Twelve Men Part 34

He seemed to repress a smile that was hovering on his lips.

"The voice of the enemy," I commented.

"Yes, sir, the voice of the enemy," he added. "But don't think that I think I'm done for. Not at all. I have just returned to my old ways in order to think this thing out. In a year or two I'll have solved my problem, I hope. I may have to leave here, and I may not. Anyhow, I'll turn up somewhere, with something."

He did have to leave, however, public opinion never being allowed to revert to him again, and five years later, in a fairly comfortable managerial position in New York, he died. He had made a fight, well enough, but the time, the place, the stars, perhaps, were not quite right. He had no guiding genius, possibly, to pull him through.

Adherents did not flock to him and save him. Possibly he wasn't magnetic enough--that pagan, non-moral, non-propagandistic quality, anyhow. The fates did not fight for him as they do for some, those fates that ignore the billions and billions of others who fail. Yet are not all lives more or less failures, however successful they may appear to be at one time or another, contrasted, let us say, with what they hoped for? We compromise so much with everything--our dreams and all.

As for his reforms, they may be coming fast enough, or they may not. _In medias res._

But as for him...?

_W.L.S._

Life's little ironies are not always manifest. We hear distant rumbling sounds of its tragedies, but rarely are we permitted to witness the reality. Therefore the real incidents which I am about to relate may have some value.

I first called upon W.L. S----, Jr., in the winter of 1895. I had known of him before only by reputation, or, what is nearer the truth, by seeing his name in one of the great Sunday papers attached to several drawings of the most lively interest. These drawings depicted night scenes of the city of New York, and appeared as colored supplements, eleven by eighteen inches. They represented the spectacular scenes which the citizen and the stranger most delight in--Madison Square in a drizzle; the Bowery lighted by a thousand lamps and crowded with "L" and surface cars; Sixth Avenue looking north from Fourteenth Street.

I was a youthful editor at the time and on the lookout for interesting ill.u.s.trations of this sort, and when a little later I was in need of a colored supplement for the Christmas number I decided to call upon S----. I knew absolutely nothing about the world of art save what I had gathered from books and current literary comment of all sorts, and was, therefore, in a mood to behold something exceedingly bizarre in the atmosphere with which I should find my ill.u.s.trator surrounded.

I was not disappointed. It was at the time when artists--I mean American artists princ.i.p.ally--went in very strongly for that sort of thing. Only a few years before they had all been going to Paris, not so much to paint as to find out and imitate how artists _do_ and live. I was greeted by a small, wiry, lean-looking individual arrayed in a bicycle suit, whose countenance could be best described as wearing a perpetual look of astonishment. He had one eye which fixed you with a strange, unmoving solemnity, owing to the fact that it was gla.s.s. His skin was anything but fair, and might be termed sallow. He wore a close, sharp-pointed Vand.y.k.e beard, and his gold-bridge gla.s.ses sat at almost right angles upon his nose. His forehead was high, his good eye alert, his hair sandy-colored and tousled, and his whole manner indicated thought, feeling, remarkable nervous energy, and, above all, a rasping and jovial sort of egotism which pleased me rather than otherwise.

I noticed no more than this on my first visit, owing to the fact that I was very much overawed and greatly concerned about the price which he would charge me, not knowing what rate he might wish to exact, and being desirous of coming away at least unabashed by his magnificence and independence.

"What's it for?" he asked, when I suggested a drawing.

I informed him.

"You say you want it for a double-page center?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll do it for three hundred dollars."

I was taken considerably aback, as I had not contemplated paying more than one hundred.

"I get that from all the magazines," he added, seeing my hesitation, "wherever a supplement is intended."

"I don't think I could pay more than one hundred," I said, after a few moments' consideration.

"You couldn't?" he said, sharply, as if about to reprove me.

I shook my head.

"Well," he said, "let's see a copy of your publication."

The chief value of this conversation was that it taught me that the man's manner was no indication of his mood. I had thought he was impatient and indifferent, but I saw now that he was not so, rather brusque merely. He was simply excitable, somewhat like the French, and meant only to be businesslike. The upshot of it all was that he agreed to do it for one hundred and fifty, and asked me very solemnly to say nothing about it.

I may say here that I came upon S---- in the full blush of his fancies and ambitions, and just when he was verging upon their realization. He was not yet successful. A hundred and fifty dollars was a very fair price indeed. His powers, however, had reached that stage where they would soon command their full value.

I could see at once that he was very ambitious. He was bubbling over with the enthusiasm of youth and an intense desire for recognition. He knew he had talent. The knowledge of it gave him an air and an independence of manner which might have been irritating to some.

