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Vanity and Some Sables

Short Stories

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

A Bird of Bagdad

A Blackjack Bargainer

A Call Loan

A Chaparral Christmas Gift

A Chaparral Prince

A Comedy in Rubber

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

A Departmental Case

A Dinner at--------*

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

A Fog in Santone

A Harlem Tragedy

A Lickpenny Lover

A Little Local Colour

A Little Talk about Mobs

A Madison Square Arabian Night

A Matter of Mean Elevation

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

A Midsummer Masquerade

A Municipal Report

A Newspaper Story

A Night in New Arabia

A Philistine in Bohemia

A Poor Rule

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Retrieved Reformation

A Ruler of Men

A Sacrifice Hit

A Service of Love

A Snapshot at the President

A Strange Story

A Technical Error

A Tempered Wind

According to Their Lights

After Twenty Years

An Adjustment of Nature

An Afternoon Miracle

An Apology

An Unfinished Christmas Story

An Unfinished Story

Aristocracy Versus Hash

Art and the Bronco

At Arms With Morpheus

Babes in the Jungle

Best-Seller

Between Rounds

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Blind Man's Holiday

Brickdust Row

Buried Treasure

By Courier

Calloway's Code

Caught

Cherchez La Femme

Christmas by Injunction

Compliments of the Season

Confessions of a Humorist

Conscience in Art

Cupid a La Carte

Cupid's Exile Number Two

Dickey

Dougherty's Eye-Opener

Elsie in New York

Extradited from Bohemia

Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled

Friends in San Rosario

From Each According to His Ability

From the Cabby's Seat

Georgia's Ruling

Girl

He Also Serves

Hearts and Crosses

Hearts and Hands

Helping the Other Fellow

Holding Up a Train

Hostages to Momus

Hygeia at the Solito

Innocents of Broadway

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

Law and Order

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Little Speck in Garnered Fruit

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Lost on Dress Parade

Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches

Makes the Whole World Kin

Mammon and the Archer

Man About Town

Masters of Arts

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

Modern Rural Sports

Money Maze

Nemesis and the Candy Man

New York by Camp Fire Light

Next to Reading Matter

No Story

October and June

On Behalf of the Management

One Dollar's Worth

One Thousand Dollars

Out of Nazareth

Past One at Rooney's

Phoebe

Proof of the Pudding

Psyche and the Pskyscraper

Queries and Answers

Roads of Destiny

Roses, Ruses and Romance

Rouge et Noir

Round the Circle

Rus in Urbe

Schools and Schools

Seats of the Haughty

Shearing the Wolf

Ships

Shoes

Sisters of the Golden Circle

Smith

Sociology in Serge and Straw

Sound and Fury

Springtime a La Carte

Squaring the Circle

Strictly Business

Strictly Business

Suite Homes and Their Romance

Telemachus, Friend

The Admiral

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes

The Assessor of Success

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Badge of Policeman O'Roon

The Brief Debut of Tildy

The Buyer From Cactus City

The Caballero's Way

The Cactus

The Caliph and the Cad

The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

The Call of the Tame

The Chair of Philanthromathematics

The Champion of the Weather

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel

The City of Dreadful Night

The Clarion Call

The Coming-Out of Maggie

The Complete Life of John Hopkins

The Cop and the Anthem

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Country of Elusion

The Day Resurgent

The Day We Celebrate

The Defeat of the City

The Detective Detector

The Diamond of Kali

The Discounters of Money

The Dog and the Playlet

The Door of Unrest

The Dream

The Duel

The Duplicity of Hargraves

The Easter of the Soul

The Emancipation of Billy

The Enchanted Kiss

The Enchanted Profile

The Ethics of Pig

The Exact Science of Matrimony

The Ferry of Unfulfilment

The Fifth Wheel

The Flag Paramount

The Fool-Killer

The Foreign Policy of Company 99

The Fourth in Salvador

The Friendly Call

The Furnished Room

The Gift of the Magi

The Girl and the Graft

The Girl and the Habit

The Gold That Glittered

The Greater Coney

The Green Door

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Guilty Party - An East Side Tragedy

