And, having finished this Homeric narrative, Master Maloney fixed an expressionless eye on the ceiling, and was silent.
“How splendid of you, Pugsy!” cried Betty. “She might have been killed, poor thing.”
“She had it pretty fierce,” admitted Master Maloney, gazing dispassionately at the rescued animal, which had escaped from his clutch and taken up a strong position on an upper shelf of the bookcase.
“Will you go out and get her some milk, Pugsy? She’s probably starving. Here’s a quarter. Will you keep the change?”
“Sure thing,” assented Master Maloney.
He strolled slowly out, while Betty, mounting a chair, proceeded to chirrup and snap her fingers in the effort to establish the foundations of an
By the time Pugsy returned, carrying a five-cent bottle of milk, the animal had vacated the shelf, and was sitting on the table, polishing her face. The milk having been poured into the lid of a tobacco tin, in lieu of a saucer, she suspended her operations and adjourned for refreshments, Pugsy, having no immediate duties on hand, concentrated himself on the cat.
“Say!” he said.
“Well?”
“Dat kitty. Pipe de leather collar she’s wearin’.”
Betty had noticed earlier in the proceedings that a narrow leather collar encircled the animal’s neck.
“Guess I know where dat kitty belongs. Dey all has dose collars. I guess she’s one of Bat Jarvis’s kitties. He’s got twenty-t’ree of dem, and dey all has dose collars.”
“Bat Jarvis?”
“Sure.”
“Who is he?”
Pugsy looked at her incredulously.
“Say! Ain’t youse never heard of Bat Jarvis? He’s—he’s Bat Jarvis.”
“Do you know him?”
“Sure, I knows him.”
“Does he live near here?”
“Sure, he lives near here.”
“Then I think the best thing for you to do is to run round and tell him that I am taking care of his cat, and that he had better come and fetch it. I must be getting on with my work, or I shall never finish it.”
She settled down to type the letters Smith had indicated. She attacked her task cautiously. She was one of those typists who are at their best when they do not have to hurry.
She was putting the finishing touches to the last of the batch, when there was a shuffling of feet in the outer room, followed by a knock on the door. The next moment there entered a short, burly young man, around whom there hung, like an aroma, an indescribable air of toughness, partly due, perhaps, to the fact that he wore his hair in a well-oiled fringe almost down to his eyebrows, thus presenting the appearance of having no forehead at all. His eyes were small and set close together. His mouth was wide, his jaw prominent. Not, in short, the sort of man you would have picked out on sight as a model citizen. He blinked furtively, as his eyes met Betty’s, and looked round the room. His face lighted up as he saw the cat.
“Say!” he said, stepping forward, and touching the cat’s collar. “Ma’am, mine!”
“Are you Mr. Jarvis?” asked Betty.
The visitor nodded, not without a touch of complacency, as of a monarch abandoning his incognito.
For Mr. Jarvis was a celebrity.
By profession he was a dealer in animals, birds, and snakes. He had a fancier’s shop on Groome Street, in the heart of the Bowery. This was on the ground floor. His living abode was in the upper story of that house, and it was there that he kept the twenty-three cats whose necks were adorned with leather collars.
But it was not the fact that he possessed twenty-three cats with leather collars that had made Mr. Jarvis a celebrity. A man may win a local reputation, if only for eccentricity, by such means. Mr. Jarvis’ reputation was far from being purely local. Broadway knew him, and the Tenderloin. Tammany Hall knew him. Long Island City knew him. For Bat Jarvis was the leader of the famous Groome Street Gang, the largest and most influential of the four big gangs of the East Side.
To Betty, so little does the world often know of its greatest men, he was merely a decidedly repellent-looking young man in unbecoming clothes. But his evident affection for the cat gave her a feeling of fellowship toward him. She beamed upon him, and Mr. Jarvis, who was wont to face the glare of rivals without flinching, avoided her eye and shuffled with embarrassment.
“I’m so glad she’s safe!” said Betty. “There were two boys teasing her in the street. I’ve been giving her some milk.”
Mr. Jarvis nodded, with his eyes on the floor.
There was a pause. Then he looked up, and, fixing his gaze some three feet above her head, spoke.
“Say!” he said, and paused again. Betty waited expectantly.
He relaxed into silence again, apparently thinking.
