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The Discounters of Money

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







The spectacle of the money-caliphs of the present day going about
Bagdad-on-the-Subway trying to relieve the wants of the people is
enough to make the great Al Raschid turn Haroun in his grave. If not
so, then the assertion should do so, the real caliph having been a wit
and a scholar and therefore a hater of puns.

How properly to alleviate the troubles of the poor is one of the
greatest troubles of the rich. But one thing agreed upon by all
professional philanthropists is that you must never hand over any cash
to your subject. The poor are notoriously temperamental; and when they
get money they exhibit a strong tendency to spend it for stuffed
olives and enlarged crayon portraits instead of giving it to the
instalment man.

And still, old Haroun had some advantages as an eleemosynarian. He
took around with him on his rambles his vizier, Giafar (a vizier is a
composite of a chauffeur, a secretary of state, and a night-and-day
bank), and old Uncle Mesrour, his executioner, who toted a
snickersnee. With this entourage a caliphing tour could hardly fail to
be successful. Have you noticed lately any newspaper articles headed,
"What Shall We Do With Our Ex-Presidents?" Well, now, suppose that Mr.
Carnegie could engage /him/ and Joe Gans to go about assisting in the
distribution of free libraries? Do you suppose any town would have had
the hardihood to refuse one? That caliphalous combination would cause
two libraries to grow where there had been only one set of E. P. Roe's
works before.

But, as I said, the money-caliphs are handicapped. They have the idea
that earth has no sorrow that dough cannot heal; and they rely upon it
solely. Al Raschid administered justice, rewarding the deserving, and
punished whomsoever he disliked on the spot. He was the originator of
the short-story contest. Whenever he succoured any chance pick-up in
the bazaars he always made the succouree tell the sad story of his
life. If the narrative lacked construction, style, and /esprit/ he
commanded his vizier to dole him out a couple of thousand ten-dollar
notes of the First National Bank of the Bosphorus, or else gave him a
soft job as Keeper of the Bird Seed for the Bulbuls in the Imperial
Gardens. If the story was a cracker-jack, he had Mesrour, the
executioner, whack of his head. The report that Haroun Al Raschid is
yet alive and is editing the magazine that your grandmother used to
subscribe for lacks confirmation.

And now follows the Story of the Millionaire, the Inefficacious
Increment, and the Babes Drawn from the Wood.

Young Howard Pilkins, the millionaire, got his money ornithologically.
He was a shrewd judge of storks, and got in on the ground floor at the
residence of his immediate ancestors, the Pilkins Brewing Company. For
his mother was a partner in the business. Finally old man Pilkins died
from a torpid liver, and then Mrs. Pilkins died from worry on account
of torpid delivery-waggons--and there you have young Howard Pilkins
with 4,000,000; and a good fellow at that. He was an agreeable,
modestly arrogant young man, who implicitly believed that money could
buy anything that the world had to offer. And Bagdad-on-the-Subway for
a long time did everything possible to encourage his belief.

But the Rat-trap caught him at last; he heard the spring snap, and
found his heart in a wire cage regarding a piece of cheese whose other
name was Alice von der Ruysling.

The Von der Ruyslings still live in that little square about which so
much has been said, and in which so little has been done. To-day you
hear of Mr. Tilden's underground passage, and you hear Mr. Gould's
elevated passage, and that about ends the noise in the world made by
Gramercy Square. But once it was different. The Von der Ruyslings live
there yet, and they received /the first key ever made to Gramercy
Park/.

You shall have no description of Alice v. d. R. Just call up in your
mind the picture of your own Maggie or Vera or Beatrice, straighten
her nose, soften her voice, tone her down and then tone her up, make
her beautiful and unattainable--and you have a faint dry-point etching
of Alice. The family owned a crumbly brick house and a coachman named
Joseph in a coat of many colours, and a horse so old that he claimed
to belong to the order of the perissodactyla, and had toes instead of
hoofs. In the year 1898 the family had to buy a new set of harness for
their Perissodactyl. Before using it they made Joseph smear it over
with a mixture of ashes and soot. It was the Von der Ruysling family
that bought the territory between the Bowery and East River and
Rivington Street and the Statue of Liberty, in the year 1649, from an
Indian chief for a quart of passementerie and a pair of Turkey-red
portieres designed for a Harlem flat. I have always admired that
Indian's perspicacity and good taste. All this is merely to convince
you that the Von der Ruyslings were exactly the kind of poor
aristocrats that turn down their noses at people who have money. Oh,
well, I don't mean that; I mean people who have /just/ money.

