Officer Bobbie Burke found the case at the Men's Night Court to be less difficult than his experience with Dutch Annie and her "friend." The magistrate disregarded the pleading of Alderman Kelly to show the "law-abiding" Morgan any leniency. The man was quickly bound over for investigation by the Grand Jury, upon the representations of Captain Sawyer, who went in person to look after the matter.
"This man will bear a strict investigation, Mr. Kelly, and I propose to hold him without bail until the session to-morrow. Your arguments are of no avail. We have had too much talk and too little actual results on this trafficking and cocaine business, and I will do what I can to prevent further delays."
"But, your honor, how about this brutal policeman?" began Kelly, on a new tack. "Assaulting a peaceful citizen is a serious matter, and I am prepared to bring charges."
"Bring any you want," curtly said the magistrate. "The officer was fully justified. If night-sticks instead of political pull were used on these gun-men our politics would be cleaner and our city would not be the laughing-stock of the rest of the country. Officer Burke, keep up your good work, and clean out the district if you can. We need more of it."
Burke stepped down from the stand, embarrassed but happy, for it was a satisfaction to know that there were some defenders of the police. He espied Jimmie the Monk sitting with some of his associates in the rear of the room, but this time he was prepared for trouble, as he left. Consequently, there was none.
When he returned to the station house he was too tired to return to his room in the boarding-house where he lodged, but took advantage of the proximity of a cot in the dormitory for the reserves.
Next day he was so white and fagged from the hard duty that Captain Sawyer called up Doctor MacFarland, the police surgeon for the precinct.
When the old Scotchman came over he examined. Burke carefully and shook his head sternly.
"Young man," said he, "if you want to continue on this work, remember that you have just come back from a hospital. There has been a bad shock to your nerves, and if you overdo yourself you will have some trouble with that head again. You had better ask the Captain for a little time off—take it easy this next day or two and don't pick any more fights."
"I'm not hunting for trouble, doctor. But, you know, I do get a queer feeling—maybe it is in my head, from that brick, but it feels in my heart—whenever I see one of these low scoundrels who live on the misery of their women. This Jimmie the Monk is one of the worst I have ever met, and I can't rest easy until I see him landed behind the bars."
"There is no greater curse to our modern civilization than the work of these men, Burke. It is not so much the terrible lives of the women whom they enslave; it is the disease which is scattered broadcast, and carried into the homes of working-men, to be handed to virtuous and unsuspecting wives, and by heredity to innocent children, visiting, as the Bible says, 'the iniquities of the fathers unto the third and the fourth generation.'"
The old doctor sat down dejectedly and rested his chin on his hand, as he sat talking to Burke in the rear room of the station house.
"Doctor, I've heard a great deal about the white slave traffic, as every one who keeps his ears open in the big city must. Do you think the reports are exaggerated?"
"No, my boy. I've been practicing medicine and surgery in New York for forty years. When I came over here from Scotland the city was no better than it should have been. But it was an American city then—not an 'international melting pot,' as the parlor sociologists proudly call it. The social evil is the oldest profession in the world; it began when one primitive man wanted that which he could not win with love, so he offered a bribe. And the bribe was taken, whether it was a carved amulet or a morsel of game, or a new fashion in furs. And the woman who took it realized that she could escape the drudgery of the other women, could obtain more bribes for her loveless barter ... and so it has grown down through the ages."
The old Scotchman lit his pipe.
"I've read hundreds of medical books, and I've had thousands of cases in real life which have taught me more than my medical books. What I've learned has not made me any happier, either. Knowledge doesn't bring you peace of mind on a subject like this. It shows you how much greed and wickedness and misery there are in the world."
"But, doctor, do you think this white slave traffic is a new development? We've only heard about it for the last two or three years, haven't we?"
The physician nodded.
"Yes, but it's been there in one form or another. It caused the ruin of the Roman Empire; it brought the downfall of mediaeval Europe, and whenever a splendid civilization springs up the curse of sex-bondage in one form or another grows with it like a cancer."
"But medicine is learning to cure the cancer. Can't it help cure this?"