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

The Hand that Riles the World

The Handbook of Hymen

The Harbinger

The Head-Hunter

The Hiding of Black Bill

The Higher Abdication

The Higher Pragmatism

The Hypotheses of Failure

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson

The Lady Higher Up

The Last Leaf

The Last of the Troubadours

The Lonesome Road

The Lost Blend

The Lotus And The Bottle

The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

The Making of a New Yorker

The Man Higher Up

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

The Marry Month of May

The Memento

The Missing Chord

The Moment of Victory

The Octopus Marooned

The Passing of Black Eagle

The Pendulum

The Phonograph and the Graft

The Pimienta Pancakes

The Plutonian Fire

The Poet and the Peasant

The Pride of the Cities

The Princess and the Puma

The Prisoner of Zembla

The Proem

The Purple Dress

The Ransom of Mack

The Ransom of Red Chief

The Rathskeller and the Rose

The Red Roses of Tonia

The Reformation of Calliope

The Remnants of the Code

The Renaissance at Charleroi

The Roads We Take

The Robe of Peace

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Rose of Dixie

The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

The Rubber Plant's Story

The Shamrock and the Palm

The Shocks of Doom

The Skylight Room

The Sleuths

The Snow Man

The Social Triangle

The Song and the Sergeant

The Sparrows in Madison Square

The Sphinx Apple

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

The Theory and the Hound

The Thing's the Play

The Third Ingredient

The Trimmed Lamp

The Unknown Quantity

The Unprofitable Servant

The Venturers

The Vitagraphoscope

The Voice of the City

The Whirligig of Life

The World and the Door

Thimble, Thimble

Tictocq

To Him Who Waits

Tobin's Palm

Tommy's Burglar

Tracked to Doom

Transformation of Martin Burney

Transients in Arcadia

Two Recalls

Two Renegades

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Ulysses and the Dogman

Vanity and Some Sables

What You Want

While the Auto Waits

Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

Witches' Loaves







When "Kid" Brady was sent to the rope by Molly McKeever's blue-black
eyes he withdrew from the Stovepipe Gang. So much for the power of
a colleen's blanderin' tongue and stubborn true-heartedness. If you
are a man who read this, may such an influence be sent you before 2
o'clock to-morrow; if you are a woman, may your Pomeranian greet you
this morning with a cold nose--a sign of doghealth and your
happiness.

The Stovepipe Gang borrowed its name from a sub-district of the city
called the "Stovepipe," which is a narrow and natural extension of
the familiar district known as "Hell's Kitchen." The "Stovepipe"
strip of town runs along Eleventh and Twelfth avenues on the river,
and bends a hard and sooty elbow around little, lost homeless DeWitt
Clinton park. Consider that a stovepipe is an important factor in
any kitchen and the situation is analyzed. The chefs in "Hell's
Kitchen" are many, and the "Stovepipe" gang, wears the cordon blue.

The members of this unchartered but widely known brotherhood
appeared to pass their time on street corners arrayed like the
lilies of the conservatory and busy with nail files and penknives.
Thus displayed as a guarantee of good faith, they carried on an
innocuous conversation in a 200-word vocabulary, to the casual
observer as innocent and immaterial as that heard in clubs seven
blocks to the east.

But off exhibition the "Stovepipes" were not mere street corner
ornaments addicted to posing and manicuring. Their serious
occupation was the separating of citizens from their coin and
valuables. Preferably this was done by weird and singular tricks
without noise or bloodshed; but whenever the citizen honored by
their attentions refused to impoverish himself gracefully his
objections came to be spread finally upon some police station
blotter or hospital register.

The police held the "Stovepipe" gang in perpetual suspicion and
respect. As the nightingale's liquid note is heard in the deepest
shadows, so along the "Stovepipe's" dark and narrow confines the
whistle for reserves punctures the dull ear of night. Whenever there
was smoke in the "stovepipe" the tasselled men in blue knew there
was fire in "Hell's Kitchen."

"Kid" Brady promised Molly to be good. "Kid" was the vainest, the
strongest, the wariest and the most successful plotter in the gang.
Therefore, the boys were sorry to give him up.

But they witnessed his fall to a virtuous life without protest.
For, in the Kitchen it is considered neither unmanly nor improper
for a guy to do as his girl advises.

Black her eye for love's sake, if you will; but it is
all-to-the-good business to do a thing when she wants you to do it.

"Turn off the hydrant," said the Kid, one night when Molly, tearful,
besought him to amend his ways. "I'm going to cut out the gang. You
for mine, and the simple life on the side. I'll tell you, Moll--I'll
get work; and in a year we'll get married. I'll do it for you. We'll
get a flat and a flute, and a sewing machine and a rubber plant and
live as honest as we can."

