More Than Melchisedech Read online

  But another man said that the padded leather straps were what were called California Bucking Rolls, and that they could be put onto any saddle to make a horse-breaking saddle out of it.

  Duffey had driven long steel stakes between the slab stones at two places in the room. Several men had then filled buckets with dirt and with fine old manure from the stable yard. They brought in the friable mixture to build up horseshoe pitching pits. And soon there was the clang of metal on metal. “Have you a trade, Duffey?” Bagby asked.

  “I have. I'm the best carpenter in St. Louis.”

  “No you're not. I am. But I need an assistant. My cabinet shop is in the building right next to this. There is a boarded-up door between the two, and it can be unboarded. You could put a big clang-for-service bell here and come back through the door whenever you had a customer. And you could be busy in my place whenever you weren't busy in your own. Or you could set up a twin of my own workbench here on your side and work on furniture and cabinets and such. I am the best joiner and cabinet man in St. Louis.”

  “No you're not. I am,” Duffey grinned back at him. This Bagby wasn't a very old man for all his comic swagger and swank. Duffey had cut and shaved ten years off him and now he was a young dude. He was no more than five or six years older than Duffey, twenty or twenty-one or twenty-two years old. He did have a fine building and shop next door. What walls! What walls, what ceilings, what rafters! They were all of walnut. Both Bagby's and Duffey's buildings were built entirely of fine walnut wood.

  “The buildings were built a hundred and twenty-five years ago,” Bagby said. “This was a walnut grove before Walnut Street was laid out and named. All the buildings of this block were built of the wood from that felled grove, but all except our two buildings have been replaced. A very little cleaning and polishing will wake up the hidden walnut splendor of your own walls and ceilings and stairways.”

  The afternoon was gone and evening come while Duffey had been busy establishing his business.

  “You'll have to learn to delegate, Duffey,” Bagby slid. “All men who are big in business have learned to delegate. There's no success without it. Pick out a likely man and hire him to tend your business for the night. Then we will go out and celebrate. Often, when a man does not take the time and effort to celebrate his success, God will believe that such a man does not deserve that success, and he will take that success away from him.” Duffey picked out a man and gave him fifty cents to work the twelve hours till full dawn. The man said he would need a dozen beer mugs and some more whisky if he were to run the business properly through the night. Duffey went out and bought a dozen quality mugs for a dollar. He bought more whisky, and brought the purchases back to his establishment. He lit the three big gas torches: the torch at the front door, the torch at the back door which led to the old stable yard. (Duffey already saw that old stable yard as a beer garden and courtyard café and an open air market), and the big torch in the middle of the main area of the old horse barn.

  And Duffey and Bagby went out to celebrate Duffey's success in business. They went to Meinkmueller's French Restaurant and had zwiebelsuppe and rinderbraten and all such things as one gets at the top French restaurants in St. Louis. Then walnuts and brandy and cigars.

  They went to a burlesque show at the Star and Garter. Then they went to the Bavarian Club to drink and sing, where those strong laughing blonde girls, all in peasant costume, would give gentlemen rides on their backs. You had but to ask. Duffey made friends with one of them named Helen. They went to the Dublin where Evelyn London had already spread the word about Duffey and his new place. Then back to that place.

  Things were going nicely there, but the monster was roaring and asleep.

  “He's a troubled creature,” Bagby said. “I know him a bit. He works on the riverboats, and he comes around here about once a year.”

  Two other customers were sleeping in the other two iron beds, and a dozen were sleeping on horse blankets on the floor. Others were sleeping or half-sleeping on the loafers benches, all still holding drinks. But there were lively customers also, wining and dining and horseshoe pitching customers. They had set up two more horseshoe courses. Duffey's first night in the new business looked like a good one.

  The monster rose from sleep still roaring. He flung on clothes and shoes as if pursued, and he came to Duffey. “Have you not something to give me?” asked this monster who was named Giulio, “something for one of my unborn sons that he be not as I have been?”

