



Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










THE NE'ER-DO-WELL

By REX BEACH

Author of "THE SILVER HORDE" "THE SPOILERS" "THE IRON TRAIL" Etc.

Illustrated




TO

MY WIFE




CONTENTS

     I. VICTORY

    II. THE TRAIL DIVIDES

   III. A GAP

    IV. NEW ACQUAINTANCES

     V. A REMEDY IS PROPOSED

    VI. IN WHICH KIRK ANTHONY IS GREATLY SURPRISED

   VII. THE REWARD OF MERIT

  VIII. EL COMANDANTE TAKES A HAND

    IX. SPANISH LAW

     X. A CHANGE OF PLAN

    XI. THE TRUTH ABOUT MRS. CORTLANDT

   XII. A NIGHT AT TABOGA

  XIII. CHIQUITA

   XIV. THE PATH THAT LED NOWHERE

    XV. ALIAS JEFFERSON LOCKE

   XVI. "8838"

  XVII. GARAVEL THE BANKER

 XVIII. THE SIEGE OF MARIA TORRES

   XIX. "LA TOSCA"

    XX. AN AWAKENING

   XXI. THE REST OF THE FAMILY

  XXII. A CHALLENGE AND A CONFESSION

 XXIII. A PLOT AND A SACRIFICE

  XXIV. A BUSINESS PROPOSITION

   XXV. CHECKMATE!

  XXVI. THE CRASH

 XXVII. A QUESTION

XXVIII. THE ANSWER

  XXIX. A LAST APPEAL

   XXX. DARWIN K ANTHONY




THE NE'ER-DO-WELL




I

VICTORY


It was a crisp November night. The artificial brilliance of Broadway
was rivalled by a glorious moonlit sky. The first autumn frost was in
the air, and on the side-streets long rows of taxicabs were standing,
their motors blanketed, their chauffeurs threshing their arms to rout
the cold. A few well-bundled cabbies, perched upon old-style hansoms,
were barking at the stream of hurrying pedestrians. Against a
background of lesser lights myriad points of electric signs flashed
into everchanging shapes, winking like huge, distorted eyes; fanciful
designs of liquid fire ran up and down the walls or blazed forth in
lurid colors. From the city's canons came an incessant clanging roar,
as if a great river of brass and steel were grinding its way toward the
sea.

Crowds began to issue from the theatres, and the lines of waiting
vehicles broke up, filling the streets with the whir of machinery and
the clatter of hoofs. A horde of shrill-voiced urchins pierced the
confusion, waving their papers and screaming the football scores at the
tops of their lusty lungs, while above it all rose the hoarse tones of
carriage callers, the commands of traffic officers, and the din of
street-car gongs.

In the lobby of one of the playhouses a woman paused to adjust her
wraps, and, hearing the cries of the newsboys, petulantly exclaimed:

"I'm absolutely sick of football. That performance during the third act
was enough to disgust one."

Her escort smiled. "Oh, you take it too seriously," he said. "Those
boys don't mean anything. That was merely Youth--irrepressible Youth,
on a tear. You wouldn't spoil the fun?"

"It may have been Youth," returned his companion, "but it sounded more
like the end of the world. It was a little too much!"

A bevy of shop-girls came bustling forth from a gallery exit.

"Rah! rah! rah!" they mimicked, whereupon the cry was answered by a
hundred throats as the doors belched forth the football players and
their friends. Out they came, tumbling, pushing, jostling; greeting
scowls and smiles with grins of insolent good-humor. In their hands
were decorated walking-sticks and flags, ragged and tattered as if from
long use in a heavy gale. Dignified old gentlemen dived among them in
pursuit of top-hats; hysterical matrons hustled daughters into
carriages and slammed the doors.

"Wuxtry! Wuxtry!" shrilled the newsboys. "Full account of the big game!"

