Miss Lonelyhearts and a Cool Million Read online

  “You are perhaps wondering,” Shagpoke began, “how it is that I stand on line with these homeless vagrants to obtain bad coffee and soggy doughnuts. Be assured that I do it of my own free will and for the good of the state.”

  Here he paused long enough to skillfully “shoot a snipe” that was still burning. He puffed contentedly on his catch.

  “When I left jail, it was my intention to run for office again. But I discovered to my great amazement and utter horror that my party, the Democratic Party, carried not a single plank in its platform that I could honestly endorse. Rank socialism was and is rampant. How could I, Shagpoke Whipple, ever bring myself to accept a program which promised to take from American citizens their inalienable birthright; the right to sell their labor and their children’s labor without restrictions as to either price or hours?

  “The time for a new party with the old American principles was, I realized, overripe. I decided to form it; and so the National Revolutionary Party, popularly known as the `Leather Shirts,’ was born. The uniform of our ‘Storm Troops’ is a coonskin cap like the one I am wearing, a deerskin shirt and a pair of moccasins. Our weapon is the squirrel rifle.”

  He pointed to the long queue of unemployed who stood waiting before the Salvation Army canteen. “These men,” he said, “are the material from which I must fill the ranks of my party.”

  With all the formality of a priest, Shagpoke turned to our hero and laid his hand on his shoulder.

  “My boy,” he said, and his voice broke under the load of emotion it was forced to bear, “my boy, will you join me?”

  “Certainly, sir,” said Lem, a little unsurely.

  “Excellent!” exclaimed Mr. Whipple. “Excellent! I herewith appoint you a commander attached to my general staff.”

  He drew himself up and saluted Lem, who was startled by the gesture.

  “Commander Pitkin,” he ordered briskly, “I desire to address these people. Please obtain a soapbox.”

  Our hero went on the errand required of him, and soon returned with a large box, which Mr. Whipple immediately mounted. He then set about attracting the attention of the vagrants collected about the Salvation Army canteen by shouting:

  “Remember the River Raisin!

  “Remember the Alamo!

  “Remember the Maine!”

  and many other famous slogans.

  When a large group had gathered, Shagpoke began his harangue.

  “I’m a simple man,” he said with great simplicity, “and I want to talk to you about simple things. You’ll get no highfalutin talk from me.

  “First of all, you people want jobs. Isn’t that so?”

  An ominous rumble of assent came from the throats of the poorly dressed gathering.

  “Well, that’s the only and prime purpose of the National Revolutionary Party—to get jobs for everyone. There was enough work to go around in 1927, why isn’t there enough now? I’ll tell you; because of the Jewish international bankers and the Bolshevik labor unions, that’s why. It was those two agents that did the most to hinder American business and to destroy its glorious expansion. The former because of their hatred of America and love for Europe and the latter because of their greed for higher and still higher wages.

  “What is the role of the labor union today? It is a privileged club which controls all the best jobs for its members. When one of you applies for a job, even if the man who owns the plant wants to hire you, do you get it? Not if you haven’t got a union card. Can any tyranny be greater? Has Liberty ever been more brazenly despised?”

  These statements were received with cheers by his audience.

  “Citizens, Americans,” Mr. Whipple continued, when the noise had subsided, “we of the middle class are being crushed between two gigantic millstones. Capital is the upper stone and Labor the lower, and between them we suffer and die, ground out of existence.

  “Capital is international; its home is in London and in Amsterdam. Labor is international; its home is in Moscow. We alone are American; and when we die, America dies.

  “When I say that, I make no idle boast, for history bears me out. Who but the middle class left aristocratic Europe to settle on these shores? Who but the middle class, the small farmers and storekeepers, the clerks and petty officials, fought for freedom and died that America might escape from British tyranny?

  “This is our country and we must fight to keep it so. If America is ever again to be great, it can only be through the triumph of the revolutionary middle class.

  “We must drive the Jewish international bankers out of Wall Street! We must destroy the Bolshevik labor unions! We must purge our country of all the alien elements and ideas that now infest her!