  “Yes, yes, my creature, I give that thing right now,” Duffey said. “It's so hard to recognize one of the right ones when he comes.”

  “I guess I am a little bit unlikely,” monster Giulio said. Duffey got a talisman and gave it to him. The monster took it and bolted out into the night. He was a pursued person, and what sleep he had got at Duffey's he had stolen from his pursuers. But he would sleep no more that night.

  Bagby whistled a curious tune after the monster. It was cruel and comical at once. It was bristly. It had the clatter of hooves in it, but they weren't horses' hooves.

  “What is the tune?” Duffey asked him.

  “I made it. I'm still making it,” Bagby said. “I started it some months ago when your monster was last in the neighborhood. It's the Gadarene Swine Song. Your monster is one of the Gadarene Swine, and he'll be pursued till he drowns himself in the water.”

  “No, I think he's a good man,” Duffey said.

  “Some of the Gadarenes are good, but their lineage is against them. But how did you know he was a person to give a talisman to? Is that how you have your luck so quickly, Duffey? Have you a talisman for this building also?”

  “Yes, I have a talisman for this building. And I have giants for helpers.” Bagby shuffled out into the night singing the Swine Song.

  The monster is accursed by fate!

  Hi ho!

  The monster's saving comes too late.

  Hi ho!

  Perhaps fate changes yet, or worps.

  Make hymns for him on golden horps

  With rangle-tang of flats and shorps…

  … You'll save him not,” the death bird chorps,

  He'll drown until he is a corpse.

  Hi ho the gollie wol!

  That was one of the numerous verses of the Gadarene Swine Song.

  2

  But while Melchisedech was establishing his business in one afternoon and night, it took him several weeks to stabilize it and institute it property. Even with invisible giants for helpers, it took him several weeks. But all went well for him, and he knew that he was in the years of luck that could never return. This King, this Melchisedech, had never known defeat. He already had the surety that he would not know either total nor eternal defeat. But he saw, by both pre-vision and post-vision device, that he would suffer a few paralyzing catastrophes before he finally came to port, catastrophes such as ordinary people have no idea of. (Ordinary people have more grubby, and often more severe catastrophes.)But now, as he came to his sixteenth birthday, it was all well. He owned the “Rounders' Club” (“For Gentlemen Rounders of the World” ). This was, as the sign said “Restaurant, Bar, Resident Club, with Horse Carriages and Automobiles for Rent. Games on the Elegant Riverboat Deck. Tuxedos for hire. Rounders' String Band playing in the main dining room every night except Tuesday. Patrons become Automatic Members of the Famous Steeplechase Club. The House of Ten Thousand Duty-Free Bargains. Racquets. Whist. Poker. Horseshoes.”

  Lucille Sisler, the mother of young Gretchen, had gone to work for Duffey at Rounder's. People began to call Lucille Duffey's mother-in-law, though she was only twenty-eight years old and cute. But Gretchen had told everybody that Duffey belonged to her. And Olga Sanchez of the torchy shoulders had come to work there. Oh, Olga! Duffey brought horses back into the horse barn again. Yes, he brought horses into the great central room itself, into a divided-off part of it. Really elegant people do not mind the smell of truly superior horses while they dine. They were the most noble horses in
town, with red and gold harnesses, and incredible carriages. The place grew to fast opulence. Duffey added import items and art items to his ten thousand bargains. He added whole groups of entertainments and elegances. But other things must go on while this was going on.

  Duffey couldn't allow the summer to run away and leave him. He was already educated by most standards, but he was not yet up to Duffey standards. He enrolled for courses at several institutions and colleges and universities, for there was not any one of them that was big enough to hold him by itself. In that summer of 1915, he took courses at St. Louis University from the familiar Jesuits, at Washington University, and at Concordia. He took classes at a school of pharmacy and at a school of music. He was busy. He totaled off the hours of his activity one day and found that it came to twenty-eight hours, without hours of sleep. But he knew tricks with time already.For such sleep as he took, he slept on the wonderful streetcars. He rode them all over town to his various destinations, and he slept (though sometimes he read or studied instead) for several hours every day. He also had several sparky and elegant trolley car romances, for there is nothing like a streetcar for meeting girls. Early elegance was in the air for him that summer. For that summer, and fitfully for ever after.

