was doing. Jack Ballard saw the danger and sprang to his feet seconding Flynn's advice, but he could not be heard above the roar of the crowd. It was a wild moment. A chance blow by either man would end the battle then. I was no longer Roger Canby, ex-tutor and philosopher, but a mad mother-beast whose cub was fighting for its life. "Keep him off, Jerry," I yelled hoarsely again and again, but the boy still stood, his toe to Clancy's, fighting wildly. Three times they fell into clinches from sheer exhaustion to be pried apart by the referee, only to go at each other again. This was no test of skill, but of brutality and chance. I think that Jerry was mad—brute mad, for, though Clancy's blows were now reaching him, he didn't seem to be aware of them. His face was distorted with rage—animal rage. When the gong clanged at the end of this round, the eighth, they still fought even when Gannon thrust his bulk between them.

The crowd sank back into their seats gasping. It was a long while since New York had seen a fight such as this.

"What d' I tell you, Charlie?" whispered the optimist next to me hoarsely.

"By—, he's good an' no mistake," confessed the fat man.

"He's got the Sailor goin'."

Jack Ballard and I were in an agony of apprehension, watching the faces of the excited men in Jerry's corner, who were trying to warn him before it was too late. But we could see that Jerry was stubborn, for when Flynn pleaded with him he shook his head. Spatola and the negro massaged him furiously, adding their anxious pleas to Flynn's, but Jerry would not listen. He was taking the foul air in huge gasps, his eyes closed, fighting for recuperation.

When the ninth round opened the men were both groggy and stumbled to the center of the ring like two blind men groping for each other, swinging wildly and moving slowly. Each was intent upon a knockout. Twice each swung and missed rights, avoiding the blows by remnants of their craft and cleverness. Twice they stumbled into clinches and were torn apart by the pitiless Gannon. In the in-fighting (a technical term) Jerry I think must have been struck—I did not see the blow, but it must have been a terrific one—for his knees sagged and his hands dropped to his sides while his mouth gaped open painfully. At the cries from his corner Clancy drove a vicious blow, but Jerry weakly managed to avoid it. But he couldn't raise his arms. Jerry was hurt, grievously hurt. In a moment they were raised again, but he could not seem to see his mark and his swings were wild. In agony I rose, my arm in Ballard's, ready for the worst. Clancy straightened, tried to collect what remained of his scattered wits and strength, poised himself and with a terrible blow, struck Jerry at the point of his chin.

He went down with a crash, his head striking the floor, and remained motionless. Over him, one hand restraining Clancy, Gannon counted. Jerry's figure writhed upon the floor, twisting upon its head struggling to rise and then relaxed. The fight was over.

A curious hush had fallen over the great hall. Here and there Clancy's friends were shouting in glee, but the great mass of the crowd, those whom Jerry had won by his skill and pluck, seemed bewildered. The end had come too suddenly for them to realize what had happened and how it had happened. The match was his. He had won it. It had only been a question of rounds. And then, "Chance blow in the solar-plexus," someone was saying.

It is curious how many and how lasting are the impressions that can be crowded into a second of time. I clambered out of the box with Jack Ballard toward the ring, fearful of the blow to Jerry's head upon the boards, and as I pushed my way through the bewildered crowd, I caught just a glimpse of Marcia Van Wyck's party. They were all standing up in their box, looking toward the ring. A man beside her made a remark at the girl's ear. I saw her turn and flash a bright glance up at him and had a glimpse of her small white teeth. She was laughing. This is just an impression of a momentary glimpse, but it means much. In this situation is the psychology of the real Marcia. Jerry, her man-god, her brute-god, lay prone at her feet a quivering mass of bruised flesh, beaten and broken mind and body, and she could smile.

Tingling with rage at this incident, which I thanked God Jerry had not seen, I fought my way behind Jack to the aisle to the dressing-room, whither willing hands had carried the boy. All around us we heard the encomiums of the crowd.

