[adapted]

by
O. Henry

The people in the Bed Line moved closer together, because it was cold. They were like the mud left by the river of life, stuck at the river mouth of Fifth Avenue and Broadway. The Bed Liners stamped their freezing feet, looked at the empty benches in Madison Square from which Jack Frost had driven them away, and spoke quietly to one another in a mix of languages.

The Flatiron Building, with its bold shape that seemed to pierce the clouds, rising in the mist above them on the opposite side, might well have seemed like the tower of Babel, from where these idle people who spoke many languages had been called by the angel of the Lord.

Standing on a pine box a head higher than his group of goats, the Preacher called out to whatever passing and changing audience the north wind gave him. It was a slave market. Fifteen cents bought you a man. You gave him to Morpheus; and the angel who writes it down gave you credit.

The preacher was very serious and never tired. He had looked at the list of things a person can do to help other people, and had taken on for himself the job of putting to bed all who might ask at his soap box on the nights of Wednesday and Sunday.

That left only five nights for other kind people to take care of; and if they had done their part as well, this bad city might have become a very big, peaceful dormitory where all might sleep and snore the happy hours away, letting serious plays and the rent man and business go to the devil.

It was just after eight o’clock; sightseers in a small, dark crowd of people with money to pay were gathered in the shadow of General Worth’s statue. Now and then, shyly, showily, carelessly, or with very careful exactness one would step forward and give to the Preacher small bills or silver. Then a lieutenant with Scandinavian look and energy would march away to a cheap hotel with a group of the saved.

All the time the Preacher spoke strongly to the crowd in words beautifully without fancy speech — great with the hard, accusing sameness of truth. Before the picture of the Bed Liners fades you must hear one phrase of the Preacher’s — the one that was his main idea that night. It is good enough to be printed on all the white ribbons in the world.

“No man ever learned to be a drunk from five-cent whisky.”

Think of it, drinker. It goes from the rye that is starting to grow to the graveyard for poor people.

A clean-faced, straight-standing young man in the back row of the people with no beds copied the turtle, pulling his head far down into the shell of his coat collar. It was a well-made wool coat; and the trousers still showed signs of being pressed flat by a strong iron. But, honestly, I must warn the hat maker’s helper who reads this, expecting a fine gentleman like Reginald Montressor in trouble, to read no further. The young man was none other than Thomas McQuade, former coachman, fired for being drunk one month before, and now down in the dirty ranks of the people who look for a bed for one night.

If you live in smaller New York you must know the Van Smuythe family carriage, pulled by the two 1,500-pound, 100-to-1 bay horses. The carriage is shaped like a bath-tub.

In each end of it sits an old lady Van Smuythe holding a black sun umbrella the size of a New Year’s Eve feather tickler. Before his bad time Thomas McQuade drove the Van Smuythe bay horses and was himself driven by Annie, the Van Smuythe lady’s maid. But it is one of the saddest things about romance that a tight shoe or no food or an aching tooth will make a non-believer for a short time of any Cupid-lover. And Thomas’s body troubles were many.

So, his mind was less troubled with thoughts of his lost lady’s maid than it was by the imagined presence of some things that were not real that his troubled nerves almost made him think were flying, dancing, crawling, and wiggling on the pavement and in the air above and around the sad grounds of the Bed Line army.

Nearly four weeks of only whisky and a diet only of crackers, sausage, and pickles often brings a mind-and-animal result. So in great need, freezing, angry, troubled by ghosts as he was, he felt the need for human kindness and company.

The Bed Liner standing at his right was a young man of about his own age, poorly dressed but neat.

“What’s the trouble with you, Freddy?” asked Thomas, in a bold, friendly way — “Booze? That’s mine. You don’t look like a beggar. Neither am I. A month ago I was holding the reins over the backs of the best team of Percheron buffaloes that ever went a mile down Fifth Avenue in 2.85. And look at me now! Say; how do you come to be at this bed cheap-counter second-hand sale.”

