THe Storyteller.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2401, 16 January 1909, Page 11 (Supplement)

THe Storyteller.

BAiLEY’S EXPERIMENT. (By ■ Pomn’al Gibbon, in “Collier’s Weekly..”) The matter started on the run; to New York, when wo were three days out and had begun to 'be tired of do-, ing nothing through monotonous nights and well-led days. . Some four of us were leaning on the thwart-ship rail of the promenade deck, looking ahead at the blurred sett and the forts part of the boat, where tin.* steerage paswtigm crawled like sick flies over the forecastle head and the hatches. . Young Bailey waved his hand toward them. * .‘Those are recruits: for the greatest nation on earth,” lie began.'in that manner he had acquired since he came into Ins money of explaining the work! and all that therein is. "'Every one lias a baton in his knapsack. There are the millionaires of tomorrow. I could almost envy some of them.”

Sutton blinked indifferently. “Hot,’

he said

Bailey smiled subtly. “By no means,” he answered. “1 could envy their hope, their sense of growing scope. Each of them is taking himself to market. If I were one of them, 1 should be thinking now of what I had to offer to the United States—my youth, my optimism, niv energy, and my belief in my follow creatures, too, Sutton.” “Why aren't you thinking that now?” demanded Ashton. Sutton grunted. “You've never travelled steerage, Bailey; you know nothing about it. I believe, that’s why you talk. I’vo done it, my child. And if you were one of those poor beggars you’d simply be wondering why you feel so hungry and why the stewards behaved like jail warders.” “Cynicism,” said Bailey calmly, “cynicism, niy dear fellow. And snobbery, or>you wouldn’t chafe at having travelled steerage. One of these days I’ll try it myself ; it will be a,n experience.”

Sutton grinned. “It would,” he agreed. “But you won’t do it.”

“Will you bet?” asked Bailey

“Of course I won’t,” said Sutiou. “I have to earn my money. And besides, if I did bet. on it, you’d do it just to win., and you’d not only be very uncomfortable—you’d talk about it for the rest of the da vs of vour life.”

Ashton, leaning on the rail by his side, laughed sliorHy. “I did it once,” he said. '“Girl put me up to it. Knight errantry and service and that sort ol : thing was the idea. Lot of beastly rot.” “Did you stick it out?” I asked.

“I had to,” lie explained. “Didn’t bring money enough to go aft and buy a stateroom. And my clothes were a careful study of steerage fashions, too. But I told that girl—”

He broke off. “We didn’t speak after that,” he .added. “Didn’t want to, either of us.”

“I’ll do it,” said young Bailey. “By Jove, 111 come back steerage.”

Pie nodded at Sutton: Sutton smiled and patted him on the back with one big hand. "Perhaps you will, my child,” ho remarked. "But I’ll tell you hmv to; play an in to res ting little game between your pig-headed ness and your common sense. Don’t go short of money; take plenty. And fix yourself up with a fine first-class cabin before you buy your steerage ticket. Then see liow long it will take for the obstinacy to peter our and the common sense to take you aft to your comforts.”

Bailey reddened. Sutton was a man he admired as coys can admire powerful men. Beyond having more money than was good for any three meji.. his faults were the faults of generous youth.

“Very well, Sutton,” lie said. "That's what Til do. I won’t ask you to bet, but you shall see.” In Now York we separated. Bailey had come out of curiosity and was sure of a good time; Sutton had business with the Steel Trust, Ashton was at home in Seventy-first. Street, and I, too, bad 1 my affairs, it was not to bo expected that we should meet after we had negotiated the customs, since one goes to New York to work and be busy., and the leisure ouo might devote to pursuing friendships one employs, as the New Yorkers do, hi getting as far from the.city as one can. vSo I did not expect the telephone message Co my room in the Waldorf, by which Ashton summoned me 'to dine at Mouquin’s and' see the finish of Bailey. ' Of course I went, and when I got to tho table that was wedged into the little balcony above the pavement, there was Sutton also. Ashton met me at the door ,and we had not wait--cd more than a couple of minutes when Bailey ran alongside, in an electric liansom.

"By Jove,” lie explained. "Here we are all together. Tim is a lark. New York’s -a ripping place; no end of awfully decent chape here.” "So you’re ■ sailing next week?” asked Sutton.