"Luck," one said, "mere luck."

"It's all in the game. But Benham's the better man."

"Lucky for Clancy that Jerry mixed it. Could 'a cut the Sailor to pieces."

"Some fight—what?"

"The best in years. The boy's a wonder."

All this from hardened followers of the ring. The door to the dressing-room was jammed and a force of policemen was keeping back the people. Our anxious queries were passed along to the doorway.

"He's coming around all right," said the sergeant. "Now move along there, gents. No admittance here."

But Jack and I awaited our chance and when Sagorski poked his head out of the door he saw us and the sergeant let us through.

It was a very crestfallen group that greeted us. Flynn and the negro, Monroe, were working over Jerry, who lay on a cot-bed near the window. He had recovered consciousness and even as we entered he raised his head wearily and looked around. His face was battered and bruised, and his smile as he greeted us partook of the character of his injuries. But he was whole and I hoped not badly hurt. Youth and strength, the best of medicines, were already reviving him.

"Well, Roger," he muttered dully, "I'm licked."

"Luck," I said laconically. Jack Ballard had clasped his big congested hand, "Proud of you, Jerry, old boy! You ought to have won. Why the Devil did you let him coax you into close quarters?"

"I thought—I could stand—what he could," grunted Jerry.

"Not the lucky blow. He had it. If you'd stood him off—"

"I came here to fight—" said Jerry sinking back on his mattress wearily.

I think his mind was beginning to work slowly around to the real meaning of his defeat, not the mere failure of his science and skill, but the failure of his body and mind as against the mind and body of a trained brute, whom he had set his heart on conquering. I knew as no one else there knew what the victory meant to him, and the memory of the brief glimpse I had had of the Van Wyck girl's face when he lay in the ring inflamed me anew. I know not what—some vestige of my thought reached him, for he drew me toward him and when I bent my head he whispered in my ear,

"Marcia—was there?"

I nodded.

"She stayed—saw—?"

"Yes."

He made no sound, and submitted silently to the ministrations of his trainers.

Flynn was philosophical.

"The fortunes of war, Misther Canby. 'T'was a gran' fight, as fine a mill as you'll see in a loife time—wid the best man losin'—'S a shame, sor; but Masther Jerry w'u'd have his way—bad cess to 'm. You can't swap swipes wid a gorilla, sor. It ain't done."

"He beat me fairly," said Jerry sitting up.

"Who? Clancy? I'll match you agin him tomorrow, Masther Jerry," and he grinned cheerfully, "if ye'll but take advice."

"Advice!" sighed Jerry. "You were right Flynn—I—I was wrong."

"I wudden't mind if it wasn't for thinkin' of that fifteen thousand."

"I think he earned it," laughed Jack.

Jerry sat up on the edge of the bed and stared around, one eye only visible. The other was concealed behind a piece of raw meat that Flynn was holding over it.

"You lost something, Flynn?" he asked.

"A trifle, sor."

"And the Kid and Tim?"

"And Rozy and Dan—all of us a bit, sor. But it don't matther."

"Well," he said with a laugh. "I'll make it up to you, all of you, d' you hear? And I'm very much obliged for your confidence."

It didn't need this munificence on Jerry's part to win the affection of these bruisers, but they were none the less cheerful on account of it. As Jim Robinson he had won their esteem, and all the evening they had stood a little in awe of Jerry Benham, but before they left him that night he gave them a good handshake all around and invited them to his house on the morrow. Between the crowd of us we got him into street clothes and a closed automobile in which Jack and I went with him to his house uptown.

CHAPTER XVII

MARCIA RECANTS

Thanks to the formidable size of Jerry's training partners, we had managed to avoid the reporters at the Garden, and when we reached Jerry's house we gave instructions to the butler to admit no one and answer no questions. Christopher, now Jerry's valet, we took upstairs with us and got the boy ready for bed. As the telephone bell began ringing with queries from the morning newspapers, I disconnected the wire and we were left in peace. A warm bath and a drink of brandy did wonders both for Jerry's appearance and his spirits, and at last we got him to bed. But he could not sleep, and so we sat at his bedside and talked to him until far into the night, Jerry propped up on his pillows, his bad eye comically decorated with a part of his morning's steak.