"Oh, Kid," sighed Molly, wiping the powder off his shoulder with her
handkerchief, "I'd rather hear you say that than to own all of New
York. And we can be happy on so little!"

The Kid looked down at his speckless cuffs and shining patent
leathers with a suspicion of melancholy.

"It'll hurt hardest in the rags department," said he. "I've kind
of always liked to rig out swell when I could. You know how I hate
cheap things, Moll. This suit set me back sixty-five. Anything in
the wearing apparel line has got to be just so, or it's to the
misfit parlors for it, for mine. If I work I won't have so much coin
to hand over to the little man with the big shears."

"Never mind, Kid. I'll like you just as much in a blue jumper as I
would in a red automobile."

Before the Kid had grown large enough to knock out his father he
had been compelled to learn the plumber's art. So now back to this
honorable and useful profession he returned. But it was as an
assistant that he engaged himself; and it is the master plumber and
not the assistant, who wears diamonds as large as hailstones and
looks contemptuously upon the marble colonnades of Senator Clark's
mansion.

Eight months went by as smoothly and surely as though they had
"elapsed" on a theater program. The Kid worked away at his pipes and
solder with no symptoms of backsliding. The Stovepipe gang continued
its piracy on the high avenues, cracked policemen's heads, held up
late travelers, invented new methods of peaceful plundering, copied
Fifth avenue's cut of clothes and neckwear fancies and comported
itself according to its lawless bylaws. But the Kid stood firm and
faithful to his Molly, even though the polish was gone from his
fingernails and it took him 15 minutes to tie his purple silk ascot
so that the worn places would not show.

One evening he brought a mysterious bundle with him to Molly's
house.

"Open that, Moll!" he said in his large, quiet way. "It's for you."

Molly's eager fingers tore off the wrappings. She shrieked aloud,
and in rushed a sprinkling of little McKeevers, and Ma McKeever,
dishwashy, but an undeniable relative of the late Mrs. Eve.

Again Molly shrieked, and something dark and long and sinuous flew
and enveloped her neck like an anaconda.

"Russian sables," said the Kid, pridefully, enjoying the sight of
Molly's round cheek against the clinging fur. "The real thing. They
don't grow anything in Russia too good for you, Moll."

Molly plunged her hands into the muff, overturned a row of the
family infants and flew to the mirror. Hint for the beauty column.
To make bright eyes, rosy checks and a bewitching smile: Recipe--one
set Russian sables. Apply.

When they were alone Molly became aware of a small cake of the ice
of common sense floating down the full tide of her happiness.

"You're a bird, all right, Kid," she admitted gratefully. "I never
had any furs on before in my life. But ain't Russian sables awful
expensive? Seems to me I've heard they were."

"Have I ever chucked any bargain-sale stuff at you, Moll?" asked
the Kid, with calm dignity. "Did you ever notice me leaning on the
remnant counter or peering in the window of the five-and-ten? Call
that scarf $250 and the muff $175 and you won't make any mistake
about the price of Russian sables. The swell goods for me. Say, they
look fine on you, Moll."

Molly hugged the sables to her bosom in rapture. And then her smile
went away little by little, and she looked the Kid straight in the
eye sadly and steadily.

He knew what every look of hers meant; and he laughed with a faint
flush upon his face.

"Cut it out," he said, with affectionate roughness. "I told you I
was done with that. I bought 'em and paid for 'em, all right, with
my own money."

"Out of the money you worked for, Kid? Out of $75 a month?"

"Sure. I been saving up."

"Let's see--saved $425 in eight months, Kid?"

"Ah, let up," said the Kid, with some heat. "I had some money when
I went to work. Do you think I've been holding 'em up again? I told
you I'd quit. They're paid for on the square. Put 'em on and come
out for a walk."

Molly calmed her doubts. Sables are soothing. Proud as a queen she
went forth in the streets at the Kid's side. In all that region of
low-lying streets Russian sables had never been seen before. The
word sped, and doors and windows blossomed with heads eager to see
the swell furs Kid Brady had given his girl. All down the street
there were "Oh's" and "Ah's" and the reported fabulous sum paid for
the sables was passed from lip to lip, increasing as it went. At her
right elbow sauntered the Kid with the air of princes. Work had not
diminished his love of pomp and show and his passion for the costly
and genuine. On a corner they saw a group of the Stovepipe Gang
loafing, immaculate. They raised their hats to the Kid's girl and
went on with their calm, unaccented palaver.

