Piccadilly Jim

It was less than a quarter of an hour later—such was the speed with which Nemesis, usually slow, had overtaken him—that Jerry Mitchell, carrying a grip and walking dejectedly, emerged from the back premises of the Pett home and started down Riverside Drive in the direction of his boarding-house, a cheap, clean, and respectable establishment situated on Ninety-seventh Street between the Drive and Broadway. His usually placid nervous system was ruffled and a-quiver from the events of the afternoon, and his cauliflower ears still burned reminiscently at the recollection of the uncomplimentary words shot at them by Mrs. Pett before she expelled him from the house. Moreover, he was in a mild panic at the thought of having to see Ann later on and try to explain the disaster to her. He knew how the news would affect her. She had set her heart on removing Ogden to more disciplinary surroundings, and she could not possibly do it now that her ally was no longer an inmate of the house. He was an essential factor in the scheme, and now, to gratify the desire of the moment, he had eliminated himself. Long before he reached the brown-stone house, which looked exactly like all the other brown-stone houses in all the other side-streets of uptown New York, the first fine careless rapture of his mad outbreak had passed from Jerry Mitchell, leaving nervous apprehension in its place. Ann was a girl whom he worshipped respectfully, but he feared her in her wrath.

Having entered the boarding-house, Jerry, seeking company in his hour of sorrow, climbed the stairs till he reached a door on the second floor. Sniffing and detecting the odour of tobacco, he knocked and was hidden to enter.

"Hello, Bayliss!" he said sadly, having obeyed the call.

He sat down on the end of the bed and heaved a deep sigh.

The room which he had entered was airy but small, so small, indeed, that the presence of any furniture in it at all was almost miraculous, for at first sight it seemed incredible that the bed did not fill it from side to side. There were however, a few vacant spots, and in these had been placed a wash-stand, a chest of drawers, and a midget rocking-chair. The window, which the thoughtful architect had designed at least three sizes too large for the room and which admitted the evening air in pleasing profusion, looked out onto a series of forlorn back-yards. In boarding-houses, it is only the windows of the rich and haughty that face the street.

On the bed, a corn-cob pipe between his teeth, lay Jimmy Crocker. He was shoeless and in his shirt-sleeves. There was a crumpled evening paper on the floor beside the bed. He seemed to be taking his rest after the labours of a trying day.

At the sound of Jerry's sigh he raised his head, but, finding the attitude too severe a strain on the muscles of the neck, restored it to the pillow.

"What's the matter, Jerry? You seem perturbed. You have the aspect of one whom Fate has smitten in the spiritual solar plexus, or of one who has been searching for the leak in Life's gaspipe with a lighted candle. What's wrong?"

"Curtains!"

Jimmy, through long absence from his native land, was not always able to follow Jerry's thoughts when concealed in the wrappings of the peculiar dialect which he affected.

"I get you not, friend. Supply a few footnotes."

"I've been fired."

Jimmy sat up. This was no imaginary trouble, no mere malaise of the temperament. It was concrete, and called for sympathy.

"I'm awfully sorry," he said. "No wonder you aren't rollicking. How did it happen?" 

"That half-portion Bill Taft came joshing me about my beezer till it got something fierce," explained Jerry. "William J. Bryan couldn't have stood for it."

Once again Jimmy lost the thread. The wealth of political allusion baffled him.

"What's Taft been doing to you?"

"It wasn't Taft. He only looks like him. It was that kid Ogden up where I work. He came butting into the gym, joshing me about—makin' pers'nal remarks till I kind of lost my goat, and the next thing I knew I was giving him his!" A faint gleam of pleasure lightened the gloom of his face. "I cert'nly give him his!" The gleam faded. "And after that—well, here I am!"

Jimmy understood now. He had come to the boarding-house the night of his meeting with Jerry Mitchell on Broadway, and had been there ever since, and frequent conversations with the pugilist had put him abreast of affairs at the Pett home. He was familiar with the personnel of the establishment on Riverside Drive, and knew precisely how great was the crime of administering correction to Ogden Ford, no matter what the cause. Nor did he require explanation of the phenomenon of Mrs. Pett dismissing one who was in her husband's private employment. Jerry had his sympathy freely.