By dint of persuasion and a promise to stay all night at last we got the boy to sleep and went to bed. I think Jack was rather glad to be beyond the reach of the parental ire, and my own wish was to be near Jerry now, to help him on the morrow to readjust his mind to his disappointment, and do what other service I could to save him from the results of his folly.

The morning papers brought the evidences of it in vivid scare heads upon their first pages and detailed accounts of the whole affair, written by their best men, who gave Jerry, I am glad to say, the credit that was his due, calling him "the new star in pugilistic circles," "the coming heavyweight champion," and the yellowest of them, the one that had unmasked Jim Robinson the afternoon before, came out with an offer to back Jerry Benham for five thousand dollars against Jack Clancy or any other heavyweight except the Champion. Jerry read the articles in silence, a queer smile upon his face and at last shoved the papers aside.

"Nice of those chaps, very, considering the way I've treated 'em, but it's no go. I've finished."

Jack had ventured out to brave the storm and I sat quietly, scarcely daring to hope that I had heard correctly.

"I'm done, Roger," he repeated. "No more fights for me. I staked everything on science and head-work. I failed. He got me—somewhere that hurt like the devil—and I saw red. I don't remember much after that except that I was as much of a brute as he was. I failed, Roger, failed miserably. The fellow that can't hold his temper has no business in the ring."

His voice was heavy, like his manner, weary, disappointed, and as he threw off his dressing gown I saw that his left arm was hideously discolored from wrist to shoulder.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"What? Oh, my arm. No. But I'm sore inside of me Roger, my mind I mean. To do a thing like that, and fail—that's what hurts. Because I hadn't will enough—"

"You're in earnest, then," I asked, "about not fighting again?"

"Yes. I'm through—for good." And then boyishly, "But I didn't quit, Roger, did I?"

"I think any unprejudiced observer will admit that you didn't quit," I said. "Clancy, I'm sure, knows better than anybody."

"Good old Clancy. He was a sight—but he squared things. I saw that knockout coming, but I couldn't move for the life of me. My arms wouldn't come up. By George—that was a wallop! Oh well," he sighed, "the better man won. I'm satisfied."

I helped him into his clothes and we went down to breakfast. He examined his letters quickly and put them aside with an air of disappointment, and then asked if there had been any telephone calls, seeming much put out when I told him my reasons for disconnecting the instrument.

"Oh, it doesn't matter—Beastly nuisance, those reporters—" He looked over at me and grinned sheepishly. "Nice morning reading for Ballard, Senior! It was a rotten trick to play on him, though. He didn't deserve all this. I wouldn't wonder if he didn't speak to me now. I deserve that, I think. He cost me ten thousand cold. I'm in disgrace. I'll never be able to square myself—never."

When he got up from the breakfast table he caught a glimpse of his face in a mirror. "I am a sight. The lip is going down nicely, but the eye! Looks like an overripe tomato against a wall. Pretty sort of a phiz to go calling on a lady with."

"You're going visiting?"

"Yes, Marcia and I are going up to the country together. You'll have to go along."

"Thanks," I said, "but I've some matters to attend to here."

"I say, Roger," he went on quickly examining himself anew in the mirror; "I've got to get hold of Flynn. There's a chap in the Bowery who makes a business of painting eyes." And he went off to the telephone where I heard him making the arrangement.

With Jerry restored to partial sanity my duty at the town house was ended. Reporters still came to the door, but were turned away, and, seeing that I could be of no further use, I made my adieux and took my way downtown.

