"Honesty isn't the best policy,"he went on;"it's the only one.The vain fool that gets it into his head--or shall I say her head?No?Well,no offense,I assure you--his head then,that he's smarter than a world full of experience,ought to be put in jail--for his own protection;he's too big a jay to be left out of doors.For five thousand years,more or less,the world has been putting people like him behind bars,where they can't make asses of themselves.Yet each year,and every day and every hour,a new ninny is born who fancies he's cleverer than all his predecessors put together.Talk about suckers!Why,they're giants of intellect compared to the mentally lop-sided that five thousand years of experience can't teach.When the criminal-clown's turn comes,he hops,skips and jumps into the ring with the old,old gag.He thinks it's new,because he himself is so fresh and green.`Here I am again,'he yells,`the fellow that'll do you up.Others have tried it.They're dead in jail or under jail-yards.But me--just watch me!'We do,and after a little we put him with his mates and a keeper in a barred kindergarten where fools that can't learn,little moral cripples of both sexes,my dear,belong.Bah!"He puffed out the smoke,throwing his head back,in a cloud toward the ceiling.
I sprang from my seat and faced him.I was tingling all through.
I didn't care a rap what became of me for just that minute.
I forgot about Tom.I prayed that the cop wouldn't come for a minute yet--but only that I might answer him.
"You're mighty smart,ain't you?You can sit back here and sneer at me,can't you?And feel so big and smart and triumphant!
What've you done but catch a girl at her first bungling job!It makes you feel awfully cocky,don't it?`What a big man am I!'
Bah!"I blew the smoke up toward the ceiling from my mouth,with just that satisfied gall that he had had;or rather,I pretended to.He let down the front legs of his chair and began to stare at me.
"And you don't know it all,Mr.Manager,not you.Your clown-criminal don't jump into the ring because he's so full of fun he can't stay out.He goes in for the same reason the real clown does--because he gets hungry and thirsty and sleepy and tired like other men,and he's got to fill his stomach and cover his back and get a place to sleep.And it's because your kind gets too much,that my kind gets so little it has to piece it out with this sort of thing.No,you don't know it quite all.
"There's a girl named Nancy Olden that could tell you a lot,smart as you are.She could show you the inside of the Cruelty,where she was put so young she never knew that children had mothers and fathers,till a red-haired girl named Mag Monahan told her;and then she was mighty glad she hadn't any.She thought that all little girls were bloodless and dirty,and all little boys were filthy and had black purple marks where their fathers had tried to gouge out their eyes.She thought all women were like the matron who came with a visitor up to the bare room,where we played without toys--the new,dirty,newly-bruised ones of us,and the old,clean,healing ones of us--and said,`Here,chicks,is a lady who's come to see you.Tell her how happy you are here.'Then Mag's freckled little face,her finger in her mouth,looked up like this.She was always afraid it might be her mother come for her.And the crippled boy jerked himself this way--I used to mimic him,and he'd laugh with the rest of them--over the bare floor.He always hoped for a penny.Sometimes he even got it.
"And the boy with the gouged eye--he would hold his pants up like this.He had just come in,and there was nothing to fit him.
And he'd put his other hand over his bad eye and blink up at her like this.And the littlest boy--oh,ha!ha!ha!--you ought have seen that littlest boy.He was in skirts,an old dress they'd given me to wear the first day I came;there were no pants small enough for him.He'd back up into the corner and hide his face--like this--and peep over his shoulder;he had a squint that way,that made his face so funny.See,it makes you laugh yourself.But his body--my God!--it was blue with welts!And me--I'd put the baby down that'd been left on the door-steps of the Cruelty,and I'd waltz up to the lady,the nice,patronizing,rich lady,with her handkerchief to her nose and her lorgnette to her eyes--see,like this.I knew just what graft would work her.
I knew what she wanted there.I'd learned.So I'd make her a curtsy like this,and in the piousest sing-song I'd--"There was a heavy step out in the hall--it was the policeman!I'd forgot while I was talking.I was back--back in the empty garret,at the top of the Cruelty.I could smell the smell of the poor,the dirty,weak,sick poor.I could taste the porridge in the thick little bowls,like those in the bear story Molly tells her kid.I could hear the stifled sobs that wise,poor children give--quiet ones,so they'll not be beaten again.I could feel the night,when strange,deserted,tortured babies lie for the first time,each in his small white cot,the new ones waking the old with their cries in a nightmare of what had happened before they got to the Cruelty.I could see the world barred over,as Isaw it first through the Cruelty's barred windows,and as I must see it again,now that--"You see,you don't know it quite all--yet,Mr.Manager!"I spat it out at him,and then walked to the cop,my hands ready for the bracelets.
"But there's one thing I do know!"He's a big fellow but quick on his feet,and in a minute he was up and between me and the cop."And there isn't a theatrical man in all America that knows it quicker than Fred Obermuller,that can detect it sooner and develop it better.And you've got it,girl,you've got it!.
Officer,take this for your trouble.I couldn't hold the fellow,after all.Never mind which way he went;I'll call up the office and explain."He shut the door after the cop,and came back to me.I had fallen into a chair.My knees were weak,and I was trembling all over.
"Have you seen the playlet Charity at the Vaudeville?"he roared at me.
I shook my head.
"Well,it's a scene in a foundling asylum.Here's a pass.Go up now and see it.If you hurry you'll get there just in time for that act.Then if you come to me at the office in the morning at ten,I'll give you a chance as one of the Charity girls.Do you want it?"God,Mag!Do I want it!