IX
I took up Carpenter's lunch at one o'clock, and discovered, to my
dismay, that he had not tasted his breakfast. I ventured to speak to
him; but he sat on a chair, gazing ahead of him and paying no
attention to me, so I left him alone. At six o'clock in the evening
I took up his dinner, and discovered that he had not touched either
breakfast or lunch; but still he had nothing to say, so I took back
the dinner, and went downstairs, and said to T-S: "We've got
ourselves in for a hunger strike!"
Needless to say, under the circumstances we did not very heartily
enjoy our own dinner. And T-S, neglecting his important business,
stayed around; getting up out of one chair and walking nowhere, and
then sitting down in another chair. I did the same, and after we had
exchanged chairs a dozen times--it being then about eight o'clock in
the evening--I said: "By the way, hadn't you better call up the
morning papers and persuade them to be decent." So T-S seated
himself at the telephone, and asked for the managing editor of the
Western City "Times," and I sat and listened to the conversation.
It began with a reminder of the amount of advertising space which
Eternal City consumed in the "Times" in the course of a year, and
also the amount of its payroll in the community. It wasn't often
that T-S asked favors, but he wanted to ask one now; he wanted the
"Times" to let up on this prophet business, and especially about the
prophet's connection with the moving picture industry. Everything
was quiet now, the prophet wasn't bothering anybody--
Suddenly, at the height of his eloquence, T-S stopped; and it seemed
to me as if he jumped a foot out of his chair. "VOT!" And then, "Vy
man, you're crazy!" He turned upon me, his eyes wide with dismay.
"Billy! Dey got a report--Carpenter is shoost now speakin' to a mob
on de steps of de City Hall!"
The magnate did not wait to see me jump out of my chair or to hear
my exclamations, but turned again to the telephone. "My Gawd, man!
Vot do I know about it? De feller vas up in his room two hours ago
ven we took him his dinner! He vouldn't eat it, he vouldn't speak--"
That was the last I heard, having bolted out of the room, and
upstairs. I found Carpenter's door locked; I opened it, and rushed
in. The place was empty! The bird had flown!
How had he got out? Had he climbed through the window and slid down
a rain-spout in his prophetic robes? Had he won the heart of some
servant? Had some newspaper reporter or agent of our enemies used
bribery? I rushed downstairs, and got my car from the garage; and
all the way to the city I spent my time in such futile speculations.
How Carpenter, having escaped from the house, had managed to get
into town so quickly--that was much easier to figure out; for our
highways are full of motor traffic, and almost any driver will take
in a stranger.
I came to the city. Even outside the crowded district, the traffic
was held up for a minute or two at every corner; so I found time to
look about, and to realize that the Brigade had got to town. All day
special trains had been pouring into the city, literally dozens of
them by every road; and now the streets were thronged with men in
uniform, marching arm in arm, shouting, chanting war-cries, roaming
in search of adventure. Tomorrow was the first day of the
convention, the day of the big parade: tonight was a night of riot.
Everything in town was free to ex-service men--and to all others who
could borrow or buy a uniform. The spirit of the occasion was set
forth in a notice published on the editorial page of the "Times":
"Hello, bo! Have a cigarette. Take another one. Take anything you
see around the place.
"The town is yours. Take it into camp with you. Scruff it up to your
heart's content. Order it about. Let it carry grub to you. Have it
shine your shoes. Hand it your coat and tell it to hold it until the
show is over.
"We are all waiting your orders. Shove us back if we crowd. Push us
off the street. Give us your grip and tell us where to deliver it.
Any errands? Call us. If you want to go anywhere, don't ask for
directions. Just jump into the car and tell us where you're bound
for.
"Let's have another one before we part. Put up your money; it's no
good here. This one's on Western City."
I saw that it was not going to be possible to drive through the jam,
so I put my car in a parking place, and set out for the City Hall on
foot. On the way I observed that the invitation of the "Times" had
been accepted; the Brigade had taken possession of the town. It was
just about possible to walk on the down-town streets; there were
solid masses of noisy, pushing people, every other man in uniform.
Evidently there had been a tagit agreement to repeal the Eighteenth
amendment to the Constitution for the next three days; bootleggers
had drawn up their trucks and automobiles along the curbs, and
corn-whiskey, otherwise known as "white lightnin'," was freely sold.
You would meet a man with a bottle in his hand, and the effects of
other bottles in his face, who would embrace you and offer you a
drink; in the same block you would meet another man who would invite
you to buy drinks for everybody in sight. The town had apparently
agreed that no invitation should be declined. If the great Republic
of Mobland had been unable to make for its returned war-heroes the
new world which it had promised them--if it could not even give them
back the jobs they had had before they left--surely the least it
could do was to get them drunk!
And several times in each block you would have to get off the
sidewalk for a group of ten or twenty flushed, dishevelled men,
playing the great national game of craps. "Roll the bones!" they
would shout, completely ignoring the throngs which surged about
them. Each had his pile of bills and silver laid out on the
pavement, and his bottle of "white lightnin';" now and then one
would take a swig, and now and then one would start singing:
All we do is sign the pay-roll--
And we don't get a goddam cent.
You would go a little farther, and find a couple of automobiles
trying to get past, and a merry crowd amusing itself throwing large
waste cans in front of them. Some one would shout: "Who won the
war?" And the answer would come booming: "The goddam slackers;" or
maybe it would be, "The goddam officers." The crowd would move along,
starting to chant the favorite refrain:
You're in the army now,
You're not behind the plow--;
You son-of-a---,
You'll never get rich--
You're in the army now!
And from farther down the street would come a chorus from another
crowd of marchers:
I got a girl in Baltimore,
The street-car runs right by her door.
Every now and then you would come on a fist-fight, or maybe a fight
with bottles, and a crowd, laughing and whooping, engaged in pulling
the warriors apart and sitting on them. Through a mile or two of
this kind of thing I made my way, my heart sinking deeper with
misgiving. I got within a couple of blocks of the City Hall, and
then suddenly I came upon the thing I dreaded--my friend Carpenter
in the hands of the mob!