Three blocks behind the admired couple strolled Detective Ransom, of
the Central office. Ransom was the only detective on the force who
could walk abroad with safety in the Stovepipe district. He was fair
dealing and unafraid and went there with the hypothesis that the
inhabitants were human. Many liked him, and now and then one would
tip off to him something that he was looking for.

"What's the excitement down the street?" asked Ransom of a pale
youth in a red sweater.

"Dey're out rubberin' at a set of buffalo robes Kid Brady staked his
girl to," answered the youth. "Some say he paid $900 for de skins.
Dey're swell all right enough."

"I hear Brady has been working at his old trade for nearly a year,"
said the detective. "He doesn't travel with the gang any more, does
he?"

"He's workin', all right," said the red sweater, "but--say, sport,
are you trailin' anything in the fur line? A job in a plumbin' shop
don' match wid dem skins de Kid's girl's got on."

Ransom overtook the strolling couple on an empty street near the
river bank. He touched the Kid's arm from behind.

"Let me see you a moment, Brady," he said, quietly. His eye rested
for a second on the long fur scarf thrown stylishly back over
Molly's left shoulder. The Kid, with his old-time police hating
frown on his face, stepped a yard or two aside with the detective.

"Did you go to Mrs. Hethcote's on West 7--th street yesterday to fix
a leaky water pipe?" asked Ransom.

"I did," said the Kid. "What of it?"

"The lady's $1,000 set of Russian sables went out of the house about
the same time you did. The description fits the ones this lady has
on."

"To h--Harlem with you," cried the Kid, angrily. "You know I've
cut out that sort of thing, Ransom. I bought them sables yesterday
at--"

The Kid stopped short.

"I know you've been working straight lately," said Ransom. "I'll
give you every chance. I'll go with you where you say you bought the
furs and investigate. The lady can wear 'em along with us and
nobody'll be on. That's fair, Brady."

"Come on," agreed the Kid, hotly. And then he stopped suddenly in
his tracks and looked with an odd smile at Molly's distressed and
anxious face.

"No use," he said, grimly. "They're the Hethcote sables, all right.
You'll have to turn 'em over, Moll, but they ain't too good for you
if they cost a million."

Molly, with anguish in her face, hung upon the Kid's arm.

"Oh, Kiddy, you've broke my heart," she said. "I was so proud of
you--and now they'll do you--and where's our happiness gone?"

"Go home," said the Kid, wildly. "Come on, Ransom--take the furs.
Let's get away from here. Wait a minute--I've a good mind to--no,
I'll be d---- if I can do it--run along, Moll--I'm ready, Ransom."

Around the corner of a lumber-yard came Policeman Kohen on his
way to his beat along the river. The detective signed to him for
assistance. Kohen joined the group. Ransom explained.

"Sure," said Kohen. "I hear about those saples dat vas stole. You
say you have dem here?"

Policeman Kohen took the end of Molly's late scarf in his hands and
looked at it closely.

"Once," he said, "I sold furs in Sixth avenue. Yes, dese are saples.
Dey come from Alaska. Dis scarf is vort $12 and dis muff--"

"Biff!" came the palm of the Kid's powerful hand upon the policeman's
mouth. Kohen staggered and rallied. Molly screamed. The detective
threw himself upon Brady and with Kohen's aid got the nippers on his
wrist.

"The scarf is vort $12 and the muff is vort $9," persisted the
policeman. "Vot is dis talk about $1,000 saples?"

The Kid sat upon a pile of lumber and his face turned dark red.

"Correct, Solomonski!" he declared, viciously. "I paid $21.50 for
the set. I'd rather have got six months and not have told it. Me,
the swell guy that wouldn't look at anything cheap! I'm a plain
bluffer. Moll--my salary couldn't spell sables in Russian."

Molly cast herself upon his neck.

"What do I care for all the sables and money in the world," she
cried. "It's my Kiddy I want. Oh, you dear, stuck-up, crazy
blockhead!"

"You can take dose nippers off," said Kohen to the detective."
Before I leaf de station de report come in dat de lady vind her
saples--hanging in her wardrobe. Young man, I excuse you dat punch
in my vace--dis von time."

Ransom handed Molly her furs. Her eyes were smiling upon the Kid.
She wound the scarf and threw the end over her left shoulder with a
duchess' grace.

"A gouple of young vools," said Policeman Kohen to Ransom; "come on
away."




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