  “America for Americans! Back to the principles of Andy Jackson and Abe Lincoln!”

  Here Shagpoke paused to let the cheers die down, then called for volunteers to join his “Storm Battalions.”

  A number of men came forward. In their lead was a very dark individual, who had extra-long black hair of an extremely coarse quality, and on whose head was a derby hat many sizes too small for him.

  “Me American mans,” he announced proudly. “Me got heap coon hat, two maybe six. By, by catchum plenty more coon maybe.” With this he grinned from ear to ear.

  But Shagpoke was a little suspicious of his complexion, and looked at him with disfavor. In the South, where he expected to get considerable support for his movement, they would not stand for Negroes.

  The good-natured stranger seemed to sense what was wrong, for he said, “Me Injun, mister, me chief along my people. Gotum gold mine, oil well. Name of Jake Raven. Ugh!”

  Shagpoke grew cordial at once. “Chief Jake Raven,” he said, holding out his hand, “I am happy to welcome you into our organization. We ‘Leather Shirts’ can learn much from your people, fortitude, courage and relentless purpose among other things.”

  After taking down his name, Shagpoke gave the Indian a card which read as follows:

  EZRA SILVERBLATT Official Tailor to the NATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY PARTY

  Coonskin hats with extra long tails, deerskin shirts with or without fringes, blue jeans, moccasins, squirrel rifles, everything for the American Fascist at rock bottom prices. 30% off for Cash.

  But let us leave Mr. Whipple and Lem busy with their recruiting to observe the actions of a certain member of the crowd.

  The individual in question would have been remarkable in any gathering, and among the starved, ragged men that surrounded Shagpoke, he stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. For one thing he was fat, enormously fat. There were other fat men present to be sure, but they were yellow, unhealthy, while this man’s fat was pink and shone with health.

  On his head was a magnificent bowler hat. It was a beautiful jet in color, and must have cost more than twelve dollars. He was snugly encased in a tight-fitting Chesterfield overcoat with a black velvet collar. His stiff-bosomed shirt had light gray bars, and his tie was of some rich but sober material in black and white pin-checks. Spats, rattan stick and yellow gloves completed his outfit.

  This elaborate fat man tiptoed out of the crowd and made his way to a telephone booth in a nearby drug store, where he called two numbers.

  His conversation with the person answering his first call, a Wall Street exchange, went something like this:

  “Operative 6384XM, working out of the Bourse, Paris, France. Middle-class organizers functioning on unemployed front, corner of Houston and Bleecker Streets.”

  “Thank you, 6384XM, what is your estimate?”

  “Twenty men and a fire hose.”

  “At once, 6384XM, at once.”

  His second call was to an office near Union Square. “Comrade R, please…Comrade R?”

  “Yes.”

  “Comrade R, this is Comrade Z speaking. Gay Pay Oo, Moscow, Russia. Middle-class organizers recruiting on the corner of Houston and Bleecker Streets.”

  “Your estimate, comrade, for liquidation of said activities?”

  �
�Ten men with lead pipes and brass knuckles to cooperate with Wall Street office of the I.J.B.”

  “No bombs required?”

  “No, comrade.”

  “Der Tag!”

  “Der Tag!”

  Mr. Whipple had just enrolled his twenty-seventh recruit, when the forces of both the international Jewish bankers and the Communists converged on his meeting. They arrived in high-powered black limousines and deployed through the streets with a skill which showed long and careful training in that type of work. In fact their officers were all West Point graduates.

  Mr. Whipple saw them coming, but like a good general his first thoughts were for his men.

  “The National Revolutionary Party will now go underground!” he shouted.

  Lem, made wary by his past experiences with the police, immediately took to his heels, followed by Chief Raven. Shagpoke, however, was late in getting started. He still had one foot on the soapbox when he was hit a terrific blow on the head with a piece of lead pipe.

  14

  “My man, if you can wear this glass eye, I have a job for you.”

