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CHAPTER IV – A LITTLE JOURNEY IN PARANOIA

HALF an hour later Peter tiptoed over and closed the door. Then he sat down at his typewriter, removed the paper he had left in it, put in a new sheet and struck off a word.

He sat still, then, in a sweat. The noise of the keys fell on his tense ears like the crackling thunder of a machine gun.

He took the paper out and tore it into minute pieces.

He got another sheet, sat down at the desk and wrote a few hurried sentences in longhand.

He sealed it in an envelope, glancing nervously about the room; addressed it; and found a stamp in the desk.

Then he tiptoed down the room, softly opened the door and listened.

Hy was snoring.

He stole into the bedroom, found his clothes in the dark and deliberately dressed, clear to overcoat and hat. He slipped out into the corridor, rang for the elevator and went out across the Square to the mail box. There was a box in the hall down-stairs; but he had found it impossible to post that letter before the eyes of John, the night man.

For a moment he stood motionless, one hand gripping the box, the other holding the letter in air – a statue of a man.

Then he saw a sauntering policeman, shivered, dropped the letter in and almost ran home.

Peter had done the one thing that he himself, twelve hours earlier, would have regarded as utterly impossible.

He had sent an anonymous letter.

It was addressed to the Reverend Hubbell Harkness

Wilde, Scripture House, New York. It conveyed to that vigorous if pietistic gentleman the information that he would find his daughter, on the following evening, Saturday, performing on the stage of the Crossroads Theater, Tenth Street, near Fourth: with the added hint that it might not, even yet be too late to save her.

And Peter, all in a tremor now, knew that he meant to be at the Crossroads Theater himself to see this little drama of surprises come off.

The fact developed when Hy came back from the office on Saturday that he was meditating a return engagement with his new friend Betty. “The subject was mentioned,” he explained, rather self-consciously, to Peter.

The Worm came in then and heard Hy speak of Any Street.

“Oh,” he observed, “that piece of Zanin’s! I’ve meant to see it. You fellows going to-night? I’ll join you.”

So the three Seventh-Story Men ate at the Parisian and set forth for their little adventure; Peter and Hy each with his own set of motives locked up in his breast, the Worm with no motives in particular.

Peter smoked a cigar; the Worm his pipe; and Hy, as always, a cigarette. All carried sticks.

Peter walked in the middle; his face rather drawn; peeking out ahead.

Hy swung his stick; joked about this and that; offered an experimentally humorous eye to every young woman that passed.

The Worm wore the old gray suit that he could not remember to keep pressed, soft black hat, flowing tie, no overcoat. A side pocket bulged with a paper-covered book in the Russian tongue. He had an odd way of walking, the Worm, throwing his right leg out and around and toeing in with his right foot.

As they neared the little theater, Peter’s pulse beat a tattoo against his temples. What if old Wilde hadn’t received the letter! If he had, would he come! If he came, what would happen?

He came.

Peter and the Worm were standing near the inner entrance, Waiting for Hy, who, cigarette drooping from his nether lip, stood in the me at the ticket window.

Suddenly a man appeared – a stranger, from the casually curious glances he drew – elbowing in through the group in the outer doorway and made straight for the young poet who was taking tickets.

Peter did not see him at first. Then the Worm nudged his elbow and whispered – “Good God, it’s the Walrus!”

Peter wheeled about. He had met the man only once or twice, a year back; now he took him in – a big man, heavy in the shoulders and neck, past middle age, with a wide thin orator’s mouth surrounded by deep lines. He had a big hooked nose (a strong nose!) and striking vivid eyes of a pale green color. They struck you, those eyes, with their light hard surface. There were strips of whiskers on each cheek, narrow and close-clipped, tinged with gray. His clothes, overcoat and hat were black; his collar a low turnover; his tie a loosely knotted white bow.

He made an oddly dramatic figure in that easy, merry Bohemian setting; a specter from an old forgotten world of Puritanism.

The intruder addressed the young poet at the door in a low but determined voice.

“I wish to see Miss Susan Wilde.”

“I’m afraid you can’t now, sir. She will be in costume by this time.”

“In costume, eh?” Doctor Wilde was frowning. And the poet eyed him with cool suspicion.

“Yes, she is in the first play.”

Still the big man frowned and compressed that wide mobile mouth. Peter, all alert., sniffing out the copy trail, noted that he was nervously clasping his hands.

