Evening Star Newspaper, January 12, 1930, Page 88

12 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHING ROAST ‘ ’ One of the O. Henry Me » This Writer, One of the Winners of the O. Henry Awards, Has Selected Phila- delphia as the Background for His Story. And 1t Is a Story of a Different Type, a — “Don’t get the blues. There ain’t no use in that, y'know.” Story Which Will Hold the Reader to the Very Last Word. USED to eat lunch at Mike’s Arcadia / Cafe, on 6th street, Philadelphia, one / of those little restaurants where one can lunch completely, if not wisely, for 30 cents, or even a quarter, by fore- going the luxury of dessert. It was a noisy, uninviting place, always permeated with the stale odor of cooking; its only decoration a United States flag and a Greek flag crossed on the wall. It did not even boast chairs; we sat upon a cunningly devised but uncomfort- able system of stools which swung out from beneath the bare wooden tables. But it was always crowded, on' account of its cheapness, its clientele drawn from the business houses of the neighborhood, a floatsam of underclerks, janitors and bookkeepers tossed up to bolt their lunches between 12 and 1, and then disappear. They were harassed, shabby little men, and they had in common, I thought, an expression of worry and discouragement, as though their efforts to live on their salaries were almost too much for them. We who were Mike's regular patrons sat as often as possible at the same table, and we exercised strict proprietary rights over the seats which it had become our daily habit %o occupy. By this means we ate day after day in ihe same company, but we did not talk much with one another. The waitress would be greeted with, “Hello, Maggie, wotcha got good today?” or sometimes, by those whom Maggie called great kidders, with remarks like, “Where was vuh last night, Maggie? I had a date with yuh.” We would laugh, above the rattle of the knives and forks, and some one might add, “Fine girl, Maggie.” The remainder of our hurried meals was usually passed in silence; if we did talk, it had to be against the noisc of dishes slammed and our orders shouted and repeated. I don't know how long I sat at Maggie's table, the one nearest the door, before I became acquainted with Mr. Canby. I was first led to notice him because he took no part in our major topic of conversation, the one subject we had which could be depended on to prove enthralling, no matter how treqjuent its recurrence—our bad luck, thz injustice of the fate which had condemned us to our present jobs and to the Arcadia. We would speak of men who had made great sums of money quickly and easily, and by comparing ourselves to them we could see that they were our superiors only in luck. “There's a guy I used to know,” one would say. “I knew ’‘im when he didn't have a nickel, and now . . . All he did was buy central real estate, and get a lucky break . . .” E would nod. “That’s the thing to buy, ’ central real estate. If you could get your hands on a little capital . . .” We would look from one to another, not seeing the ordinary, familiar faces nor the food on the heavy white plates, our minds busy with visions of what we could accomplish with a little capital, of stores and apartment houses in the center of the city, of power and of wealth. We were forced to consider ourselves as victims, cheated of our opportunities. “There's no use in our working for anything where we are now,” we would say, because our employers, oblivious of our efforts, were influ- enced only by favoritism or pull. Through all this Mr. Canby would continue eating unmoved, as though he were no% listen- ing. I fancied, however, that his silence was one of disapproval, and, since I was usually silent myself, there was gradually built up between us a sort of wordless understanding, as though we two were the only ones with sufficient fortitude to accept existence without repining. It got so that we exchanged sig- nificant smiles, and one day he whispered an aside to me: “It ain’t bad luck’'s the trouble with that guy.” “No?” said I. “No. The trouble with him is he hasn't any, as you might say, grit.” I had been impelled to study him from the first occasion that his silence had impressed me. He was, say, 45. His clothes were shiny and cheap, his cheeks invariably had a stub- ble of beard, two of the characteristics which fatally marked Mike’s patrons; apparently he was only another in the company of shabby little men who daily insulted their hunger with the food of Mike's restaurant. But his face, even while he was eating his medium and boiled, had a curiously removed expression, as though his thoughts were held steadfast on another plane., Perhaps because of this de- tached air of his, perhaps because of his silence, I received as I looked at him the impression that he did not quite bclong among us, that he should have been richer and more successful. ‘The