The other young man seemed happy to accept the friendly attention of the cheerful former coach driver.

“No,” he said, “my problem isn’t exactly about drinking. Unless we say that Cupid is a bartender. I married badly, according to my relatives who do not forgive me. I’ve been out of work for a year because I don’t know how to work; and I’ve been sick in Bellevue and other hospitals for months. My wife and kid had to go back to her mother. I was made to leave the hospital yesterday. And I don’t have a cent. That’s my sad story.”

“Bad luck,” said Thomas. “A man alone can manage all right. But I hate to see the women and kids get hurt the most.”

Just then a motor car drove up Fifth Avenue, so beautiful, so red, running so smoothly, so clearly breaking the speed rules that it caught the attention even of the sleepy Bed Liners. Tied on its left side was an extra tire.

When opposite the unlucky group the parts holding this tire came loose. It fell to the road, bounced and rolled quickly behind the speeding car.

Thomas McQuade, seeing a chance, ran quickly from his place among the Preacher’s goats. In thirty seconds he had caught the rolling tire, put it over his shoulder, and was running quickly after the car. On both sides of the street people were shouting, whistling, and waving walking sticks at the red car, pointing to the clever Thomas coming with the lost tire.

One dollar, Thomas had thought, was the smallest reward that such a rich car driver could offer for the help he had given, and keep his pride.

Two blocks away the car had stopped. There was a little, brown, wrapped-up driver driving, and an important-looking gentleman wearing a very fine coat made of sealskin and a silk hat on the back seat.

Thomas offered the found tire with his best old coachman way and a look in the brighter of his red eyes that was meant to suggest a silver coin or two and to be ready to take even higher amounts.

But the look was not taken that way. The man in a sealskin coat took the tire, placed it inside the car, looked hard at the former coach driver, and said quietly to himself words that were hard to understand.

“Strange — strange!” he said. “Once or twice even I, myself, have thought that the Chaldean Chiroscope has worked. Could it be possible?”

Then he said simpler words to the waiting and hopeful Thomas.

“Sir, I thank you for your kind help with my tire. And I would like to ask you, if I may, a question. Do you know the family of Van Smuythes living in Washington Square North?”

“Shouldn’t I?” replied Thomas. “I lived there. Wish I still did.”

The gentleman in a fur coat opened a door of the car.

“Please come in,” he said. “We were expecting you.”

Thomas McQuade did as he was told, surprised but without delay. A seat in a car seemed better than a place to stand in the Bed Line. But after the lap blanket had been put around him and the car had gone quickly on its way, the strange thing about the invitation stayed in his mind.

“Maybe the guy hasn’t got any change,” was his guess. “Lots of these rich guys don’t carry any cash. Guess he’ll drop me off when he gets to some place where he can get some money. Anyway, it’s sure that I’ve got that open-air bed plan beaten for good.”

Submerged in his big coat, the mysterious car driver seemed, himself, to be amazed at the surprises of life. “Wonderful! amazing! strange!” he said to himself again and again.

When the car had gone well into the crosstown Seventies it turned to the east for half a block and stopped before a row of houses with high front steps and brownstone fronts.

“Please come into my house with me,” said the man in a sealskin coat after they got out. “He’s going to pay, for sure,” thought Thomas, following him inside.

There was a little light in the hall. His host led him through a door to the left, closing it behind him and leaving them in complete darkness. Suddenly a glowing ball, strangely decorated, shone softly in the middle of a huge room that seemed to Thomas more beautiful than any he had ever seen on the stage or read about in fairy tales.

The walls were hidden by beautiful red curtains with strange gold shapes sewn on. At the back of the room were curtains of dull gold decorated with silver half-moons and stars. The furniture was of very expensive and very rare styles. The former coachman’s feet sank into rugs as soft and deep as deep snow. There were three or four oddly shaped stands or tables covered with black velvet cloth.