"We are getting near the cure for cancer, maybe near the cure for this cancer as well. Sex-bondage was the great curse of negro slavery in the United States; it was the thing which brought misery on the South, in the carpet-bag days, as a retribution for the sins of the fathers. We cured that and the South is bigger and better for that terrible surgical operation than it ever was before. But this latest development—organized capture of ignorant, weak, pretty girls, to be held in slavery by one man or by a band of men and a few debauched old hags, is comparatively a new thing in America. It has been caused by the swarms of ignorant emigrants, by the demand of the lowest classes of those emigrants and the Americans they influence for a satisfaction of their lust. It is made easy by the crass ignorance of the country girls, the emigrant girls, and by the drudgery and misery of the working girls in the big cities."
"I saw two cases in Night Court, Doc, which explained a whole lot to me—drunken fathers and brutal husbands who poisoned their own wives—it taught that not all the blame rests upon the weakness of the women."
"Of course it doesn't," exclaimed MacFarland impetuously. "It rests upon Nature, and the way our boasted Society is mistreating Nature. Woman is weaker than man when it comes to brute force; you know it is force which does rule the world when you do get down to it, in government, in property, in business, in education—it is all survival of the strongest, not always of the fittest. A woman should be in the home; she can raise babies, for which Nature intended her. She can rule the world through her children, but when she gets out to fight hand to hand with man in the work-world she is outclassed. She can't stand the physical strain thirty days in the month; she can't stand the starvation, the mistreatment, the battling that a man gets in the world. She needs tenderness and care, for you know every normal woman is a mother-to-be—and that is the most wonderful thing in the world, the most beautiful. When the woman comes up against the stone wall of competition with men her weakness asserts itself. That's why good women fall. It's not the 'easiest way'—it's just forced upon them. As for the naturally bad women—well, that has come from some trait of another generation, some weakness which has been increased instead of cured by all this twisted, tangled thing we call modern civilization."
The doctor sighed.
"There are a lot of women in the world right now, Burke, who are fighting for what they call the 'Feminist Movement'. They don't want homes; they want men's jobs. They don't want to raise their babies in the old-fashioned way; they want the State to raise them with trained nurses and breakfast food. They don't see anything beautiful in home life, and cooking, and loving their husbands. They want the lecture platform (and the gate-receipts); they want to run the government, they want men to be breeders, like the drones in the beehive, and they don't want to be tied to one man for life. They want to visit around. The worst of it is that they are clever, they write well, they talk well, and they interest the women who are really normal, who only half-read, only half-analyze, and only get a part of the idea! These normal women are devoting, as they should, most of their energies to the normal things of woman life—children, home, charity, and neighborliness. But the clever feminist revolutionists are giving them just enough argument to make them dissatisfied. They flatter the domestic woman by telling her she is not enough appreciated, and that she should control the country. They lead the younger women away from the old ideals of love and home and religion; in their place they would substitute selfishness, loose morals, and will change the chivalry, which it has taken men a thousand years to cultivate, into brutal methods, when men realize that women want absolute equality. Then, should such a condition ever be accepted by society in general, we will do away with the present kind of social evil—to have a tidal wave of lust."
Bobbie listened with interest. It was evident that Doctor MacFarland was opening up a subject close to his heart. The old man's eyes sparkled as he continued.
"You asked about the traffic in women, as we hear of it in New York. Well, the only way we can cure it is to educate the men of all classes so that for reasons moral, sanitary, and feelings of honest pride in themselves they will not patronize the market where souls are sought. This can't be done by passing laws, but by better books, better ways of amusement, better living conditions for working people, so that they will not be 'driven to drink' and what follows it to forget their troubles. Better factories and kinder treatment to the great number of workmen, with fairer wage scale would bring nearer the possibility of marriage—which takes not one, but two people out of the danger of the gutter. Minimum wage scales and protection of working women would make the condition of their lives better, so that they would not be forced into the streets and brothels to make their livings.
"Why, Burke, a magistrate who sits in Night Court has told me that medical investigation of the street-walkers he has sentenced revealed the fact that nine of every ten were diseased. When the men who foolishly think they are good 'sports' by debauching with these women learn that they are throwing away the health of their wives and children to come, as well as risking the contagion of diseases which can only be bottled up by medical treatment but never completely cured; when it gets down to the question of men buying and selling these poor women as they undoubtedly do, the only way to check that is for every decent man in the country to help in the fight. It is a man evil; men must slay it. Every procurer in the country should be sent to prison, and every house of ill fame should be closed."
"Don't you think the traffic would go on just the same, doctor? I have heard it said that in European cities the authorities confined such women to certain parts of the city. Then they are subjected to medical examination as well."