Now Doctor Wilde spoke, with a sudden ring in his voice that gave a fleeting hint of inner suppressions. “Will you kindly send word to Miss Wilde that her father is here and must see her at once?”

The poet, surprised, sent the message.

Peter heard a door open, down by the stage. He pressed forward, peering eagerly. A ripple of curiosity and friendly interest ran through that part of the audience that was already seated. A young man called, “What’s your hurry, Sue?” and there was laughter.

Then he saw her, coming lightly, swiftly up the side aisle; in the boy costume – the knickerbockers, the torn stockings, the old coat and ragged hat, the tom shirt, open at the neck. She seemed hardly to hear the noise. Her lips were compressed, and Peter suddenly saw that she in her fresh young way looked not unlike the big man at the door, the nervously intent man who stood waiting for her with a scowl that wavered into an expression of utter unbelief as his eyes took in her costume.

Hy came up just then with the tickets, and Peter hurried in after Doctor Wilde; then let Hy and the Worm move on without him to their seats, lingering shamelessly. His little drama was on. He had announced that he would vivisect this girl!

He studied her. But she saw nothing but the big gray man there with the deeply lined face and the pale eyes – her father! Peter noted now that she had her make-up on; an odd effect around those deep blazing eyes.

Then the two were talking – low, tense. Some late comers crowded in, chatting and laughing. Peter edged closer.

“But you shouldn’t have come here like this,” he heard her saying. “It isn’t fair!”

“I am not here to argue. Once more, will you put on your proper clothes and come home with me?”

“No, I will not.”

“You have no shame then – appearing like this?”

“No – none.”

“And the publicity means nothing to you?”

“You are causing it by coming here.”

“It is nothing to you that your actions are a public scandal?” With which he handed her a folded paper.

She did not look at it; crumpled in in her hand.

“You feel, then, no concern for the position you put me in?”

Doctor Wilde was raising his voice.

The girl broke out with – “Listen, father! I came out here to meet you and stop this thing, settle it, once and for all. It is the best way. I will not go with you. I have my own life to live, You must not try to speak to me again!”

She turned away, her eyes darkly alight in her printed face, her slim body quivering.

“Sue! Wait!”

Wilde’s voice had been trembling with anger; now, Peter thought, it was suddenly near to breaking. He reached out one uncertain hand. And a wave of sympathy for the man flooded Peter’s thoughts. “This is where their ‘freedom,’ their ‘self-expression’ leads them,” he thought bitterly. Egotism! Selfishness! Spiritual anarchy! It was all summed up, that revolt, in the girl’s outrageous costume as she stood there before that older man, a minister, her own father!

She caught the new note in her father’s voice, hesitated the merest instant, but then went straight down the aisle, lips tight, eyes aflame, seeing and hearing nothing.

The stage door opened. She ran up the steps, and Peter caught a glimpse of the hulking Zanin reaching out with a familiar hand to take her arm and draw her within… He turned back in time to see Doctor Wilde, beaten, walking rapidly out to the street, and the poet at the door looking after him with an expression of sheer uncomprehending irritation on his keen young face. “There you have it again!” thought Peter. “There you have the bachelor girl – and her friends!”

While he was thus indulging his emotions, the curtain went up on Zanin’s little play.

He stood there near the door, trying to listen. He was too excited to sit down. Turbulent emotions were rioting within him, making consecutive thought impossible. He caught bits of Zanin’s rough dialogue. He saw Sue make her entrance, heard the shout of delighted approval that greeted her, the prolonged applause, the cries of “Bully for you, Sue!”… “You’re all right, Sue!”

Then Peter plunged out the door and walked feverishly about the Village streets. He stopped at a saloon and had a drink.

But the Crossroads Theater fascinated him. He drifted back there and looked in. The first play was over. Hy was in a dim corner of the lobby, talking confidentially with Betty Deane.

Then Sue came out with the Worm, of all persons, at her elbow. So he had managed to meet her, too? She wore her street dress and looked amazingly calm.

Peter dodged around the corner. “The way to get on with women,” he reflected savagely, “is to have no feelings, no capacity for emotion, be perfectly cold blooded!”

He walked up to Fourteenth Street and dropped aimlessly into a moving-picture show.

Toward eleven he went back to Tenth Street. He even ran a little, breathlessly, for fear he might be too late, too late for what, he did not know.