others appeared, scmehow, to have been designed especially for the Arcadia Cafe, and it for them; they fitted here, they were as much fixtures here as the faded flags and the bare wooden tables. Only Mr. Canby, I thought as I watched him, was out of place. He was evidently under the need of the strictest economy. He smoked only op Mon- days, Wednesdays and Fridays, a 5-cent brand of cigar which he lighted with every appear- ance of enjoyment. On thcse days he did not buy dessert. There was on ths Arcadia menu a dish called Vienna roast, a horribly unpal- atable mixture of scrapings and left-overs which cost only 20 cents, but which even a starving man would hardly attempt more than once. This Mr. Canby ordered every Saturday, though he did not eat much of it. Now and then one of us might stab at monotony by sal- lying among the more expensive a la carte dishes; Mr. Canby, never. During all those lunch hours his program underwent not the slightest variation, I was interested in him, but at the begin- ning my curiosity had to be content with the poor gratification of sitting beside him. “Goed morning,” he would greet me in his grave, de- tached way. I might remark, “Rather warm today.” He would consider a moment, reply slowly, “Yes, sort of, warm,” and then return to the food on his plate, packing the morsels on his knife with his fork as though by means of a petty vulgarity like this he were trying to convince me that he was as ordinary as his appearance implied. HE AND; T were the only representatives at Maggie's table of our respective offices, and could share in none of the anecdotes of what the shipping clerk had said to the stenog, or how the boss had failed to take the speaker’s advice. This community of isolation was an- other factor in drawing us together; and as the days passed we gradually progressed from - perfunctory remarks about the weather to ex- changing ideas on a great variety of subjects, the high cost of living, the merits of automo- biles which neither of us had any thought of buying, the chances of the Athletics. He was talkative; his reserve had been due to shyness, He had a very indecisive way of expressing himself which irritated ime at first, perhaps because of that impression which he gave me that somehow—with better luck, say—he should have been more successful, he should have been able to make realities out of some of these dreams of success with which the men around him only made their failure more ap- parent. He could never deliver an opinion without interrupting himself to advance the arguments on the other side. “Of course,” he would say, rubbing his fingers over his stubble of beard, “they’ll never be able to enforce prohibition—but I guess it's a good thing for the country, and if the people get used to it . ” But he was unfailingly even-tempered and cheerful, never depressed and there was something heartening for me in the fact that, middle-aged, gray-haired, he couid so patiently accept the petty discomforts that made his life as though dingy surroundings and 30-cent luncheons could never be important. After I had known him for some four months I was sent on a business trip, and on my return I was ill for a week. It was with real pleasure that he welcomed me back. “Good morning,” he said, swinging out my stool for me, “you're quite a stranger.” He was very sorry to hear of my illness. “Sickness is a terrible thing,” he remarked in his grave way. “I know, I've had a lot of experience with it.” “You look healthy enough,” I objected. “Oh, it's not me. I'm all right. It's Mrs. Canby. Mrs. Canby never feels, you might say, really up to par.” I expressed my sympathy. “Nothing serious, I hope,” I said. “That's just it. Of course, to look at her you'd think she was strong, but she never really feels herself.” “The doctor——2"” “Mrs. Canby ain't had much success with doctors. She’s tried one after another, but they can’t seem to find the real trouble, to lay their finger on the real trouble, as you might say.” That day the Arcadia seemed to me more depressing than usual. It was an insufferably hot Saturday in July; in the restaurant it was hotter and more oppressive than it was on the street. Flies buzzed everywhere, on the tables, on the food, on the faces and necks of the diners, everywhere but on the yellow spirals of flypaper that hung motionless from the ceil- ing. Maggie's cheeks, around the rouge, were shiny with perspiration, and the men sat pale and dispirited in their shirt sleeves, swearing at her slowness instead of kidding her. As Mr. Canby talked to me he kept wiping with the back of his hand the little beads of sweat from his forehead, and something in the pa- Ve veme A — — [Hd palpr b —ws e Vine I [ - e tient repetition of that gesture irrjtated me. “God,” I cried suddenly, “I'm sick of this.” “Huh?” He glanced- at me in surprise. “Don’t get the blues. There ain't no use in that, y’ know.” He had