"No, Burke, segregation will not cure it. Many of the cities abroad have given that up. The medical examinations are no true test, for they are only partially carried out—not all the women will admit their sinful ways of life, nor submit to control by the government. The system prevails in Paris and in Germany, and there is more disease there than in any other part of Europe. Men, depending upon the imaginary security of a doctor's examination card, abandon themselves the more readily, and caution is thrown to the winds, with the result that a woman who has been O.K.'d by a government physician one day may contract a disease and spread it the very next day. You can depend upon it that if she has done so she will evade the examination next time in order not to interfere with her trade profits. So, there you are. This is an ugly theme, but we must treat it scientifically.
"You know it used to be considered vulgar to talk about the stomach and other organs which God gave us for the maintenance of life. But when folks began to realize that two-thirds of the sickness in the world, contagious and otherwise, resulted from trouble with the stomach, that false modesty had to give way. Consequently to-day we have fewer epidemics, much better general health, because men and women understand how to cure many of their own ailments with prompt action and simple methods.
"The vice problem is one which reaps its richest harvest when it is protected from the sunlight. Sewers are not pleasant table-talk, but they must be watched and attended by scientific sanitary engineers. A cancer of the intestines is disagreeable to think about. But when it threatens a patient's life the patient should know the truth and the doctor should operate. Modern society is the patient, and death-dealing sex crimes are the cancerous growth, which must be operated upon. Whenever we allow a neighborhood to maintain houses of prostitution, thus regulating and in a way sanctioning the evil, we are granting a sort of corporation charter for an industry which is run upon business methods. And business, you know, is based upon filling the 'demand,' with the necessary 'supply.' And the manufacturers, in this case, are the procurers and the proprietresses of these houses. There comes in the business of recruiting—and hence the traffic in souls, as it has aptly been called. No, my boy, government regulation will never serve man, nor woman, for it cannot cover all the ground. As long as women are reckless, lazy and greedy, yielding to temporary, half-pleasant sin rather than live by work, you will find men with low ideals in all ranks of life who prefer such illicit 'fun' to the sweetness of wedlock! Why, Burke, sex is the most beautiful thing in the world—it puts the blossoms on the trees, it colors the butterflies' wings, it sweetens the songs of the birds, and it should make life worth living for the worker in the trench, the factory hand, the office toiler and the millionaire. But it will never do so until people understand it, know how to guard it with decent knowledge, and sanctify it morally and hygienically."
The old doctor rose and knocked the ashes out of his briar pipe. He looked at the eager face of the young officer.
"But there, I'm getting old, for I yield to the melody of my own voice too much. I've got office hours, you know, and I'd better get back to my pillboxes. Just excuse an old man who is too talkative sometimes, but remember that what I've said to you is not my own old-fashioned notion, but a little boiled-down philosophy from the writings of the greatest modern scientists."
"Good-bye, Doctor MacFarland. I'll not forget it. It has answered a lot of questions in my mind."
Bobbie went to the front door of the station house with the old gentleman, and saluted as a farewell.
"What's he been chinning to you about, Burke?" queried the Captain. "Some of his ideas of reforming the world? He's a great old character, is Doc."
"I think he knows a lot more about religion than a good many ministers I've heard," replied Bobbie. "He ought to talk to a few of them."
"Sure. But they wouldn't listen if he did. They're too busy getting money to send to the heathens in China, and the niggers in Africa to bother about the heathens and poor devils here. I'm pretty strong for Doc MacFarland, even though I don't get all he's talking about."
"Say, Burke, the Doc got after me one day and gave me a string of books as long as your arm to read," put in Dexter. "He seems to think a cop ought to have as much time to read as a college boy!"
"You let me have the list, Dexter, and I'll coach you up on it," laughed Burke.
"To-day is your relief, Burke," said the Captain. "You can go up to the library and wallow in literature if you want to."
Burke smiled, as he retorted:
"I'm going to a better place to do my reading—and not out of books either, Cap."
He changed his clothes, and soon emerged in civilian garb. He had never paid his call on John Barton, although he had been out of the hospital for several days. The old man's frequent visits to him in his private room at the hospital, after that first memorable meeting, had ripened their friendship. Barton had told him of a number of new ideas in electrical appliances, and Burke was anxious to see what progress had been made since the old fellow returned to his home.
