The Landloper by Holman Day (ereader ebook .txt) 📖

his book.
"If I ever see you again--" blustered the lover.
"I sincerely hope that will never happen," remarked the stranger, without turning his head. "Instinct of the purely animal sort tells me that if our paths cross in this life it will be very bad for one or the other."
When Farr was in the highway he fumbled in his pocket and found the withered rose. He tossed it away among the roadside bushes.
But after he had gone on his way for some distance he retraced his steps and hunted in the bushes for a long time on his hands and knees until he found the poor little keepsake.
He put it carefully into the deepest pocket he could find in his newly acquired habiliments and trudged on down the world.


VI
A MAN ON FOOT AND A MAN IN HIS CHARIOT
A blatant orator, haranguing passionately, attracted two new auditors.
A tall young man sauntered to the edge of the little group in the square and listened with a smile which indicated cynical half-interest.
An automobile halted on the opposite side of the group. A big man sat alone in the tonneau.
He began to scowl as he listened.
The young man continued to smile.
The big man was plainly a personality. He was cool and crisp in summer flannels--as immaculate as the accoutrements of his car.
In face and physique the young man was plainly not of that herd near which he stood.
His glance crossed that of the man in the car; he met the scowl with his smile.
Like a kiln open to the hot glare from a brassy sky or an oven where the July caloric blazed like a blast from the open mouth of a retort--such that day seemed Moosac Square in the heart of the cotton-mill city. High buildings closed in its treeless, ill-paved, dirty area. The air, made blistering by the torch of the sun, beat back and forth between the buildings in shimmering waves.
In the center of the square the blatant orator balanced himself on a stone trough which was arid and dust-choked. He harangued the group of unkempt men; sweating, blinking, apathetic men; slouchy men; men who were ticketed in attire and demeanor with all the squalid marks of idlers, vagrants, and the unemployed.
The man on the trough was of the ilk of the men who surrounded him. His face was flaming with the heat and with his vocal efforts. Perspiration streamed into his eyes, his voice was hoarse with shouting, but he had the natural eloquence of the demagogue. He was delivering the creed of the propaganda of rebellious poverty, the complaints of the dissatisfied, the demands of the idle agitators. He spiked his diatribe with threats flavored by anarchy. He pointed to policemen who had taken refuge in strips of shade which had been cast grudgingly by the high buildings. He reminded his hearers that those policemen had just driven them out of the tree-shaded parks. There the selfish rich folks were loafing under the trees. Poor folks were herded down the street and were forced to hold this meeting in that Gehenna, so he averred.
The man in the automobile muttered impatient words. Then he shouted, breaking in on the impassioned anathema which the orator addressed to the rich: "Stop lying to these men--stirring them up. The parks are for the people. You can go there--all you men can go there--if you'll go without making a disturbance."
"If men in these days open their mouths to speak for their human rights it's a disturbance," retorted the demagogue. "If we go up to the park and sit there and tremble like rabbits you rich men will let us stay there--perhaps! But we don't have as many rights there as the rabbits, for the rabbits are allowed to step on the grass."
"You've got to obey the law like other citizens--you will not be allowed to disturb decent and respectable people. You and men like you must stop putting foolish notions in the heads of loafers in this city."
"Then put something into our mouths--give us food. Why are we loafers?"
"Because you won't go to work. I'll give every able-bodied man here all the work he wants. Apply at the office of the Consolidated Water Company--now."
"What's the work?" inquired a man in the crowd.
"Digging trenches for water-pipes. How many men want that work? Hold up hands."
"It ain't work for human beings in this weather," snarled the man who had inquired. No hands were raised.
"That's your style!" blazed the big man. The policemen had sauntered into the square and their presence was reassuring. He stood up and began to lecture them.
"And them's the kind of lord dukes that's running this country to-day--own it and run it," growled a slouchy fellow who stood near the tall young man. "They ain't willing to give a poor man a show."
"He has just offered you a show--all of you," stated the young man.
"Yes, a Guinea job for white men."
"You're picking a poor excuse for being a loafer, my friend."
"Who says I'm a loafer?"
The young man shot out his hands and grasped the fellow's elbow and hand. The arm was flabby, the palm was soft. He doubled back the fingers and exhibited the palm to the crowd.
"I don't find any labor medals here, men. Is there anybody in the crowd who can show some?" He released the struggling, cursing captive.
"What's labor medals?" inquired a bystander.
The big man was still denouncing them from his car, but the group paid little attention now.
"Callous spots in the place where a working-man ought to wear them. And that place isn't on the tongue."
"Are you sneering at us because we can't get a job?"
"You're a loafer yourself, and anybody can see it," declared another.
The young man raised his arms, showing them his palms.
