Chapter II: Part 2

I got up and looked at my watch. It was just midnight.

Off to the East I saw red tongues of angry flame streaking the sky from horizon to zenith.

"It is the Jewish Club, all right," I said.

I pulled down the blind and went back to bed.

When I went down to breakfast at seven o'clock in the morning, I heard the newsboys in the streets crying, "All about the fire!" I bought a paper and read the headline, "Hubbard's Lecture Hot Stuff!"

I walked out Saint Charles Avenue and viewed the smoldering ruins where only a few hours before I had spoken to more than two thousand people--where the bishop in purple vestment had cried "Bravo!" and the stout lady with feathered fan had beamed approval.

"Was anybody hurt?" I asked one of the policemen on guard.

"Only one man killed--Fass, the Secretary; I believe he lies somewhere over there to the left, beneath that toppled wall."

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The person who reasons from a false premise is
always funny--to other folks.

UNCLE JOE AND AUNT MELINDA

The opinion prevails all through the truly rural districts that the big cities are for the most part given over to Confidence Men.

And the strange part is that the opinion is correct.

But it should not be assumed that all the people in, say, Buffalo, are moral derelicts--there are many visitors there, most of the time, from other sections.

And while at all times one should exercise caution, yet to assume that the party who is "fresh" is intent on high crimes and misdemeanors may be a rather hasty and unjust generalization.

For instance, there are Uncle Joe and Aunt Melinda, who live eight miles back from East Aurora, at Wales Hollow. They had been married for forty-seven years, and had never taken a wedding-journey. They decided to go to Buffalo and spend two days at a hotel regardless of expense.

Much had been told them about the Confidence Men who hang around the railroad-station, and they were prepared.

They arrived at East Aurora, where they were to take the train, an hour ahead of time. The Jerkwater came in and they were duly seated, when all at once Uncle Joe rushed for the door, jumped off and made for the waiting-room looking for his carpetbag. It was on the train all right, but he just forgot, and feeling sure he had left it in the station made the grand skirmish as aforesaid.

The result was that the train went off and left your Uncle Joseph.

Aunt Melinda was much exercised, but the train-hands pacified her by assurances that her husband would follow on the next train, and she should simply wait for him in the depot at Buffalo.

Now the Flyer was right behind the Jerkwater, and Uncle Joe took the Flyer and got to Buffalo first. When the Jerkwater came in, Uncle Joe was on the platform waiting for Aunt Melinda.

As she disembarked he approached her.

She shied and passed on.

He persisted in his attentions.

Then it was that she shook her umbrella at him and bade him hike. The eternally feminine in her nature prompted self-preservation. She banked on her reason--woman's reason--not her intuition. She had started first--her husband could only come on a later train.

"Go 'way and leave me alone," she shouted in shrill falsetto. "You have got yourself up to look like my Joe--and that idiotic grin on your homely face is just like my Joe, but no city sharper can fool me, and if you don't go right along I'll call for the perlice!"

She called for the police, and Uncle Joe had to show a strawberry-mark to prove his identity, before he received recognition.

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To be your brother's keeper is beautiful if you do
not cease to be his friend.

BILLY AND THE BOOK

One day last Winter in New York I attended a police court on a side street, just off lower Broadway. I was waiting to see my old friend Rosenfeld in the Equitable Life Building, but as his office didn't open up until nine o'clock, I put in my time at the police court.

There was the usual assortment of drunks, petty thieves--male and female, black, white and coffee-colored--disorderlies, vagabonds and a man in full-dress suit and a wide expanse of dull ecru shirt-bosom.

The place was stuffy, foul-smelling, and reeked with a stale combination of tobacco and beer and patchouli, and tears, curses, fear and promises unkept.

The Judge turned things off, but without haste. He showed more patience and consideration than one usually sees on the bench. His judgments seemed to be gentle and just.

The courtroom was clearing, and I started to go.

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As I was passing down the icy steps a piping child's voice called to me, "Mister, please give me a lift!"

