They Call Me Carpenter Part 6

The footman had jumped from his seat, and had the door open, and the great man began to alight. At that moment the mob set up a howl.

"For shame! For shame! Unfair! Don't go in there! They starve their workers! They're taking the bread out of our mouths! Scabs! Scabs!"

I got out second, and saw a spectacle of haggard faces, shouting menaces and pleadings; I saw hands waved wildly, one or two fists clenched; I saw the police, shoving against the ma.s.s, poking with their sticks, none too gently. A poor devil in a waiter's costume stretched out his arms to me, yelling in a foreign dialect: "You take de food from my babies!" The next moment the club of a policeman came down on his head, crack. I heard Mary scream behind me, and I turned, just in the nick of time. Carpenter was leaping toward the policeman, crying, "Stop!"

There was no chance to parley in this emergency. I grabbed Carpenter in a foot-ball tackle. I got one arm pinned to his side, and Mary, good old scout, got the other as quickly. She is a bit of an athlete--has to keep in training for those hoochie-coochies and things she does, when she wins the love of emperors and sultans and such-like world-conquerors. Also, when we got hold of Carpenter, we discovered that he wasn't much but skin and bones anyhow. We fairly lifted him up and rushed him into the restaurant; and after the first moment he stopped resisting, and let us lead him between the aisles of diners, on the heels of the toddling T-S. There was a table reserved, in an alcove, and we brought him to it, and then waited to see what we had done.

XIV

Carpenter turned to me-and those sad but everchangjng eyes were flashing. "You have taken a great liberty!"

"There wasn't any time to argue," I said. "If you knew what I know about the police of Western City and their manners, you wouldn't want to monkey with them."

Mary backed me up earnestly. "They'd have mashed your face, Mr.

Carpenter."

"My face?" he repeated. "Is not a man more than his face?"

You should have heard the shout of T-S! "Vot? Ain't I shoost offered you five hunded dollars a veek fer dat face, and you vant to go git it smashed? And fer a lot o' lousy b.u.ms dat vont vork for honest vages, and vont let n.o.body else vork! Honest to Gawd, Mr. Carpenter, I tell you some stories about strikes vot we had on our own lot--you vouldn't spoil your face for such lousy sons-o'-guns--"

"Ssh, Abey, don't use such langwich, you should to be shamed of yourself!" It was Maw, guardian of the proprieties, who had been extracted from the car by the footman, and helped to the table.

"Vell, Mr. Carpenter, he dunno vot dem fellers is like--"

"Sit down, Abey!" commanded the old lady. "Ve ain't ordered no stump speeches fer our dinner."

We seated ourselves. And Carpenter turned his dark eyes on me. "I observe that you have many kinds of mobs in your city," he remarked.

"And the police do interfere with some of them."

"My Gawd!" cried T-S. "You gonna have a lot o' b.u.ms jumpin' on people ven dey try to git to dinner?"

Said Carpenter: "Mr. Rosythe said that the police would not work unless they were paid. May I ask, who pays them to work here? Is it the proprietor of the restaurant?"

"Vell," cried T-S, "ain't he gotta take care of his place?"

"As a matter of fact," said I, laughing, "from what I read in the 'Times' this morning, I gather that an old friend of Mr. Carpenter's has been paying in this case."

Carpenter looked at me inquiringly.

"Mr. Algernon de Wiggs, president of the Chamber of Commerce, issued a statement denouncing the way the police were letting mobs of strikers interfere with business, and proposing that the Chamber take steps to stop it. You remember de Wiggs, and how we left him?"

"Yes, I remember," said Carpenter; and we exchanged a smile over that trick we had played.

I could see T-S p.r.i.c.k forward his ears. "Vot? You know de Viggs?"

"Mr. Carpenter possesses an acquaintance with our best society which will astonish you when you realize it."

"Vy didn't you tell me dat?" demanded the other; and I could complete the sentence for him: "Somebody has offered him more money!"

Here the voice of Maw was heard: "Ain't we gonna git nuttin' to eat?"

So for a time the problem of capital and labor was put to one side.

There were two waiters standing by, very nervous, because of the strike. T-S grabbed the card from one, and read off a list of food, which the waiter wrote down. Maw, who was learning the rudiments of etiquette, handed her card to Mary, who gave her order, and then Maw gave hers, and I gave mine, and there was only Carpenter left.

He was sitting, his dark eyes roaming here and there about the dining-room. Prince's, as you may know, is a gorgeous establishment: too much so for my taste--it has almost as much gilded moulding as if T-S had designed it for a picture palace. In front of Carpenter's eyes sat a dame with a bare white back, and a rope of big pearls about it, and a tiara of diamonds on top; and beyond her were more dames, and yet more, and men in dinner-coats, putting food into red faces. You and I get used to such things, but I could understand that to a stranger it must be shocking to see so many people feeding so expensively.

"Vot you vant to order, Mr. Carpenter?" demanded T-S; and I waited, full of curiosity. What would this man choose to eat in a "lobster palace"?

Carpenter took the card from his host and studied it. Apparently he had no difficulty in finding the most substantial part of the menu.

"I'll have prime ribs of beef," said he; "and boiled mutton with caper sauce; and young spring turkey; and squab en ca.s.serole; and milk fed guinea fowl--" The waiter, of course, was obediently writing down each item. "And planked steak with mushrooms; and braised spare ribs--"

"My Gawd!" broke in the host.

"And roast teal duck; and lamb kidneys--"

"Fer the love o' Mike, Mr. Carpenter, you gonna eat all dat?"

"No; of course not."

"Den vot you gonna do vit it?"

"I'm going to take it to the hungry men outside."

Well, sir, you'd have thought the world had stopped turning round, so still it was. The two waiters nearly dropped their order-pads and their napkins; they did drop their jaws, and Mrs. T-S's permanent wave seemed about to go flat.

"Oh, h.e.l.l!" cried T-S at last. "You can't do it!"

"I can't?"

"You can't order only vot you gonna eat."

"But then, I don't want anything. I'm not hungry."

"But you can't sit here like a dummy, man!" He turned to the waiter.

"You bring him de same vot you bring me. Unnerstand? And git a move on, cause I'm starvin'. Fade out now!" And the waiter turned and fled.

XV

The proprietor of Eternal City wiped his perspiring forehead with his napkin, and started rather hurriedly to make conversation. I understood that he wanted to enjoy his dinner, and proposed to talk about something pleasant in the meantime. "I vonna tell you about dis picture ve're goin' to see took, Mr. Carpenter. I vant you should see de scale we do tings on, ven we got a big subjic.

Y'unnerstand, dis is a feature picture ve're makin' now; a night picture, a big mob scene.".

"Mob scene?" said Carpenter. "You have so many mobs in this world of yours!"

"Vell, sure," said T-S. "You gotta take dis vorld de vay you find it. Y'can't change human nature, y'know. But dis vot you're gonna see tonight is only a play mob, y'unnerstand."