"I carry a few labor medals," he returned, curtly.
"Why ain't you on your job? The lord dukes won't give you one?"
"_When_ I work and _where_ I work is my own business, so long as I don't beg food at back doors."
"Do _we_?"
They had crowded around him and menaced him with murmurings and glowering gaze.
"I should say so," he replied, giving them an indifferent going-over with his cold eyes. "You carry all the marks."
Then he shouldered his way out from among them, displaying the air of one who found further discourse unprofitable.
He strolled leisurely in the direction of the big man in the car. The crowd he had left stared after him without presuming to voice taunt or reply; there was something compelling about him.
As Farr approached the automobile its owner stopped talking and stared at the tall stranger with some apprehension. Then the big man beckoned unobtrusively to a policeman. It was evident that Farr was not of the same sort as the ruck of men from among whom he had just emerged, nevertheless he had come from among them. The lordly man in the car had observed him moving in the group, for Farr had loomed above the heads of the others; what he had been saying to the malcontents the big man had not been able to hear, but he guessed.
"Some sort of sneak has been stirring up the fools in this city lately," the aristocrat informed the officer who came promptly to the side of the car. "Who is this fellow coming?"
"I never saw him before, Colonel Dodd."
"Stand by! He is going to tackle me and make a grand-stand play in front of his gang. His clothes give him away--a loafing demagogue!"
But the tall man did not pause at the car or even glance at the dignitary who occupied it. He seemed to have lost all interest in the occasion. He yawned as he passed the automobile and started away across the square.
"Here, you! You big chap!" called Colonel Dodd, promptly emboldened.
Farr halted and turned, his countenance showing mild inquiry.
"What do you mean by coming into a peaceable city and stirring up labor troubles?"
"Have I done so?"
"You have just been mixing and mingling with those men, talking to them. I know your kind."
"Ah, a gentleman of keen discernment!"
"I have seen you before--you fellows with long-tailed coats and short-horned ideas. We don't want your kind in this city!"
"I seem to have made a prompt sensation without trying to do so," returned Farr, meekly. "I have been in your city less than fifteen minutes, sir!"
"You're a traveling labor-agitator, aren't you?"
"No, sir."
"But I just saw you circulating among those men. Your rig-out shows your character!"
"You mean these garments I wear?"
"Certainly! A frock-coat helps out your pose before an ignorant public."
"He stole that coat from me," squeaked a fat man, standing at a little distance, scrubbing a torn sleeve over his grimy, sweat-streaked face. "He picked it fair off'n my back. I have follered him to show him up as a robber and a fake. That's so help me!"
Riotous laughter from all the listeners followed that declaration; a glance at the tubby tramp and survey of the tall young man whose contours fitted the garments made the fat man's assertion seem like a huge joke.
"I can prove it!" squalled the vagrant.
"Beat it! Get out of this city!" commanded a policeman. "If you don't we'll have you on the rock-pile. What ye mean by such guff?" He flourished his stick and the tramp hurried away.
"It's no use," he whined. "Grab and bluff! Him what can do it best always wins. That's the way the world goes!"
"When I took these clothes off the back of my vanishing friend I felt that they would make a change in my life," stated Farr, with a smile which provoked more laughter. "But I did not dream that they would bring me such prominence in so short a time." He bowed to the man in the car.
But Colonel Dodd was angry and insistent and did not join in the merriment.
"I say you are a labor-agitator. Any man who won't go to work himself has no right to be stirring up other workers against their own interests. You may as well own up to me, my man. These men standing around here know what you are--you have been talking with them. Outside of stirring trouble, you don't work, do you?"
"Oh yes, my lord!"
There was smiling mockery in the tone, almost insolence. He seemed to be willing to display to the rich man the same lack of respect he had displayed to the poor men who stood near and listened to this colloquy.
"Oh, you do?" Colonel Dodd raised his voice. "Listen sharp, my men! Do you want to be led around by the noses by a man who doesn't work? This gentleman is going to tell us what his job is!" He sneered when he said it.
"I am an assiduous toiler in my profession, your excellency. I am surprised that as an employer you do not recognize a real worker when you see one."
This tone of raillery and this stilted manner of speech promptly caught the fancy of the throng. The men crowded more closely and the orator on the trough was silent.
"What do you work at?"
"I am an architect, your gracious highness."
"Less of that insolence in the way of names, my friend! An architect, eh? Well, what did you ever build?"
"I laid out Dream Avenue in the boom city of Expectation and built on that thoroughfare a magnificent row of castles in the air. If you had a bit more imagination I might try to sell you something in my line. But it is useless, I see! Farewell!"
He swept off his broad-brimmed hat with a deep bow, backed