Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York Part 17

"Do I know him? Me name's kep' on his bail-bond as reg'lar as on the parish book."

"Yes, of course; well, I met him, as I was saying, and, to make a long story short, I found that Bockerheisen had got hold of him, and they've packed a lot of tenement-houses with Poles and Italians and organized an a.s.sociation. There are about 600 of them. Dutchy keeps them in beer, and that's about all they want, you know."

Colonel Boozy had been about to drink a gla.s.s of beer as Dennie began this communication. He had raised the gla.s.s to his lips, but it got no further. His eyes began to bulge and his nose to widen, his forehead to contract and his jaws to close, and when Dennie stopped and drained off his amber gla.s.s, the Alderman was standing stiff with stupefied rage. He recovered speech and motion shortly, however, and both came surging upon him in a flood. He fetched his heavy beer-gla.s.s down upon the bar with a furious blow, and a volley of oaths such as only a New York Alderman can utter shot forth like slugs from a Gatling gun. When this cyclone of rage had pa.s.sed away he was left pensive.

Dennie, who had remained cool and sympathetic during the exhibition, now observed: "It is as you say, Colonel, very wicked in Dutchy thus to seek to win by fraud what he never could get on his merits. It is also most ungrateful in The Croak. Well, I've told you what the facts are. You'll know how to manage them. So-long," and Dennie started for the street.

But the Colonel detained him. "Don't be goin' yet, Dennie," he said. "I want ter talk this bizness over wid ye. Come intil the back room, Dennie."

They adjourned into a little private room at the rear of the bar, and the Alderman drew from a closet a bottle of wine, a couple of gla.s.ses, and a box of cigars.

"Dennie," he said nervously, "we must bate 'em. That Dootch pookah aint the fool he looks. Things is feelin' shaky, an' you mus' undo yer wits fer me an' set 'em a-warkin'. If the Dootchy kin hev a 'sosheas.h.i.+n, I kin, too. If he kin run in Poles an' Eyetalyans, I kin run in n.i.g.g.e.rs an' Jerseymen."

Dennie contemplated a knot-hole in the floor for several minutes. "No, Colonel," he said, at last, "that wont do. There's a limit to the number of repeaters that can be brought into the district. If we fetch too many, there'll be trouble. Dutchy has put up a job with the police, too, I'm told; they're all training with Tammany now. Besides, if you get up your gang of six or seven hundred, you don't make anything; you only offset his gang. You must buy The Croak; that'll be cheaper and more effective. Then you'll get your a.s.sociation and Dutchy will get nothing. You will be making him pay for your votes."

Boozy grasped Dennie's hand admiringly. "It's a great head ye have, Dennie, wid a power o' brains in it an' a talent fer shpakin' 'em out.

I'll l'ave the fixin' av it in your hands. Ye'll see The Croak, Dennie, an' get his figgers, an' harkee, Dennie, if ye air thrue to me, Dennie, ye'll be makin' a fri'nd, d'ye moind!"

While Dennie was thus engaged with Boozy, The Croak was occupied in effecting a similar arrangement with Mr. Bockerheisen. In a few gloomy but well-chosen words, for The Croak, though a mournful, was yet a vigorous, talker, he explained to Bockerheisen that a wicked conspiracy had been entered into by Boozy and McCafferty to bring about his defeat by fraud, and he urged that Mr. Bockerheisen "get on to 'em" without delay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. BOCKERHEISEN.]

"Dot I vill!" said the German savagely, "I giv you two huntered tolars for der names of der men vat dot Poozy mitout der law registers!"

"I aint no copper!" cried The Croak, angrily. "Wot you wants ter do is ter get elected, doncher?"

"Vell, how vas I get elected mit wotes vat vas for der udder mans cast, hey?"

"You can't," said The Croak, "dey aint no doubt 'bout dat."

"If dey vas cast for him, dey don't gount for me, hey?"

"No."

