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CHAPTER IX

Somebody at the office must have heard about the flight of Maria Algarez, for when Peter returned from Goldfield he had found at his flat a telegram which said, "Lay off a couple of weeks. Longer if you like – Miles, managing editor." That was an extraordinary thing because the material for Peter's column – "Looking Them Over with Peter Neale" – was only up one week ahead. A two weeks' vacation would mean not only that there would be no Peter Neale in the Bulletin, but that in thirty-one other papers throughout the country the feature would be missing. Peter wondered how Miles could suggest a thing like that so calmly. Maria's running away ought not to wrench a whole chain of newspapers in that fashion. In daydreams Peter had often pictured himself dying from flood, or earthquake or a stray bullet in some great riot. When the rescuers picked him up and bent over to hear what he might say his lips framed the words, "Send a story to the Bulletin!"

The Bulletin couldn't be bothered about people's dying or running away. The Bulletin was bigger than that. The newspaper yarn of Rusk's which had impressed Peter the most was about a man named O'Brale in San Francisco. O'Brale was secretly engaged to a girl in Alameda and then a week or so before they were to be married she had eloped with a man who said he was a Polish Count. According to Rusk by some strange coincidence O'Brale received the assignment to cover the story. He didn't beg off. He sat down to write it and he finished up his story with: "And when the news of Miss Lee's elopement drifted into the office of the Chronicle a reporter on the city staff sighed and said, 'Scooped again.'"

Miles must be a fool not to know that even after Peter Neale had been smashed that part of him which was the Bulletin would go on. A picture suddenly came to Peter. That was the way he did his thinking. "I can go on wriggling," he said to himself, "until the first edition."

Peter felt that it was up to him to go down to the office and show them that. He would have to show Miles. Miles was new to him. The managing editor traffic through the office of the Bulletin was prodigious. After all Peter had been away for two weeks and it was only natural that there should be a new man in charge. Peter wasn't a veteran, but he had seen five managing editors in his time and probably a couple of hundred copy readers. "Looking Them Over" was different. That was something vital and rooted in the Bulletin. It wasn't so much that Peter Neale was a part of the Bulletin as that the Bulletin was a part of Peter Neale. "This other thing," thought Peter, "is just my private life."

He felt pretty rocky when he got up. During the night the bandages had turned bloody. It made him shaky to look at himself. Something of the rhythm of the buildings as they swung in the long arc and turned over was still in the pulse of Peter. All right, but he had seen Gans get up when his legs would barely hold him. Not only get up but walk deliberately across the ring to meet the charge of Battling Nelson.

Neale went down town. There was no one else in the elevator when he went up to the ninth floor to the office of the Bulletin, but Sykes, the head office boy, was in the hall outside the city room. He looked up and said, "Hello, Mr. Neale."

So far it was all right. Nelson had knocked out Gans and Maria had run away since Peter and Sykes had last seen each other. Sykes had been able to take all that in his stride. Peter wondered if Miles would be as smart. There was a man at the desk, a fat placid man, in the office of the managing editor. Peter knocked at the door and went in before the man looked up. "My name's Peter Neale," he said. "You're Mr. Miles, aren't you? I got your telegram. It was nice of you, but I don't want any time off. There's a whole batch of stuff due for the syndicate tomorrow."

Miles nodded. He tilted his chair back three times without saying anything. It was like a pitcher's wind-up. Peter found Miles always spoke just after the third tilt. "Have a cigarette," he said. He also provided a match. Then letting the chair rest on the floor he sat looking at Peter. There wasn't any surprise or inquiry in his face. Peter felt acutely conscious of his bloody bandages. He sat waiting to hear, "Have an accident?" or something like that, but Miles seemed to take it as a matter of course that Peter was all cut up. Apparently the managing editor accepted it as something inevitable in an out-of-town assignment. Peter dreaded the question so long that he would have felt easier if Miles had asked him about the bandages. He was prepared to say something about a taxicab. After all it wasn't fair that Miles should assume that he had been drunk just because he had. Presently the tilting began again. One, two, three, Peter counted to himself. "I want you to do baseball in addition to your column," said Miles. "Monday isn't too soon to start in, is it?"

