BRICKDUST ROW.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12592, 7 September 1906, Page 2

BRICKDUST ROW.

UJL\.IKiii.LJUUJ. HUM . ♦ ' Bγ 0. Hixrt. Blinker was displeased. A. man of less culture, and poise, and wealth would liave sworn. But Blinker always remembered that he was a gentleman—* thine that no gentleman should do. So ho merely looked bored and eardonio while he rode in a haneom to the centre of disturbance, which was the Broadway office of Lawyer Oldport, who was agent for tho Blinker estate. "I don't ccc," saio Blinker, "why I should be always signing confounded papers. I am pecked and was to have left for the North Woods this morning. Now I must wait until to-morrow morning. I liato night trains. My best razors are, of couree, at the bottom of some unidentifiable trunk. It is a plot to drive mo to bay rum and a monologuing. thumb-handed barber. Givo mc a pen that doesn't ecratch. 1 hate pens that scratch." "Sit down/ said the double-chinned,

grey Lawyer Oldport. "The worst has not been told you. Oh, the hardships of the rich. The papers are not yet ready to sign. They will be laid before you to-morrow at cloven. You will miss nnother day. Twice shall the barber tweak the lielptees nose of a Blinker. Bo thankful that your sorrows do not a hair-cut," ''If," said Blinker, rising, "the act did not involve more signing of papers I would take my business out of your hands at once. Give mc a cigar, please." "If," said Lawyer Oldport, "I had cared to see an old friend's eon gulped down at one mouthful by sharks 1 would have ordered you to take it away long ago. Now. let's quit fooling. Alexander. Besides the grinding task of signing your name some thirty times to-morrow, I must impose upon you tho consideration of a matter of .business—of business, and I may say humanity or right. I spoke to you about this five years ago, but you would not listen—you \ver« in a hurry for a coaching trip, I think. The subject has ccniß up again. The property " •'0 property!" interrupted Blinker. "Dear Mr Oldport, I think you mentioned to-morrow. Let's, have it all at one doso to-morrow —signatures and property and snappy rubber bands, and that smelly sealing wax, and all. Have luncheon with mc? Well, I'll try to remember to drop in at eleven to-mor-

row morning." In the evening Blinker wont to one of his clubs, intending to dine. Nobody was- there except some old fogies playing whist, who spoko to him with grave politeness and glared at him with savage contempt. Everybody was out of town. But here lie was kept in like a schoolboy to write his name over and over on pieces of paper. His wounds were deep. Blinker turned his back on the fogies, and said to the club steward, who had come forward with some nonsense about cold, fresh salmon rce:—

"Symons, I'm going to Coney Island." He said it as ono might fiay:—"All's off; I'm going to jump into tho river." The. ioke pleased Symona. He laughed within a sixteenth of a note of the audibility permitted by the by-laws governing employees. "Certainly, oir." he tittered. "Of course, sir, I think I can see you at Coney Island, Mr Slinker." Blinker got a paper and looked up tho movements of Sunday steamboats. Then he found a cab at the first corner and drove to rt North, river pi«r. He stood in line, as democratic as you or I, and bought a ticket, and was trampled upon and shoved forward until at last he found himself on the upper deck of tho boat staring brazenly at a girl who eat alone upon a campstool. But Blinker -did not intend to Iks brazen ; the girl was go wonderfully gocd-looking that he forgot for one minute that ho was the ; prince incog, and behaved just as he did in society. Sho was looking at him, too, and not severely. A puff of wind threatened Blinker's straw hat. He caught it warily and settled it again. The movement gave tho offoct of a bow.

The girl nodded and smiled, and in another instant he was seated at her side. "How dare you raise your hat to mc?" she asked, with a smile redeemed severity. "I didn't," Blinker -was about to say, but ho quickly covered the mietake by extending it to "I didn'i know how to keep from it after I saw you." "I do not allow gentlemen to sit by mc to whom I have not been introduced," she eaid, with a sudden haughtiness that deceived him. He rose reluctantly, but her clear, teasing laugh brought him down to hie chair again. "I guess you weren't going far," Oie declared, with beauty's magnificent self-eonfidonco. "Are you going to Coney Island?" asked Blinker. "MoP" She turned upon him wide open eyes full of bantering *urprise. "Why, what a question! Can* you see that I'm riding a bicycle- in the park?" Her impertinence took the form of delightful drollery. "And I am laying brick on a tall factory chimney," said Blinker. "Mayn't we see Coney together? I'm perfectly alone, and I'vo never been there before."' ' "It depends," said the girl, "on how nicely you behave, ni consider your application until wo gel there." . Blinker took pains to provide against the rejection of his application. Hβ strove to ploasc. To adopt the metaphor of his noneensioal phrase, he laid brick upon brick on the toll chimney of his devoirs until at length the structure was stable and complete. Tho manners of tho l:est society come aronnd finally to simplicity; and as tho girl's way was that naturally, they wero on a mutual plane of communi-

cation from the beginning. « Ho learned that she was twenty, and her name was Florence; that she trimmed hate in « millinery shop; that eh© lived in a furniehed room with her best chum, Ella, who was cashier in a choc shop; Ind that a glass of milk from