  Oh, time had to be found for other things! One evening a week was devoted to attending the Star and Garter. And Duffey also went to legitimate drama theatres. Then there was pugilism and the whole nimbus that surrounded it.

  Bagby was a prize fighter and he fought about once a month. His success had slowed a little towards the end of summer when he had grown into the heavyweight class. They hit a lot harder among the heavyweights. But he was still one of the most promising young fighters of the city. And he knew that publicity, high and flamboyant publicity, was one of the names of boxing. Whether or not he could whip an opponent in the ring, Bagby could almost always whip that opponent in the newspapers before they came into the ring. He always composed ringing battle statements and sent them to those Heavenly Twins, the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the St. Louis Globe.

  “How long has this been going on?” Duffey asked. “I could whip almost anyone the ring way, and I could absolutely whip anyone the newspaper way.”

  Bagby took Duffey to Hammerschmidt's Gymnasium and got a few of the canny managers and promoters to watch the boy as he worked out. Duffey was now a heavy middleweight and still growing. He had the large and powerful hands of a much bigger man. He had the telling shoulder slope that wise men always talk about when judging the fighting potential of a lad. Duffey had boxed in school and he was handy in the ring.

  They scheduled Duffey for the third preliminary fight on the Monday Night bill. He would get nine dollars if he won, six dollars if he lost but made a good fight of it, and only three dollars if he lost miserably or was knocked out. It was a four rounder he fought and his opponent was Dandy Dan Dillard. Melchisedech put himself into a state of mind that would insure victory. He summoned invisible giants to aid him if he should need aid. He ransacked the distant mind and movements of his talented friend Sebastian Hilton who was so fast of foot and hand and heart, and he felt the high-speed moves and mentality come into him. He understood all the tricks of getting the jump on the other boy and drawing first blood. He rushed out at the clang of the bell for the first round.

  And Dandy Dan began to give him an unmerciful beating.

  Four rounds of that. It was the just equivalent of four hours of Hell itself. Once Duffey thought that he might have it all ended by one lucky stroke, but even the fastest feet and hands in the world weren't enough to finish it. Duffey called on every device, but Dandy Dan sent Duffey's invisible giants whimpering away like beaten puppies. Or like giggling goofs, it really seemed. Duffey thought “Strong Victory” , but he found it very hard to maintain any sort of thought with his head being hammered like that.

  Then it was over with, and Duffey had gone the distance, though that last round seemed mercifully shortened. Duffey simply didn't understand how he had survived the thing. He was quite surprised to find then that he had won, that he had taken the first three rounds by wide margins and was far ahead in the fourth. And that fourth round had been mercifully shortened. The fight had been stopped because Dandy Dan had been out on his feet and in danger of grave injury. Duffey was unmarked, and he had his breath back within seconds. The memory of the terrible beating that he thought he was getting faded away. Dandy Dan was a livid hulk, and Duffey was hooked forever on the high sport. He had rosin and alum in his blood now and henceforth, and he was scheduled for another fight the next Monday night.

  Well, Duffey was hooked on it, but not on the fighting end. He could count a house, and he could figure. He would have a few more fights, but he already knew where the success was. Within six months, Duffey was promoting his own fight bills and doing well. Duffey discovered music late that summer, or possibly it was the summer after that one. Now he became a banjo man in a straw-hatted string band. Duffey had been studying musical theory in one of the schools, and notation and harmony and construction, and the history of all of them. And he played the piano. Everybody who took any of the courses in musical theory has to take some instrument at the same time.

  In the Rounders' String Band, to which he was paying good money, Duffey had a banjo player from whom he wasn't getting optimum.