"Monday's all right," said Peter.

"All right," said Miles. "You need a match," he added. "Your cigarette's gone out."

Neither of them said anything then for a minute. Miles continued to look at him and ignore the bandages.

"All right on Monday," said Peter and went across the hall to his own office. Putting the catch on, he closed the door. Miles hadn't talked about his private life, but Peter felt that he must know about it. Probably he was thinking about it every time he quit tilting. That was the trouble.

Out there in the City Room they were talking about it too. They must be. Nothing happened to anybody on the Bulletin that didn't get talked about in the City Room. No district in the town was covered so perfectly as the reporters covered the lives of each other. When Woolstone, the Sunday editor, started living with that little girl, Miss Gray, the one who wrote the piece about the Haymarket, it was common gossip within a week. Woolstone hadn't told anybody. Indeed he hadn't said a word except that the Haymarket story was the finest piece of English prose since De Quincey. But somehow after that everybody knew that Woolstone was living with Miss Gray.

Peter put a sheet of paper into his typewriter and rapidly wrote at the top of the upper right-hand corner Neale – Sports – Syndicate. Then he turned half of the sheet through the machine and wrote "Looking Them Over With Peter Neale – (Copyright)." There he stuck.

The sheet of paper had not been blemished but after a while Peter took it out and wrote the same thing on another. After that he sharpened a pencil. He wanted to get a drink of water but that was out in the City Room. It was foolish of him not to have brought cigarettes. Miles had cigarettes, but Peter didn't want to face that scrutiny any more. "Gans," he wrote, "was not outboxed but he was outfought." That wouldn't do. There had been a line almost like that in his fight story. Of course he might do some sort of prediction story about how long Battling Nelson would hold the title. A man who took all that punishment couldn't last so very long. But suddenly Peter realized that he didn't give a damn about Gans or about Nelson. The Bulletin didn't make so much difference either. Maria was more than all this. He'd ask Miles to send him to Africa or China or some place. Sedition seeped in. Baseball wasn't exciting enough to make him forget. He tried to make his mind do him a picture of Matty bending back and then shooting over his fast one. Instead he saw Maria Algarez standing in the middle of the big stage.

That wouldn't do. Peter gripped the edge of his desk. If his mind was only something that would stand up to him and fight like a man. He could heave it back all right if only he could get a hand on it. Instead he pushed against the desk. Very slowly the picture began to fade. Maria was taller and broader. Now it was Matty. Dim but unmistakably Matty. But the figure stood in the centre of the big stage. He must get him out of there. If he was to hold the thing it would have to move and take on life. Suddenly Peter realized the trick. The picture ought not to be Matty throwing his fast one. The fadeway! That was the thing which marked Matty in his mind above all others. He closed his eyes in order to help. The figure bent back. The arms came up over the head. The left leg kicked. No, it was not Maria kicking. This was a huge clumsy leg which moved slowly, ever so slowly, grinding power for the swing of back and shoulders which was to come. Then there was the lunge forward. Matty had thrown the ball straight at his head. He conquered the impulse to duck. This was the slow ball. He could see the seams. Now it was slower and growing bigger and bigger all the time. It would walk past him shoulder high. Peter swung at it and the ball wasn't there. A sudden decision had come upon it. Down it swooped and out. It had passed him. Peter opened his eyes. He didn't want to go to China or Africa after all. Honus Wagner and the Pirates would be at the Polo Grounds on Monday.

Peter got up and started for his drink of water. There were only three men in the City Room. Charlie Hall was sitting at his desk right beside the ice cooler. Perhaps Charlie had had a lot of fun out of that story of Maria Algarez running away. Women didn't run away from Charlie. Peter remembered the time Charlie was marooned in the Press Club. He stuck in the poker game for two days not daring to leave the building. The elevator man had told him of the woman who kept coming in every half an hour or so and asking for Mr. Hall. According to the elevator man she was very much excited. Charlie said it sounded a lot like Ethel. He wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to shoot him. She had often threatened to do that. Twice during those two days Peter had volunteered to go down and scout around. Both times he had seen a woman pacing the sidewalk just across the street from the Press Club. It looked like the same woman. Charlie said probably it was. Ethel was very determined. Finally they had to get a policeman to come and tell Ethel to go away. Nobody ever seemed so glamorous to Peter as Charlie during those two days. Peter wondered if any woman would ever want to shoot him.