Officer 4434 was also anxious to see another member of his family, and so it was with a curious little thrill of excitement, well concealed, however, with which he entered the modest apartment of the Bartons' that evening.
"Well, well, well!" exclaimed the old man, as the young officer took his hand. "We thought you had forgotten us completely. Mary has asked me several times if you had been up to see me. I suppose you have been busy with those gangsters, and keep pretty close since you returned to active service."
Bobbie nodded.
"Yes, sir. They are always with us, you know. And a policeman does not have very much time to himself, particularly if he lolls around in bed with a throb in the back of the head, during his off hours, as I've been foolish enough to do."
"Oh, how are you feeling, Mr. Burke?" exclaimed Mary, as she entered from the rear room.
She held out her hand, and Bobbie trembled a trifle as he took her soft, warm fingers in his own.
"I'm improving, and don't believe I was ever laid up—it was just imagination on my part," answered Burke. "But I have a faded rose to make me remember that some of it was a pleasant imagination, at any rate."
Mary laughed softly, and dropped her eyes ever so slightly. But the action betrayed that she had not forgotten either.
Old Barton busied himself with some papers on a table by the side of his wheel-chair, for he was a diplomat.
"Well, now, Mr. Burke—what are your adventures? I read every day of some policeman jumping off a dock in the East River to rescue a suicide, or dragging twenty people out of a burning tenement, and am afraid that it's you. It's all right to be a hero, you know, but there's a great deal of truth in that old saying about it being better to have people remark, 'There he goes,' than 'Doesn't he look natural.'"
Bobbie took the comfortable armchair which Mary drew up.
"I haven't had anything really worth while telling about," said Burke. "I see a lot of sad things, and it makes a man feel as though he were a poor thing not to be able to improve conditions."
"That's true of every walk in life. But most people don't look at the sad any longer than they can help. I've not been having a very jolly time of it myself, but I hope for a lot of good news before long. Why don't you bring Lorna in to meet Mr. Burke, Mary?"
The girl excused herself, and retired.
"How are your patents?" asked Bobbie, with interest. "I hope you can show tricks to the Gresham people."
The old man sighed. He took up some drawings and opened a little drawer in the table.
"No, Mr. Burke, I am afraid my tricks will be slow. I have received no letter from young Gresham in reply to one I wrote him, asking to be given a salary for mechanical work here in my home. Every bit of my savings has been exhausted. You know I educated my daughters to the limit of my earnings, since my dear wife died. They have hard sledding in front of them for a while, I fear."
He hesitated, and then continued:
"Do you remember the day you met Mary? She started to say that she and Lorna could not see me on visiting day. Well, the dear girls had secured a position as clerks in Monnarde's big candy store up on Fifth Avenue. They talked it over between them, and decided that it was better for them to get to work, to relieve my mind of worry. It's the first time they ever worked, and they are sticking to it gamely. But it makes me feel terribly. Their mother never had to work, and I feel as though I have been a failure in life—to have done as much as I have, and yet not have enough in my old age to protect them from the world."
"There, there, Mr. Barton. I don't agree with you. There is no disgrace in womanly work; it proves what a girl is worth. She learns the value of money, which before that had merely come to her without a question from her parents. And you have been a splendid father ... that's easily seen from the fine sort of girl Miss Mary is."
Mary had stepped into the room with her younger sister as he spoke. They hesitated at the kindly words, and Mary drew her sister back again, her face suffused with a rosiness which was far from unhappy in its meaning.
"Well, I am very proud of Mary and Lorna. If this particular scheme works out they will be able to buy their candy at Monnarde's instead of selling it."
Bobbie rose and leaned over the table.
"What is it? I'm not very good at getting mechanical drawings. It looks as though it ought to be very important from all the wheels," he said, with a smile of interest.
Spreading out the largest of his drawings, old Barton pointed out the different lines.