A youth with a ridiculous little hat and heliotrope socks dashed into
the street, where, facing the crowd, he led a battle song of his
university. Policemen set their shoulders to the mob, but, though they
met with no open resistance, they might as well have tried to dislodge
a thicket of saplings. To-night football was king.

Out through the crowd came a score of deep-chested young men moving
together as if to resist an attack, whereupon a mighty roar went up.
The cheer-leader increased his antics, and the barking yell changed to
a measured chant, to the time of which the army marched down the street
until the twenty athletes dodged in through the revolving doors of a
cafe, leaving Broadway rocking with the tumult.

All the city was football-mad, it seemed, for no sooner had the
new-comers entered the restaurant than the diners rose to wave napkins
or to cheer. Men stepped upon chairs and craned for a better sight of
them; women raised their voices in eager questioning. A gentleman in
evening dress pointed out the leader of the squad to his companions,
explaining:

"That is Anthony--the big chap. He's Darwin K. Anthony's son. You've
heard about the Anthony bill at Albany?"

"Yes, and I saw this fellow play football four years ago. Say! That was
a game."

"He's a worthless sort of chap, isn't he?" remarked one of the women,
when the squad had disappeared up the stairs.

"Just a rich man's son, that's all. But he certainly could play
football."

"Didn't I read that he had been sent to jail recently?"

"No doubt. He was given thirty days."

"What! in PRISON?" questioned another, in a shocked voice.

"Only for speeding. It was his third offence, and his father let him
take his medicine."

"How cruel!"

"Old man Anthony doesn't care for this sort of thing. He's right, too.
All this young fellow is good for is to spend money."

Up in the banquet-hall, however, it was evident that Kirk Anthony was
more highly esteemed by his mates than by the public at large. He was
their hero, in fact, and in a way he deserved it. For three years
before his graduation he had been the heart and sinew of the university
team, and for the four years following he had coached them, preferring
the life of an athletic trainer to the career his father had offered
him. And he had done his chosen work well.

Only three weeks prior to the hard gruel of the great game the eleven
had received a blow that had left its supporters dazed and despairing.
There had been a scandal, of which the public had heard little and the
students scarcely more, resulting in the expulsion of the five best
players of the team. The crisis might have daunted the most resourceful
of men, yet Anthony had proved equal to it. For twenty-one days he had
labored like a real general, spending his nights alone with diagrams
and little dummies on a miniature gridiron, his days in careful
coaching. He had taken a huge, ungainly Nova Scotian lad named Ringold
for centre; he had placed a square-jawed, tow-headed boy from Duluth in
the line; he had selected a high-strung, unseasoned chap, who for two
years had been eating his heart out on the side-lines, and made him
into a quarter-back.

Then he had driven them all with the cruelty of a Cossack captain; and
when at last the dusk of this November day had settled, new football
history had been made. The world had seen a strange team snatch victory
from defeat, and not one of all the thirty thousand onlookers but knew
to whom the credit belonged. It had been a tremendous spectacle, and
when the final whistle blew for the multitude to come roaring down
across the field, the cohorts had paid homage to Kirk Anthony, the
weary coach to whom they knew the honor belonged.

Of course this fervid enthusiasm and hero-worship was all very
immature, very foolish, as the general public acknowledged after it had
taken time to cool off. Yet there was something appealing about it,
after all. At any rate, the press deemed the public sufficiently
interested in the subject to warrant giving it considerable prominence,
and the name of Darwin K. Anthony's son was published far and wide.

Naturally, the newspapers gave the young man's story as well as a
history of the game. They told of his disagreement with his father; of
the Anthony anti-football bill which the old man in his rage had driven
through the legislature and up to the Governor himself. Some of them
even printed a rehash of the railroad man's famous magazine attack on
the modern college, in which he all but cited his own son as an example
of the havoc wrought by present-day university methods. The elder
Anthony's wealth and position made it good copy. The yellow journals
liked it immensely, and, strangely enough, notwithstanding the
positiveness with which the newspapers spoke, the facts agreed
essentially with their statements. Darwin K. Anthony and his son had
quarrelled, they were estranged; the young man did prefer idleness to
industry. Exactly as the published narratives related, he toiled not at
all, he spun nothing but excuses, he arrayed himself in sartorial
glory, and drove a yellow racing-car beyond the speed limit.