There was no way of getting to the ice cooler without passing Charlie. Peter did it slowly. Charlie looked up. "Have any fun at the fight?" he asked.

"No, it was too hot. Anyhow I wanted to see Gans win."

"It was a great story you wrote."

"I'm glad you liked it."

"Too bad about the nigger – he was the smartest of the lot, wasn't he?"

"Yes, and don't forget he could hit too. Nelson wouldn't have had a chance with him five years ago."

Peter was turning to go back to his office when Charlie Hall thrust out a hand and slapped him on the shoulder. "I hear you've had some hard luck," he said. "I'm sorry."

Peter couldn't answer for a second. "I guess nobody ever is happy so very much," Charlie continued, sensing that Peter was stumped for the moment. "Now you take me. I suppose you'd say I was happily married. I've been married fifteen years and I've got five children. Well, sometimes when I sit down at home I wonder, 'What's the use of all this anyway?' There ought to be a law that reporters can't get married. It's bad for them and it's bad for the paper."

"I guess you're right," said Peter.

"The thing to do is not to take women seriously. They'll bust hell out of you if you do."

Peter brightened perceptibly. "Do you remember that time you got stuck up in the Press Club and the girl was waiting downstairs to shoot you?" he inquired with a certain eagerness.

"Oh yes, sure, Gracie."

"No, that wasn't the name. It was Ethel."

"Ethel? – I remember now. I had it mixed up with a business in Chicago. Ethel! Oh yes, indeed. She was a wild one. She was just about the most dangerous woman south of Fifty-ninth Street. That was a couple of years ago. I can't stand so much excitement now."

"Go on," said Peter, "I suppose you'll be telling me you've reformed."

"That wouldn't be so far off the truth. Anyhow where do you get off. Who beaned you?"

Another burden of reticence was snatched away. At last Peter had a chance to tell somebody about the bandages.

"I was with a woman up at the Eldorado. You know the Eldorado. And a big fellow comes over and tries to butt in. I bawled him out and we went up on the sidewalk. I made a couple of passes at him and he hauled off and clipped me with a bottle – a champagne bottle. I guess I was pretty drunk."

Charlie Hall nodded his head. "You're all right. I'm glad. Some of the boys around here have been telling me that you were all busted up about that girl you married. I'm glad it's not so. I knew you had too much sense for that. There isn't a one of them in the whole world that's worth getting busted up over. Don't take 'em seriously. That's what I say. I ought to know. I've been married fifteen years. Well, almost fifteen years. It'll be fifteen years in October."

"I'm all right, Charlie. You tell that to the rest. I'm back on the job, you know."

"That's good. It wouldn't seem like the Bulletin without you."

Charlie turned to the story in front of him and put one second of energy into pounding the space bar before coming back to conversation.

"Where is this Eldorado?" he asked.

"Fiftieth Street and Seventh Avenue."

"Does it stay open all night?"

"Well, it's open all night but after one there's a man on the door and he won't let you in unless he knows you."

"Are they strict about it?"

"Pretty strict, lately," said Peter, "but that's all right, Charlie. Any time you want to go up late you let me know. I'll be glad to show you round. I'm always free nights. Any night at all – That is any night except Sunday."

CHAPTER X

THE baby carriage was kept in the kitchen thereafter and Peter did not see it again until Sunday, his first Sunday at home. Kate left the flat very early. Peter could not very well object to that because she said she was going to mass. He wished that she might be converted to one of the eleven o'clock denominations, but he supposed at her age there was small hope of that. She would be gone, she told him, until nine or ten o'clock in the evening. Her niece, the one who lived in Jamaica, had a new baby five weeks old. Kate was going there right after church. Peter thought that if he had Kate's job he would prefer to spend his day off at an old folks' home or some other spot exclusively mature.