"This may look like a mince pie of cogs here, but when it is put into shape it will be a simple little arrangement. This is a recording instrument which combines the phonograph and the dictagraph. One purpose—the most practical, is that a business man may dictate his letters and memoranda while sitting at his desk, in his office, instead of having a machine with a phonograph in his private office taking up space and requiring the changing of records by the dictator—which is necessary with the present business phonograph. All that will be necessary is for him to speak into a little disc. The sound waves are carried by a simple arrangement of wiring into his outer office, or wherever his stenographer works. There, where the space is presumably cheaper and easier of access than the private office, the receiving end of the machine is located. Instead of one disc at a time—limited to a certain number of letters—the machine has a magazine of discs, something like the idea of a repeating letter. Automatically the disc, which is filled, is moved up and a fresh disc takes its place. This goes on indefinitely, as you might say. A man can dictate two hundred letters, speaking as rapidly as he thinks. He never has to bother over changing his records. The girl at the other end of the wire does that when the machine registers that the supply is being exhausted. She in turn uses the discs on the regular business phonograph, or, as this is intended for large offices, where there are a great many letters, and consequently a number of stenographers, she can assign the records to the different typists."
"Why, that is wonderful, Mr. Barton!" exclaimed Burke. "It ought to make a fortune for you if it is backed and financed right. Why didn't anyone think of it before?"
Barton smiled, and caressed his drawing affectionately.
"Mr. Burke, the Patent Office is maintained for men who think up things that some fellow should have thought of before! The greatest inventions are apparently the simplest. That's what makes them hard to invent!"
He pointed to another drawing.
"That has a business value, too, and I hope to get the proper support when I have completed my models. You know, a scientific man can see all these things on the paper, but to the man with money they are pipe dreams until he sees the wheels go 'round."
He now held out his second drawing, which was easier to understand, for it was a sketch of his appliance, showing the outer appearance, and giving a diagonal section of a desk or room, with a wire running through a wall into another compartment.
"Here is where the scientist yields to his temperament and wastes a lot of time on something which probably will never bring him a cent. This is a combination of my record machine, which will be of interest to your profession."
Bobbie examined it closely, but could not divine its purpose.
"It is the application of the phonographic record to the dictagraph, so that police and detective work can be absolutely recorded, without the shadow of a doubt remaining in the minds of a trial jury or judge. Maybe this is boring you?"
"No, no—go on!"
"Well, when dictagraphs are used for the discovery of criminals it has been necessary to keep expert stenographers, and at least one other witness at the end of the wire to put down the record. Frequently the stenographer cannot take the words spoken as fast as he should to make the record. Sometimes it is impossible to get the stenographer and the witness on the wire at the exact time. Of course, this is only a crazy idea. But it seems to me that by a little additional appliance which I have planned, the record machine could be put into a room nearby, or even another house. If a certain place were under suspicion the machine could rest with more ease, less food and on smaller wages than a detective and stenographer on salary. When any one started to talk in this suspected room the vibrations of the voices would start a certain connection going through this additional wire, which would set the phonograph into action. As long as the conversation continued the records would be running continuously. No matter how rapidly words are uttered the phonograph would get them, and could be run, for further investigation, as slowly and as many times as desired. When the conversation stopped the machine would automatically blow its own dinner whistle and adjourn the meeting until the talk began again. This would take the record of at least an hour's conversation: another attachment would send in a still-alarm to the detective agency or police station, so that within that hour a man could be on the job with a new supply of records and bait the trap again."
"Wonderful!"
"Yes, and the most important part is that this is the only way of keeping a record which cannot be called a 'frame-up'—for it is a photograph of the sound waves. A grafter, a murderer, or any other criminal could be made to speak the same words in court as were put on the phonographic record, and his voice identified beyond the shadow of a doubt!"
Bobbie clapped his hand on the old man's shoulder.
"Why, Mr. Barton, that is the greatest invention ever made for capturing and convicting criminals. It's wonderful! The Police Departments of the big cities should buy enough machines to make you rich, for you could demand your own price."
Barton looked dreamily toward the window, through which twinkled the distant lights of the city streets.
"I want money, Burke, as every sane man does. But this pet of mine means more than money. I want to contribute my share to justice just as you do yours. Who knows, some day it may reward me in a way which no money could ever repay. You never can tell about such things. Who knows?"
Mary's sister was as winsome and fair as she, but to Burke's keen eyes she was a weaker girl. There was a suggestion of too much attention to dress, a self-consciousness tinged with self-appreciation.
When she was introduced to Bobbie he could feel instinctively an under-current of condescension, ever so slight, yet perceptible to the sensitive young fellow.
"You're the first policeman I've ever met," began Lorna, with a smile, "and I really don't half believe you are one. I always think of them as swinging clubs and taking a handful of peanuts off a stand, as they walk past a corner cart. Really, I do."
Burke reddened, but retorted, amiably enough.