If no man is a hero to his valet, surely no boy can be a hero to his tutor, and I may as well admit that glorious as Jerry's defeat had been, I had ceased to reckon him among the perfect creations of this world. Nowhere, I think, have I hailed Jerry as a hero. I have not meant to place him upon a pedestal. At the Manor, before he came to New York, he did no wrong, because the things that were good were pleasant to him and because original sin—Eheu! I was beginning to wonder! Original sin! John Benham had ignored its existence and I had thought him wise. What was original sin? And if its origin was not within, where did it originate and how? If the boy had already been inoculated with the germ of sin, was he conscious of it? And did he yield to it voluntarily or unconsciously or both? And if unconscious of sin, was he morally responsible for its commission? These and many other vexed theological questions flitted anxiously through my mind and brought me to a careful scrutiny of Jerry's acts as I knew them. To engage in a prize fight, whatever the prize, whether money or merely the love of woman, if a venial, was not a mortal sin. To be sure, anger was a mortal sin and Jerry had yielded to it. Such fighting as Jerry had done, was not and could not by dint of argument become a part of any philosophy that I had taught him. He had sinned. He would sin again. As Miss Gore had said, my dream castle was tottering—it had tottered and was falling. Jerry, my Perfect Man, at the first contact with the world felt the contagion of its innate depravity and corruption. The more I thought of Jerry's character, his ingenuous belief in the good of all things, the more it seemed to me that it was only a question of the strength of Jerry's spiritual health to resist the ravages of spiritual disease. You see, already I had thrown my philosophy to the winds. For where I had once planned that Jerry should go through fire unscorched, it was now merely become a question of the amount of his scorching.

I bade Jack good-by, after hearing of the bad quarter-hour he had spent with Ballard, Senior, downtown, and made my way to my train for Horsham Manor in no very happy frame of mind. Had I known what new phase of Jerry's character was soon to be revealed to me, God knows I should have been still more unhappy. Jerry was not at the Manor when I arrived there. For some reasons best known to Marcia Van Wyck and himself it had been decided to stay for awhile longer in town, and it was not until over a month later that Jerry arrived bag and baggage in his machine with Christopher. He greeted me cheerfully enough, but I was not quite satisfied with his appearance. The marks of his fight with Clancy had almost, if not quite, disappeared, and while he had taken on much of his normal weight, he had little color and his eyes were dull. He smoked cigarettes constantly, lighting one from another, and on the afternoon and evening of the day of his arrival, sat moodily frowning at vacancy, or walked aimlessly about, his mind obviously upon some troublesome or perplexing matter. I could not believe that Clancy's victory had cast this shadow upon his spirit, but I asked no questions. He ordered wine for dinner, a thing he had never done before at the Manor, save on a few occasions when we had had guests, and drank freely of both sherry and champagne, finishing after his coffee with some neat brandy, which he tossed off with an air of familiarity that gave me something of a shock. He invited me to join him and when I refused seemed to find amusement in twitting me about my abstemious habits.

"Come along now, just a nip of brandy, Roger. 'Twill make your blood flow a bit faster. No? Why not, old Dry-as-dust? Conscientious scruples? A dram is as good as three scruples. Come along, just a taste."

"Brandy was made for old dotards and young idiots. I'm neither."

"Oh, very well, here's luck!" and he drank again, setting the glass down and drawing a deep breath of satisfaction. And then with a laugh. "An idiot! I suppose I am. Good thing to be an idiot, Roger. Nothing expected of you. Nobody disappointed."

"You're talking nonsense," I said sternly.

"Nonsense! I differ from you there, old top," he laughed. "The true philosophy of life is the one that brings the greatest happiness. Self-expression is my motto, wherever it leads you. I fight, I play, I smoke, I drink because those are the things my particular ego requires."

"Ah! You're happy?"

"'Happiness,' old Dry-as-dust, as our good friend Rasselas puts it, 'is but a myth.' I have ceased listening with credulity to the whispers of fancy or pursuing with eagerness the phantoms of hope. They're not for me. To live in the thick of life and take my knockouts or give them—Reality! I'm up against it at last,—real people, real thoughts, real trials, real problems—I want them all. I'm going to drink deep, deep."