Bailey was viewing his cocktail expertly. "Yes,” ho answered. He drank the little glass out, and passed liis hand to his breast pocket.., ‘

“Here are the tickets,” he said, and threw some papers across to Sutton.

Sutton smiled at him and took them slowly. “So you’re really going to do it, Bailey?” he said. “Let’s see. This is the steerage ticket, oh? Male, unmarried, English, - aged twenty-, two,” he read from the ticket. “Well, there isn’t much else to say about you. And this is the cabin ticket, I suppose?”

He unfolded ihe stiff paper and gianeed' over it. Then Ids face crumple;.! into smiles.

Void re going it,” -he laughed

“Booms. Fifty-one to. Fifty-four inclusive. What- on earth do you want with four cabins? And on the Preci- <>, a. too? I say, you chaps, lie’s h Hiked the royal suite.”

“The Pr eciosa,” exclaimed Ashton, and the three of us broke into laughter. For Bailey had gone the whole animal. HkTliad chosen the ship of a’l ships which millionaires affect, that twenty-five knot, four-funiuvled leviathan whose saloons combined the luxury of Monte Carlo with .the telephones. ventilators., baths, Jilts, and snob apparatus of the "Waldorf Astoria. Operatic tenors hobnobbed on hep-wide decks with American duche ses and globe-trotting royalties.

“I believe in being thorough,” said Bailey stiffly, when wo had finished laughing. “I shall send my baggage on board to my suite, and take only a small grip—l moan, a small portmanteau —with me to my berth in the s’eeragc. Ir I’m uncomfortable, there is my chance to change. But I shan’t.

change.”

©Don’t you be a fool, Bailey,” said Sutton. “You change as soon as you’re tired of it.” “Thanks, but that’s all settled,” replied Bailey coolly. “I’ll show you that you’re wrong about me, Sutton. I start the day after to-morrow.” “Have it your own way, then,” said Sutton. “But remember I only inipliod you wouldn’t stick to it because it would, be too beastly uncomfortable. If you change aft for any other reason you’ll still have proved me wrong. So remember that.”

1 saw Bailey go on board, for 'though I had not thought fit to reveal i he fact,, I was returning in the Prc--ciosa myself. Not in a royal suite, v/itlt one room to undress in and another to go to bed in, but a humble inside cabin. Bailey was tastefully arrayed in a tweed suit with a flannel shirt; he carried his hag himself. The boat chanced to be fairly fill], for a great contingent of Lithuanians and Poles were returning to their bonus, to correct the mistake of their lives with the money earned' by labor in the States. They were a frowzy crow, hairy and voluble, who luxuriated in the fuss and disorder of their departure, and tilled the fore part of the great steamer with the noise of their farewells. Bailey had a notion, that he war. got up .as a working man on It is travels; he could not see himself and his indescribable air of condescension as be looked round on his chosen travelling companions. Some of them noticed it, however., and lie was the centre of curious stares as lie found .qjte stairway to the steerage deck and Hpnt below to deposit his modest im_ 'pedimenta.

'y : '\ burly person in shirt-sleeves and ■1 uniform cap gave him the number of his bunk, one of a tier of three upheld on iron stanchions. As be lay in it, his neighbor in the next tier would be near enough to kiss. ‘‘An’ see you keep it clean,” recommended the steward.

"I’ll do that,” said Bailey, with a mile.

The burly steward scowled; his countenance lent itself to this exer-

CISC, - "You don’t want to shoot off your mouth here,” lie said, with a tone of hostility. "I got no use for any of your hack talk.” "But, my good man,” Bailey expostulated. Ho got no- further. “One more word,” said the stewrml. “Call mo that again, will yer? Just call mo that again. You won’t, eh? Yer better not, cither. I’ve seen your kind before, plenty of ’em. We know how to ‘deal, with ’Olll on this packet. Yer get along; I’ll not forget yer,” It was not a good beginning, and it seemed likely rather to complicate matters for Bailey.,„ Pie noticed that all the steerage stewards were men of a certain strength of build and emphasis of speech, -who seemed to have a vast experience in the art of subjecting recalcitrant passengers to coercion. He 'arranged, his gear under the. blanket of his bunk and went on deck again. It was his cue to make this voyage serve him with topics for reminiscent i-alk hereafter, and ho lost no time in making acquaintances. Standing at the rail, he saw a little group of three women and two men, and one of tho women took his eye. She was a tall girl of perhaps twenty-three years, slim -and upright, and under the shawl she wore over her head her face was dark and vivid. Bailey found it easy enough to get into 'talk with them; he simply stood by until the men asked him a question about the date of their arrival, and the thing was done.