"I don't like peanuts, for they always remind me of the Zoo, and I never liked Zoos! But I plead guilty to swinging a club when occasion demands. You know even millionaires have their clubs, and so you can't deny us the privilege, can you?"
Lorna laughed, and gracefully pushed back a stray curl with her pretty hand. Mary frowned a bit, but trusted that Bobbie had not noticed the lack of tact.
"I've seen policemen tugging at a horse's head and getting nearly trampled to death to save some children in a runaway carriage. That was on Fifth Avenue yesterday, just when we quit work, Lorna." She emphasized the word "work," and Bobbie liked her the more for it. "And, last winter, I saw two of them taking people out on a fire-escape, wet, and covered with icicles, in a big fire over there on Manhattan Avenue. They didn't look a bit romantic, Lorna, and they even had red faces and pug noses. But I think that's a pleasanter memory than shoplifting from peanut stands."
Lorna smiled winningly, however, and sat down, not without a decorative adjustment of her pretty silk dress. Bobbie forgave her, principally because she looked so much like Mary.
They chatted as young people will, while old Barton mumbled and studied over his drawings, occasionally adding a detail, and calculating on a pad as though he were working out some problem in algebra.
Lorna's chief topic was the theater and dancing.
Mary endeavored to bring the conversation around to other things.
"I have to admit that I'm very green on theaters, Miss Barton," said Bobbie to the younger sister. "I love serious plays, and these old-fashioned kind of comedies, which teach a fellow that there's some happiness in life——but, I don't get the time to attend them. My station is down on the East Side, and I see so much tragedy and unhappiness that it has given me about all the real-life plays I could want, since I came to the police work."
Lorna scoffed, and tossed her curls.
"Oh, I don't like that stupid old stuff myself. I like the musical comedies that have dancing, and French dresses, and cleverness. I think all the serious plays nowadays are nothing but scandal—a girl can't go to see them without blushing and wishing she were at home."
"I don't agree with you, Lorna. There are some things in life that a girl should learn. An unpleasant play is likely to leave a bad taste in one's mouth, but that bad taste may save her from thinking that evil can be honey-coated and harmless. Why, the show we saw the other night—those costumes, those dances, and the songs! There was nothing left to imagine. They stop serious plays, and ministers preach sermons about them, while the musical comedies that some of the managers produce are a thousand times worse, for they teach only a bad lesson."
As Lorna started to reply the bell rang and Mary went to the door.
Two young men were outside and, at Mary's stiff invitation, they entered. Burke rose, politely.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Baxter?" exclaimed Lorna, enthusiastically, as she extended one hand and arranged that disobedient lock of hair with the other. "Come right in, this is such a pleasant surprise."
Baxter advanced, and introduced his companion.
"This is my friend, Reggie Craig, Miss Barton. We're just on our way down to Dawley's for a little supper and a dance afterward. You know they have some great tangoing there, and I know you like it."
Lorna introduced Craig and Baxter to the others. As she came to Bobbie she said, "This is Mr. Burke. You wouldn't believe it, but he is a——"
"Friend of father's," interrupted Mary, with a look which did not escape either Bobbie or Lorna. "Won't you sit down, gentlemen?"
Burke was studying the two men with his usual rapidity of observation.
Baxter was tall, with dark, curly hair, carefully plastered straight back from a low, narrow forehead. His grooming was immaculate: his "extreme" cutaway coat showed a good physique, but the pallor of the face above it bespoke dissipation of the strength of that natural endowment. His shoes, embellished with pearl buttons set with rhinestones, were of the latest vogue, described in the man-who-saw column of the theater programmes. He looked, for all the world, like an advertisement for ready-tailored suitings.
His companion was slighter in build but equally fastidious in appearance. When he drew a handkerchief from his cuff Bobbie completed the survey and walked over toward old Barton, to look at the more interesting drawings.
"You girls must come along to Dawley's, you simply must, you know," began Baxter, still standing. "Of course, we'd be glad to have your father's friend, if he likes dancing."
"That's very kind of you, but you know I've a lot to talk about with Mr. Barton," answered Bobbie, quietly.
"May we go, father?" asked Lorna, impetuously.
"Well, I thought," said the old gentleman, "I thought that you'd——"
"Father, I haven't been to a dance or a supper since you were injured. You know that," pouted Lorna.
"What do you want to do, Mary dear?" asked the old man, helplessly.