There at the foot of the steps, standing in the snow, was a slender slip of a girl, yellow and earnest, say ten years old, with a shawl pinned over her head. She held in her hand a rope, and this rope was tied to a hand-sled. On this sled sat a little boy, shivering, dumpy and depressed, his bare red hands clutching the seat.

"Mister, I say, please give me a lift!"

"Sure!" I said.

It was a funny sight.

This girl seemed absolutely unconscious of herself. She was not at all abashed, and very much in earnest about something.

Evidently she had watched the people coming out and had waited until one appeared that she thought safe to call on for help.

"Of course I'll give you a lift--what is it you want me to do?"

"I've got to go inside and see the Judge. It's about my brudder here. He is six, goin' on seven, and they sent him home from school 'cause they said he wasn't old enough. I'm going to have that teacher 'rested. I've got the Bible here that says he's six years old. If you'll carry the book I'll bring Billy and the sled!"

"Where is the Bible?" I asked.

"Billy's settin' on it."

It was a big, black, greasy Family Bible, evidently a relic of better days. It had probably been hidden under the bed for safety.

The girl grappled the sled with one hand, and with the other Billy's little red fist.

I followed, carrying the big, black, greasy Family Bible.

Evidently this girl had been here before. She walked around the end of the judicial bar, and laid down the sled. Then she took the Bible out of my hands. It was about all she could do to lift it.

In a shrill, piping voice, full of business, and very much in earnest, she addressed the Judge: "I say, Mister Judge, they sent my brudder Billy away from school, they did. He's six, goin' on seven, and I want that teacher 'rested and brought here so you can tell her to let Billy go to school. Here is our Family Bible--you can see for yourself how old Billy is!"

The Judge adjusted his glasses, stared, and exclaimed, "God bless my soul!"

Then he called a big, blue-coated officer over and said: "Mike, you go with this little girl and her brother, and tell that teacher, if possible, to allow the boy to go to school; that I say he is old enough. You understand! If you do not succeed, come back and tell me why."

The officer smiled and saluted.

The big policeman took the little boy in his arms. The girl carried the sled, and I followed with the Family Bible.

The officer looked at me--"Newspaper man, I s'pose?"

"Yes," I said.

"What paper?"

"The American."

"It's the best ever."

"I think so--possibly with a few exceptions."

"She's the queerest lot yet, is this kid," and the big bluecoat jerked his thumb toward the girl.

I suggested that we go to the restaurant across the way and get a bite of something to eat.

"I'm not hungry," said the officer, "but the youngsters look as if they hadn't et since day before yesterday."

We lined up at the counter.

The officer drank two cups of coffee and ate a ham sandwich, two hard-boiled eggs, a plate of cakes and a piece of pie.

The girl and her brother each had a plate of cakes, a piece of pie and a glass of milk.

"What's yours?" asked the waiter.

"Same," said I.

As I did not care for the cakes, the officer cleaned the plate for me.

I didn't have time to go to the school, but the officer assured me that he would "fix it," and he winked knowingly, as if he had looked after such things before. He was kind, but determined, and I had confidence he would see that the little boy was duly admitted.

I started up the street alone.

They went the other way. The officer carried the little boy.

The girl with the shawl over her head followed, pulling the hand-sled, and on the sled rested the big, black Family Bible. I lost sight of them as they turned the corner.

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An act is only a crystallized thought.

JOHN THE BAPTIST AND SALOME

John the Baptist, the strong, fine youth, came up out of the wilderness crying in the streets of Jerusalem, "Repent ye! Repent ye!"

Salome heard the call and from her window looked with half- closed, catlike eyes upon the semi-naked, young fanatic.

She smiled, did this idle creature of luxury, as she lay there amid the cushions on her couch, and gazed through the casement upon the preacher in the street.

Suddenly a thought came to her.

She arose on her elbow--she called her slaves.

They clothed her in a gaudy gown, dressed her hair, and led her forth.

Salome followed the wild, weird, religious enthusiast.