I tho bottle on the window sill and :an i egg that boils itself while you twist ' up your hair, makes a breakfast good enough for anyone. Florence laughed j when she hoard "Blinker." "Well," sho eaid. "It certainly shows i that you have imagination. It gives tho 'Smiths' a chanco for a little rest, anyhow/ I They landed at Coney, and wore I dashed on the crest of a groat human

wave of mad pleasure seekers, into tho ; walks end avenues of Fairyland gone ! into vaudoville. With a curious eye, '■« critical mind, and a fairly withheld judgment, Blinker considered tho temples, pagodae, and kiosks pf popularised delights. Hoi poUoi trampled, hustled, and crowded him. Battkct parties bum]>ed him, sticky children tumbled, howling, under his feet, 'candying his clothes. Insolent youths strolling among tho booths with hardwon oanes under ono arm and easilywon girls on the other, Mew defiant , smoke from cheap cigora into his face. ( Tho publicity gentleman with megaphones, each before his own stupendous attraction, reared liUo Niagara's in his oars. Music of all kinds that could

bo tortured from brass, reed, hide, or string fought in tho air to gain space for its vibrations against its competitors. But what hold Blinker in awful fascination was tlw mob, tho multitude, tho proletariat shrieking, struggling, hurrying, panting, hurling itself

in incontinent frenzy with Unabashed abnndon into the ridiculous nham palaces of trumpery and tinsel pleasures. Tho vulgarity of it, its brutal overriding «f all the tenete of repression and taste that were held by his cast* , , repelled him strongly.

In the rniilst of his disgust he turned rind looked down at Florence by his side. Sho was ready with her quick smilo and upturned, happy eyes, us bright and clear as the water in trout pools. Tho eyes were saj'ing that they had tho right to bo shining and happy, for was their owner not with her (for tho present) man, her gentleman friend and holder of tho to the enchanted city of fun?

Blinker did not read her look accurately, but by some miracle be suddenly caw Coney aright. He no longer i caw a mass of vulgarians seeking gross i joys. He now looked clearly Upon [ « hundred _ thousand true ideal" i ists. Their offences were wiped out. j Counterfeit and false though the garish j joye of these spangled temples were, he ■ perceived tJiat deep under the gUt surj face they offered saving and apposite ' balm end satisfaction to the restless human heart. Hero, at least, was the husk of Romance, empty but chining casque of Chivalry, the breath catching though safeguarded dip and flight of Adventure, tho magks carpet that transports yon to the realms of magic, though ita journey bo through but a few poor yards of space. Ho no longer «sa\v a rabble, lmt 1>:« brothers

seeking fh© ideal. There was no magic of poesy liero or of art; bat th* magic of their imagination turned yellow calico into cloth of gold end the megaphones into the. silver trumpet* of joy s heralds. Thus Coney eoored, enyhqw, against th» hand organs of the- «ity and the boarding house lady that tells of her magnificence before her husband lost his money. Almost humbled, Blinker rolled up the shirt sleeves of his mind and joined tho idealists. .. „ ... "You are the lady doctor," he said to Florence. "How shall we go about doing this jolly conglomeration of fairy tales incorporated " "We wilt begin them," said the princess, pointing to a fin pagoda on tho edgo of the eea, "and we will take everything in, ono by one." They caught the 8 o'clock returning boat and sat. filled with pleasant fatigue against tho rail in tbo bow, listening'to the Italians' fiddle and harp. Blinker had thrown off all care. The North Woods seemed to him an uninhabitable wilderness. What a fuss hR had made over signing his name—pooh, ho could sign it a hundred times. And her name was as pretty as she was— "Florence." ho said it to himself a great many times. As tho boat was neariug its pier in the North river a two funnelled drab, foreign looking eeegoing steamer was dropping down towards the bay. Iw boat turned its nose in toward its clip. Tlk> stedmer veered as if to seok midstream, and then yawed, eeemed to increase ite speed and struck tho Coney boat on the side near tho stern, cutting into it with a terrifying shock and crash. While the six hundred passengers on the boat wove mostly tumbling about the dock* in a shrieking panic the captain was shouting at the steamer that it should not back off and leave tho rent exposed for the water to enter. But tho steamer tore its way out like a savage sawfish and cleaved its heartless way, full speed ahead. Tho boat began to sink at its stern, but moved slowly toward the chip. The passengers were a frantic mob. unpleasant to behold. Blinker held Florenco tightly until the boat had righted itself. She made no eound or sign ot fear. He stood on a campstool, ripped off the slats above his head and pulled down a number of the life preservers. He began to buckle ono around Florence. Tho rotten canvas split and the fraudulent granulated cork camo pouring out in a stream. Florence caught a handful of it and laughed gleefully. "It looks like breakfast food," she said. '-Take it off. They're no good." She unbuckled it and threw it on the deck. She made Blinker sit down, and sat by his side and put her hand in his. "What'll you bet we don't roach tho pier all right?" she said, and began to hum a song. "Florence," eaid Blinker, as she held him close by the arm and hand, "1 love you." "That's what they all say," sho replied lightly. "I am not of 'they all,'" ho persisted. "I never knew anyone I could love before. I could pass my life with you and be happy every day. 1" am rich. I can make things all right for yon." "That's what they all say," said tho girl again, weaving tho words into her little reckless song. "Don't say that again," said Blinker in a tone that made her look at him in frank surprise. ''Why shouldn't I say it?" sKo asked calmly. ''They all do." "Who are 'they'?" ho asked, jealous for the first time in his existence.