Still he could understand the psychology of it. Out in Jamaica, Kate could sit around and when the baby cried she need not move hand or foot. She could watch other people bustle around and fulfill its needs. And then every now and then she might give advice and see it carried out. He himself had spent many a day off in the office of the Bulletin sitting on the desk of somebody who was working and interrupting him.

Before Kate left she gave Peter a complete list of directions for the baby's day and also a problem for him to ponder over. "What will I be calling the boy?" she wanted to know. "I find it hard to be talking to him and him with no name."

"I'll think it over," Peter told her. After she left he did think it over. He went into the baby's room and looked at him as he lay there to see if the child suggested any name in particular. Being asleep he seemed a little more impersonal than usual. Of course, Peter Neale was a pretty good name, but there didn't seem to be any point in calling him that unless in some way or other he seemed to be Peter. He did sleep with his head buried face down in the pillow but that was an insufficient bond. Perhaps there were millions of people in the world who slept that way. Probably there were no statistics on the subject.

Maybe one Peter Neale was enough. It did mean something. After all it was Peter Neale who had written in the Bulletin: "If Horace Fogel goes through with his plan of making a first baseman out of Christy Mathewson he will be committing the baseball crime of the century. Mathewson, or Matty as his team mates call him, is still green, but he has in him the makings of one of the greatest pitchers the world has ever known. He has the speed and control and more than that he has a head on his shoulders. Horace Fogel hasn't."

And they didn't switch Matty to first base after all and now everybody was beginning to realize that he was a great pitcher. But Peter Neale knew it first of all. More than that it was Peter Neale who had begun his round by round story of the Gans-Nelson fight, only two weeks ago, with the memorable line, "The Dane comes up like thunder." He had invented the name of "Hooks" for George Wiltse and had written that "Frank Bowerman runs the bases like somebody pulling Grover Cleveland in a rickshaw." And Peter was still progressing. He would go on, years hence, to make the most of McGraw's practice of starting games with Rube Schauer and finishing them with Ferdie Schupp by contriving the lead, "It never Schauers but it Schupps." Perhaps he had prevision enough to realize that it was he, Peter Neale, who would eventually ascribe to Jack Dempsey the motto, "Say it with cauliflowers" and write after a Crimson disaster on the Thames, "Harvard's most perplexing race problems appear to be crewish and Jewish."

He looked at the sleeping child and wondered if there were any leads like that in the little head. By and by, of course, the baby would grow up and in some newspaper there would be articles under his name. Peter would like to see the articles before he was willing to have them signed "By Peter Neale." Every now and then somebody wandered into his office at the Bulletin and asked him to use his good influences with the managing editor. Peter always said, "Will you let me see something you've written." Here in front of him was a candidate not only for a job but for his job. And the applicant had nothing to show.

It was a hot bright Sunday and Kate had recommended that the baby go out. The carriage was deplorable. Peter had not bothered to look at it before, but now he examined it and found it wholly lacking in distinction. It could not be that all the things which were wrong with it had resulted from his falling over it a few mornings back. That had hurt him much more than the carriage. The paint was splotchy and all the wheels squeaked. Kate must have seized the first available vehicle in the neighborhood. What with that carriage and his heavily bandaged head he felt that the caravan which he was about to conduct would be disreputable. The numerous chin straps which held the bandages in place made it difficult for Peter to shave. In order to avoid that difficulty Peter hadn't shaved. He only hoped that nobody in the Park would stop the procession and ask him to accept a quarter. Peter practised an expression of scorn in front of a mirror in order to be ready for some such contingency. Nature had endowed him with a loose scalp. He could wiggle both ears, together or separately. So far this had never been of much use although he found that it helped him enormously to qualify as a nursery entertainer. But there was another manœuvre which he used habitually and successfully to indicate utter disagreement and contempt. He could elevate his right eyebrow without disturbing the other. This never failed to strike terror to all observers. Peter had that so well in hand that he needed no mirror practice to perfect it. He worked on curling his lip, a device which was new to him.

Combined with an elevated eyebrow an effect was produced ample to carry off the handicaps of both carriage and bandages.

