According to Their Lights

by O. Henry

　　Somewhere in the depths of the big city, where the unquiet dregs areforever being shaken together, young Murray and the Captain had metand become friends. Both were at the lowest ebb possible to theirfortunes; both had fallen from at least an intermediate Heaven ofrespectability and importance, and both were typical products of themonstrous and peculiar social curriculum of their overweening andbumptious civic alma mater.The captain was no longer a captain. One of those sudden moralcataclysms that sometimes sweep the city had hurled him from a highand profitable position in the Police Department, ripping off hisbadge and buttons and washing into the hands of his lawyers thesolid pieces of real estate that his frugality had enabled him toaccumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One monthafter his dishabilitation a saloon-keeper plucked him by the neckfrom his free-lunch counter as a tabby plucks a strange kitten fromher nest, and cast him asphaltward. This seems low enough. But afterthat he acquired a pair of cloth top, button Congress gaiters andwrote complaining letters to the newspapers. And then he foughtthe attendant at the Municipal Lodging House who tried to givehim a bath. When Murray first saw him he was holding the hand ofan Italian woman who sold apples and garlic on Essex street, andquoting the words of a song book ballad.Murray's fall had been more Luciferian, if less spectacular. Allthe pretty, tiny little kickshaws of Gotham had once been his. Themegaphone man roars out at you to observe the house of his uncle ona grand and revered avenue. But there had been an awful row aboutsomething, and the prince had been escorted to the door by thebutler, which, in said avenue, is equivalent to the impact of theavuncular shoe. A weak Prince Hal, without inheritance or sword, hedrifted downward to meet his humorless Falstaff, and to pick thecrusts of the streets with him.One evening they sat on a bench in a little downtown park. The greatbulk of the Captain, which starvation seemed to increase--drawingirony instead of pity to his petitions for aid--was heaped againstthe arm of the bench in a shapeless mass. His red face, spotted bytufts of vermilion, week-old whiskers and topped by a sagging whitestraw hat, looked, in the gloom, like one of those structures thatyou may observe in a dark Third avenue window, challenging yourimagination to say whether it be something recent in the way ofladies' hats or a strawberry shortcake. A tight-drawn belt--lastrelic of his official spruceness--made a deep furrow in hiscircumference. The Captain's shoes were buttonless. In a smotheredbass he cursed his star of ill-luck.Murray, at his side, was shrunk into his dingy and ragged suit ofblue serge. His hat was pulled low; he sat quiet and a littleindistinct, like some ghost that had been dispossessed."I'm hungry," growled the Captain--"by the top sirloin of the Bullof Bashan, I'm starving to death. Right now I could eat a Boweryrestaurant clear through to the stovepipe in the alley. Can'tyou think of nothing, Murray? You sit there with your shouldersscrunched up, giving an imitation of Reginald Vanderbilt drivinghis coach--what good are them airs doing you now? Think of someplace we can get something to chew.""You forget, my dear Captain," said Murray, without moving, "thatour last attempt at dining was at my suggestion.""You bet it was," groaned the Captain, "you bet your life it was.Have you got any more like that to make--hey?""I admit we failed," sighed Murray. "I was sure Malone would be goodfor one more free lunch after the way he talked baseball with me thelast time I spent a nickel in his establishment.""I had this hand," said the Captain, extending the unfortunatemember--"I had this hand on the drumstick of a turkey and twosardine sandwiches when them waiters grabbed us.""I was within two inches of the olives," said Murray. "Stuffedolives. I haven't tasted one in a year.""What'll we do?" grumbled the Captain. "We can't starve.""Can't we?" said Murray quietly. "I'm glad to hear that. I wasafraid we could.""You wait here," said the Captain, rising, heavily and puffily tohis feet. "I'm going to try to make one more turn. You stay heretill I come back, Murray. I won't be over half an hour. If I turnthe trick I'll come back flush."He made some elephantine attempts at smartening his appearance. Hegave his fiery mustache a heavenward twist; he dragged into sight apair of black-edged cuffs, deepened the crease in his middle bytightening his belt another hole, and set off, jaunty as a zoorhinoceros, across the south end of the park.When he was out of sight Murray also left the park, hurrying swiftlyeastward. He stopped at a building whose steps were flanked by twogreen lights."A police captain named Maroney," he said to the desk sergeant, "wasdismissed from the force after being tried under charges three yearsago. I believe sentence was suspended. Is this man wanted now by thepolice?""Why are ye asking?" inquired the sergeant, with a frown."I thought there might be a reward standing," explained Murray,easily. "I know the man well. He seems to be keeping himself prettyshady at present. I could lay my hands on him at any time. If thereshould be a reward--""There's no reward," interrupted the sergeant, shortly. "The man'snot wanted. And neither are ye. So, get out. Ye are frindly with um,and ye would be selling um. Out with ye quick, or I'll give ye astart."Murray gazed at the officer with serene and virtuous dignity."I would be simply doing my duty as a citizen and gentleman," hesaid, severely, "if I could assist the law in laying hold of one ofits offenders."Murray hurried back to the bench in the park. He folded his arms andshrank within his clothes to his ghost-like presentment.Ten minutes afterward the Captain arrived at the rendezvous, windyand thunderous as a dog-day in Kansas. His collar had been tornaway; his straw hat had been twisted and battered; his shirt withox-blood stripes split to the waist. And from head to knee hewas