  The speaker was an exceedingly dapper gentleman in a light gray fedora hat and a pince-nez with a black silk ribbon that fell to his coat opening in a graceful loop.

  As he spoke, he held out at arm’s length a beautiful glass eye.

  But the object of his words did not reply; it did not even move. To anyone but a trained observer, he would have appeared to be addressing a bundle of old rags that someone had propped up on a park bench.

  Turning the eye from side to side, so that it sparkled like a jewel in the winter sun, the man waited patiently for the bundle to reply. From time to time, he stirred it sharply with the Malacca walking stick he carried.

  Suddenly a groan came from the rags and they shook sightly. The cane had evidently reached a sensitive spot. Encouraged, the man repeated his original proposition. “Can you wear this eye? If so, I’ll hire you.”

  At this, the bundle gave a few spasmodic quivers and a faint whimper. From somewhere below its peak a face appeared, then a greenish hand moved out and took the glittering eye, raising it to an empty socket in the upper part of the face.

  “Here, let me help you,” said the owner of the eye kindly. With a few deft motions he soon had it fixed in its proper receptacle.

  “Perfect!” exclaimed the man, standing back and admiring his handiwork. “Perfect! You’re hired!”

  He then reached into his overcoat and brought forth a wallet from which he extracted a five-dollar bill and a calling card. He laid both of these on the bench beside the one-eyed man, who by now had again become a quiescent bundle of greasy rags.

  “Get yourself a haircut, a bath and a big meal, then go to my tailors, Ephraim Pierce and Sons, and they will fit you out with clothes. When you are presentable, call on me at the Ritz Hotel.”

  With these words, the man in the gray fedora turned sharply on his heel and left the park.

  If you have not already guessed the truth, dear reader, let me acquaint you with the fact that the bundle of rags contained our hero, Lemuel Pitkin. Alas, to such a sorry pass had he come.

  After the unfortunate termination of Shagpoke’s attempt to recruit men for his “Leather Shirts,” he had rapidly gone from bad to worse. Having no money and no way in which to obtain any, he had wandered from employment agency to employment agency without success. Reduced to eating from garbage pails and sleeping in empty lots, he had become progressively shabbier and weaker, until he had reached the condition we discovered him in at the beginning of this chapter.

  But now things were looking up again, and just in time I must admit, for our hero had begun to doubt whether he would ever make his fortune.

  Lem pocketed the five dollars that the stranger had left and examined the card.

  ELMER HAINEY, ESQUIRE RITZ HOTEL

  This was all the bit of engraved pasteboard said. It gave no evidence of either the gentleman’s business or profession. But this did not in any way bother Lem, for at last it looked as though he were going to have a job; and in the year of our Lord nineteen thirty-four that was indeed something.

  Lem struggled to his feet and set out to follow Mr. Hainey’s instructions. In fact he ate two large meals and took two baths. It was only his New England training that prevented him from getting two haircuts.

  Having done as much as he could to rehabilitate his body, he next went to the shop of Ephraim Pierce and Sons, where he was fitted out with a splendid wardrobe complete in every detail. Several hours later, he walked up Park Avenue to wait on his new employer, looking every inch a prosperous young businessman of the finest type.

  When Lem asked for Mr. Hainey, the manager of the Ritz bowed him into the elevator, which stopped to let him off at the fortieth floor. He rang the doorbell of Mr. Hainey’s suite and in a few minutes was ushered into that gentleman’s presence by an English personal servant.

  Mr. Hainey greeted the lad with great cordiality. “Excellent! Excellent’,” he repeated three or four times in rapid succession as he inspected the transformed appearance of our hero.

  Lem expressed his gratitude by a deep bow.

  “If there is anything about your outfit that you dislike,” he went on to say, “please tell me now before I give you your instructions.”

  Emboldened by his kind manner, Lem ventured an objection. “Pardon me, sir,” he said, “but the eye, the glass eye you gave me is the wrong color. My good eye is blue-gray, while the one you provided me with is light green.”