"It's very kind of Mr. Baxter, but you know we have a guest."
Mary quietly sat down, while Lorna's temper flared.
"Well, I'm going anyway. I'm tired of working and worrying. I want to have pleasure and music and entertainment like thousands of other girls in New York. I owe it to myself. I don't intend to sit around here and talk about tenement fires and silly old patents."
Burke was embarrassed, but not so the visiting fashion plates. Baxter and Craig merely smiled at each other with studied nonchalance; they seemed used to such scenes, thought Bobbie.
Lorna flounced angrily from the room, while her father wiped his forehead with a trembling hand.
"Why, Lorna," he expostulated weakly. But Lorna reappeared with a pretty evening wrap and her hat in her hand. She donned the hat, twisting it to a coquettish angle, and Baxter unctuously assisted her to place the wrap about her shoulders.
"Lorna, I forbid your going out at this time of the evening with two gentlemen we have never met before," cried Mary.
But Lorna opened the door and wilfully left the room, followed by Craig. Baxter turned as he left, and smiled sarcastically.
"Good-night!" he remarked, with a significant accent on the last word.
Mary's face was white, as she looked appealingly at Burke. He tried to comfort her in his quiet way.
"I wouldn't worry, Miss Mary. I think they are nice young fellows, and you know young girls are the same the world over. I am sure they are all right, and will look after her—you know, some people do think a whole lot of dancing and jolly company, and it is punishment for them to have to talk all the time on serious things. I don't blame her, for I'm poor company—and only a policeman, after all."
John Barton looked disconsolately at the door which had slammed after the trio.
"You do think it's all right, don't you, Burke?"
"Why, certainly," said Burke. He lied like a gentleman and a soldier.
Old Barton was ill at ease, although he endeavored to cover his anxiety with his usual optimism.
"We are too hard on the youngsters, I fear," he began. "It's true that Lorna has not had very much pleasure since I was injured. The poor child has had many sleepless nights of worry since then, as well. You know she has always been our baby, while my Mary here has been the little mother since my dear wife left us."
Mary forced a smiling reply: "You dear daddy, don't worry. I know Lorna's fine qualities, and I wish we could entertain more for her than we do right in our little flat. That's one of the causes of New York's unnatural life. In the small towns and suburbs girls have porches and big parlors, while they live in a surrounding of trees and flowers. They have home music, jolly gatherings about their own pianos; we can't afford even to rent a piano just now. So, there, daddy, be patient and forgive Lorna's thoughtlessness."
Barton's face beamed again, as he caressed his daughter's soft brown curls, when she leaned over his chair to kiss him.
"My blessed little Mary: you are as old as your mother—as old as all motherhood, in your wisdom. I feel more foolishly a boy each day, as I realize the depth of your devotion and love."
Burke's eyes filled with tears, which he manfully wiped away with a sneaking little movement of his left hand, as he pretended to look out of the window toward the distant lights. A man whose tear-ducts have dried with adolescence is cursed with a shriveled soul for the rest of his life.
"Now, we mustn't let our little worry make you feel badly, Mr. Burke. Do you know, I've been thinking about a little matter in which you are concerned? Why don't you have your interests looked after in your home town?"
"My uncle? Well, I am afraid that's a lost cause. I went to the family lawyer when I returned from my army service, and he charged me five dollars for advising me to let the matter go. He said that law was law, and that the whole matter had been ended, that I had no recourse. I think I'll just stick to my work, and let my uncle get what pleasure he can out of his treatment of me."
"That is a great mistake. If he was your family lawyer, it is very possible that your uncle anticipated your going to him. And some lawyers have elastic notions of what is possible—depending upon the size of your fee. Now, I have a young friend down town. He is a patent lawyer, and I trust him. Why don't you let him look into this matter. I have given him other cases before, through my connections with the Greshams. He proved honorable and energetic. Let me write you out a letter of introduction."
"Perhaps you are right. I appreciate your advice and it will do no harm to let him try his best," said Bobbie. "I'll give him the facts and let him investigate matters."
The old man wrote a note while Burke and Mary became better acquainted. Even in her attempt to speak gaily and happily, Bobbie could discern her worriment. As Barton finished his writing, handing the envelope to Burke, the younger man decided to take a little initiative of his own.
"It's late, Mr. Barton. I have had a pleasant evening, and I hope I may have many more. But you know I promised Doctor MacFarland, the police surgeon, that I would go to bed early on the days when I was off duty. So I had better be getting back down town."