. “You have been long in America?” ho asked the girl.

•“Yes,” she replied comp’aeen Jy, T like it very mooch.” “And you'are going homeSV

She smiled on him, with a flash of gleaming teeth. “Nod so inooe.U,” she- replied. “It whfis for me to gome.” Nothing more comprehensible was to be got, out of her; to the simplest question she opposed can answer tha t muddied the wells of speech. In her mouth, the English language became a wilderness wherein intelligence starved benighted. But the poise of her head was undeniable, and her lips were full and scarlet. It was an artistic pleasure merely to stand by and watch her while she tangled her words.

They were well down the bay and fronting the freshness of the Atlantic when Bailey- went below for his first m ill. The printed .instructions handed i-o him when he bought his ticket warned him tlr.it lie was'going to have tea and marmalade, but lie did not shrink. His place was at a narrow table covered with slippery oilcloth, and a gaunt Pole sat on each side ot him and ate and drank with fervor and no little noise. He had a mug of stone china as thick as an inkpot, and the burly steward came behind him and filled it with tea from a sort of watering-pot. “Thanks,” said Bailey. “Yer can’t get over me,” retorted the steward, and moved away. Bailey had a mind to call after him, but repressed it. It was the part of wisdom to conciliate the brute. This he tried to do when the meal was over, and be went to his bunk to- get out some cigars.

’.file steward was watching him,, and Bailey held out a couple of Havanas towards him.

“Like to smoke ’em?” he asked genially. ' “No,” said the steward, shortly. How could the wretched man know that New York, yielded no equal to those cigars?

“All right; don't,” cheerfully. “That’s enough from you,” said the steward. “I don’t know who you are and I don’t care, but I don’t put up with no talk from you.” “Nor I from you,” said Bailey.

said Bailey,

‘‘Look hero. You’ve been trying to bully me since I set foot oil your beastly boat, and you’d better understand 1 that I've had enough of it. Yon seem to be used to dealing with pigs; if you try to treat me as a pig,. I’ll make you sorry for it. Is that clear?” “Who’s been bullying you?” demanded the steward. “Have I laid a finger on you? Have I lifted my hand to you ?”

“No.” said Bailey, “and when you do, by Joye, there’ll be trouble. But you’ve been following me round to snarl at me, and it’s got to stop. You’re a steward here, and I'm a- passenger. You mind your business from now Oil;”

.“A steerage passenger,” sneered the steward.

“And a steerage steward,” retorted Bailev.

The victory was with him, and he went on deck again. In his bunk that night he reilecied on his position. Hi smeals had not been satisfactory, though lie could not fa i Ito observe that his fellow-passen-gers seemed to find them to their taste. And the steward had been an annoyance. For the rest, he lay now in an atmosphere such as he had never experienced before, a thickish air freighted with unfamiliar and vaguely repellent smells, while at his elbows a hairy Polo .slumhmWl in his clothes, aml performed a trumpet obligato with his nose.

"But I can stand this,” thought Bailey. "There’s nothing absolutely appalling in it. From tho way those other chaps talked, one one think it was five days on the rack. And that girl that can’t talk—she’s undeniable.”

The memory of her perfect face and its rather stupid placidity remained with him till ho slept. It was not pleasant to have to rise at a stated hour, and it was not easy to get a comfortable bath, but theso were trifles. After breakfast, Bailey betook kiln self to the deck, to the luxuiy which steerage passengers have in common with the occupants of royal suites, the great freshness of the Atlantic. His promenade was tile forecastle head, broken up with winches and the anchor gear; those about him were grubby and apathetic; but it seemed to him as though ho looked on the inscrutable encircling sea for the first time. He paused to lean on the rail and make the most of it.

"Eet- iss not aften so mooch,” said a soft voice at- his meow, while he leaned and gazed. He turned quickly, to the welcome of a brilliant smile.