  “Here, let me show you how it ought to be done,” Duffey said once, and he took the banjo. It was the first time he had ever held a banjo. Duffey achieved a few extra effects on it, and then he gave it back to the man. But, a very little bit later, there was wide-open opportunity for other extra effects, and the man did not take that opportunity. He did not even know it was there.

  “Here, let me have it,” Duffey said. He took it and he kept it, and he played till evening. He played all the evenings thereafter unless he was busy with something else. And, whenever that was the case, one of the bemused drinking men off the loafers' bench would play. Some of them were pretty good banjo players. And that first summer, or possibly it was the summer after that, the Rounders' String Band received an award for being the third best string band in the city. Playing the banjo was one of the things that Melchisedech continued for the rest of his life. He realized from the first the correlation between wearing one of those flat straw hats and playing the banjo. Can you imagine a person playing a banjo while wearing some other kind of head covering? Can you imagine a person playing a banjo while bare-headed?

  Can you imagine gloomy music-picking from a banjo? From a mandolin, yes. From a guitar, yes. Almost all guitar music is gloomy. But no note of gloom can ever be picked from a banjo.

  Ah, the songs and tunes that the Rounders' String Band used to play. “Rock Island Rag” , “Cincinnati Zoo Rag” , “Missouri Valley Shuffle” , “Gadarene Swine Song” (that was adapted from a tune that Bagby used to whistle and sing), “Whistle Stop Jump” , “Morgan County Fair Strut” , “The King Shall Ride” , “Show Boat Shuffle” , “Honeysuckle Hop” , “River Road” , “Gloria! Gloria!” , “Sawdust Trail Drag” , “Startime Trolley Car” . Those were the sweet old songs, and no other string band in town played them all.

  “The King Shall Ride” became Duffey's instant favorite one night when Duffey became the King and he did ride. Olga Sanchez took him up on her torchy shoulders for a ride all around the big main room. And thereafter, whenever that tune was played, she took him on her shoulders to ride, or else Lucille Sisler took him on hers. Duffey was King to these two. They were very intense partisans of his.

  Charley Murray, the old friend, lived there in St. Louis. He lived in the west end and attended St. Louis University as a day student. He was not in any of Duffey's classes, but the two saw a lot of each other. About once a week, Charley would come downtown to the Rounders' Club and perform some of his magic tricks. Duffey knew that he was a better magic man than was Charley, and with real magic, not with tricks, but wild horses tearing him apart would not get him to let Charley know that. Besides, he didn't yet have such an ent
ertaining patter as Charley had. Wild horses! Duffey had now, in his head, achieved the ultimate in a magic act. The magician is torn apart literally by eight wild horses, and his torn-off limbs and gurgling trunk are offered to all for examination. And, a little later, many of the non-essential difficulties being worked out, the magician will appear whole and unsundered again.

  Duffey didn't know know the trick could be effected by even real magic. But one of the magic trick books said that any trick that could be conceived of could be performed, whether by trumpery or illusion or trick prop or whatever. It was certainly a challenge. Duffey still ponders this trick sometimes. He'll figure a way to do it yet. Charley Murray came up with a sum of money and became half owner of Rounders' Club. This would give Duffey freedom to travel to other places and to other metiers, and it would bring intelligent direction to the next stage of growth. Duffey was better at originating things and getting them going than he was at carrying them to their higher stages. And as soon as Charley was out of college, Duffey would be able to take up really serious wandering without leaving ventures behind him to fall to ruin.

  That autumn, or anyhow one of those autumns in one of those years, Duffey added attendance at art school to his other activities. It may have been at this time that he dropped his classes at the school of pharmacy. No one can do everything. Duffey was good at all crafts. There was no better carpenter or machinist to be found. Now he came quickly to all the art techniques. He learned to draw in pencil and ink and dry brush and charcoal. He learned the crayons and pastels. He took to oil paint like a ducklings to pond water. As a rock sculptor, he was a natural. He had cast metals before. Now he became an excellent caster of bronze statuary.