Michael Phelan, American four ball billiards, 1859
"Eighty-first street--let 'em out, please," yelled the shepherd inblue.A flock of citizen sheep scrambled out and another flock scrambledaboard. Ding-ding! The cattle cars of the Manhattan Elevated rattledaway, and John Perkins drifted down the stairway of the station withthe released flock.John walked slowly toward his flat. Slowly, because in the lexiconof his daily life there was no such word as "perhaps." There are nosurprises awaiting a man who has been married two years and lives ina flat. As he walked John Perkins prophesied to himself with gloomyand downtrodden cynicism the foregone conclusions of the monotonousday.Katy would meet him at the door with a kiss flavored with cold creamand butter-scotch. He would remove his coat, sit upon a macadamizedlounge and read, in the evening paper, of Russians and Japsslaughtered by the deadly linotype. For dinner there would be potroast, a salad flavored with a dressing warranted not to crack orinjure the leather, stewed rhubarb and the bottle of strawberrymarmalade blushing at the certificate of chemical purity on itslabel. After dinner Katy would show him the new patch in her crazyquilt that the iceman had cut for her off the end of his four-in-hand.At half-past seven they would spread newspapers over the furnitureto catch the pieces of plastering that fell when the fat man in theflat overhead began to take his physical culture exercises. Exactlyat eight Hickey & Mooney, of the vaudeville team (unbooked) in theflat across the hall, would yield to the gentle influence of deliriumtremens and begin to overturn chairs under the delusion thatHammerstein was pursuing them with a five-hundred-dollar-a-weekcontract. Then the gent at the window across the air-shaft would getout his flute; the nightly gas leak would steal forth to frolic inthe highways; the dumbwaiter would slip off its trolley; the janitorwould drive Mrs. Zanowitski's five children once more across theYalu, the lady with the champagne shoes and the Skye terrier wouldtrip downstairs and paste her Thursday name over her bell andletter-box--and the evening routine of the Frogmore flats would beunder way.John Perkins knew these things would happen. And he knew that at aquarter past eight he would summon his nerve and reach for his hat,and that his wife would deliver this speech in a querulous tone:"Now, where are you going, I'd like to know, John Perkins?""Thought I'd drop up to McCloskey's," he would answer, "and play agame or two of pool with the fellows."Of late such had been John Perkins's habit. At ten or eleven hewould return. Sometimes Katy would be asleep; sometimes waiting up,ready to melt in the crucible of her ire a little more gold platingfrom the wrought steel chains of matrimony. For these things Cupidwill have to answer when he stands at the bar of justice with hisvictims from the Frogmore flats.To-night John Perkins encountered a tremendous upheaval of thecommonplace when he reached his door. No Katy was there with heraffectionate, confectionate kiss. The three rooms seemed inportentous disorder. All about lay her things in confusion. Shoes inthe middle of the floor, curling tongs, hair bows, kimonos, powderbox, jumbled together on dresser and chairs--this was not Katy'sway. With a sinking heart John saw the comb with a curling cloud ofher brown hair among its teeth. Some unusual hurry and perturbationmust have possessed her, for she always carefully placed thesecombings in the little blue vase on the mantel to be some day formedinto the coveted feminine "rat."Hanging conspicuously to the gas jet by a string was a folded paper.John seized it. It was a note from his wife running thus:"Dear John: I just had a telegram saying mother is very sick.I am going to take the 4.30 train. Brother Sam is going to meetme at the depot there. There is cold mutton in the ice box. Ihope it isn't her quinzy again. Pay the milkman 50 cents. Shehad it bad last spring. Don't forget to write to the companyabout the gas meter, and your good socks are in the top drawer.I will write to-morrow.Hastily, KATY."Never during their two years of matrimony had he and Katy beenseparated for a night. John read the note over and over in adumbfounded way. Here was a break in a routine that had nevervaried, and it left him dazed.There on the back of a chair hung, pathetically empty and formless,the red wrapper with black dots that she always wore while gettingthe meals. Her week-day clothes had been tossed here and there inher haste. A little paper bag of her favorite butter-scotch lay withits string yet unwound. A daily paper sprawled on the floor, gapingrectangularly where a railroad time-table had been clipped from it.Everything in the room spoke of a