"Ah, good morning,” said Bailey, and lifted his cap. The girl laughed. “Splendid day, isn’t it?” he remarked, cautiously.' "Splendid?” she repeated. "Splendid is what?”

"Look,” ho bade her, and pointed out to the far thin line of the horizon and the intervening blue. "Acli,” she exclaimed, and her eyebrows puckered in puzzled wonder. He talked with her for a while; there was nothing else to do, hut it was like wading in treacle. She glowed admiringly on him when he was eloquent, and, when he was eilf ent., baffled him with wonderful mazes of his own. tongue, served a la Polon-

aire. Aft, across the fore-deck, b*» could-sec the high tier of promenades and she lter decks where his kind took their ease, careless men and interesting women. -It was not stimulating to. watch it. from the steerage deck, and soon lie took an opportunity to shake ofl : . the /girl and go below to fetch one of his books. With this he established himself in the lee of a winch. . y All would have been well had not the sun shone a little too strongly to make his cap comfortable. After a while, when lie had wriggled from one patch of shade to another, he put down his book and went to fetch a straw hat. It was while he was absent that; the party from the firstclass saloon came with the chief officer to see the fore part of tho wonderful liner. Down the ladder they came, apparitions of amaze to the shabby steerage passengers among whom they stepped so daintily,, swinging their scented skirts dexterously clear of defilement.

“My, what a ship, said the chief of them. “Seems like there was no end to her. Say, how many folks can you get into her when you’re doing your best?” “Fifteen hundred this end,” answered the chief officer. “They don’t take, up so much space apiece as you ladies' do. You should see some of them—not only they can’t read *or write, there’s plenty don’t seem to be able to speak any known language.” Tho girl who had asked the question, a radiant creature from Chicago, stooped and took up tlio book that Bailey had laid down.

“.Here’s one that don’t answer your description,” she said. “Meredith. Fancy,, and in tho steerage. And oh, it’s got a book-plate.”

Tho others crowded round to see, for Bailey’s book-plate, one of his first freaks, was a- thing to notice.

“Stolen, probably,” remarked the chief officer. He looked at the groups sitting about in the sun. “Who owns this book?” he called. None answered. Bailey was still below.

“H’m, going to deny it,” he remarked .

“Ex Libris Francis Bailey,” ' readthe Chicago girl. “I wonder, now. Looks sort of baronial, don’t it?” It was at this moment that Bailey arrived on deck. The companion was close to the place where he had put the book down, and he looked for it it once.

“I beg your pardon,” lie said to the Chicago girl* “I think you have my book.”

“Where d’you get that book?” demanded the chief officer.

“Bought it,” said Bailey calmly, and held out his hand for it.

“It’s got a name in it,” said the Chicago girl doubtfully.

••Yes,” said Bailey, taking it from her. “Mv name. Thanks.”

“I’m sorry,” said the Chicago girl impulsively. “I didn’t mean to be a bother, but I wasn’t expecting to find Meredith lying around here. And then I saw the plate.”

Bailey smiled. "It’s not bad. is it?” he said. "But you didn’t notice the binding.” "Oh, do let me see,” she cried prettily. She could do things handsomely when she chose. The,first officer fumed apart, and Bailey explained to her the true inwardness of a binding which had come from under the hand of a great artist. She listened with interest, which was not wholly for the subject matter of his discourse, while tho steerage folk stared in bovine fashion and the wonderful girl of the bewildering speech glowered at them from the rail.

"Thank you over so much,” said the Chicago girl at last, "I guess I won’t live much longer without having a book or two with that sort of binding.” When she had gone,, Bailey composed himself to read again, but no sooner was he in his place than the girl came over from the rail and squatted down besido him.

"So,” she said. "Youn like so?” Hero fine eyes were alight with something that seemed' like anger, and she jerked her thumb contemptuously in the direction the Chicago girl had departed. "What’s the matter ?” asked Bailey. Tho girl seemed to struggle to range words which should enlighten him.

"Me,” she cried at last, and struck her hand on her breast, glaring at him. "Me—-and so, you see that.” There was no mistaking that she was angry now; her vehemence and tho tense passion of her face put it past doubt. But Bailey could get no nearer the cause of her trouble.

