Psmith, Journalist Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  BAT JARVIS

  Billy Windsor lived in a single room on East Fourteenth Street.Space in New York is valuable, and the average bachelor'sapartments consist of one room with a bathroom opening off it.During the daytime this one room loses all traces of being used forsleeping purposes at night. Billy Windsor's room was very much likea public-school study. Along one wall ran a settee. At night thisbecame a bed; but in the daytime it was a settee and nothing but asettee. There was no space for a great deal of furniture. There wasone rocking-chair, two ordinary chairs, a table, a book-stand, atypewriter--nobody uses pens in New York--and on the walls a mixedcollection of photographs, drawings, knives, and skins, relics oftheir owner's prairie days. Over the door was the head of a youngbear.

  Billy's first act on arriving in this sanctum was to release thecat, which, having moved restlessly about for some moments, finallycame to the conclusion that there was no means of getting out, andsettled itself on a corner of the settee. Psmith, sinkinggracefully down beside it, stretched out his legs and lit acigarette. Mike took one of the ordinary chairs; and Billy Windsor,planting himself in the rocker, began to rock rhythmically to andfro, a performance which he kept up untiringly all the time.

  "A peaceful scene," observed Psmith. "Three great minds, keen,alert, restless during business hours, relax. All is calm andpleasant chit-chat. You have snug quarters up here, ComradeWindsor. I hold that there is nothing like one's own roof-tree.It is a great treat to one who, like myself, is located in one ofthese vast caravanserai--to be exact, the Astor--to pass a fewmoments in the quiet privacy of an apartment such as this."

  "It's beastly expensive at the Astor," said Mike.

  "The place has that drawback also. Anon, Comrade Jackson, I thinkwe will hunt around for some such cubby-hole as this, built fortwo. Our nervous systems must be conserved."

  "On Fourth Avenue," said Billy Windsor, "you can get quite goodflats very cheap. Furnished, too. You should move there. It's notmuch of a neighbourhood. I don't know if you mind that?"

  "Far from it, Comrade Windsor. It is my aim to see New York in allits phases. If a certain amount of harmless revelry can be whackedout of Fourth Avenue, we must dash there with the vim ofhighly-trained smell-dogs. Are you with me, Comrade Jackson?"

  "All right," said Mike.

  "And now, Comrade Windsor, it would be a pleasure to me to perusethat little journal of which you spoke. I have had so fewopportunities of getting into touch with the literature of thisgreat country."

  Billy Windsor stretched out an arm and pulled a bundle of papersfrom the book-stand. He tossed them on to the settee by Psmith'sside.

  "There you are," he said, "if you really feel like it. Don't say Ididn't warn you. If you've got the nerve, read on."

  Psmith had picked up one of the papers when there came a shufflingof feet in the passage outside, followed by a knock upon the door.The next moment there appeared in the doorway a short, stout youngman. There was an indescribable air of toughness about him, partlydue to the fact that he wore his hair in a well-oiled fringe almostdown to his eyebrows, which gave him the appearance of having noforehead at all. His eyes were small and set close together. Hismouth was wide, his jaw prominent. Not, in short, the sort of manyou would have picked out on sight as a model citizen.

  His entrance was marked by a curious sibilant sound, which, onacquaintance, proved to be a whistled tune. During the interviewwhich followed, except when he was speaking, the visitor whistledsoftly and unceasingly.

  "Mr. Windsor?" he said to the company at large.

  Psmith waved a hand towards the rocking-chair. "That," he said, "isComrade Windsor. To your right is Comrade Jackson, England'sfavourite son. I am Psmith."

  The visitor blinked furtively, and whistled another tune. As helooked round the room, his eye fell on the cat. His face lit up.

  "Say!" he said, stepping forward, and touching the cat's collar,"mine, mister."

  "Are you Bat Jarvis?" asked Windsor with interest.

  "Sure," said the visitor, not without a touch of complacency, as ofa monarch abandoning his incognito.

  For Mr. Jarvis was a celebrity.

  By profession he was a dealer in animals, birds, and snakes. He hada fancier's shop in Groome street, in the heart of the Bowery. Thiswas on the ground-floor. His living abode was in the upper story ofthat house, and it was there that he kept the twenty-three catswhose necks were adorned with leather collars, and whose numbershad so recently been reduced to twenty-two. But it was not the factthat he possessed twenty-three cats with leather collars that madeMr. Jarvis a celebrity.

