A Chicago Princess

Francis P. Barr

A Chicago Princess

CHAPTER I

When I look back upon a certain hour of my life it fills me with wonder that I should have been so peacefully happy. Strange as it may seem, utter despair is not without its alloy of joy. The man who daintily picks his way along a muddy street is anxious lest he soil his polished boots, or turns up his coat collar to save himself from the shower that is beginning, eager then to find a shelter; but let him inadvertently step into a pool, plunging head over ears into foul water, and after that he has no more anxiety. Nothing that weather can inflict will add to his misery, and consequently a ray of happiness illumines his gloomy horizon. He has reached the limit; Fate can do no more; and there is a satisfaction in attaining the ultimate of things. So it was with me that beautiful day; I had attained my last phase.

I was living in the cheapest of all paper houses, living as the Japanese themselves do, on a handful of rice, and learning by experience how very little it requires to keep body and soul together. But now, when I had my next meal of rice, it would be at the expense of my Japanese host, who was already beginning to suspect, – so it seemed to me, – that I might be unable to liquidate whatever debt I incurred. He was very polite about it, but in his twinkling little eyes there lurked suspicion. I have travelled the whole world over, especially the East, and I find it the same everywhere. When a man comes down to his final penny, some subtle change in his deportment seems to make the whole world aware of it. But then, again, this supposed knowledge on the part of the world may have existed only in my own imagination, as the Christian Scientists tell us every ill resides in the mind. Perhaps, after all, my little bowing landlord was not troubling himself about the payment of the bill, and I only fancied him uneasy.

If an untravelled person, a lover of beauty, were sitting in my place on that little elevated veranda, it is possible the superb view spread out before him might account for serenity in circumstances which to the ordinary individual would be most depressing. But the view was an old companion of mine; goodness knows I had looked at it often enough when I climbed that weary hill and gazed upon the town below me, and the magnificent harbor of Nagasaki spreading beyond. The water was intensely blue, dotted with shipping of all nations, from the stately men-of-war to the ocean tramps and the little coasting schooners. It was an ever-changing, animated scene; but really I had had enough of it during all those ineffective months of struggle in the attempt to earn even the rice and the poor lodging which I enjoyed.

Curiously, it was not of this harbor I was thinking, but of another in far-distant Europe, that of Boulogne in the north of France, where I spent a day with my own yacht before I sailed for America. And it was a comical thought that brought the harbor of Boulogne to my mind. I had seen a street car there, labelled “Le Dernier Sou,” which I translated as meaning “The Last Cent.” I never took a trip on this street car, but I presume somewhere in the outskirts of Boulogne there is a suburb named “The Last Cent,” and I thought now with a laugh: “Here I am in Japan, and although I did not take that street car, yet I have arrived at ‘Le Dernier Sou.’”

This morning I had not gone down to the harbor to prosecute my search for employment. As with my last cent, I had apparently given that idea up. There was no employer needing men to whom I had not applied time and again, willing to take the laborer’s wage for the laborer’s work. But all my earlier training had been by way of making me a gentleman, and the manner was still upon me in spite of my endeavors to shake it off, and I had discovered that business men do not wish gentlemen as day-laborers. There was every reason that I should be deeply depressed; yet, strange to say, I was not. Had I at last reached the lotus-eating content of the vagabond? Was this care-free condition the serenity of the tramp? Would my next step downward be the unblushing begging of food, with the confidence that if I were refused at one place I should receive at another? With later knowledge, looking back at that moment of mitigated happiness, I am forced to believe that it was the effect of coming events casting their shadows before. Some occultists tell us that every action that takes place on the earth, no matter how secretly done, leaves its impression on some ethereal atmosphere, visible to a clairvoyant, who can see and describe to us exactly what has taken place. If this be true, it is possible that our future experiences may give sub-mental warnings of their approach.