But he was not. Glancing in at the door, he saw Sue, with Betty, Hy, the Worm, Zanin and a few others.

Hurriedly, on an impulse, he found an envelope in his pocket, tore off the back, and scribbled, in pencil —

“May I walk back with you? I want vary much to talk with you. If you could slip away from these people.”

He went in then, grave and dignified, bowing rather stiffly. Sue appeared not to see him.

He moved to her side and spoke low. She did not reply.

The blood came rushing to Peter’s face. Anger stirred. He slipped the folded envelope into her hand. It was some satisfaction that she had either to take it or let them all see it drop. She took it; but Still ignored him. Her intent to snub him was clear now, even to the bewildered Peter.

He mumbled something, he did not know what, and rushed away as erratically as he had come. What had he wanted to say to her, anyway!

At the corner he turned and came part way back, slowly and uncertainly. But what he saw checked him. The Worm was talking apart with her now. And she was looking up into his face with an expression of pleased interest, frankly smiling. While Peter watched, the two moved off along the street.

Peter walked the streets, in a fever of spirit. One o’clock found him out on the high curve of the Williamsburg bridge where he could lean on the railing and look down on the river with its colored splashes of light or up and across at the myriad twinkling towers of the great city.

“I’ll use her!” he muttered. “She is fair game, I tell you! She will find yet that she must listen to me!” And turning about on the deserted bridge, Peter clenched his fist and shook it at the great still city on the island.

“You will all listen to me yet!” he cried aloud. “Yes, you will – you’ll listen!”

CHAPTER V – PETER TREADS THE HEIGHTS

HE walked rapidly back to the rooms. For his bachelor girl play was swiftly, like magic, working itself out all new in his mind, actually taking form from moment to moment, arranging and rearranging itself nearer and nearer to a complete dramatic story. The big scene was fairly tumbling into form. He saw it as clearly as if it were being enacted before his eyes… Father and daughter – the two generations; the solid Old, the experimental selfish New.

He could see that typical bachelor girl, too. If she looked like Sue Wilde that didn’t matter. He would teach her a lesson she would never forget – this “modern” girl who forgets all her parents have done in giving and developing her life and thinks only of her own selfish freedom. It should be like an outcry from the old hearthstone.

And he saw the picture as only a nerve-racked, soul-weary bachelor can see it. There were pleasant lawns in Peter’s ideal home and crackling fireplaces and merry children and smiling perfect parents – no problems, excepting that one of the unfilial child.

Boys had to strike out, of course. But the girl should either marry or stay at home. He was certain about this.

On those who did neither – on the bachelor girls, with their “freedom,” their “truth,” their cigarettes, their repudiation of all responsibility – on these he would pour the scorn of his genius. Sue Wilde, who so plainly thought him uninteresting, should be his target.

He would write straight at her, every minute, and a world should hear him!

In the dark corridor, on the apartment door, a dim square of white caught his eye – the Worm’s little placard. An inner voice whispered to light a match and read it again. He did so. For he was all inner voices now.

There it was:

DO NOT FEED OR ANNOY

BOLBOCERAS AMERICANUS MULS

HABITAT HERE!

He studied it while his match burned out. He knit his brows, puzzled, groping after blind thoughts, little moles of thoughts deep in dark burrows.

He let himself in. The others were asleep.

The Worm, in his odd humors, never lacked point or meaning. The placard meant something, of course… something that Peter could use…

The Worm had been reading – that rather fat book lying even now on the arm of the Morris ‘chair It was Fabre, on Insect Life.

He snatched it up and turned the pages. He sought the index for that word. There it was – Bolbuceras, page 225. Back then to page 225!

He read:

“… a pretty little black beetle, with a pale, velvety abdomen… Its official title is Bulbuceras Gallicus Muls.”

He looked up, in perplexity. This was hardly self-explanatory. He read on. The bolboceras, it began to appear, was a hunter of truffles. Truffles it would, must have. It would eat no common food but wandered about sniffing out its vegetable prey in the sandy soil and digging for each separate morsel, then moving on in its quest. It made no permanent home for itself.

Peter raised his eyes and stared at the bookcase in the corner. Very slowly a light crept into his eyes, an excited smile came to the corners of his mouth. There was matter here! And Peter, like Homer, felt no hesitation about taking his own where he found it.