It was all true, only incomplete. Kirk Anthony's father had even better
reasons for his disapproval of the young man's behavior than appeared.
The fact was that Kirk's associates were of a sort to worry any
observant parent, and, moreover, he had acquired a renown in that part
of New York lying immediately west of Broadway and north of
Twenty-sixth Street which, in his father's opinion, added not at all to
the lustre of the family name. In particular, Anthony, Sr., was
prejudiced against a certain Higgins, who, of course, was his son's
boon companion, aid, and abettor. This young gentleman was a lean,
horse-faced senior, whose unbroken solemnity of manner had more than
once led strangers to mistake him for a divinity student, though closer
acquaintance proved him wholly unmoral and rattle-brained. Mr. Higgins
possessed a distorted sense of humor and a crooked outlook upon life;
while, so far as had been discovered, he owned but two ambitions: one
to whip a policeman, the other to write a musical comedy. Neither
seemed likely of realization. As for the first, he was narrow-chested
and gangling, while a brief, disastrous experience on the college paper
had furnished a sad commentary upon the second.

Not to exaggerate, Darwin K. Anthony, the father, saw in the person of
Adelbert Higgins a budding criminal of rare precocity, and a menace to
his son; while to the object of his solicitude the aforesaid criminal
was nothing more than an entertaining companion, whose bizarre
disregard of all established rules of right and wrong matched well with
his own careless temper. Higgins, moreover, was an ardent follower of
athletics, revolving like a satellite about the football stars, and
attaching himself especially to Kirk, who was too good-natured to find
fault with an honest admirer.

It was Higgins this evening who, after the "<DW36>s" had deserted and
the supper party had dwindled to perhaps a dozen, proposed to make a
night of it. It was always Higgins who proposed to make a night of it,
and now, as usual, his words were greeted with enthusiasm.

Having obtained the floor, he gazed owlishly over the flushed faces
around the table and said:

"I wish to announce that, in our little journey to the underworld, we
will visit some places of rare interest and educational value. First we
will go to the House of Seven Turnings."

"No poetry, Hig!" some one cried. "What is it?"

"It is merely a rendezvous of pickpockets and thieves, accessible only
to a chosen few. I feel sure you will enjoy yourselves there, for the
bartender has the secret of a remarkable gin fizz, sweeter than a
maiden's smile, more intoxicating than a kiss."

"Piffle!"

"It is a place where the student of sociology can obtain a world of
valuable information."

"How do we get in?"

"Leave that to old Doctor Higgins," Anthony laughed. "To get out is the
difficulty."

"Oh, I guess we'll get out," said the bulky Ringold.

"After we have concluded our investigations at the House of Seven
Turnings," continued the ceremonious Higgins, "we will go to the Palace
of Ebony, where a full <DW64> orchestra--"

"The police closed that a week ago."

"But it has reopened on a scale larger and grander than ever."

"Let's take in the Austrian Village," offered Ringold.

"Patiently! Patiently, Behemoth! We'll take 'em all in. However, I wish
to request one favor. If by any chance I should become embroiled with a
minion of the law, please, oh please, let me finish him."

"Remember the last time," cautioned Anthony. "You've never come home a
winner."

"Enough! Away with painful memories! All in favor--"

"AYE!" yelled the diners, whereupon a stampede ensued that caused the
waiters in the main dining-room below to cease piling chairs upon the
tables and hastily weight their napkins with salt-cellars.