“My dear girl,” he said, soothingly. "I’ve no notion what’s worrying you, but I wouldn’t, bother, really. It’ll come all right.”

She heard him with a sort of eagerness, and shook her head. "Me?” she queried again.

“All right,” said Bailey, nodding, but understanding nothing. Anyhow, it seemed to pacify her, and presently she' ; moved away and went and eat down with some of the other women. Late that afternoon the truculent steward accosted him. He was passing the pantry when that official looked out of the door and beckoned to him.

"What is it?” demanded Bailey

“Keep your hair on,” counselled the steward. "I was wantin’ to warn you. You’re not yearnin’ to have a knife in the back,.are you?”

"1 think not,” replied Bailey.

•. '. . “’Cos you’re in the way of gqttin’ ’it if you don’t leave that Polo j. girl alone/” replied the steward. ‘‘Oh. don’t start Ilyin’ out ; I’m givin’ you the tip.”

“Somebody’s jealous of her?” inquired Bailey. “Nobody need be, I may say.’”. ' .

“Them Poles,”- said the steward, “they don’t stop to think. They see a chap passing the time of tho day with a girl, and they just take j and plunk half a foot of iron into him to mane sure. I tell you for yer j own ~ w — good—you’d better quit fooun’ with * her. Just drop her.” “All right,” said Bailey. “I won’t forget that you gave mo the tip, anyhow.” -

But it was not easy to drop the Polish girl. Her soft eyes followed him everywhere; wherever he disposed himself, her rich quiet voice murmured at his elbow. Nothing that she said was in the least comprehensible to him; it. was his first experience of those banished races who have no authentic tongue of tlicir own, and can express themselves only in a murdered version of the language of their adoption. He noticed, too, that his fellow, passengers in general seemed to watch his movements rather closely, and the whole thing began to be father a nuisance.

The Chicago girl took some trouble to complicate things yet further. Slithad discovered a mute inglorious student of Meredith in the steerage, and was not. disposed to let it go at that. She wanted to seo him again. She talked of him at dinner that night and at lunch that day; in the after-' noon she paid her second visit. Bailey lifted his hat. to her and she came straight to him.

They had barely begun to talk, when a hand was laid on his arm and he was roughly pulled aside. The Polish girl confronted the lady from Chicago. Her shawl was thrust from her head, and her black hair was tumbled. She shrieked her wrath .at- the smart woman from the first-class saloon.

“Me,” she cried, striking herself on the bosom with her hand in the gesture Bailey remembered. “Nod like so, for you. Und then—und then, you go.”

She stretched, her hand, curved viciously, as though to tear the Chicago girl’s face, and Bailey her back. Men were running up from the main deck; the officer of the watch was -staring over the rail of the bridge at them.

“Ach,” said the Polish girl,, and seemed to become quiet forthwith. With a motion of gentleness she disengaged her arm from Bailey’s hold, and walked aside.

“This is rather-wonderful,” Bailey began to say, and then .he stopped and made a rush at the rail. For the Polish girl walked to her side, calmly and without haste, and, climbing upon it, deliberately threw herself overboard.

He heard the Chicago girl shriek and the shout that arose from the deck. He even heard the brisk order barked from the bridge, but "then he heard no more, for he dived with a clean plunge after the girl. The Preciosa, like all the ships of that distinguished line, is well handled. A bell clanged in the engineroom, and the third of the engines ceased upon the moment, so that the propellers should l not carve the floating bodies. Running men converged on a boat, and-flowed into it,-and it dropped from her side; in ten minutes they had Bailey on board and with him the limp woman he held by the hair. The rails of the steamer were thronged with cheering crowds as the boat was hoisted in, and the purser met Bailey as he stepped to the deck.

I had betrayed you, for good reasons of my own, “You’ll find your rooms quite ready for you, sir,” I heard the purser say. Bailey replied something unconeiliatory. The purser smiled indulgently. “We’ll refund the passage money for the berth for’ard,” he said. “Can’t have trouble about it, sir. Plenty of ladies aft to amuse yourself with, instead of flirting with Polish emigrants, sir. And I’ve ordered some hot drinks taken to your bedroom, sir. It’s wise to run no risks. “Hot drinks, eh?” said Bailey, hesitating. “And some cold ones, too, sir,” replied the purser. “Oh, well,” said Bailey.