He read on, a description of the burrows as explored by the hand of the scientist:

“Often the insect will be found at the bottom of its burrow; sometimes a male, sometimes a female, but always alone. The two sexes work apart without collaboration. This is no family mansion for the rearing of offspring; it is a temporary dwelling, made by each insect for its own benefit.”

Peter laid the book down almost reverently and stood gazing out the window at the Square. He quite forgot to consider what the Worm had been thinking of when he printed out the little placard and tacked it on the door. He could see it only as a perfect characterization of the bachelor girls. Every one of those girls and women was a Bolboceras, a confirmed seeker of pleasures and delicacies in the sober game of life, utterly self-indulgent, going it alone – a truffle hunter.

He would call his play, The Bolboceras.

But no. “Buyers from Shreveport would fumble it,” he thought, shrewdly practical. “You’ve got to use words of one syllable on Broadway.”

He paced the room – back and forth, back and forth. The Truffle-Hunter, perhaps.

Pretty good, that!

But no – wait! He stood motionless in the middle of the long room, eyes staring, the muscles of his face strained out of shape, hands clenched tightly..He was about to create a new thing.

“The Truffler!”

The words burst from his lips; so loud that he tiptoed to the door and listened.

“The Truffler,” he repeated. “The Trifler– no The Truffler.”

He was riding high, far above all worldly irritations, tolerant even toward the little person, Sue Wilde, who had momentarily annoyed him.

“I had to be stirred,” he thought, “that was all. Something had to happen to rouse me and set my creative self working. New people had to come into my life to freshen me. It did happen; they did come, and now I an myself again. I shall not have time for them now, these selfish bachelor women and there self-styled Jew geniuses. But still I am grateful to them all. They have helped me.”

He dropped into the chair by the desk, pulled out his manuscript from a drawer and fell to work. It was five in the morning before he crept into bed.

Four days later, his eyes sunken perceptibly, face drawn, color off, Peter sat for two hours within a cramped disorderly office, reading aloud to a Broadway theatrical manager who wore his hat tipped down over his eyes, kept his feet on the mahogany desk, smoked panatelas end on end and who, like Peter, was deeply conservative where women were concerned.

At five-thirty on this same afternoon, Peter, triumphant, acting on a wholly unconsidered impulse, rushed around the corner of Broadway and Forty-second Street and into the telephone room of a glittering hotel. He found Betty Deane’s name in the telephone book, and called up the apartment.

A feminine voice sounded in his ear. He thought it was Sue Wilde.

It was Sue Wilde.

He asked if she could not dine with him.

There was a long silence at the other end of the wire.

“Are you there?” he called anxiously. “Hello! Hello!”

“Yes, I’m here,” came the voice. “You rather surprised me, Mr. Mann. I have an engagement for this evening.”

“Oh, then I can’t see you!”

“I have an engagement.”

He tried desperately to think up conversation; but failed.

“Well,” he said – “good-by.”

“Good-by.”

That was all. Peter ate alone, still overstrung but gloomy now, in the glittering hotel.

The dinner, however, was both well-cooked and hot. It tended to soothe and soften him. Finally, expansive again, he leaned hack, fingered his coffee cup, smoked a twenty-cent cigar and observed the life about him.

There, were many large dressy women, escorted by sharp-looking men of two races. There were also small dressy women, some mere girls and pretty, but nearly all wearing make-up on cheeks and lips and quite all with extreme, sophistication in their eyes. There was shining silver and much white linen. Chafing dishes blazed. French and Austrian waiters moved swiftly about under the commanding eye of a stern captain. Uniformed but pocketless hat boys slipped it and out, pouncing on every loose article of apparel… It was a gay scene; and Peter found himself in it, of it, for it. With rising exultation in his heart he reflected that he was back on Broadway, where (after all) he belonged.

His manager of the afternoon came in now, who believed, with Peter, that woman’s place was the home. He was in evening dress – a fat man. At his side tripped a very young-appearing girl indeed – the youngest and prettiest in the room, but with the make-up and sophistication of the others. Men (and women) stared at them as they passed. There was whispering; for this was the successful Max Neuerman, and the girl was the lucky Eileen O’Rourke.