ordered, as was his custom on Satur- day, Vienna roast, and as usual the meat lay untouched on his plate. This also for some reason irritated me. I replied heatedly, “I'd give anything to get away from all this and never come back.” He stopped eating to smile sympathetically, his knife clutched in one hand. “Oh,” he said, “of course sometimes we all feel that way. I feel that way myself sometimes. But all yuh can do is as you might say, keep pluggin’ away.” He returned to the hot, heavy food on his plate, dismissing the subject. *“What'd the A’s do yesterday? I ain’t seen a paper.” ABOU’I‘ a month later, on another Saturday, I could tell from Mr. Canby’'s manner as he surveyed me over the unappetizing mess on his plate that he had something which he wanted to say to me. He was on the point of broach- ing it several time, I am sure, when his cour- age failed, and he made instead some remark more indecisive than usual. He said finally, “I was wondering if I might make bold to ask a sort of a favor from you.” 1 replied that I should be glad to do any- thing in my power. “Of course, it's quite a big favor,” Mr. Canby deprecated, arguing, as usual, on the opposite side, “and it'll be quite all right if you don't see your way clear to . . . to . . . coming from & perfect stranger, as you might say.” I answered to the effect that it would be from one friend to another, and that I should be really glad to do anything that I could. Pleased, he smiled at me, his knife, held in his fist, resting upright on the table. “That's right. I hadn’t thought of it that way before.- One friend to another. Well, the fact is, pay- day's on Monday, and of course I'm pretty well strapped on Saturday. Money's a little tight with me just now, anyway.” (With us at the Arcadia money is always tight, for the moment.) He paused, moved his heavy white plate a trifle, becoming more and more vague and hesitant as he approached the point. “Mrs. Canby has sort of set her heart on a little trip over Saturday and Sunday. Of course, I could ask Mike for it, I been eating here a long time, now; but you know how it is, I don't feel I know him like I know you. . . . The fact is, I was wondering if you could let me have a coupla dollars till Monday. I could give it back to you the first thing next week, but of course if it’s gonna put you out it'll be all right. It'll be quite all right.” I gave him the money, and in addition offered him a cigar. He refused it with long- ing in his eyes; I had forgotten that this was not a cigar day. “Take it,” I insisted. “To tell the truth it was given to me, and I don’t eare much for this brand.” He was extraordinarily grateful. *“I con- sider this very friendly of you, very friendly,” he repeated. “If you're sure it's not gonna put you out.” On Monday, immediately after saying “Good morning,” he handed me two wrinkled one dollar bills that looked hard-earned.” “Did you have a good time?” I asked. “On your trip?” “Oh, it wasn't me that went. It was Mrs. Canby and a woman friend. Mrs. Canby enjoys a little outing, and in the sort of strait- ened circumstances we're in I can’'t give her as many as I'd like.” “How is she feeling?” I inquired. “Well, she's feeling pretty good, just about up to par, as you might say. And that's a big - load off my mind, a big load.” “I should think so,” I said. “I guess maybe you're thinking,” he went on slowly, “that it's a sort of a funny thing that a man pretty well on in years like I am should be so hard put to it for a coupla dollars.” “Not at all,” I said. “Well, I didn't like to ask you for it. I think it was, as you might say, an imposition, and I don't like debts anyway. To tell the truth, I'm carrying a lot of building and loan, and of course it keeps me hustling to meet the payments.” I said that building and loan was a good way to save money, but that it took a long time. “Oh, not so long. Six years. That ain't so long if yuh have, as you might say, a definite object in view.” “What, a get-rich-quick scheme?” I asked, smiling. “I hope it's different from the ones they usually talk about in here.” “That's just it, you know how it is, yuh get an idea in your head—I've had this so long I feel sometimes I'm sort of a little, as you might say, cuckoo about it. And I think maybe an outsider, a third party . . .” He smoothed out his paper napkin, rested his knife upright on the table in his favorite ges- ture, and surveyed me critically, coming to a decision. “I'll tell you the whole thing, the whole thing. There ain't no secret in it, though, of course, I know it won't go no farther.” HE leaned nearer me, his face intent, the preoccupied air altogether vanished, and spoke in so low a tone that I had difficulty in hearing him, amid all the noise that always filled the restaurant, and especially since the man on the other side of me was talking in a loud voice about the great opportunities that there were in New York. .