"Den I vill yust der bolice got und raise der debbil mit dot Poozy."

"Hol' on!" the Croak replied. "If dey was ter make a mistake about de ballots, an' s'posen 'stead of deir bein' hisn dey happens to be yourn, den if dey're cast fer you dey wont count fer him, will dey?"

Mr. Bockerheisen turned his head around and stared at The Croak in an evidently painful effort to grasp the idea.

"If Boozy t'inks dey're his wotes--"

"Yah," said Bockerheisen reflectively.

"And pays all de heavy 'spences of uniforms an' beer--"

"Yah," said Bockerheisen, with an affable smile.

"But w'en dey comes to wote--"

"Yah," said Bockerheisen, opening his eyes.

"Deir ballots don't hev his tickets in 'em--"

"Yah!" said Bockerheisen quickly.

"But has yourn instead--"

"Yah-ah!" said Bockerheisen, rubbing his hands.

"Den an' in dat case who does dey count fer?"

Mr. Bockerheisen leaned his head upon his hand, which was supported by the bar against which they were standing, slowly closed one eye, and murmured, "Yah-ah-ah."

"I t'ought you'd see de p'int w'en I got it out right," said The Croak.

"How you do somedings like dot?"

"Dat aint fer me to say," The Croak diffidently remarked. "But dey do tell me dat dat McCafferty has a grudge agin Boozy, an if you wants me ter ask him ter drop in yere an hev a talk wid ye, I'll do it."

Mr. Bockerheisen did not fail to express the satisfaction he would have in seeing Mr. McCafferty, and Mr. McCafferty did not fail to give him that happiness. The a.s.sociation sprang quickly into being, and its rolls soon showed a members.h.i.+p of nearly 700 voters. Two copies of the rolls were taken, one for submission to Alderman Boozy and one to Mr.

Bockerheisen. This was in the nature of tangible evidence that the a.s.sociation was in actual existence. In further proof of this important fact, the a.s.sociation with banners representing it to be the Michael J.

Boozy Campaign Club marched past the saloon of Mr. Bockerheisen every other night, and the next night, avoiding Mr. Bockerheisen's, it was led in gorgeous array past the saloon of Colonel Boozy, labeled the Karl Augustus Bockerheisen Club. As Mr. Bockerheisen looked out and saw Colonel Boozy's a.s.sociation, and realized that whereas Boozy was planting and McCafferty was watering, yet he was to gather the increase, a High German smile would come upon his poetic countenance, and he would bite his finger-nails rapturously. And, on the other hand, as Colonel Boozy heard the drums and fifes of the Bockerheisen Club, and saw its transparency glowing in the street, he would summon all his friends to the bar to take a drink with him. It is said that even before election day, however, the relations between Dennie and the Colonel on the one hand, and between The Croak and Bockerheisen, on the other, became painfully strained. It is said that Boozy was compelled to mortgage two of his houses to support Bockerheisen's club, and that Bockerheisen's wife had to borrow nearly $10,000 from her brother, a rich brewer, before Bockerheisen's wild anxiety to pay the expenses of Boozy's club was satisfied. Dennie acknowledged to the Colonel a couple of days before the election that he had found The Croak a hard man to deal with, and that it had been vastly more expensive to make the arrangement than he had supposed it would be. The Croak's manner, as I have said, was always subdued, if not actually sad, and in the presence of Bockerheisen, as the election drew near, he seemed to be so utterly woe-begone and discouraged that the German told his wife he hadn't the heart to quarrel with him about having let McCafferty cost so much money. Besides, as the Colonel remarked to Mrs. Boozy on the night before election, when she told him he had let that bad man, McCafferty, ruin him entirely, and as Bockerheisen said to Mrs. Bockerheisen when she warned him that that ugly-looking Croak would be calling for her watch and weddingring next--as they both remarked, "What is the difference if I get the votes of the a.s.sociation? Business will be good in the Board of Aldermen next year, and I can make it up."

