The Turn of the Balance. Brand Whitlock
that time, had never thought at all, had never made any distinctions, and so had no view of life at all. Many of Mason's views were striking in their insight, many were childish in their lack of it; they were curiously straightforward at times, at others astonishingly oblique. He had a great hatred of sham and pretense, and he considered all so-called respectable people as hypocrites. He had about the same contempt for them that he had for the guns, who were sneaks, he said, afraid to take chances. He had a high admiration for boldness and courage, and a great love of adventure, and he thought that all these qualities were best exemplified in yegg men. For the courts he had no respect at all; his contempt was so deep-rooted that he never once considered the possibility of their doing justice, and spoke as if it were axiomatic that they could not do justice if they tried. He had the same contempt for the church, although he seemed to know much about the life of Jesus and had respect for His teachings. He called the people who came to pray and sing on Sundays "mission stiffs"; he treated them respectfully enough, but he told Archie that those prisoners who took an interest in the services did so that they might secure favors and perhaps pardons. He had known many convicts to secure their liberty in that way, and while he gave them credit for cleverness and was not disposed to blame them, still he did not respect them. Such convicts he called "false alarms."
There were one or two judges before whom he had been tried that he admired and thought to be good men. He did not blame them for the sentences they had given him, but explained to Archie that they had to do this as an incident of their business, and he spoke as if they might have shared his own regret in the cruel necessity. Of all prosecutors, however, he had a hatred; especially of Eades, of whom he seemed to have heard much. He told Archie that as a result of Eades's severity the thieves some day would "rip" the town.
He looked on his own occupation and spoke of it as any man might look on his own occupation; it simply happened that that was his business. He seemed to consider it as honest as, or at least no more dishonest than, any other business. He had certain standards, and these he maintained. On the whole, however, he concluded that his business hardly paid, though it had its compensations in its adventure and in its free life.
XVI
Archie was loitering along Market Place, not sure of what he would do that evening, but ready for any sensation chance might offer. Men were brushing through the flapping green doors of the small saloons, talking loudly, and swearing, many of them already drunk. Pianos were going, and above all the din he heard the grating of a phonograph grinding out the song some minstrel once had sung to a banjo; the banjo notes were realistic, but the voice of the singer floated above the babel of voices like the mere ghost of a voice, inhuman and not alive, as perhaps the singer might not then have been alive. Archie, wondering where the gang was, suddenly met Mason. The sight gave him real pleasure.
"Hello, Joe!" he cried as he seized Mason's hand.
Mason smiled faintly, but Archie's joy made him happy.
"Je's," said Archie, "I'm glad to see you–it makes me feel better. When 'd you get out?"
"This morning," Mason replied. "Which way?"
"Oh, anywhere," said Archie. "Where you goin'?"
"Up to Gibbs's. Want to go 'long?"
Archie's heart gave a little start; to go to Danny Gibbs's under Mason's patronage would be a distinction. The evening opened all at once with sparkling possibilities.
"An old friend o' mine's there," Mason explained as they walked along up Kentucky Street. "He's just got out of a shooting scrape; he croaked that fellow Benny Moon. Remember?"
Gibbs's place was scarcely more than a block away; it displayed no sign; a three-story building of brick, a side door, and a plate-glass window in front; a curtain hiding half the window, a light above–that was all.
Mason entered with an assurance that impressed Archie, who had never before felt the need of assurance in entering a saloon. He looked about; it was like any other saloon, a long bar and a heavy mirror that reflected the glasses and the bottles of green and yellow liqueurs arranged before it. At one table sat a tattered wreck of a man, his head bowed on his forearms crossed on the table, fast asleep–one of the many broken lives that found with Danny Gibbs a refuge. Over the mirror behind the bar hung an opium pipe, long since disused, serving as a relic now, the dreams with which it had once relieved the squalor and remorse of a wasted life long since broken.
At Mason's step, however, there was a stir in the room behind the bar-room, and a woman entered. She walked heavily, as if her years and her flesh were burdensome; her face was heavy, tired and expressionless. She was plainly making for the bar, as if to keep alive the pretense of a saloon, but when she saw Mason she stopped, her face lighted up, becoming all at once matronly and pleasant, and she smiled as she came forward, holding out a hand.
"Why, Joe," she said, "is that you? When did you get out?"
"This morning," he said. "Where's Dan?"
"He's back here; come in," and she turned and led the way.
Mason followed, drawing Archie behind him, and they entered the room behind the bar-room. The atmosphere changed–the room was light, it was lived in, and the four men seated at a round bare table gave to the place its proper character. Three of the men had small tumblers filled with whisky before them, the fourth had none; he sat tilted back in his chair, his stiff hat pulled down over his eyes, his hands sunk in the pockets of his trousers; his fat thighs flattened on the edge of his chair. He was dressed in modest gray, and might have been taken for a commonplace business man. He lifted his blue eyes quickly and glanced at the intruders; his face was round and cleanly shaved, save for a little blond mustache that curled at the corners of his mouth. His hair, of the same color as his mustache, glistened slightly at the temples, where it was touched by gray. This man had no whisky glass before him–he did not drink, but he sat there with an air of presiding over this little session, plainly vested with some authority–sat, indeed, as became Danny Gibbs, the most prominent figure in the under world.
Gibbs's place was only ostensibly a saloon; in reality it was a clearing-house for thieves, where accounts were settled with men who had been robbed under circumstances that made it advisable for them to keep the matter secret, and where balances were adjusted with the police. All the thieves of the higher class–those who traveled on railway trains and steamboats, fleecing men in games of cards, those of that class who were well-dressed, well-informed, pleasant-mannered, apparently respectable, who passed everywhere for men of affairs, and stole enormous sums by means of a knowledge of human nature that was almost miraculous–were friends of Gibbs. He negotiated for them; he helped them when they were in trouble; when they were in the city they lived at his house–sometimes they lived on him. The two upper floors of his establishment, fitted like a hotel, held many strange and mysterious guests. Gibbs maintained the same relation with the guns, the big-mitt men, and sneak-thieves, and he bore the same relation to the yegg men and to the prowlers. By some marvelous tact he kept apart all these classes, so different, so antipathetic, so jealous and suspicious of one another, and when they happened to meet he kept them on terms. There never were loud words or trouble at Gibbs's. To all these classes of professional criminals he was a kind of father, an ever-ready friend who never forgot or deserted them. When they were in jail he sent lawyers to them, he provided them with delicacies, he paid their fines. Sometimes he obtained pardons and commutations for them, for he was naturally influential in politics and maintained relations with Ralph Keller, the boss of the city, that were as close as those he maintained with the police. He could provide votes for primaries, and he could do other things. The police never molested him, though now and then they threatened to, and then he was forced to increase the tribute money, already enormous. A part of his understanding with the police, a clause in the modus vivendi, was that certain friends of Gibbs's were to be harbored in the city on condition that they committed no crimes while there; now and then when a crime was committed in the city, it would be made the excuse by the police for further extortion. The detectives came and went as freely at Gibbs's as the guns, the yeggs, the prowlers, the sure-thing men, the gamblers and bunco men.
"Ah, Joe," said Gibbs, glancing at Mason.
"Dan," said Mason, as he took a chair beside Gibbs. They had spoken in low, quiet tones, yet somehow the simplicity of their