"Why, the fellows I know." "Do you know so many?" "0, well; I'm not a wall-flower," she answered with modest complacency. '*Whero do you soo these;—theeo meni . At your homo?"

"Of course not. I meet thorn just as I did you. Sometimes on tho boat, sometimes on tho park, sometimes on tho street. I'm a pretty good judge of a man. I can tell in a minute if a fellow is one who is likely to get fresh." "What do you mean by 'fresh , ? ,1 "Why, try to kiss you—me, I mean." "Do any of them try that?" asked Blinfer, clinching his teeth. "Sure. All men do. You knorw that." "Do you allow them?" "Some. Not many. They won?t tako you out anywhere unless you do."

"What's wrong about my meeting fellows?" sho asked, Trondcringly.

"Everything," he answered, almost savagely. "Why don't yon entertain your company in tho house where you live? Is it necessary to pick up Tom, Dick, and Harry on tho streets?"

Sho kept her absolutely ingenuous ©yos upon his.

"Jf yop could soe the placo where I livo you wouldn't ask that. I live in Brickdust row. The-y call it that because there's red dust from tho bricks crumbling over everything. I've lived there for more than four years. There's no place to receive company. You can't have anybody come to your room. What elso is there to do? A girl has got to meet the men hasn't sho ?"

'"Yes," Be eaid Iwarsolj-. "A girl has got to meet a—has got to meet the men."

"The first time one spoke to mc on the street," she continued, "I ran homo and cried all night. But you get used to it. I meet a good many nice fellows at church. Igo on rainy days and stand in the vestibule until one comes up with an unVbrella. I wish there wns a parlour, co 1 could ask you to call, Mr Blinker—are you really euro it isn't 'Smith' now?"

Tho boat landed safely. Blinker had n confused impression of walking with tho girl thro Sigh quiet, crosstown streets until sho stopped at a corner and held out her hand.

"I lire just one more block over," she said. "Thank vpu for a very pleasant afternoon." ' ' Blinker muttered something and plunged northward till lie found a street where ho could find a cab.

At 11 the next day Blinker signed his name thirty times with a new pen provided by Lawyer Oldport.

"Now lot mc go to tho woods," ho said surlily. "You aro not looking well." said lawyer Oldport. "Hip trip will do yon Rood. But listen, if you will, to t-bat little matter of business of which T spoke to you yesterday, and also five years ago. There ate somo buildings, fifteen in number, of which there arc new five year lenses to bo signed. Your father contemplated n ehnngc in the lease provisions, but never made, it He intended that tho parlours of these, houses should not bo. sublet, but that the tenants sltoiild be allowed to uso them for reception rooms. These houses aro in the shopping district, and aro tenanted mainly by young working girls. As it is. they are forced to seek companionship outside. This row of red brick—" Blinker interrupted him "with a loud discordant laugh. ' "Brickdust row for an even hundred," he. cried. "And I own it. Have I guessed right?" ''Tho tenants hard some such name for it," said Lawyer Oldport. Blinker arose and jammed his hat down to his eyes. "Do what you please with it." he said, harshly. "Remodel it, burn it, raze it to tho ground. But man, it's too late, I tell you. It's too late. It's too late. It's too late."' For Blinker had fallen in lovo with a woman not of his close, and he was surly because he know he was not bravo enough to marry her.