As I sat there in the warm sunlight and looked over the crowded harbor, I thought of the phrase, “When my ship comes in.” There was shipping enough in the bay, and possibly, if I could but have known where, some friend of mine might at that moment be tramping a white deck, or sitting in a steamer chair, looking up at terrace upon terrace of the toy houses among which I kept my residence. Perhaps my ship had come in already if only I knew which were she. As I lay back on the light bamboo chair, along which I had thrown myself, – a lounging, easy, half-reclining affair like those we used to have at college, – I gazed upon the lower town and harbor, taking in the vast blue surface of the bay; and there along the indigo expanse of the waters, in striking contrast to them, floated a brilliantly white ship gradually, imperceptibly approaching. The canvas, spread wing and wing, as it increased in size, gave it the appearance of a swan swimming toward me, and I thought lazily:

“It is like a dove coming to tell me that my deluge of misery is past, and there is an olive-branch of foam in its beak.”

As the whole ship became visible I saw that it, like the canvas, was pure white, and at first I took it for a large sailing yacht rapidly making Nagasaki before the gentle breeze that was blowing; but as she drew near I saw that she was a steamer, whose trim lines, despite her size, were somewhat unusual in these waters. If this were indeed a yacht she must be owned by some man of great wealth, for she undoubtedly cost a fortune to build and a very large income to maintain. As she approached the more crowded part of the bay, her sails were lowered and she came slowly in on her own momentum. I fancied I heard the rattle of the chain as her anchor plunged into the water, and now I noticed with a thrill that made me sit up in my lounging chair that the flag which flew at her stern was the Stars and Stripes. It is true that I had little cause to be grateful to the country which this piece of bunting represented, for had it not looted me of all I possessed? Nevertheless in those distant regions an Englishman regards the United States flag somewhat differently from that of any nation save his own. Perhaps there is an unconscious feeling of kinship; perhaps the similarity of language may account for it, because an Englishman understands American better than any other foreign tongue. Be that as it may, the listlessness departed from me as I gazed upon that banner, as crude and gaudy as our own, displaying the most striking of the primary colors. The yacht rested on the blue waters as gracefully as if she were a large white waterfowl, and I saw the sampans swarm around her like a fluffy brood of ducklings.

And now I became conscious that the most polite individual in the world was making an effort to secure my attention, yet striving to accomplish his purpose in the most unobtrusive way. My patient and respected landlord, Yansan, was making deep obeisances before me, and he held in his hand a roll which I strongly suspected to be my overdue bill. I had the merit in Yansan’s eyes of being able to converse with him in his own language, and the further advantage to myself of being able to read it; therefore he bestowed upon me a respect which he did not accord to all Europeans.

“Ah, Yansan!” I cried to him, taking the bull by the horns, “I was just thinking of you. I wish you would be more prompt in presenting your account. By such delay errors creep into it which I am unable to correct.”

Yansan awarded me three bows, each lower than the one preceding it, and, while bending his back, endeavored, though with some confusion, to conceal the roll in his wide sleeve. Yansan was possessed of much shrewdness, and the bill certainly was a long standing one.

“Your Excellency,” he began, “confers too much honor on the dirt beneath your feet by mentioning the trivial sum that is owing. Nevertheless, since it is your Excellency’s command, I shall at once retire and prepare the document for you.”

“Oh, don’t trouble about that, Yansan,” I said, “just pull it out of your sleeve and let me look over it.”

The wrinkled face screwed itself up into a grimace more like that of a monkey than usual, and so, with various genuflections, Yansan withdrew the roll and proffered it to me. Therein, in Japanese characters, was set down the long array of my numerous debts to him. Now, in whatever part of the world a man wishes to delay the payment of a bill, the proper course is to dispute one or more of its items, and this accordingly I proceeded to do.

“I grieve to see, Yansan,” I began, putting my finger on the dishonest hieroglyphic, “that on the fourth day you have set down against me a repast of rice, whereas you very well know on that occasion I did myself the honor to descend into the town and lunch with his Excellency the Governor.”

Again Yansan lowered his ensign three times, then deplored the error into which he had fallen, saying it would be immediately rectified.

“There need to be no undue hurry about the rectification,” I replied, “for when it comes to a settlement I shall not be particular about the price of a plate of rice.”

Yansan was evidently much gratified to hear this, but I could see that my long delay in liquidating his account was making it increasingly difficult for him to subdue his anxiety. The fear of monetary loss was struggling with his native politeness. Then he used the formula which is correct the world over.

“Excellency, I am a poor man, and next week have heavy payments to make to a creditor who will put me in prison if I produce not the money.”

