The Small Bachelor

The roof of the Sheridan Apartment House, near Washington Square, New York. Let us examine it. There will be stirring happenings on this roof in due season, and it is well to know the ground.

The Sheridan stands in the heart of New York’s Bohemian and artistic quarter. If you threw a brick from any of its windows, you would be certain to brain some rising interior decorator, some Vorticist sculptor or a writer of revolutionary vers libre. And a very good thing, too. Its roof, cosy, compact and ten storeys above the street, is flat, paved with tiles and surrounded by a low wall, jutting up at one end of which is an iron structure⁠—the fire-escape. Climbing down this, should the emergency occur, you would find yourself in the open-air premises of the Purple Chicken restaurant⁠—one of those numerous oases in this great city where, in spite of the law of Prohibition, you can still, so the cognoscenti whisper, “always get it if they know you.” A useful thing to remember.

On the other side of the roof, opposite the fire-escape, stands what is technically known as a “small bachelor apartment, penthouse style.” It is a white-walled, red-tiled bungalow, and the small bachelor who owns it is a very estimable young man named George Finch, originally from East Gilead, Idaho, but now, owing to a substantial legacy from an uncle, a unit of New York’s Latin Quarter. For George, no longer being obliged to earn a living, has given his suppressed desires play by coming to the metropolis and trying his hand at painting.

In addition to being a nice, dutiful girl, Molly Waddington was also a persuasive, wheedling girl. Better proof of this statement can hardly be afforded than by the fact that, as the clocks were pointing to ten minutes past eight, a red-faced little man with stiff grey hair and a sulky face shambled down the stairs of Number 16, East Seventy-Ninth Street, and, pausing in the hall, subjected Ferris, the butler, to an offensive glare. It was Sigsbee H. Waddington, fully, if sloppily, dressed in the accepted mode of gentlemen of social standing about to dine.

The details of any record performance are always interesting, so it may be mentioned that Molly had reached the library at seven minutes to eight. She had started wheedling at exactly six minutes and forty-five seconds to the hour. At seven fifty-four Sigsbee Waddington had begun to weaken. At seven fifty-seven he was fighting in the last ditch: and at seven fifty-nine, vowing he would ne’er consent, he consented.

Into the arguments used by Molly we need not enter fully. It is enough to say that, if a man loves his daughter dearly, and if she comes to him and says that she has been looking forward to a certain party and is wearing a new dress

The reason why George Finch⁠—for it was he⁠—was behaving strangely was that he was a shy young man and consequently unable to govern his movements by the light of pure reason. The ordinary tough-skinned everyday young fellow with a face of brass and the placid gall of an Army mule would, of course, if he had decided to pay a call upon a girl in order to make inquiries about her dog, have gone right ahead and done it. He would have shot his cuffs and straightened his tie, and then trotted up the steps and punched the front-door bell. Not so the diffident George.

George’s methods were different. Graceful and, in their way, pretty to watch, but different. First, he stood for some moments on one foot, staring at the house. Then, as if some friendly hand had dug three inches of a meat-skewer into the flesh of his leg, he shot forward in a spasmodic bound. Checking this as he reached the steps, he retreated a pace or two and once more became immobile. A few moments later, the meat-skewer had got to work again and he had sprung up the steps, only to leap backwards once more on to the sidewalk.

When Mr. Waddington first made up his mind to accost him, he had begun to walk round in little circles, mumbling to himself.

Sigsbee Waddington was in no mood for this sort of thing. It was the sort of thing, he felt bitterly, which could happen only in this degraded East. Out West, men are men and do not dance tangoes by themselves on front doorsteps.

He gazed into the future. At the moment the necklace was in safe custody at the bank, but, if Molly was going to marry this young Pinch, it would presumably be taken from there and placed on exhibition among the other wedding-presents. So that ere long there would undeniably be a time⁠—say, the best part of a day⁠—when a resolute man with a nimble set of fingers might.⁠ ⁠…

Mr. Waddington sank back in his chair again. The light died out of his eyes. Philosophers tell us that no man really knows himself: but Sigsbee H. Waddington knew himself well enough to be aware that he fell short by several miles of the nerve necessary for such an action. Stealing necklaces is no job for an amateur. You cannot suddenly take to it in middle life without any previous preparation. Every successful stealer of necklaces has to undergo a rigorous and intensive training from early boyhood, starting with milk-cans and bags at railway-stations and working his way up. What was needed for this very delicate operation was a seasoned professional.

And there, felt Sigsbee H. Waddington bitterly, you had in a nutshell the thing that made life so difficult to live⁠—the tragic problem of how to put your hand on the right specialist at the exact moment when you required him. All these reference-books like the Classified Telephone Directory omitted the vital trades⁠—the trades whose members were of assistance in the real crisis of life. They told you where to find a Glass Beveller, as if anyone knew what to do with a Glass Beveller when they had got him.

A heavy hand was placed upon her shoulder: and, twisting round, she perceived a majestic-looking man with a square chin and horn-rimmed spectacles.

“Well, young lady!” said this person.

Fanny breathed hard. These little contretemps are the risk of the profession, but that makes them none the easier to bear philosophically.

“Put down that jewel-case.”

Fanny did so. There was a pause. Hamilton Beamish moved to the window, blocking it up.

“Well?” said Fanny.

Hamilton Beamish adjusted his spectacles.

“Well, you’ve got me. What are you going to do?”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Turn me over to the police?”

The figure in the window nodded curtly. Fanny clasped her hands together. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t turn me over to the bulls, mister! I only did it for ma’s sake.⁠ ⁠…”

“All wrong!”

“If you was out of work and starvin’ and you had to sit and watch your poor old ma bendin’ over the washtub.⁠ ⁠…”

“All wrong!” repeated Hamilton Beamish forcefully.

“What do you mean, all wrong?”

“Mere crude Broadway melodrama. That stuff might deceive some people, but not me.”

Fanny shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, I thought it was worth trying,” she said.

Hamilton Beamish was regarding her keenly. That busy brain was never still, and now it had begun to work with even more than its normal intensity.

“Are you an actress?”

“Me? I should say not. My folks are awful particular.”

“Well, you have considerable dramatic ability. There was a ring of sincerity in that drivel you just recited which would have convinced most men.