The Assessor of Success

by O. Henry

　　

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Hastings Beauchamp Morley sauntered across Union Square with apitying look at the hundreds that lolled upon the park benches. Theywere a motley lot, he thought; the men with stolid, animal, unshavenfaces; the women wriggling and self-conscious, twining and untwiningtheir feet that hung four inches above the gravelled walks. Were I Mr. Carnegie or Mr. Rockefeller I would put a few millionsin my inside pocket and make an appointment with all the ParkCommissioners (around the corner, if necessary), and arrangefor benches in all the parks of the world low enough for womento sit upon, and rest their feet upon the ground. After that Imight furnish libraries to towns that would pay for 'em, or buildsanitariums for crank professors, and call 'em colleges, if Iwanted to. Women's rights societies have been laboring for many years afterequality with man. With what result? When they sit on a bench theymust twist their ankles together and uncomfortably swing theirhighest French heels clear of earthly support. Begin at the bottom,ladies. Get your feet on the ground, and then rise to theories ofmental equality. Hastings Beauchamp Morley was carefully and neatly dressed. Thatwas the result of an instinct due to his birth and breeding. Itis denied us to look further into a man's bosom than the starch onhis shirt front; so it is left to us only to recount his walks andconversation. Morley had not a cent in his pockets; but he smiled pityingly at ahundred grimy, unfortunate ones who had no more, and who would haveno more when the sun's first rays yellowed the tall paper-cutterbuilding on the west side of the square. But Morley would haveenough by then. Sundown had seen his pockets empty before; butsunrise had always seen them lined. First he went to the house of a clergyman off Madison avenue andpresented a forged letter of introduction that holily purported toissue from a pastorate in Indiana. This netted him $5 when backedup by a realistic romance of a delayed remittance. On the sidewalk, twenty steps from the clergyman's door, apale-faced, fat man huskily enveloped him with a raised, red fistand the voice of a bell buoy, demanding payment of an old score. "Why, Bergman, man," sang Morley, dulcetly, "is this you? I was juston my way up to your place to settle up. That remittance from myaunt arrived only this morning. Wrong address was the trouble. Comeup to the corner and I'll square up. Glad to see you. Saves me awalk." Four drinks placated the emotional Bergman. There was an air aboutMorley when he was backed by money in hand that would have stayedoff a call loan at Rothschilds'. When he was penniless his bluff waspitched half a tone lower, but few are competent to detect thedifference in the notes. "You gum to mine blace and bay me to-morrow, Mr. Morley," saidBergman. "Oxcuse me dat I dun you on der street. But I haf not seenyou in dree mont'. Pros't!" Morley walked away with a crooked smile on his pale, smooth face.The credulous, drink-softened German amused him. He would have toavoid Twenty-ninth street in the future. He had not been aware thatBergman ever went home by that route. At the door of a darkened house two squares to the north Morleyknocked with a peculiar sequence of raps. The door opened to thelength of a six-inch chain, and the pompous, important black face ofan African guardian imposed itself in the opening. Morley wasadmitted. In a third-story room, in an atmosphere opaque with smoke, he hungfor ten minutes above a roulette wheel. Then downstairs he crept,and was out-sped by the important negro, jingling in his pocket the40 cents in silver that remained to him of his five-dollar capital.At the corner he lingered, undecided. Across the street was a drug store, well lighted, sending forthgleams from the German silver and crystal of its soda fountain andglasses. Along came a youngster of five, headed for the dispensary,stepping high with the consequence of a big errand, possibly one towhich his advancing age had earned him promotion. In his hand heclutched something tightly, publicly, proudly, conspicuously. Morley stopped him with his winning smile and soft speech. "Me?" said the youngster. "I'm doin' to the drug 'tore for mamma.She dave me a dollar to buy a bottle of med'cin." "Now, now, now!" said Morley. "Such a big man you are to be doingerrands for mamma. I must go along with my little man to see thatthe cars don't run over him. And on the way we'll have somechocolates. Or would he rather have lemon drops?" Morley entered the drug store leading the child by the hand. Hepresented the prescription that had been wrapped around the money. On his face was a smile, predatory, parental, politic, profound. "Aqua pura, one pint," said he to the druggist. "Sodium chloride,ten grains. Fiat solution. And don't try to skin me, because I knowall about the number of gallons of H2O in the Croton reservoir, andI always use the other ingredient on my potatoes." "Fifteen cents," said the druggist, with a wink after he hadcompounded the order. "I see you understand pharmacy. A dollar isthe regular price." "To gulls," said Morley, smilingly. He settled the wrapped bottle carefully in the child's arms andescorted him to the corner. In his own pocket he dropped the 85cents accruing to him by virtue of his chemical knowledge. "Look out for the cars, sonny," he said, cheerfully, to his smallvictim. Two street cars suddenly swooped in opposite directions upon theyoungster. Morley dashed between them and pinned the infantilemessenger by the neck, holding him in safety. Then from the cornerof his street he sent him on his way, swindled, happy, and stickywith vile, cheap candy from the Italian's fruit stand. Morley went to a restaurant and ordered a sirloin and a pint ofinexpensive Chateau Breuille. He laughed noiselessly, but sogenuinely that the waiter ventured to premise that good news hadcome his way. "Why, no," said Morley, who seldom held conversation with any one."It is not that. It is something else that amuses me. Do you knowwhat three divisions of people are easiest to over-reach intransactions of all kinds?" "Sure," said the waiter, calculating the size of the tip promised bythe careful knot of Morley's tie; "there's the buyers from the drygoods stores in the South during