Besides, he was slightly affected, argue to the contrary as he would, and was altogether full of his own hopes and ambitions.

The matter of painting this picture necessitated my presence on several occasions, and during this time I got better acquainted with him.

Certain ideas and desires which we held in common drew us toward each other, and I soon began to see that he was much above the average in insight and skill. He talked with the greatest ease upon a score of subjects--literature, art, politics, music, the drama, and history. He seemed to have read the latest novels; to have seen many of the current plays; to have talked with important people. Theodore Roosevelt, previously Police Commissioner but then Governor, often came to his studio to talk and play chess with him. A very able architect was his friend. He had artist a.s.sociates galore, many of whom had studios in the same building or the immediate vicinity. And there were literary and business men as well, all of whom seemed to enjoy his company, and who were very fond of calling and spending an hour in his studio.

I had only called the second time, and was going away, when he showed me a steamship he had constructed with his own hands--a fair-sized model, complete in every detail, even to the imitation stokers in the boiler-room, and which would run by the hour if supplied with oil and water. I soon learned that his skill in mechanical construction was great. He was a member of several engineering societies, and devoted some part of his carefully organized days to studying and keeping up with problems in mechanics.

"Oh, that's nothing," he observed, when I marveled at the size and perfection of the model. "I'll show you something else, if you have time some day, which may amuse you."

He then explained that he had constructed several model warships, and that it was his pleasure to take them out and fight them on a pond somewhere out on Long Island.

"We'll go out some day," he said when I showed appropriate interest, "and have them fight each other. You'll see how it's done!"

I waited some time for this outing, and finally mentioned it.

"We'll go tomorrow," he said. "Can you be around here by ten o'clock?"

Ten the next morning saw me promptly at the studio, and five minutes later we were off.

When we arrived at Long Island City we went to the first convenient arm of the sea and undid the precious fighters, in which he much delighted.

After studying the contour of the little inlet for a few moments he took some measurements with a tape-line, stuck up two twigs in two places for guide posts, and proceeded to fire and get up steam in his war-ships.

Afterwards he set the rudders, and then took them to the water-side and floated them at the points where he had placed the twigs.

These few details accomplished, he again studied the situation carefully, headed the vessels to the fraction of an inch toward a certain point of the opposite sh.o.r.e, and began testing the steam.

"When I say ready, you push this lever here," he said, indicating a little bra.s.s handle fastened to the stern-post. "Don't let her move an inch until you do that. You'll see some tall firing."

He hastened to the other side where his own boat was anch.o.r.ed, and began an excited examination. He was like a school-boy with a fine toy.

At a word, I moved the lever as requested, and the two vessels began steaming out toward one another. Their weight and speed were such that the light wind blowing affected them not in the least, and their prows struck with an audible crack. This threw them side by side, steaming head on together. At the same time it operated to set in motion their guns, which fired broadsides in such rapid succession as to give a suggestion of rapid revolver practice. Quite a smoke rose, and when it rolled away one of the vessels was already nearly under water and the other was keeling with the inflow of water from the port side. S---- lost no time, but throwing off his coat, jumped in and swam to the rescue.

Throughout this entire incident his manner was that of an enthusiastic boy who had something exceedingly novel. He did not laugh. In all our acquaintance I never once heard him give a sound, hearty laugh. Instead he cackled. His delight apparently could only express itself in that way. In the main it showed itself in an excess of sharp movements, short verbal expressions, gleams of the eye.

I saw from this the man's delight in the science of engineering, and humored him in it. He was thereafter at the greatest pains to show all that he had under way in the mechanical line, and schemes he had for enjoying himself in this work in the future. It seemed rather a recreation for him than anything else. Like him, I could not help delighting in the perfect toys which he created, but the intricate details and slow process of manufacture were brain-racking. For not only would he draw the engine in all its parts, but he would buy the raw material and cast and drill and polish each separate part.

Upon my second visit I was deeply impressed by the sight of a fine pa.s.senger engine, a duplicate of the great 999 of the New York Central, of those days. It stood on bra.s.s rails laid along an old library shelf that had probably belonged to the previous occupant of the studio. This engine was a splendid object to look upon, strong, heavy, silent-running, with the fineness and grace of a perfect sewing-machine.

It was duly trimmed with bra.s.s and nickel, after the manner of the great "flyers," and seemed so st.u.r.dy and powerful that one could not restrain the desire to see it run.

"How do you like that?" S---- exclaimed when he saw me looking at it.

"It's splendid," I said.

"See how she runs," he exclaimed, moving it up and down. "No noise about that."