drenched with some vile and ignoble greasy fluid that loudlyproclaimed to the nose its component leaven of garlic and kitchenstuff."For Heaven's sake, Captain," sniffed Murray, "I doubt that I wouldhave waited for you if I had suspected you were so desperate as toresort to swill barrels. I"--"Cheese it," said the Captain, harshly. "I'm not hogging it yet.It's all on the outside. I went around on Essex and proposedmarriage to that Catrina that's got the fruit shop there. Now, thatbusiness could be built up. She's a peach as far as a Dago could be.I thought I had that senoreena mashed sure last week. But look whatshe done to me! I guess I got too fresh. Well there's another schemequeered.""You don't mean to say," said Murray, with infinite contempt, "thatyou would have married that woman to help yourself out of yourdisgraceful troubles!""Me?" said the Captain. "I'd marry the Empress of China for one bowlof chop suey. I'd commit murder for a plate of beef stew. I'd steala wafer from a waif. I'd be a Mormon for a bowl of chowder.""I think," said Murray, resting his head on his hands, "that I wouldplay Judas for the price of one drink of whiskey. For thirty piecesof silver I would"--"Oh, come now!" exclaimed the Captain in dismay. "You wouldn't dothat, Murray! I always thought that Kike's squeal on his boss wasabout the lowest-down play that ever happened. A man that gives hisfriend away is worse than a pirate."Through the park stepped a large man scanning the benches where theelectric light fell."Is that you, Mac?" he said, halting before the derelicts. Hisdiamond stickpin dazzled. His diamond-studded fob chain assisted.He was big and smooth and well fed. "Yes, I see it's you," hecontinued. "They told me at Mike's that I might find you over here.Let me see you a few minutes, Mac."The Captain lifted himself with a grunt of alacrity. If CharlieFinnegan had come down in the bottomless pit to seek him there mustbe something doing. Charlie guided him by an arm into a patch ofshadow."You know, Mac," he said, "they're trying Inspector Pickering ongraft charges.""He was my inspector," said the Captain."O'Shea wants the job," went on Finnegan. "He must have it. It's forthe good of the organization. Pickering must go under. Your testimonywill do it. He was your 'man higher up' when you were on the force.His share of the boodle passed through your hands. You must go on thestand and testify against him.""He was"--began the Captain."Wait a minute," said Finnegan. A bundle of yellowish stuff came outof his inside pocket. "Five hundred dollars in it for you. Two-fiftyon the spot, and the rest"--"He was my friend, I say," finished the Captain. "I'll see you andthe gang, and the city, and the party in the flames of Hades beforeI'll take the stand against Dan Pickering. I'm down and out; but I'mno traitor to a man that's been my friend." The Captain's voice roseand boomed like a split trombone. "Get out of this park, CharlieFinnegan, where us thieves and tramps and boozers are your betters;and take your dirty money with you."Finnegan drifted out by another walk. The Captain returned to hisseat."I couldn't avoid hearing," said Murray, drearily. "I think you arethe biggest fool I ever saw.""What would you have done?" asked the Captain."Nailed Pickering to the cross," said Murray."Sonny," said the Captain, huskily and without heat. "You and me aredifferent. New York is divided into two parts--above Forty-secondstreet, and below Fourteenth. You come from the other part. We bothact according to our lights."An illuminated clock above the trees retailed the information thatit lacked the half hour of twelve. Both men rose from the bench andmoved away together as if seized by the same idea. They left thepark, struck through a narrow cross street, and came into Broadway,at this hour as dark, echoing and de-peopled as a byway in Pompeii.Northward they turned; and a policeman who glanced at their unkemptand slinking figures withheld the attention and suspicion that hewould have granted them at any other hour and place. For on everystreet in that part of the city other unkempt and slinking figureswere shuffling and hurrying toward a converging point--a point thatis marked by no monument save that groove on the pavement worn bytens of thousands of waiting feet.At Ninth street a tall man wearing an opera hat alighted from aBroadway car and turned his face westward. But he saw Murray,pounced upon him and dragged him under a street light. The Captainlumbered slowly to the corner, like a wounded bear, and waited,growling."Jerry!" cried the hatted one. "How fortunate! I was to begin asearch for you to-morrow. The old gentleman has capitulated. You'reto be restored to favor. Congratulate you. Come to the office in themorning and get all the money you want. I've liberal instructions inthat respect.""And the little matrimonial arrangement?" said Murray, with his headturned sidewise."Why.--er--well, of course, your uncle understands--expects thatthe engagement between you and Miss Vanderhurst shall be"--"Good night," said Murray, moving away."You madman!" cried the other, catching his arm. "Would you give uptwo millions on account of"--"Did you ever see her nose, old man?" asked Murray, solemnly."But, listen to reason, Jerry. Miss Vanderhurst is an heiress,and"--"Did you ever see it?""Yes, I admit that her nose isn't"--"Good night!" said Murray. "My friend is waiting for me. I amquoting him when I authorize you to report that there is 'nothingdoing.' Good night."A wriggling line of waiting men extended from a door in Tenth streetfar up Broadway, on the outer edge of the pavement. The Captain andMurray fell in at the tail of the quivering millipede."Twenty feet longer than it was last night," said Murray, looking upat his measuring angle of Grace Church."Half an hour," growled the Captain, "before we get our punk."The city clocks began to strike 12; the Bread Line moved forwardslowly, its leathern feet sliding on the stones with the sound of ahissing serpent, as they who had lived according to their lightsclosed up in the rear.