One evening Pilkins went down to the red brick house in Gramercy
Square, and made what he thought was a proposal to Alice v. d. R.
Alice, with her nose turned down, and thinking of his money,
considered it a proposition, and refused it and him. Pilkins,
summoning all his resources as any good general would have done, made
an indiscreet references to the advantages that his money would
provide. That settled it. The lady turned so cold that Walter Wellman
himself would have waited until spring to make a dash for her in a
dog-sled.

But Pilkins was something of a sport himself. You can't fool all the
millionaires every time the ball drops on the Western Union Building.

"If, at any time," he said to A. v. d. R., "you feel that you would
like to reconsider your answer, send me a rose like that."

Pilkins audaciously touched a Jacque rose that she wore loosely in her
hair.

"Very well," said she. "And when I do, you will understand by it that
either you or I have learned something new about the purchasing power
of money. You've been spoiled, my friend. No, I don't think I could
marry you. To-morrow I will send you back the presents you have given
me."

"Presents!" said Pilkins in surprise. "I never gave you a present in
my life. I would like to see a full-length portrait of the man that
you would take a present from. Why, you never would let me send you
flowers or candy or even art calendars."

"You've forgotten," said Alice v. d. R., with a little smile. "It was
a long time ago when our families were neighbours. You were seven, and
I was trundling my doll on the sidewalk. You have me a little gray,
hairy kitten, with shoe-buttony eyes. Its head came off and it was
full of candy. You paid five cents for it--you told me so. I haven't
the candy to return to you--I hadn't developed a conscience at three,
so I ate it. But I have the kitten yet, and I will wrap it up neatly
to-night and send it to you to-morrow."

Beneath the lightness of Alice v. d. R.'s talk the steadfastness of
her rejection showed firm and plain. So there was nothing left for him
but to leave the crumbly red brick house, and be off with his abhorred
millions.

On his way back, Pilkins walked through Madison Square. The hour hand
of the clock hung about eight; the air was stingingly cool, but not at
the freezing point. The dim little square seemed like a great, cold,
unroofed room, with its four walls of houses, spangled with thousands
of insufficient lights. Only a few loiterers were huddled here and
there on the benches.

But suddenly Pilkins came upon a youth sitting brave and, as if
conflicting with summer sultriness, coatless, his white shirt-sleeves
conspicuous in the light from the globe of an electric. Close to his
side was a girl, smiling, dreamy, happy. Around her shoulders was,
palpably, the missing coat of the cold-defying youth. It appeared to
be a modern panorama of the Babes in the Wood, revised and brought up
to date, with the exception that the robins hadn't turned up yet with
the protecting leaves.

With delight the money-caliphs view a situation that they think is
relievable while you wait.

Pilkins sat on the bench, one seat removed from the youth. He glanced
cautiously and saw (as men do see; and women--oh! never can) that they
were of the same order.

Pilkins leaned over after a short time and spoke to the youth, who
answered smilingly, and courteously. From general topics the
conversation concentrated to the bed-rock of grim personalities. But
Pilkins did it as delicately and heartily as any caliph could have
done. And when it came to the point, the youth turned to him, soft-
voiced and with his undiminished smile.

"I don't want to seem unappreciative, old man," he said, with a
youth's somewhat too-early spontaneity of address, "but, you see, I
can't accept anything from a stranger. I know you're all right, and
I'm tremendously obliged, but I couldn't think of borrowing from
anybody. You see, I'm Marcus Clayton--the Claytons of Roanoke County,
Virginia, you know. The young lady is Miss Eva Bedford--I reckon
you've heard of the Bedfords. She's seventeen and one of the Bedfords
of Bedford County. We've eloped from home to get married, and we
wanted to see New York. We got in this afternoon. Somebody got my
pocketbook on the ferry-boat, and I had only three cents in change
outside of it. I'll get some work somewhere to-morrow, and we'll get
married."