August, and honeymooners fromStaten Island, and"-- "Wrong!" said Morley, chuckling happily. "The answer is just--men,women and children. The world--well, say New York and as faras summer boarders can swim out from Long Island--is full ofgreenhorns. Two minutes longer on the broiler would have made thissteak fit to be eaten by a gentleman, Francois." "If yez t'inks it's on de bum," said the waiter, "Oi'll"-- Morley lifted his hand in protest--slightly martyred protest. "It will do," he said, magnanimously. "And now, green Chartreuse,frappe and a demi-tasse." Morley went out leisurely and stood on a corner where two tradefularteries of the city cross. With a solitary dime in his pocket, hestood on the curb watching with confident, cynical, smiling eyes thetides of people that flowed past him. Into that stream he must casthis net and draw fish for his further sustenance and need. GoodIzaak Walton had not the half of his self-reliance and bait-lore. A joyful party of four--two women and two men--fell upon him withcries of delight. There was a dinner party on--where had he been fora fortnight past?--what luck to thus run upon him! They surroundedand engulfed him--he must join them--tra la la--and the rest. One with a white hat plume curving to the shoulder touched hissleeve, and cast at the others a triumphant look that said: "Seewhat I can do with him?" and added her queen's command to theinvitations. "I leave you to imagine," said Morley, pathetically, "how itdesolates me to forego the pleasure. But my friend Carruthers, ofthe New York Yacht Club, is to pick me up here in his motor car at8." The white plume tossed, and the quartet danced like midges around anarc light down the frolicsome way. Morley stood, turning over and over the dime in his pocket andlaughing gleefully to himself. "'Front,'" he chanted under hisbreath; "'front' does it. It is trumps in the game. How they take itin! Men, women and children--forgeries, water-and-salt lies--howthey all take it in!" An old man with an ill-fitting suit, a straggling gray beard and acorpulent umbrella hopped from the conglomeration of cabs and streetcars to the sidewalk at Morley's side. "Stranger," said he, "excuse me for troubling you, but do you knowanybody in this here town named Solomon Smothers? He's my son, andI've come down from Ellenville to visit him. Be darned if I knowwhat I done with his street and number." "I do not, sir," said Morley, half closing his eyes to veil the joyin them. "You had better apply to the police." "The police!" said the old man. "I ain't done nothin' to call in thepolice about. I just come down to see Ben. He lives in a five-storyhouse, he writes me. If you know anybody by that name and could"-- "I told you I did not," said Morley, coldly. "I know no one by thename of Smithers, and I advise you to"-- "Smothers not Smithers," interrupted the old man hopefully. "Aheavy-sot man, sandy complected, about twenty-nine, two front teethout, about five foot"-- "Oh, 'Smothers!'" exclaimed Morley. "Sol Smothers? Why, he lives inthe next house to me. I thought you said 'Smithers.'" Morley looked at his watch. You must have a watch. You can doit for a dollar. Better go hungry than forego a gunmetal or theninety-eight-cent one that the railroads--according to thesewatchmakers--are run by. "The Bishop of Long Island," said Morley, "was to meet me hereat 8 to dine with me at the Kingfishers' Club. But I can't leavethe father of my friend Sol Smothers alone on the street. By St.Swithin, Mr. Smothers, we Wall street men have to work! Tired is noname for it! I was about to step across to the other corner and havea glass of ginger ale with a dash of sherry when you approached me.You must let me take you to Sol's house, Mr. Smothers. But, beforewe take the car I hope you will join me in"-- An hour later Morley seated himself on the end of a quiet benchin Madison Square, with a twenty-five-cent cigar between his lipsand $140 in deeply creased bills in his inside pocket. Content,light-hearted, ironical, keenly philosophic, he watched the moondrifting in and out amidst a maze of flying clouds. An old, raggedman with a low-bowed head sat at the other end of the bench. Presently the old man stirred and looked at his bench companion. InMorley's appearance he seemed to recognize something superior to theusual nightly occupants of the benches. "Kind sir," he whined, "if you could spare a dime or even a fewpennies to one who"-- Morley cut short his stereotyped appeal by throwing him a dollar. "God bless you!" said the old man. "I've been trying to find workfor"-- "Work!" echoed Morley with his ringing laugh. "You are a fool, myfriend. The world is a rock to you, no doubt; but you must be anAaron and smite it with your rod. Then things better than water willgush out of it for you. That is what the world is for. It gives tome whatever I want from it." "God has blessed you," said the old man. "It is only work that Ihave known. And now I can get no more." "I must go home," said Morley, rising and buttoning his coat. "Istopped here only for a smoke. I hope you may find work." "May your kindness be rewarded this night," said the old man. "Oh," said Morley, "you have your wish already. I am satisfied. Ithink good luck follows me like a dog. I am for yonder bright hotelacross the square for the night. And what a moon that is lightingup the city to-night. I think no one enjoys the moonlight and suchlittle things as I do. Well, a good-night to you." Morley walked to the corner where he would cross to his hotel. Heblew slow streams of smoke from his cigar heavenward. A policemanpassing saluted to his benign nod. What a fine moon it was. The clock struck nine as a girl just entering womanhood stopped onthe corner waiting for the approaching car. She was hurrying as ifhomeward from employment or delay. Her eyes were clear and pure, shewas dressed in simple white, she looked eagerly for the car andneither to the right nor the left. Morley knew her. Eight years before he had sat on the same bench withher at school. There had been no sentiment between them--nothing butthe friendship of innocent days. But he turned down the side street to a quiet spot and laid hissuddenly burning face against the cool iron of a lamp-post, and saiddully: "God! I wish I could die."

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