She pushed through the crowd and placed herself near the man, so the smell of her body would reach his nostrils.

His eyes ranged the swelling lines of her body.

Their eyes met.

She half-smiled and gave him that look which had snared the soul of many another.

But he only gazed at her with passionless, judging intensity and repeated his cry, "Repent ye. Repent ye, for the day is at hand!"

Her reply, uttered soft and low, was this: "I would kiss thy lips!"

He moved away and she reached to seize his garment, repeating, "I would kiss thy lips--I would kiss thy lips!"

He turned aside, and forgot her, as he continued his warning cry, and went his way.

The next day she waylaid the youth again; as he came near she suddenly and softly stepped forth and said in that same low, purring voice, "I would kiss thy lips!"

He repulsed her with scorn.

She threw her arms about him and sought to draw his head down near hers.

He pushed her from him with sinewy hands, sprang as from a pestilence, and was lost in the pressing throng.

That night she danced before Herod Antipas, and when the promise was recalled that she should have anything she wished, she named the head of the only man who had ever turned away from her. "The head of John the Baptist on a charger!"

In an hour the wish was gratified.

Two eunuchs stood before Salome with a silver tray bearing its fearsome burden.

The woman smiled--a smile of triumph, as she stepped forth with tinkling feet.

A look of pride came over the painted face.

Her jeweled fingers reached into the blood-matted hair. She lifted the head aloft, and the bracelets on her brown, bare arms fell to her shoulders, making strange music. Her face pressed the face of the dead.

In exultation she exclaimed, "I have kissed thy lips!"

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He who influences the thought of his time influences
the thought of all the time that follows. And he has
made his impress upon eternity.

THE MASTER

Giovanni Bellini was his name.

Yet when people who loved beautiful pictures spoke of "Gian," every one knew who was meant; but to those who worked at art he was "The Master." He was two inches under six feet in height, strong and muscular. In spite of his seventy summers his carriage was erect, and there was a jaunty suppleness about his gait that made him seem much younger. In fact, no one would have believed he had lived over his threescore and ten, were it not for the iron-gray hair that fluffed out all around under the close-fitting black cap, and the bronzed complexion--sun-kissed by wind and by weather--which formed a trinity of opposites that made people turn and stare.

Queer stories used to be told about him. He was a skilful gondolier, and it was the daily row back and forth from the Lido that gave him that face of bronze. Folks said he ate no meat and drank no wine, and that his food was simply ripe figs in the season, with coarse rye bread and nuts.

Then there was that funny old hunchback, a hundred years old at least, and stone-deaf, who took care of the gondola, spending the whole day, waiting for his master, washing the trim, graceful, blue-black boat, arranging the awning with the white cords and tassels, and polishing the little brass lions at the sides. People tried to question the old hunchback, but he gave no secrets away. The master always stood up behind and rowed; while down on the cushions rode the hunchback, the guest of honor.

There stood the master erect, plying the oar, his long black robe tucked up under the dark blue sash that exactly matched the color of the gondola. The man's motto might have been, "Ich Dien," or that passage of Scripture, "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." Suspended around his neck by a slender chain was a bronze medal, presented by vote of the Signoria when the great picture of "The Transfiguration" was unveiled. If this medal had been a crucifix, and you had met the wearer in San Marco, one glance at the finely chiseled features, the black cap and the flowing robe and you would have said at once the man was a priest, Vicar-General of some important diocese. But seeing him standing erect on the stern of a gondola, the wind caressing the dark gray hair, you would have been perplexed until your gondolier explained in serious undertone that you had just passed "the greatest Painter in all Venice, Gian, the Master."

Then, if you showed curiosity and wanted to know further, the gondolier would have told you more about this strange man.