He reached for the brandy bottle again, but I whisked it away and rose.

"You're a d–d jackass," I said, storming down at where he sat from my indignant five feet eight.

His brow lowered and his jaw shot forward unpleasantly. "A jackass," I repeated firmly, still holding the neck of the brandy bottle.

He glared at me a moment longer, then he slowly sank back into his chair, his features relaxing, and burst into a laugh.

"Roger, you improve upon acquaintance. All these years you've concealed from me a nice judgment in the use of profanity. A d–d jackass! Hardly Hegelian, but neat, Roger, and most beautifully appropriate. A jackass, I am. Also as you have remarked, an idiot. You see, there's no argument. I admit the soft impeachment. But I won't drink again just now; so set the brandy bottle down like a good fellow and we will talk as one gentleman to another."

I saw that I had brought him for the moment to his senses, and obeyed, sitting resolutely silent with folded arms, waiting for him to go on. He took a pipe from his pocket rather sheepishly, then filled and lighted it.

"You are a good sort, Roger," he said at last, with an embarrassment that contrasted strangely with the bombast of a moment ago. "I—I'm glad you did that. I think you're about the only person in the world I'd have taken it from. But I haven't drunk much. I couldn't get to be much of a drunkard in three weeks, could I?" He smiled his boyish smile and disarmed me.

"But why drink at all?" I asked quietly.

"Oh, I don't know. It's such an easy way to be jolly. Everybody does it. You can't seem to go anywhere without somebody sticking a glass under your nose. It's part of the social formula. There's no harm in it, in reason."

"Jerry," I said sternly. "You've begun wrong. I don't know whether it's my fault or not, but you seem to be hopelessly twisted in your view of life. You're floundering. Of course it's none of my business. I've done what I was paid to do, and you've got to work things out in your own way. If you want to drink yourself maudlin, that's your privilege. I can move out, but while I'm here in this house I'm not going to sit idly by while you make a fool of yourself."

He puffed on his pipe a moment in silence, eyeing the table leg.

"I am a fool," he said soberly at last. And then after a pause, "I don't know what the trouble has been exactly, unless I've taken people too literally; and that's your fault, Roger. White with you was always white and black was black. You taught me to say what I thought and to believe that other people said what they thought. That was a mistake."

"You forget," I said, "that I wasn't brought here to teach you worldliness. But you can't say that I didn't warn you against it."

He had gotten up and now paced the room with long strides.

"Futile, Roger! Absolutely futile. In my heart even then, I think, I believed you narrow. You see, I'm frank. A few months in the world hasn't changed my opinion. But I do want to think straight." And then with a sigh as he paused alongside of me, "It's very perplexing sometimes."

I knew what he was thinking about and whom, but he would not speak.

"You have thought me narrow, Jerry, because I laid my life and yours along pleasant byways and ignored the beaten track. I've never told you why the world had grown distasteful to me. I think you ought to know. It may be worth something to you. The old story, always new—a girl, pretty, insincere. I was just out of the University, with a good education, some prospects, but no money. We became engaged. She was going to wait for me until I got a good professorship. But she didn't. In less than a year, without even the formality of breaking the engagement, she suddenly married a man who had money, a manufacturer of gas engines in Taunton, Massachusetts. I won't go into the details. They're rather sickening from this distance. But I thought you might like to know why I've never particularly cared to trust women."

"I supposed," he said, thoughtfully, "it might have been something like that. Women are queer. You think you know them, and then—" He paused, confession hovering on his lips, but some delicacy restrained him.

"Women, Jerry, are the flavoring of society; I regret that I have a poor digestion for sauces. I hope yours will be better."

He laughed. "Poor Roger; was she very pretty?"

"I can't remember. Probably. Calf love seldom considers anything else—prettiness! Yes she was pretty."