loss, of an essence gone, of itssoul and life departed. John Perkins stood among the dead remainswith a queer feeling of desolation in his heart.He began to set the rooms tidy as well as he could. When he touchedher clothes a thrill of something like terror went through him. Hehad never thought what existence would be without Katy. She hadbecome so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like theair he breathed--necessary but scarcely noticed. Now, withoutwarning, she was gone, vanished, as completely absent as if she hadnever existed. Of course it would be only for a few days, or at mosta week or two, but it seemed to him as if the very hand of death hadpointed a finger at his secure and uneventful home.John dragged the cold mutton from the ice-box, made coffee and satdown to a lonely meal face to face with the strawberry marmalade'sshameless certificate of purity. Bright among withdrawn blessingsnow appeared to him the ghosts of pot roasts and the salad with tanpolish dressing. His home was dismantled. A quinzied mother-in-lawhad knocked his lares and penates sky-high. After his solitary mealJohn sat at a front window.He did not care to smoke. Outside the city roared to him to comejoin in its dance of folly and pleasure. The night was his. He mightgo forth unquestioned and thrum the strings of jollity as free asany gay bachelor there. He might carouse and wander and have hisfling until dawn if he liked; and there would be no wrathful Katywaiting for him, bearing the chalice that held the dregs of his joy.He might play pool at McCloskey's with his roistering friends untilAurora dimmed the electric bulbs if he chose. The hymeneal stringsthat had curbed him always when the Frogmore flats had palled uponhim were loosened. Katy was gone.John Perkins was not accustomed to analyzing his emotions. But ashe sat in his Katy-bereft 10x12 parlor he hit unerringly upon thekeynote of his discomfort. He knew now that Katy was necessary tohis happiness. His feeling for her, lulled into unconsciousness bythe dull round of domesticity, had been sharply stirred by the lossof her presence. Has it not been dinned into us by proverb andsermon and fable that we never prize the music till the sweet-voicedbird has flown--or in other no less florid and true utterances?"I'm a double-dyed dub," mused John Perkins, "the way I've beentreating Katy. Off every night playing pool and bumming with theboys instead of staying home with her. The poor girl here all alonewith nothing to amuse her, and me acting that way! John Perkins,you're the worst kind of a shine. I'm going to make it up for thelittle girl. I'll take her out and let her see some amusement. AndI'll cut out the McCloskey gang right from this minute."Yes, there was the city roaring outside for John Perkins to comedance in the train of Momus. And at McCloskey's the boys wereknocking the balls idly into the pockets against the hour for thenightly game. But no primrose way nor clicking cue could woo theremorseful soul of Perkins the bereft. The thing that was his,lightly held and half scorned, had been taken away from him, and hewanted it. Backward to a certain man named Adam, whom the cherubimbounced from the orchard, could Perkins, the remorseful, trace hisdescent.Near the right hand of John Perkins stood a chair. On the back ofit stood Katy's blue shirtwaist. It still retained something ofher contour. Midway of the sleeves were fine, individual wrinklesmade by the movements of her arms in working for his comfort andpleasure. A delicate but impelling odor of bluebells came fromit. John took it and looked long and soberly at the unresponsivegrenadine. Katy had never been unresponsive. Tears:--yes,tears--came into John Perkins's eyes. When she came back thingswould be different. He would make up for all his neglect. Whatwas life without her?The door opened. Katy walked in carrying a little hand satchel. Johnstared at her stupidly."My! I'm glad to get back," said Katy. "Ma wasn't sick to amountto anything. Sam was at the depot, and said she just had a littlespell, and got all right soon after they telegraphed. So I took thenext train back. I'm just dying for a cup of coffee."Nobody heard the click and rattle of the cog-wheels as the third-floorfront of the Frogmore flats buzzed its machinery back into the Orderof Things. A band slipped, a spring was touched, the gear was adjustedand the wheels revolve in their old orbit.John Perkins looked at the clock. It was 8.15. He reached for hishat and walked to the door."Now, where are you going, I'd like to know, John Perkins?" askedKaty, in a querulous tone."Thought I'd drop up to McCloskey's," said John, "and play a game ortwo of pool with the fellows."
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