“Very well,” said I grandly, waving my hand toward the crowded harbor, “my ship has come in where you see the white against the blue. To-morrow you shall be paid.”

Yansan looked eagerly in the direction of my gesture.

“She is English,” he said.

“No, American.”

“It is a war-ship?”

“No, she belongs to a private person, not to the Government.”

“Ah, he must be a king, then, – a king of that country.”

“Not so, Yansan; he is one of many kings, a pork king, or an oil king or a railroad king.”

“Surely there cannot be but one king in a country, Excellency,” objected Yansan.

“Ah, you are thinking of a small country like Japan. One king does for such a country; but America is larger than many Japans, therefore it has numerous kings, and here below us is one of them.”

“I should think, Excellency,” said Yansan, “that they would fight with one another.”

“That they do, and bitterly, too, in a way your kings never thought of. I myself was grievously wounded in one of their slightest struggles. That flag which you see there waves over my fortune. Many a million of sen pieces which once belonged to me rest secure for other people under its folds.”

My landlord lifted his hands in amazement at my immense wealth.

“This, then, is perhaps the treasure-ship bringing money to your Excellency,” he exclaimed, awestricken.

“That’s just what it is, Yansan, and I must go down and collect it; so bring me a dinner of rice, that I may be prepared to meet the captain who carries my fortune.”

CHAPTER II

After a frugal repast I went down the hill to the lower town, and on inquiry at the custom-house learned that the yacht was named the “Michigan,” and that she was owned by Silas K. Hemster, of Chicago. So far as I could learn, the owner had not come ashore; therefore I hired a sampan from a boatman who trusted me. I was already so deeply in his debt that he was compelled to carry me, inspired by the optimistic hope that some day the tide of my fortunes would turn. I believe that commercial institutions are sometimes helped over a crisis in the same manner, as they owe so much their creditors dare not let them sink. Many a time had this lad ferried me to one steamer after another, until now his anxiety that I should obtain remunerative employment was nearly as great as my own.

As we approached the “Michigan” I saw that a rope ladder hung over the side, and there leaned against the rail a very free-and-easy sailor in white duck, who was engaged in squirting tobacco-juice into Nagasaki Bay. Intuitively I understood that he had sized up the city of Nagasaki and did not think much of it. Probably it compared unfavorably with Chicago. The seaman made no opposition to my mounting the ladder; in fact he viewed my efforts with the greatest indifference. Approaching him, I asked if Mr. Hemster was aboard, and with a nod of his head toward the after part of the vessel he said, “That’s him.”

Looking aft, I now noticed a man sitting in a cushioned cane chair, with his two feet elevated on the spotless rail before him. He also was clothed in light summer garb, and had on his head a somewhat disreputable slouch hat with a very wide brim. His back was toward Nagasaki, as if he had no interest in the place. He revolved an unlit cigar in his mouth, in a manner quite impossible to describe; but as I came to know him better I found that he never lit his weed, but kept its further end going round and round in a little circle by a peculiar motion of his lips. Though he used the very finest brand of cigars, none ever lasted him for more than ten minutes, when he would throw it away, take another, bite off the end, and go through the same process once more. What satisfaction he got out of an unlighted cigar I was never able to learn.

His was a thin, keen, business face, with no hair on it save a tuft at the chin, like the beard of a goat. As I approached him I saw that he was looking sideways at me out of the corners of his eyes, but he neither raised his head nor turned it around. I was somewhat at a loss how to greet him, but for want of a better opening I began:

“I am told you are Mr. Hemster.”

“Well!” he drawled slowly, with his cigar between his teeth, released for a moment from the circular movement of his lips, “you may thank your stars you are told something you can believe in this God-forsaken land.”

I smiled at this unexpected reply and ventured:

“As a matter of fact, the East is not renowned for its truthfulness. I know it pretty well.”

“You do, eh? Do you understand it?”

“I don’t think either an American or a European ever understands an Asiatic people.”

“Oh, yes, we do,” rejoined Mr. Hemster; “they’re liars and that’s all there is to them. Liars and lazy; that sums them up.”