Neuerrman sighted Peter, greeted him boisterously, himself drew up an unoccupied chair. Peter was made acquainted with Miss O’Rourke. “This is the man, Eileen,” said Neuerman, breathing confidences, “Wrote The Trufiler. Big thing! Absolutely a new note on Broadway! Eric here has caught the new bachelor woman, shown her up and put a tag on her. After this she’ll be called a truffler everywhere… By the way, Eric, I sent the contract down to you to-night by messenger. And the check.”

Miss Eileen O’Rourke smiled indulgently and a thought absently. While Peter lighted, thanks to Neuermnn, a thirty-cent cigar and impulsively told Miss O’Rourke (who continued to smile indulgently and absently) just how he had come to hit on that remarkable tag.

It was nearly nine o’clock when he left and walked, very erect, from the restaurant, conscious of a hundred eyes on his back. He gave the hat boy a quarter.

Out on Forty-second Street he paused to clear his exuberant but confused mind. He couldn’t go back to the rooms; not as he felt now. Cabarets bored him. It was too early for dancing. Irresolute, he strolled over toward Fifth Avenue, crossed it, turned south. A north-bound automobile bus stopped just ahead of him. He glanced up at the roof. There appeared to be a vacant seat or two. In front was the illuminated sign that meant Riverside Drive. It was warm for February.

He decided to take the ride.

Just in front of him, however, also moving toward the bus, was a young couple. There was something familiar about them. The girl – he could see by a corner light – was wearing a boyish coat, a plaid coat. Also she wore a tam o’shanter. She partly turned her head… his pulse started racing, and he felt the colour rushing into his face. It was Sue Wilde, no other!

But the man? No overcoat. That soft black hat! A glimpse of a flowing tie of black silk! The odd trick of throwing his right leg out and around as he walked and toeing in with the right foot!

It was the Worm.

Peter turned sharply away, crossed the street and caught a south-bound bus. Wavering between irritation, elation and chagrin, he walked in and out among the twisted old streets of Greenwich Village. Four distinct times – and for no clear reason – he passed the dingy apartment building where Sue and Betty lived.

Later he found himself standing motionless on a curb by a battered lamp-post, peering through his large horn-rimmed eye-glasses at a bill-board across the street on which his name did not appear. He studied the twenty-four-sheet poster of a cut plug tobacco that now occupied the space. There was light enough in the street to read it by.

Suddenly he turned and looked to the right. Then he looked to the left. Fumbling for a pencil, he moved swiftly and resolutely across the street. Very small, down in the right-hand corner of the tobacco advertisement, he wrote his name – his pen name – “Eric Mann.”

Then, more nearly at peace with himself, he went to the moving pictures.

Entering the rooms later, he found the Worm settled, in pajamas as usual, with a book in the Morris chair. He also found a big envelope from Neuerman with the contract in it and a check for a thousand dollars, advanced against royalties.

It was a brown check. He fingered it for a moment, while his spirits recorded their highest mark for the day. Then, outwardly calm, he put it in an inside coat pocket and with a fine air of carelessness tossed the contract to the desk.

The Worm put down his book and studied Peter rather thoughtfully.

“Pete,” he finally said, “I’ve got a message for you, and I’ve been sitting here debating whether to deliver it or not.”

“Let’s have it!” replied the Eric Mann shortly.

The Worm produced a folded envelope from the pocket of his pajamas and handed it ever. “I haven’t been told what’s in it,” he said.

Peter, with a tremor, unfolded the envelope and peered inside. There were two enclosures – one plainly his scribbled note to Sue; the other (he had to draw it partly out and examine it) – yes – no – yes, his anonymous letter, much crumpled.

Deliberately, rather white about the mouth, Peter moved to the fireplace, touched a match to the papers and watched them burn. That done, he turned and queried:

“Well? That all?”

The Worm shook his head. “Not quite all, Pete.”

Words suddenly came from Peter. “What do I care for that girl! A creative artist has his reactions, of course. He even does foolish things. Look at Wagner, Burns, Cellini, Michael Angelo – look at the things they used to do!..”

The words stopped.

“Her message is,” continued the Worm, “the suggestion that next time you write one of them with your left hand.”

Peter thought this over. The check glowed next to his heart. It thrilled him. “You tell your friend Sue Wilde,” he replied then, with dignity, “that my message to her – and to you – will be delivered next September across the footlights of the Astoria Theater.” And he strode into the bedroom.

The Worm looked after him with quizzical eyes, smiled a little and resumed his book.