Thomas McQuade looked at the fine things in this apartment like a palace with one eye. With the other he looked for his important-looking conductor — to find that he was gone.

“Gee!” said Thomas quietly, “this sounds like a haunted shop. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is one of these Moravian Nights’ adventures that you read about. I wonder what happened to the furry guy.”

Suddenly a stuffed owl that stood on a black stand near the lit globe slowly raised his wings and from his eyes came a bright electric light.

With a frightened curse, Thomas grabbed a bronze statue of Hebe from a nearby cabinet and threw it as hard as he could at the frightening and impossible bird. The owl and his stand fell over with a crash. With the sound there was a click, and the room was filled with light from a dozen frosted lamps on the walls and ceiling. The gold curtains opened and closed, and the mysterious driver entered the room. He was tall and wore evening clothes of perfect cut and good taste.

A pointed beard of shiny, golden brown, rather long and wavy hair, smoothly parted, and large, very attractive, Eastern and mysterious eyes gave him a very impressive and noticeable appearance. If you can imagine a Russian Grand Duke in a Rajah’s throne-room coming forward to greet a visiting Emperor, you will understand something of how grand his manner was. But Thomas McQuade was too close to the shakes from drink to be careful about his manners. When he saw this silky, neat, and a little scary host he thought a little of dentists.

“Say, doctor,” said he angrily, “that’s a tough man you keep around. I hope I didn’t break anything. But I’ve almost got the shakes, and when he turned those bright eyes of his on me, I threw that little brass Flatiron Girl that stood on the side table at him.”

“That is only a toy that works with parts,” said the man with a wave of his hand. “May I ask you to sit down while I explain why I brought you to my house. Perhaps you would not understand or agree with the feeling in my mind that made me do so. So I will come to the point right away by talking about what you said, that you know the Van Smuythe family, of Washington Square North.”

“Any silver missing?” asked Thomas angrily. “Any jewelry moved? Of course I know them. Any of the old ladies’ sun umbrellas disappeared? Well, I know them. And then what?”

The Grand Duke rubbed his white hands together softly.

“Wonderful!” he said softly. “Wonderful! Will I start to believe in the Chaldean Chiroscope myself? Let me promise you,” he went on, “that you have nothing to fear. Instead, I think I can promise you that very good luck is waiting for you. We will see.”

“Do they want me back?” asked Thomas, with some of his old job pride in his voice. “I’ll promise to stop drinking alcohol and do the right thing if they will try me again. But how did you find out, doctor? Gee, it’s the best job agency I was ever in, with its flashlight owls and so on.”

With a kind smile the friendly host asked to be excused for two minutes. He went out to the sidewalk and gave an order to the driver, who still waited with the car. When he came back to the strange apartment, he sat by his guest and began to entertain him so well with his funny and friendly talk that the poor Bed Liner almost forgot the cold streets that he had been so recently and so strangely saved from.

A servant brought some tender cold chicken and tea biscuits and a glass of wonderful wine; and Thomas felt the magic of Arabia surround him. So half an hour passed quickly; and then the honk of the motor car that had returned at the door suddenly made the Grand Duke stand up, with another quiet request to go away for a short time.

Two women, well wrapped against the cold, were let in at the front door and politely led by the owner of the house down the hall through another door to the left and into a smaller room, which was shut off and separated from the larger front room by heavy, double curtains. Here the furniture was even more elegant and very nice than in the other. On a rosewood table with gold set in it were scattered sheets of white paper and a strange, triangular instrument or toy, apparently made of gold, standing on little wheels.

The taller woman pushed back her black veil and opened her coat. She was fifty, with a wrinkled and sad face. The other, young and a little fat, took a chair a little distance away and behind, like a servant or a helper might do.

“You sent for me, Professor Cherubusco,” said the older woman, in a tired voice. “I hope you have something clearer than usual to say. I have almost lost the little trust I had in your work. I would not have answered your call this evening if my sister had not insisted on it.”