  “Exactly,” was Mr. Hainey’s surprising answer. “The effect is, as I calculated, striking. When anyone sees you I want to make sure that they notice that one of your eyes is glass.”

  Lem was forced to agree to this strange idea and he did so with all the grace he could manage.

  Mr. Hainey then got down to business. His whole manner changed, becoming as cold as a steel trap and twice as formal.

  “My secretary,” he said, “has typed a set of instructions which I will give you tonight. I want you to take them home and study them carefully, for you will be expected to do exactly as they order without the slightest deviation. One slip, please remember, and you will be immediately discharged.”

  “Thank you, sir,” replied Lem. “I understand.”

  “Your salary,” said Mr. Hainey, softening a bit, “will be thirty dollars a week and found. I have arranged room and board for you at the Warford House. Please go there tonight.”

  Mr. Hainey then took out his wallet and gave Lem three ten-dollar bills.

  “You are very generous,” said Lem, taking them. “I shall do my utmost to satisfy you.”

  “That’s nice, but please don’t show too much zeal, simply follow instructions.”

  Mr. Hainey next went to his desk and took from it several typewritten sheets of paper. He gave these to Lem.

  “One more thing,” he said, shaking hands at the door, “you may be a little mystified when you read your instructions, but that cannot be helped, for I am unable to give you a complete explanation at this time. However, I want you to know that I own a glass eye factory, and that your duties are part of a sales-promotion campaign.”

  15

  Lem restrained his curiosity. He waited until he was safely ensconced in his new quarters in the Warford House before opening the instructions Mr. Hainey had given him.

  Here is what he read:

  “Go to the jewelry store of Hazelton Freres and ask to see their diamond stickpins. After looking at one tray, demand to see another. While the clerk has his back turned, remove the glass eye from your head and put it in your pocket. As soon as the clerk turns around again, appear to be searching frantically on the floor for something.

  “The following dialogue will then take place:

  “Clerk: ‘Have you lost something, sir?’

  “You: ‘Yes, my eye.’ ( Here indicate the opening in your head with your index finger.)

  “Clerk: ‘That’s unfortunate, sir.
I’ll help you look, sir.’

  “You: ‘Please do. (With much agitation.) I must find it.’

  “A thorough search of the premises is then made, but of course the missing eye cannot be found because it is safe in your pocket.

  “You: Please may I see one of the owners of this store; one of the Hazelton Brothers?’ ( Note: Freres means brothers and is not to be mistaken for the storekeeper’s last name.)

  “In a few minutes the clerk will bring Mr. Hazelton from his office in the rear of the store.

  “You: ‘Mr. Hazelton, sir, I have had the misfortune to lose my eye here in your shop.’

  “Mr. Hazelton: Perhaps you left it at home.’

  “You: ‘Impossible! I would have felt the draft for I walked here from. Mr. Hamilton Schuyler’s house on Fifth Avenue. No, I’m afraid that it was in its proper position when I entered your place.’

  “Mr. Hazelton: ‘You can be certain, sir, that we will make a thorough search.’

  “You: ‘Please do. I am, however, unable to wait the outcome of your efforts. I have to be in the Spanish embassy to see the ambassador, Count Raymon de Guzman y Alfrache ( the y is pronounced like the e in eat) within the hour.’

  “Mr. Hazelton will bow profoundly on hearing with whom your appointment is.

  “You (continuing): ‘The eye I have lost is irreplaceable. It was made for me by a certain German expert, and cost a very large sum. I cannot get another because its maker was killed in the late war and the secret of its manufacture was buried with him. ( Pause for a brief moment, bowing your head as though in sorrow for the departed expert.) However ( you continue), please tell your clerks that I will pay one thousand dollars as a reward to anyone who recovers my eye.’

  “Mr. Hazelton: ‘That will be entirely unnecessary, sir. Rest assured that we will do everything in our power to discover it for you.’

  “You: ‘Very good. I am going to visit friends on Long Island tonight, but I will be in your shop tomorrow. If you have the eye, I will insist on paying the reward.’