  A man may win a purely local reputation, if only for eccentricity,by such means. But Mr. Jarvis's reputation was far from beingpurely local. Broadway knew him, and the Tenderloin. Tammany Hallknew him. Long Island City knew him. In the underworld of New Yorkhis name was a by-word. For Bat Jarvis was the leader of the famousGroome Street Gang, the most noted of all New York's collections ofApaches. More, he was the founder and originator of it. And,curiously enough, it had come into being from motives of sheerbenevolence. In Groome Street in those days there had been adance-hall, named the Shamrock and presided over by one Maginnis,an Irishman and a friend of Bat's. At the Shamrock nightly danceswere given and well attended by the youth of the neighbourhood atten cents a head. All might have been well, had it not been forcertain other youths of the neighbourhood who did not dance and sohad to seek other means of getting rid of their surplus energy. Itwas the practice of these light-hearted sportsmen to pay their tencents for admittance, and once in, to make hay. And this habit, Mr.Maginnis found, was having a marked effect on his earnings. Forgenuine lovers of the dance fought shy of a place where at anymoment Philistines might burst in and break heads and furniture. Inthis crisis the proprietor thought of his friend Bat Jarvis. Bat atthat time had a solid reputation as a man of his hands. It is truethat, as his detractors pointed out, he had killed no one--a defectwhich he had subsequently corrected; but his admirers based hisclaim to respect on his many meritorious performances with fistsand with the black-jack. And Mr. Maginnis for one held him in thevery highest esteem. To Bat accordingly he went, and laid hispainful case before him. He offered him a handsome salary to be onhand at the nightly dances and check undue revelry by his ownrobust methods. Bat had accepted the offer. He had gone to ShamrockHall; and with him, faithful adherents, had gone such stalwarts asLong Otto, Red Logan, Tommy Jefferson, and Pete Brodie. ShamrockHall became a place of joy and order; and--more importantstill--the nucleus of the Groome Street Gang had been formed. Thework progressed. Off-shoots of the main gang sprang up here andthere about the East Side. Small thieves, pickpockets and thelike, flocked to Mr. Jarvis as their tribal leader and protectorand he protected them. For he, with his followers, were of use tothe politicians. The New York gangs, and especially the GroomeStreet Gang, have brought to a fine art the gentle practice of"repeating"; which, broadly speaking, is the art of voting a numberof different times at different polling-stations on election days.A man who can vote, say, ten times in a single day for you, and whocontrols a great number of followers who are also prepared, if theylike you, to vote ten times in a single day for you, is worthcultivating. So the politicians passed the word to the police, andthe police left the Groome Street Gang unmolested and they waxedfat and flourished.

  Such was Bat Jarvis.

  * * *

  "Pipe de collar," said Mr. Jarvis, touching the cat's neck. "Mine,mister."

  "Pugsy said it must be," said Billy Windsor. "We found two fellowssetting a dog on to it, so we took it in for safety."

  Mr. Jarvis nodded approval.

  "There's a basket here, if you want it," said Billy.

  "Nope. Here, kit."

  Mr. Jarvis stooped, and, still whistling softly, lifted the cat. Helooked round the company, met Psmith's eye-glass, was transfixed byit for a moment, and finally turned again to Billy Windsor.

  "Say!" he said, and paused. "Obliged," he
added.

  He shifted the cat on to his left arm, and extended his right handto Billy.

  "Shake!" he said.

  Billy did so.

  Mr. Jarvis continued to stand and whistle for a few moments more.

  "Say!" he said at length, fixing his roving gaze once more uponBilly. "Obliged. Fond of de kit, I am."

  Psmith nodded approvingly.

  "And rightly," he said. "Rightly, Comrade Jarvis. She is notunworthy of your affection. A most companionable animal, full ofthe highest spirits. Her knockabout act in the restaurant wouldhave satisfied the most jaded critic. No diner-out can afford to bewithout such a cat. Such a cat spells death to boredom."

  Mr. Jarvis eyed him fixedly, as if pondering over his remarks. Thenhe turned to Billy again.

  "Say!" he said. "Any time you're in bad. Glad to be of service.You know the address. Groome Street. Bat Jarvis. Good night.Obliged."

  He paused and whistled a few more bars, then nodded to Psmith andMike, and left the room. They heard him shuffling downstairs.

  "A blithe spirit," said Psmith. "Not garrulous, perhaps, but what ofthat? I am a man of few words myself. Comrade Jarvis's massivesilences appeal to me. He seems to have taken a fancy to you,Comrade Windsor."

  Billy Windsor laughed.

  "I don't know that he's just the sort of side-partner I'd go out ofmy way to choose, from what I've heard about him. Still, if one gotmixed up with any of that East-Side crowd, he would be a mightyuseful friend to have. I guess there's no harm done by getting himgrateful."

  "Assuredly not," said Psmith. "We should not despise the humblest.And now, Comrade Windsor," he said, taking up the paper again, "letme concentrate myself tensely on this very entertaining littlejournal of yours. Comrade Jackson, here is one for you. For sound,clear-headed criticism," he added to Billy, "Comrade Jackson's nameis a by-word in our English literary salons. His opinion will beboth of interest and of profit to you, Comrade Windsor."