But the crowd was not combative. They poured out upon the street in the
best possible humor, and even at the House of Seven Turnings, as
Higgins had dubbed the "hide-away" on Thirty-second Street, they made
no disturbance. On the contrary, it was altogether too quiet for most
of them, and they soon sought another scene. But there were deserters
en route to the Palace of Ebony, and when in turn the joys of a full
<DW64> orchestra had palled and a course was set for the Austrian
Village, the number of investigators had dwindled to a choice
half-dozen.

These, however, were kindred spirits, veterans of many a midnight
escapade, composing a flying squadron of exactly the right proportions
for the utmost efficiency and mobility combined.

The hour was now past a respectable bedtime and the Tenderloin had
awakened. The roar of commerce had dwindled away, and the comparative
silence was broken only by the clang of an infrequent trolley. The
streets were empty of vehicles, except for a few cabs that followed the
little group persistently. As yet there was no need of them. The crowd
was made up, for the most part, of healthy, full-blooded boys, fresh
from weeks of training, strong of body, and with stomachs like
galvanized iron. They showed scant evidence of intoxication. As for the
weakest member of the party, it had long been known that one drink made
Higgins drunk, and all further libations merely served to maintain him
in status quo. Exhaustive experiments had proved that he was able to
retain consciousness and the power of locomotion until the first streak
of dawn appeared, after which he usually became a burden. For the
present he was amply able to take care of himself, and now, although
his speech was slightly thick, his demeanor was as didactic and severe
as ever, and, save for the vagrant workings of his mind, he might have
passed for a curate. As a whole, the crowd was in fine fettle.

The Austrian Village is a saloon, dance-hall, and all-night restaurant,
flourishing brazenly within a stone's throw of Broadway, and it is
counted one of the sights of the city. Upon entering, one may pass
through a saloon where white-aproned waiters load trays and wrangle
over checks, then into a ball-room filled with the flotsam and jetsam
of midnight Manhattan. Above and around this room runs a white-and-gold
balcony partitioned into boxes; beneath it are many tables separated
from the waxed floor by a railing. Inside the enclosure men in
street-clothes and smartly gowned girls with enormous hats revolve
nightly to the strains of an orchestra which nearly succeeds in
drowning their voices. From the tables come laughter and snatches of
song; waiters dash hither and yon. It is all very animated and gay on
the surface, and none but the closely observant would note the
weariness beneath the women's smiles, the laughter notes that
occasionally jar, or perceive that the tailored gowns are imitations,
the ermines mainly rabbit-skins.

But the eyes of youth are not analytical, and seen through a rosy haze
the sight was inspiriting. The college men selected a table, and,
shouldering the occupants aside without ceremony, seated themselves and
pounded for a waiter.

Padden, the proprietor, came toward them, and, after greeting Anthony
and Higgins by a shake of his left hand, ducked his round gray head in
acknowledgment of an introduction to the others.

"Excuse my right," said he, displaying a swollen hand criss-crossed
with surgeon's plaster. "A fellow got noisy last night."

"D'jou hit him?" queried Higgins, gazing with interest at the
proprietor's knuckles.

"Yes. I swung for his jaw and went high. Teeth--" Mr. Padden said,
vaguely. He turned a shrewd eye upon Anthony. "I heard about the game
to-day. That was all right."

Kirk grinned boyishly. "I didn't have much to do with it; these are the
fellows."

"Don't believe him," interrupted Ringold.

"Sure! he's too modest," Higgins chimed in. "Fine fellow an' all that,
understand, but he's got two faults--he's modest and he's lazy. He's
caused a lot of uneasiness to his father and me. Father's a fine man,
too." He nodded his long, narrow head solemnly.

"We know who did the trick for us," added Anderson, the straw-haired
half-back.

"Glad you dropped in," Mr. Padden assured them. "Anything you boys want
and can't get, let me know."

When he had gone Higgins averred: "There's a fine man--peaceful,
refined--got a lovely character, too. Let's be gentlemen while we're in
his place."

Ringold rose. "I'm going to dance, fellows," he announced, and his
companions