"But, I say, old man," said Pilkins, in confidential low tones, "you
can't keep the lady out here in the cold all night. Now, as for
hotels--"

"I told you," said the youth, with a broader smile, "that I didn't
have but three cents. Besides, if I had a thousand, we'd have to wait
here until morning. You can understand that, of course. I'm much
obliged, but I can't take any of your money. Miss Bedford and I have
lived an outdoor life, and we don't mind a little cold. I'll get work
of some kind to-morrow. We've got a paper bag of cakes and chocolates,
and we'll get along all right."

"Listen," said the millionaire, impressively. "My name is Pilkins, and
I'm worth several million dollars. I happen to have in my pockets
about $800 or $900 in cash. Don't you think you are drawing it rather
fine when you decline to accept as much of it as will make you and the
young lady comfortable at least for the night?"

"I can't say, sir, that I do think so," said Clayton of Roanoke
County. "I've been raised to look at such things differently. But I'm
mightily obliged to you, just the same."

"Then you force me to say good night," said the millionaire.

Twice that day had his money been scorned by simple ones to whom his
dollars had appeared as but tin tobacco-tags. He was no worshipper of
the actual minted coin or stamped paper, but he had always believed in
its almost unlimited power to purchase.

Pilkins walked away rapidly, and then turned abruptly and returned to
the bench where the young couple sat. He took off his hat and began to
speak. The girl looked at him with the same sprightly, glowing
interest that she had been giving to the lights and statuary and sky-
reaching buildings that made the old square seem so far away from
Bedford County.

"Mr.--er--Roanoke," said Pilkins, "I admire your--your indepen--your
idiocy so much that I'm going to appeal to your chivalry. I believe
that's what you Southerners call it when you keep a lady sitting
outdoors on a bench on a cold night just to keep your old, out-of-date
pride going. Now, I've a friend--a lady--whom I have known all my life
--who lives a few blocks from here--with her parents and sisters and
aunts, and all that kind of endorsement, of course. I am sure this
lady would be happy and pleased to put up--that is, to have Miss--er--
Bedford give her the pleasure of having her as a guest for the night.
Don't you think, Mr. Roanoke, of--er--Virginie, that you could unbend
your prejudices that far?"

Clayton of Roanoke rose and held out his hand.

"Old man," he said, "Miss Bedford will be much pleased to accept the
hospitality of the lady you refer to."

He formally introduced Mr. Pilkins to Miss Bedford. The girl looked at
him sweetly and comfortably. "It's a lovely evening, Mr. Pilkins--
don't you think so?" she said slowly.

Pilkins conducted them to the crumbly red brick house of the Von der
Ruyslings. His card brought Alice downstairs wondering. The runaways
were sent into the drawing-room, while Pilkins told Alice all about it
in the hall.

"Of course, I will take her in," said Alice. "Haven't those Southern
girls a thoroughbred air? Of course, she will stay here. You will look
after Mr. Clayton, of course."

"Will I?" said Pilkins, delightedly. "Oh yes, I'll look after him! As
a citizen of New York, and therefore a part-owner of its public parks,
I'm going to extend to him the hospitality of Madison Square to-night.
He's going to sit there on a bench till morning. There's no use
arguing with him. Isn't he wonderful? I'm glad you'll look after the
little lady, Alice. I tell you those Babes in the Wood made my--that
is, er--made Wall Street and the Bank of England look like penny
arcades."

Miss Von der Ruysling whisked Miss Bedford of Bedford County up to
restful regions upstairs. When she came down, she put an oblong small
pasteboard box into Pilkins' hands.

"Your present," she said, "that I am returning to you."

"Oh, yes, I remember," said Pilkins, with a sigh, "the woolly kitten."

He left Clayton on a park bench, and shook hands with him heartily.

"After I get work," said the youth, "I'll look you up. Your address is
on your card, isn't it? Thanks. Well, good night. I'm awfully obliged
to you for your kindness. No, thanks, I don't smoke. Good night."

In his room, Pilkins opened the box and took out the staring, funny
kitten, long ago ravaged of his candy and minus one shoe-button eye.
Pilkins looked at it sorrowfully.

"After all," he said, "I don't believe that just money alone will--"

And then he gave a shout and dug into the bottom of the box for
something else that had been the kitten's resting-place--a crushed but
red, red, fragrant, glorious, promising Jacqueminot rose.




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