Frenzied Fiction | Page 8

it is, but by gad, sir, it's
three dollars a portion anyway."
"All right," I said. "You order the dinner."
Mr. Knickerbocker proceeded to do so, the head-waiter obsequiously at
his side, and his long finger indicating on the menu everything that
seemed most expensive and that carried the most incomprehensible
name. When he had finished he turned to me again.
"Now," he said, "let's talk."
"Tell me," I said, "about the old days and the old times on Broadway."
"Ah, yes," he answered, "the old days--you mean ten years ago before
the Winter Garden was opened. We've been going ahead, sir, going
ahead. Why, ten years ago there was practically nothing, sir, above
Times Square, and look at it now."
I began to realize that Father Knickerbocker, old as he was, had
forgotten all the earlier times with which I associated his memory.
There was nothing left but the cabarets, and the Gardens, the Palm
Rooms, and the ukuleles of to-day. Behind that his mind refused to
travel.
"Don't you remember," I asked, "the apple orchards and the quiet
groves of trees that used to line Broadway long ago?"
"Groves!" he said. "I'll show you a grove, a coconut grove"--here he

winked over his wineglass in a senile fashion--"that has apple-trees
beaten from here to Honolulu." Thus he babbled on.
All through our meal his talk continued: of cabarets and dances, or
fox-trots and midnight suppers, of blondes and brunettes, "peaches" and
"dreams," and all the while his eye roved incessantly among the tables,
resting on the women with a bold stare. At times he would indicate and
point out for me some of what he called the "representative people"
present.
"Notice that man at the second table," he would whisper across to me.
"He's worth all the way to ten millions: made it in Government
contracts; they tried to send him to the penitentiary last fall but they
can't get him--he's too smart for them! I'll introduce you to him
presently. See the man with him? That's his lawyer, biggest crook in
America, they say; we'll meet him after dinner." Then he would
suddenly break off and exclaim: "Egad, sir, there's a fine bunch of
them," as another bevy of girls came trooping out upon the stage.
"I wonder," I murmured, "if there is nothing left of him but this? Has
all the fine old spirit gone? Is it all drowned out in wine and suffocated
in the foul atmosphere of luxury?"
Then suddenly I looked up at my companion, and I saw to my surprise
that his whole face and manner had altered. His hand was clenched
tight on the edge of the table. His eyes looked before him--through and
beyond the riotous crowd all about him--into vacancy, into the far past,
back into memories that I thought forgotten. His face had altered. The
senile, leering look was gone, and in its place the firm-set face of the
Knickerbocker of a century ago.
He was speaking in a strange voice, deep and strong.
"Listen," he said, "listen. Do you hear it--there--far out at sea--ships'
guns--listen--they're calling for help--ships' guns--far out at sea!" He
had clasped me by the arm. "Quick, to the Battery, they'll need every
man to-night, they'll--"

Then he sank back into his chair. His look changed again. The vision
died out of his eyes.
"What was I saying?" he asked. "Ah, yes, this old brandy, a very
special brand. They keep it for me here, a dollar a glass. They know me
here," he added in his fatuous way. "All the waiters know me. The
headwaiter always knows me the minute I come into the room--keeps a
chair for me. Now try this brandy and then presently we'll move on and
see what's doing at some of the shows."
But somehow, in spite of himself, my companion seemed to be unable
to bring himself fully back into the consciousness of the scene before
him. The far-away look still lingered in his eyes.
Presently he turned and spoke to me in a low, confidential tone.
"Was I talking to myself a moment ago?" he asked. "Yes? Ah, I feared
I was. Do you know--I don't mind telling it to you--lately I've had a
strange, queer feeling that comes over me at times, as if something
were happening --something, I don't know what. I suppose," he
continued, with a false attempt at resuming his fatuous manner, "I'm
going the pace a little too hard, eh! Makes one fanciful. But the fact is,
at times"--he spoke gravely again--"I feel as if there were something
happening, something coming."
"Knickerbocker," I said earnestly, "Father Knickerbocker, don't you
know that something is happening, that this very evening as we are
sitting here in all this riot, the President of the United States