At Home with the Jardines Part 18

"You don't know how quickly they can be stopped, Considine," said Jimmie.

"That may be," retorted Considine, "but are you going to pad your broughams and put fenders on your cab horses?"

"I was in an electric cab not long ago," I said, "and a bicyclist rode daringly in front of us. In crossing the trolley-tracks, his bicycle naturally slackened a little, and my careful chauffeur brought the machine to a dead stop. Result that I was pitched out over the dashboard and barely saved myself from landing on my head.

"When I was gathered up and put back I asked the man why he stopped so suddenly (I admit that it was a foolish question, but as I am always one who asks the grocer if his eggs are fresh, I may be pardoned for this one), and he answered: 'Well, did you want me to kill that man?'

I replied that of the two alternatives I would infinitely have preferred to kill the man to being killed myself,--a reply which so offended the dignity of my Jehu that he charged me double. I never did get on very well with cab-drivers."

Jimmie laughed. He was remembering the time I knocked a Paris cabman's hat off with my parasol to make him stop his cab. My methods are inclined to be a little forceful if I am frightened.

"But New York is a city of resources," I continued. "There is always somewhere to go! New York only wakes up at night and the streets present as brilliant a spectacle as Paris, for until the gray dawn breaks in the sky the streets are full of pleasure-seekers; cabs and private carriages flit to and fro; the clubs, restaurants, and supper-rooms are full to overflowing, the lights flare, and the ceaseless whirl of America's greatest city goes on and on. And n.o.body ever looks bored or tired as they do in England. We are all having a good time, and we don't care who knows it. I love New York when it is time to play."

"Well, we've about done up the old town to-night," said Jimmie, as they prepared to leave. "She has hardly a leg to stand on."

"She deserves it," said Considine, gloomily. "I'm off. I'm about to desert and go back to my cabbages. New York won't let you work. She won't help you. She won't protect you. She mocks you. She laughs in your face. I'd rather die than try to work here!"

During every word of this impa.s.sioned speech the Angel and I had been growing colder and colder. We could see ourselves just where Considine had found himself--driven out of New York by reason of its abominable noise.

"And the worst of it is," went on Considine, "is that most of this noise is so unnecessary. It comes from--"

A terrific crash came from down-stairs. Three doors slammed. Then some one screamed shrilly. Considine gazed with starting eyes at the jingling globes and gla.s.ses and actually lost a little colour.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"It is nothing," said the Angel, with a wave of the hand, "but our little friends below stairs. Our neighbour is blessed with five charming little olive-branches, who have versatile tastes in athletics, and are bubbling over with animal spirits. We think privately that they are the meanest little devils that ever cursed an apartment-house, but their noise is dear to their parents, and they would not allow it when we fain would boil the children alive or beat them with bed-slats."

Jimmie laughed heartlessly, but Considine took his head between his hands.

"They have just ill.u.s.trated what I was going to say. n.o.body has any regard for the rights of others. Peddlers are allowed horns, and cornets, and strings of bells. Why not allow them to send up poisoned balloons to explode in your open windows, and thus call attention to their wares? I wouldn't object a bit more! Why do parents allow such noises? Have you ever remonstrated with the mother?"

"Oh, yes," said the Angel. "One day Faith called and apologized to Mrs. Gottlieb, but begged to know if she might not take the children out herself in order to let me finish a chapter. But Mrs. Gottlieb was justly incensed at any one daring to object to the healthful sports of her little brood, and said: 'Mrs. Jardine, my children are in their own apartment, and I shall allow them to make all the noise they wish.'"

"And the next day," I broke in, excitedly, "she bought the three girls tin horns and the boys drums!"

Considine ground his teeth.

"If our wicked ways of life demanded that each of us should bear some horrible affliction, but Providence had mitigated the sentence by allowing us to choose our own form of mutilation," he said, slowly, "instead of giving up an arm or a leg or an eye, I would give up both ears and say, 'Lord, make me deaf!' For, much as I love music and the sound of my friends' voices, I believe that I could give up all conversation, and for ever deny myself to Grieg and Beethoven and Wagner rather than stand the daily, hourly torture of the street sounds of a great city."