As I was looking for the favor of work, it was not my place to contradict him, and the confident tone in which he spoke showed that contradiction would have availed little. He was evidently one of the men who knew it all, and success had confirmed him in his belief. I had met people of his calibre before, – to my grief.

“Well, young man, what can I do for you?” he asked, coming directly to the point.

“I am looking for a job,” I said.

“What’s your line?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What can you do?”

“I am capable of taking charge of this ship as captain, or of working as a man before the mast.”

“You spread yourself out too thin, my son. A man who can do everything can do nothing. We specialize in our country. I hire men who can do only one thing, and do that thing better than anybody else.”

“Sir, I do not agree with you,” I could not help saying. “The most capable people in the world are the Americans. The best log house I ever saw was built by a man who owned a brown-stone front on Fifth Avenue. He simply pushed aside the guides whose specialty it was to do such things, took the axe in his own hands, and showed them how it should be accomplished.”

Mr. Hemster shoved his hat to the back of his head, and for the first time during our interview looked me squarely in the face.

“Where was that?” he inquired.

“Up in Canada.”

“Oh, well, the Fifth Avenue man had probably come from the backwoods and so knew how to handle an axe.”

“It’s more than likely,” I admitted.

“What were you doing in Canada?”

“Fishing and shooting.”

“You weren’t one of the guides he pushed aside?”

I laughed.

“No, I was one of the two who paid for the guides.”

“Well, to come back to first principles,” continued Mr. Hemster, “I’ve got a captain who gives me perfect satisfaction, and he hires the crew. What else can you do?”

“I am qualified to take a place as engineer if your present man isn’t equally efficient with the captain; and I can guarantee to give satisfaction as a stoker, although I don’t yearn for the job.”

“My present engineer I got in Glasgow,” said Mr. Hemster; “and as for stokers we have a mechanical stoker which answers the purpose reasonably well, although I have several improvements I am going to patent as soon as I get home. I believe the Scotchman I have as engineer is the best in the business. I wouldn’t interfere with him for the world.”

My heart sank, and I began to fear that Yansan and the sampan-boy would have to wait longer for their money. It seemed that it wasn’t my ship that had come in, after all.

“Very well, Mr. Hemster,” I said, “I must congratulate you on being so well suited. I am much obliged to you for receiving me so patiently without a letter of introduction on my part, and so I bid you good-day.”

I turned for the ladder, but Mr. Hemster said, with more of animation in his tone than he had hitherto exhibited:

“Wait a moment, sonny; don’t be so hasty. You’ve asked me a good many questions about the yacht and the crew, so I should like to put some to you, and who knows but we may make a deal yet. There’s the galley and the stewards, and that sort of thing, you know. Draw up a chair and sit down.”

I did as I was requested. Mr. Hemster threw his cigar overboard and took out another. Then he held out the case toward me, saying:

“Do you smoke?”

“Thank you,” said I, selecting a cigar.

“Have you matches?” he asked, “I never carry them myself.”

“No, I haven’t,” I admitted.

He pushed a button near him, and a Japanese steward appeared.

“Bring a box of matches and a bottle of champagne,” he said.

The steward set a light wicker table at my elbow, disappeared for a few minutes, and shortly returned with a bottle of champagne and a box of matches. Did my eyes deceive me, or was this the most noted brand in the world, and of the vintage of ’78? It seemed too good to be true.

“Would you like a sandwich or two with that wine, or is it too soon after lunch?”

“I could do with a few sandwiches,” I confessed, thinking of Yansan’s frugal fare; and shortly after there were placed before me, on a dainty, white, linen-and-lace-covered plate, some of the most delicious chicken sandwiches that it has ever been my fortune to taste.

“Now,” said Mr. Hemster, when the steward had disappeared, “you’re on your uppers, I take it.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Why, you’re down at bed-rock. Haven’t you been in America? Don’t you know the language?”

“‘Yes’ is the answer to all your questions.”

“What’s the reason? Drink? Gambling?”

Lord, how good that champagne tasted! I laughed from the pure, dry exhilaration of it.

“I wish I could say it was drink that brought me to this pass,” I answered; “for this champagne shows it would be a tempting road to ruin. I am not a gambler, either. How I came to this pass would not interest you.”