Who did get the votes of the a.s.sociation I'm sure I can't say. All I know is that the Republican candidate was elected, and a Central Office detective who haunts the Forty-second Street depot reported at Headquarters on Election Day night that he had seen Dennie McCafferty, wearing evening dress and a single gla.s.s in his left eye, and Tozie Monks, The Croak, dressed as Dennie's valet, board the six o'clock train for Chicago and the West.

X.

MR. MADDLEDOCK.

Mr. Maddledock did not like to wait, and, least of all, for dinner.

Wobbles knew that, and when he heard the soft gong of the clock in the lower hall beat seven times, and reflected that while four guests had been bidden to dinner only three had yet come, Wobbles was agitated.

Mrs. Throcton, Mr. Maddledock's sister, and Miss Annie Throcton had arrived and were just coming downstairs from the dressing-room. Mr.

Linden was in the parlor with Miss Maddledock, both looking as if all they asked was to be let alone. Mr. Maddledock was in the library walking up and down in a way that Wobbles could but look upon as ominous. Again, and for the fifth time in two minutes, Wobbles made a careful calculation upon his fingers, but to save his unhappy soul he could not bring five persons to tally with six chairs. And in the mean while, Mr. Maddledock's step in the library grew sharper in its sound and quicker in its motion.

There was nothing vulgar about Mr. Maddledock. His tall, erect figure, his gray eyes, his clearly cut, correct features, his low voice, his utter want of pa.s.sion, and his quiet, resolute habit of bending everything and everybody as it suited him to bend them, told upon people differently. Some said he was handsome and courtly, others insisted that he was sinister-looking and cruel. Which were right I shall not undertake to say. Whether it was a lion or a snake in him that fascinated, it is certainly true that he impressed every one who knew him. In some respects his influence was very singular. He seemed to throw out a strange devitalizing force that acted as well upon inanimate as upon animate things. The new buffet had not been in the dining-room six months before it looked as ancient as the Louis XIV. pier-gla.s.s in the upper hall. This subtle influence of Mr. Maddledock had wrought a curious effect upon the whole house. It oxydized the frescoes on the walls. It subdued the varied shades of color that streamed in from the stained-gla.s.s windows. It gave a deeper richness to the velvet carpets and mellowed the lace curtains that hung from the parlor cas.e.m.e.nts into a creamy tint.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IN THE MORGUE," SAID MR. MADDLEDOCK, "WELL, THAT'S THE BEST PLACE FOR HIM."]

Mr. Maddledock's figure was faultless. From head to heels he was adjusted with mathematical nicety. Every organ in his shapely body did its work silently, easily, accurately. Silver-gray hair covered his head, falling gracefully away from a parting in the middle of it. It never seemed to grow long, and yet it never looked as if it had been cut. Mr. Maddledock's eyes were his most striking feature. Absolutely unaffected by either glare or shadow, neither dilating nor contracting, they remained ever clear, large, gray, and cold. No mark or line in his face indicated care or any of the burdens that usually depress and trouble men. If such things were felt in his experience their force was spent long before they had contrived to mar his unruffled countenance.

Though the house had tumbled before his eyes, by not a single vibration would his complacent voice have been intensified. He never suffered his feelings to escape his control. Occasionally, to be sure, he might curl his lip, or lift his eyebrows, or depress the corners of his mouth. When deeply moved he might go so far as to diffuse a nipping frost around him, but no angry words ever fell from his lips.

Five, seven, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes had pa.s.sed since the hall clock had sounded the hour and Wobbles's temperature had risen to the degree which borders on apoplexy. What might have happened is dreadful to conjecture had not d.i.n.ks, the housekeeper, come to his relief with the sagacious counsel that he wait no longer, but boldly inform Miss Emily that dinner was served. Wobbles was just on the point of acting upon this advice when the library call rang, and he hurried to respond.