He looked around at us and real tears stood in his eyes.

"Do you know," said the Angel, answering the look in his friend's eyes, "I believe no one on earth understands the anguish those of us who compose suffer from noise. It is not nervousness which causes us this anguish. It is the creating spirit,--the power of the man who brings words to life in literature or who brings tones to life in music. It is part of the artistic temperament, and if I ever saw a child start and shake and go white at a sudden noise, I should lay my hand on the little chap's head and say to his mother: 'Take care of that child's brain, for in it lies the power of the creator of something great.

Teach him above everything self-expression that he may not labour as too many do, yet labour in vain.'"

I loved Considine for the way he looked at my Angel after that speech and the way he moved toward him and took his hand in his big, soft, strong grip.

"I can't stand it!" he declared, standing up. "I'm going. I wouldn't live in New York if they'd give me the town. I'm going back to my five hundred acres and get in the middle of it with a revolver, and I'll shoot anything that approaches!"

But when they had all gone something like dismay seized us.

"He has so much more money than we have," I wailed, "and if _he_ can't do anything where do we come in, I'd like to know!"

The Angel paced up and down thoughtfully with his hands behind his back,--an att.i.tude conducive to deep meditation in men, I have observed.

"I think I have it," he said, finally. "Considine is too impulsive.

He was not firm enough. Now I got an important letter from the agents to-day, saying that they could do nothing about the noise of the children. In the lease it expressly mentions them. I shall simply hold back the rent and see what that produces!"

I was filled with admiration at the Angel's firmness.

The result was speedily produced, such as it was. Jepson called. He called often. Then we began to get letters, and finally they threatened us with eviction. It made me feel quite Irish.

Then one day the owner and the agents and their lawyer called, and we discussed the matter. They were affable at first, but as the noise from the Gottlieb apartment grew more boisterous, their suavity departed, for they realized that our grievance was a substantial one, yet they declared they could do nothing.

"But it is in the lease," we protested. Then they delivered themselves of what they really had come to say.

"My dear sir," said the owner, "that lease and those rules can never be enforced in this city. They simply don't hold--that's all."

"Very well," I said, triumphantly. "If the clauses upon which we took the apartment do not hold, then neither does the clause regarding the payment of the rent obtain."

They all three broke in together with hysterical eagerness:

"Ah, but that does hold. You must know that, madam."

"The rent clause is the only clause which the law backs up, is it? We have no redress against your getting us here under false pretences?"

They looked at each other uneasily. Then their masculinity a.s.serted itself. What? To be thus browbeaten by a woman? They looked commiseratingly at the Angel for being saddled with such a wife.

They stood up to go. I looked expectantly at Aubrey.

"Gentlemen," he said, quietly. "You have heard the noises from the surrounding apartments to-day, and you have admitted that they were extraordinary. I declare them not to be borne. If then, you cannot mitigate the nuisance, this apartment will be at your disposal from the first of February."

They smiled patronizingly. The lawyer even laid his hand on the Angel's shoulder. He should have known better than that.

"My dear fellow," he said, benevolently. "You are liable for the whole year's rent--until next October. You will see by your lease."

Aubrey shook his hand off haughtily.

"Provided the lease is signed," he said, quietly. "Will you gentlemen have the goodness to find my signature on this lease? I haven't even returned it to your office."

They examined it with dropped jaws. They had not even the strength to hand it back to him. Between them it fell to the floor,--the lease whose only binding clause was the one regarding the payment of the rent.

"From the first of February," repeated the Angel, politely.

"But my dear sir," protested the lawyer, recovering first. "Let us see if we cannot adjust this little difficulty. You sign the lease, for we cannot rent such an apartment as this in midwinter. We would lose eight months' rent if you gave it up now, and I will myself personally see Mr. Gottlieb in regard to his children's noise. It really is abominable."

"We shall move this month," said Aubrey. "From the first of February this apartment is yours."

"You are very stiff about it," said the owner. "Why not be reasonable?"