They protested cordially, but Bobbie was soon out on the street, walking toward the Subway.
He did not take the train for his own neighborhood, however. Instead he boarded a local which stopped at Sixty-sixth Street, the heart of what is called the "New Tenderloin."
In this district are dozens of dance halls, flashy restaurants and cafés chantantes. A block from the Subway exit was the well-known establishment called "Dawley's." This was the destination of Baxter and Craig, with Lorna Barton. Bobbie thought it well to take an observation of the social activities of these two young men.
He entered the big, glittering room, his coat and hat rudely jerked from his arms by a Greek check boy, at the doorway, without the useless formula of request.
The tables were arranged about the walls, leaving an open space in the center for dancing. Nearly every chair was filled, while the popping of corks and the clinking of glasses even so early in the evening testified to the popularity of Dawley's.
"They seem to prefer this sort of thing to theaters," thought Bobbie. "Anyway, this crowd is funnier than most comedies I've seen."
He looked around him, after being led to a corner seat by the obsequious head waiter. There was a preponderance of fat old men and vacuous looking young girls of the type designated on Broadway as "chickens." Here and there a slumming party was to be seen—elderly women and ill-at-ease men, staring curiously at the diners and dancers; young married couples who seemed to be enjoying their self-thrilled deviltry and new-found freedom. An orchestra of negro musicians were rattling away on banjos, mandolins, and singing obligatos in deep-voiced improvisations. The drummer and the cymbalist were the busiest of all; their rattling, clanging, banging addition to the music gave it an irresistible rhythmic cadence. Even Burke felt the call of the dance, until he studied the evolutions of the merrymakers. Oddly assorted couples, some in elaborate evening dress, women in shoulderless, sleeveless, backless gowns, men in dinner-coats, girls in street clothes with yard-long feathers, youths in check suits, old men in staid business frock coats—what a motley throng! All were busily engaged in the orgy of a bacchanalian dance in which couples reeled and writhed, cheek to cheek, feet intertwining, arms about shoulders. Instead of enjoying themselves the men seemed largely engaged in counting their steps, and watching their own feet whenever possible: the girls kept their eyes, for the most part, upon the mirrors which covered the walls, each watching her poises and swings, her hat, her curls, her lips, with obvious complacency.
Burke was nauseated, for instead of the old-time fun of a jolly dance, this seemed some weird, unnatural, bestial, ritualistic evolution.
"And they call this dancing?" he muttered. "But, I wonder where Miss Lorna is?"
He finally espied her, dancing with Baxter. The latter was swinging his arms and body in a snakey, serpentine one-step, as he glided down the floor, pushing other couples out of the way. Lorna, like the other girls, lost no opportunity to admire her own reflection in the mirrors.
Burke was tempted to rush forward and intercede, to pull her out of the arms of the repulsive Baxter. But he knew how foolish he would appear, and what would be the result of such an action.
As he looked the waiter approached for his order.
Burke took the menu, decorated with dancing figures which would have seemed more appropriate for some masquerade ball poster, for the Latin Quarter, and began to read the entrees.
As he looked down two men brushed past his table, and a sidelong glance gave him view of a face which made him quickly forget the choice of food.
It was Jimmie the Monk, flashily dressed, debonnaire as one to the manor born, talking with Craig, the companion of Baxter.
Burke held the menu card before his face. He was curious to hear the topic of their conversation. When he did so—the words were clear and distinct, as Baxter and Jimmie sat down at a table behind him—his heart bounded with horror.
"Who's dis new skirt, Craig?"
"Oh, it's a kid Baxter picked up in Monnarde's candy store. It's the best one he's landed yet, but we nearly got in Dutch to-night when we went up to her flat to bring her out. Her old man and her sister were there with some nut, and they didn't want her to go. But Baxter "lamped" her, and she fell for his eyes and sneaked out anyway. You better keep off, Jimmie, for you don't look like a college boy—and that's the gag Baxter's been giving her. She thinks she's going to a dance at the Yale Club next week. It's harder game than the last one, but we'll get it fixed to-night. You better send word to Izzie to bring up his taxi—in about an hour."
"I'll go now, Craig. Tell Baxter dat it'll be fixed. Where'll he take her?"
Craig replied in a low tone, which thwarted Burke's attempt to eavesdrop.