Nevertheless, he felt a little conspicuous when he started for the Park. And pushing a carriage was dull work. There was no future to it, no competitive value, no opportunity for advancement. One could not very well come to the point of being able to say, "I can wheel a carriage a little bit better than anybody else in New York." The thing was without standards. Of all outdoor sports this was the most dreary and democratic. But in spite of the ease of manipulation he was under the impression that a carriage required constant attention. Quite by accident he discovered that it would space nicely between shoves if he happened to let go of the handlebar. This led to the creation of a rather amusing game. Peter called it putting the sixteen pound carriage.

Not far from the Sixty-fifth Street entrance of the Park he found a large hill and for a moment it was clear of pedestrians. Standing at the foot of this hill Peter gave the carriage a violent shove and let go. Up the hill it sped until its momentum was exhausted and then it rolled back again. The game was to try and make it reach the top. Peter never succeeded in that although he came within four feet eight inches of accomplishing the feat which he had set for himself. He was handicapped by the fact that he did not quite dare to put all his back and shoulders into the preliminary shove. Indeed on his best heave, the one which took the missile within four feet eight inches of the top, the carriage careened precariously. More than that it almost hit a stout woman who was coming down the hill. She stopped and spoke to Peter. "Haven't you got any better sense than to do a thing like that," she said. "That carriage almost upset. I've a good mind to follow you home and tell the father of that baby some of the things you're doing with his child. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, a grown man carrying on like that. And on Sunday too."

Peter didn't want her to follow him home and so he merely said, "Yes, mam, I won't do it any more."

And for that day he kept his word. However, the baby did not seem to mind much. It continued to sleep. Peter pushed the carriage aimlessly about for a little while, never letting go of the handlebar. He felt like an Atlantic City Negro with a wheel chair hired for the day by a tired business man. There was nobody to whom he could talk. The baby had slept so long by now that Peter began to worry that something might be wrong with him. Bending over the carriage he ascertained that the child was still breathing. He wished it would wake up. Of course he might not actually be company if aroused but he seemed even less animated when asleep.

Perhaps Christy would be a good name for him. Christopher Mathewson Neale had a fine resounding swing to it. Still maybe Matty wouldn't turn out to be a great pitcher after all. Peter was tremendously confident about him, but it might be best to wait until time had tested him. After a World's Series or something like that one could be absolutely certain. No good taking chances until then. It was still within the bounds of possibility that Matty might be a bloomer and it would hardly be fair to name the child after somebody in the Three I League.

Finding a tree and a bench Peter sat down to continue his speculations. How about a newspaper name? Greeley Neale wouldn't be so bad. Yes, it would. Everybody would be sure to make it Greasy Neale. A prizefight name offered possibilities. Nelson Neale, for instance, had alliteration. Peter had given the lightweight a name – the Durable Dane was his invention – and it seemed no more than a fair exchange to take his in return. Still he had never been convinced that Nelson was a really first class man. He had neither speed nor a punch. It was just stamina which carried him along. The youngster ought not to go through life head down. Besides a name like that would serve to remind Peter of his return from Goldfield and the flight of Maria.

Just then a sound came from the carriage. It was a gurgle. Peter pushed back the hood. The baby looked at him fixedly and Peter fancied that there was a certain trace of emotion in the small face. Surprise seemed to be indicated. And it was not altogether agreeable surprise for as Peter returned the stare the baby's right eyebrow went up and the left one didn't.

"God!" said Peter, "he is Peter Neale."

But there must be more ceremony than that. Peter looked around to see that he and the baby were alone. Then he spoke to him distinctly although emotionally. He realized now that his intuition had been sound when he had said way back weeks ago at the Newspaper Club. "My son has just been born." He had never had any doubt about his physical paternity but that did not seem important. It was spiritual kinship which counted and an eyebrow like that was a thing of the spirit.

"You're my son all right," said Peter, "and you're going to have my name. Peter Neale, that's your name."