“Well, I take it that’s just an Englishman’s way of saying it’s none of my business; but such is not the fact. You want a job, and you have come to me for it. Very well; I must know something about you. Whether I can give you a job or not will depend. You have said you could captain the ship or run her engines. What makes you so confident of your skill?”

“The fact is I possessed a yacht of my own not so very long ago, and I captained her and I ran her engines on different occasions.”

“That might be a recommendation, or it might not. If, as captain, you wrecked your vessel, or if, as engineer, you blew her up, these actions would hardly be a certificate of competency.”

“I did neither. I sold the yacht in New York for what it would bring.”

“How much money did you have when you bought your yacht?”

“I had what you would call half a million.”

“Why do you say what I would call half a million? What would you call it?”

“I should call it a hundred thousand.”

“Ah, I see. You’re talking of pounds, and I’m talking of dollars. You’re an Englishman, I suspect. Are you an educated man?”

“Moderately so. Eton and Oxford,” said I, the champagne beginning to have its usual effect on a hungry man. However, the announcement of Eton and Oxford had no effect upon Mr. Hemster, so it did not matter.

“Come, young fellow,” he said, with some impatience, “tell me all about yourself, and don’t have to be drawn out like a witness on the stand.”

“Very well,” said I, “here is my story. After I left Oxford I had some little influence, as you might call it.”

“No, a ‘pull,’ I would call it. All right, where did it land you?”

“It landed me as secretary to a Minister of the Crown.”

“You don’t mean a preacher?”

“No, I mean the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he put me into the diplomatic service when he found the Government was going to be defeated. I was secretary of legation at Pekin and also here in Japan.”

I filled myself another glass of champagne, and, holding it up to see the sparkles, continued jauntily:

“If I may go so far as to boast, I may say I was entrusted with several delicate missions, and I carried them through with reasonable success. I can both read and write the Japanese language, and I know a smattering of Chinese and a few dialects of the East, which have stood me in good stead more than once. To tell the truth, I was in a fair way for promotion and honor when unfortunately a relative died and left me the hundred thousand pounds that I spoke of.”

“Why unfortunately? If you had had any brains you could have made that into millions.”

“Yes, I suppose I could. I thought I was going to do it. I bought myself a yacht at Southampton and sailed for New York. To make a long story short, it was a gold mine and a matter of ten weeks which were taken up with shooting and fishing in Canada. Then I had the gold mine and the experience, while the other fellow had the cash. He was good enough to pay me a trifle for my steam yacht, which, as the advertisements say, was ‘of no further use to the owner.’”

As I sipped my champagne, the incidents I was relating seemed to recede farther and farther back and become of little consequence. In fact I felt like laughing over them, and although in sober moments I should have called the action of the man who got my money a swindle, under the influence of dry ’78 his scheme became merely a very clever exercise of wit. Mr. Hemster was looking steadily at me, and for once his cigar was almost motionless.

“Well, well,” he murmured, more to himself than to me, “I have always said the geographical position of New York gives it a tremendous advantage over Chicago. They never let the fools come West. They have always the first whack at the moneyed Englishman, and will have until we get a ship canal that will let the liners through to Chicago direct. Fleeced in ten weeks! Well, well! Go on, my son. What did you do after you’d sold your yacht?”

“I took what money I had and made for the West.”

“Came to Chicago?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Just our luck. After you had been well buncoed you came to Chicago. I swear I’m tempted to settle in New York when I get back.”

“By the West I do not mean Chicago, Mr. Hemster. I went right through to San Francisco and took a steamer for Japan. I thought my knowledge of the East and of the languages might be of advantage. I was ashamed to return to England when I found I could make no headway here. I tried to bring influence to bear to get reinstated in the diplomatic service, but my brand of statesman was out of office and nothing could be done. I lived too expensively here at first, hoping to make an impression and gain a foothold that was worth having, and when I began to economize it was too late. I took to living in the native quarter, and descended from trying to get a clerkship into the position of a man who is willing to take anything. From my veranda on the hill up yonder I saw this boat come in, like a white-winged sea-gull, and so I came down, got into a sampan, and here I am, enjoying the best meal I’ve had for a long time. ‘Here endeth the first lesson,’” I concluded irreverently, pouring out another glass of champagne.