Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

of steep and roughly hewn steps cut into the bank by the deceased architect of the house. At the top of these stairs the two society lights stop.

“Old Boy,” says one of them, “give it up. It might be catching. And you are going to the dance tonight. This little rat of a newsboy⁠—why should you see him personally? Come, let’s go back. You’ve had so much⁠—”

“Bobby,” says the Old Boy, “have I labored all these years in vain, trying to convince you that you are an ass? I know I’m a devil of a buzzerfly, and glash of fashion, but I’ve gozzer see zat boy. Sold me papers a week, ’n now zey tell me he’s sick in this ratsh hole down here. Come on, Bobby, or else go’t devil. I’m going in.”

Old Boy pushes his silk hat to the back of his head and starts with dangerous rapidity down the steep stairs.

His friend, seeing that he is determined, takes his arm and they both sway and stagger down to the little shelf of land below.

The Post Man follows them silently, and they are too much occupied with their own unsteady progress to note his presence. He slips around them, raises the latch of the rickety door, stoops and enters the miserable hut.

Crip lies on a meager bed in the corner, with great, feverish eyes, and little, bony, restless fingers moving nervously upon the covers. The night wind blows in streamy draughts between the many crannies and flares the weak flame of a candle stuck in its own grease upon the top of a wooden box.

“Hello, mister,” says Crip. “I knows yer. Yer works on de paper. I been laid up wid a rattlin’ pain in me chist. Who wins de fight?”

“Fitzsimmons won,” says the Post Man, feeling his hot freckled hand. “Are you in much pain?”

“How many rounds?”

“First round. Less than two minutes. Can I do anything to make you easier?”

“Geeminetty! dat was quick. Yer might gimme a drink.”

The door opens again and two magnificent beings enter. Crip gives a little gasp as his quick eyes fall upon them. Old Boy acknowledges the presence of the Post Man by a deep and exaggerated but well intentioned bow, and then he goes and stands by Crip’s bedside.

“Old man,” he says, with solemnly raised eyebrows, “Whazzer mazzer?”

“Sick,” says Crip. “I know yer. Yer gimme a quarter for a paper one mornin’.”

Old Boy’s friend ranges himself in the background. He is a man in a dress suit with a mackintosh and cane, and is not of an obtrusive personality.

He shows an inclination to brace himself against something, but the fragile furniture of the hut not promising much support, he stands uneasily, with a perplexed frown upon his face, awaiting developments.

“You little devil,” says Old Boy, smiling down with mock anger at the little scrap of humanity under the covers, “Do you know why I’ve come to see you?”

“N-n-n-no, sir,” says Crip, the fever flush growing deeper on his cheeks. He has never seen anything so wonderful as this grand, tall, handsome man in his black evening suit, with the dark, half-smiling, half-frowning eyes, and the great diamond flashing on his snowy bosom, and the tall, shiny hat on the back of his head.

“Gen’lemen,” says Old Boy, with a comprehensive wave of his hand, “I don’t know myself, why I have come here, but I couldn’t help it. That little devil’s eyes have been in my head for a week. I’ve never sheen him ’n my life till a week ago; but I’ve sheen his eyes somewhere, long time ago. Sheems to me I knew this little rascal when I was a kid myself ’way back before I left Alabama; but, then, gentlemen, thash impossible. However, as Bobby will tell you, I made him walk all the way down here with me to shee zis little sick fellow, ’n now we mus’ do all we can for ’m.”

Old Boy runs his hands into his pockets and draws out the contents thereof and lays all, with lordly indiscrimination, on the ragged quilt that covers Crip.

“Little devil,” he says solemnly, “you mus’ buy medicine and get well and come back and shell me papers again. Where in thunder have I seen you before? Never mind. Come on, Bobby⁠—good boy to wait for me⁠—come on now and le’s get a zrink.”

The two magnificent gentlemen sway around grandly for a moment, make elaborate but silent adieus in the direction of Crip and the Post Man, and finally dwindle out into the darkness, where they can be heard urging each other forward to the tremendous feat of remounting the steps that lead to the path above.

Presently Crip’s mother returns with his medicine and proceeds to make him comfortable. She gives a screech of surprise at what she sees lying upon the bed, and proceeds to take an inventory. There are $42 in currency, $6.50 in silver, a lady’s silver slipper buckle and an elegant pearl-handled knife with four blades.

The Post Man sees Crip take his medicine and his fever go down, and promising him to bring down a paper that tells all about the great fight, he moves away. A thought strikes him, and he stops near the door and says:

“Your husband, now where was he from?”

“Oh, plaze yer honor,” says Crip’s mother, “from Alabama he was, and a gentleman born, as everyone could tell till the dhrink got away wid him, and thin he married me.”

As the Post Man departs he hears Crip say to his mother reverentially:

“Dat man what left de stuff, mammy, he couldn’t have been God, for God don’t get full; but if it wasn’t him, mammy, I bet a dollar he was Dan Stuart.”

As the Post Man trudges back along the dark road to the city, he says to himself:

“We have seen tonight good springing up where we would never have looked for it, and something of a mystery all the way from Alabama. Heigho!