He thought it would complicate things to go into the question of whether he should be Peter Neale, Jr. or Peter Neale, 2nd. The Peter Neale was the important part of it. "I guess maybe you can do a lot more with that name than I have, but I've made it a good newspaper name. You can make it a better one maybe. We'll wait and see." He reached out and took the small hand of Peter Neale and shook it. The prayer which went with it was silent. "O God, give him some of the breaks and I will." That completed the christening. It was all that young Peter ever got.

The red-headed boy up the block who had contributed disturbing ideas in other fields also threw a bombshell into Peter's boyhood theology. "Can God do anything?" was his catch question. "Of course He can," replied Peter. "Well, I'll just bet you a million billion dollars He can't make a trolley car go in two directions at the same time." Peter didn't see how He could. He puzzled over the problem for months and at last he decided that maybe God could work it by making the trolley car like an elastic so that it could be stretched up town and down town at the same time. It was not an entirely satisfactory solution of the problem. If a passenger stood in the middle of the car he wouldn't get any place at all.

But for the moment Peter was not much concerned with the potential relationship between the Deity and young Peter. He could bide his time and think up an answer for the day when the child should ask him, "Who's God?" The immediate problem was what place he should fill on the Bulletin. Eventually, of course, he would conduct the column called, "Looking Them Over With Peter Neale." Already there were thirty-one papers in the syndicate and some day Peter could step down and the column would still be "Looking Them Over With Peter Neale."

It would be pleasant not to die in the office but to have ten years or so with no worries as to whether Jim Jeffries could have beaten John L. Sullivan in his prime. And he didn't want to go on forever writing on the question of whether more nerve was required to hole a ten foot putt in a championship match or bring down a halfback on the five yard line. In those last ten years he would have all the fun of reading a Peter Neale column without having to write it. The job had come to him by the merest chance. But young Peter could be trained from the beginning for the work. "I'll start his education right now," Peter resolved and then he looked at the baby and decided that there didn't seem to be anything specific which could be done immediately. Still an early start was possible. Long division ought to be easy and interesting for a child who knew that it was something used in computing batting averages. Of course young Peter would receive an excellent general education. There wasn't any reason why a sporting writer shouldn't be a person of well rounded culture. Sometimes Peter regretted that his Harvard career had lasted only a year. Probably his sporting poems might have been better if he had been able to go on and take that course in versification. Fine arts and history would not be a waste of time.

There was never any telling when some stray scrap of information could be pressed into service for a sporting story. For instance Peter had been struck by that quotation from Walter Pater about the Mona Lisa which he had happened upon in a Sunday newspaper story. Two years later he had been able to use it about Ed Dunkhurst, the human freight car, by paraphrasing the line to read, "Here is the head upon which all the jabs of the world have come and the eyelids are a little weary."

The quotation had given distinction to the story. Sporting writing ought to be just as distinguished as a man could make it. The days of the lowbrow commentator were disappearing. Young Peter might very well carry on and expand the tradition which he had begun. To be sure, there wasn't any hurry about giving him the job. Twenty-five years more for himself would be about right. By that time young Peter would be just twenty-five years and three weeks old. A year or so of general work on the city staff of the Bulletin might be good for him. Indeed anything on the newspaper would do for a start. That was, anything real. Book critics and people like that weren't really newspaper men. On his fiftieth birthday, perhaps, Peter would go to the managing editor and say, "I'm through and there's just one thing I want from the Bulletin. I think it's only fair that you should let me name my successor."

And the managing editor would say, "Why, of course, Neale, who is it to be?"

"His name is Peter Neale."

Naturally, the managing editor would express some regrets. He would pay a warm tribute to the worth and career of Peter Neale, at the end of which Peter would remark, "I'm glad you feel that way about it, sir." After that formality the substitution would be accepted. The line of Neale would remain unbroken.

All this gazing into the future cheered up Peter so much that he started out very gaily that afternoon to compose a column and mind the baby at the same time. Unfortunately the five o'clock feeding time came around just as he was getting into the swing of an article on the advantages of being lefthanded for the purposes of baseball. Somebody had told him that the Bible had something to say on the subject. Peter found it in the twentieth chapter of Judges where he read: "The inhabitants of Gibeah… Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; everyone could sling stones at an hair-breadth, and not miss."