The canals of Venice are the highways, and the gondoliers are like 'bus-drivers in Piccadilly--they know everybody and are in close touch with all the Secrets of State. When you get to the Gindecca and tie up for lunch, over a bottle of Chianti, your gondolier will tell you this:

The hunchback there in the gondola, rowed by the Master, is the Devil, who has taken that form just to be with and guard the greatest artist the world has ever seen. Yes, Signor, that clean-faced man with his frank, wide-open, brown eyes is in league with the Evil One. He is the man who took young Tiziano from Cadore into his shop, right out of a glass-factory, and made him a great artist, getting him commissions and introducing him everywhere! And how about the divine Giorgione who called him father? Oho!

And who is Giorgione? The son of some unknown peasant woman. And if Bellini wanted to adopt him, treat him as his son indeed, kissing him on the cheek when he came back just from a day's visit to Mestre, whose business was it! Oho!

Beside that, his name isn't Giorgione--it is Giorgio Barbarelli. And didn't this Giorgio Barbarelli, and Tiziano from Cadore, and Espero Carbonne, and that Gustavo from Nuremberg, and the others paint most of Gian's pictures? Surely they did. The old man simply washes in the backgrounds and the boys do the work. About all old Gian does is to sign the picture, sell it and pocket the proceeds. Carpaccio helps him, too--Carpaccio who painted the loveliest little angel sitting cross-legged playing the biggest mandolin you ever saw in your life.

That is genius, you know, the ability to get some one else to do the work, and then capture the ducats and the honors for yourself. Of course, Gian knows how to lure the boys on--something has to be done in order to hold them. Gian buys a picture from them now and then; his studio is full of their work--better than he can do. Oh, he knows a good thing when he sees it. These pictures will be valuable some day, and he gets them at his own price. It was Antonello of Messina who introduced oil-painting into Venice. Before that they mixed their paints with water, milk or wine. But when Antonello came along with his dark, lustrous pictures, he set all artistic Venice astir. Gian Bellini discovered the secret, they say, by feigning to be a gentleman and going to the newcomer and sitting for his picture. He it was who discovered that Antonello mixed his colors with oil. Oho!

Of course, not all of the pictures in his studio are painted by the boys: some are painted by that old Dutchman what's-his-name--oh, yes, Durer, Alberto Durer of Nuremberg. Two Nuremberg painters were in that very gondola last week just where you sit--they are here in Venice now, taking lessons from Gian, they said. Gian was up there to Nuremberg and lived a month with Durer--they worked together, drank beer together, I suppose, and caroused. Gian is very strict about what he does in Venice, but you can never tell what a man will do when he is away from home. The Germans are a roystering lot--but they do say they can paint. Me? I have never been up there--and do not want to go, either--there are no canals there. To be sure, they print books in Nuremberg. It was up there somewhere that they invented type, a lazy scheme to do away with writing. They are a thrifty lot--those Germans--they give me my fare and a penny more, just a single penny, and no matter how much I have talked and pointed out the wonderful sights, and imparted useful information, known to me alone--only one penny extra--think of it!

Yes, printing was first done at Mayence by a German, Gutenberg, about sixty years ago. One of Gutenberg's workmen went up to Nuremberg and taught others how to design and cast type. This man, Alberto Durer, helped them, designing the initials and making their title-pages by cutting the design on a wood block, then covering this block with ink, laying a sheet of paper upon it, placing it in a press, and then when the paper is lifted off it looks exactly like the original drawing. In fact, most people couldn't tell the difference, and here you can print thousands of them from the one block.

Bellini makes drawings for title-pages and initials for Aldus and Nicholas Jenson. Venice is the greatest printing place in the world, and yet the business began here only thirty years ago. The first book printed here was in Fourteen Hundred Sixty-nine, by John of Speyer. There are two hundred licensed printing-presses here, and it takes usually four men to a press--two to set the type and get things ready, and two to run the press. This does not count, of course, the men who write the books, and those who make the type and cut the blocks from which they print the pictures for the illustrations. At first, you know, the books they printed in Venice had no title-pages, initials or illustrations. My father was a printer and he remembers when the first large initials were printed--before that the spaces were left blank and the books were sent out to the monasteries to be completed by hand.

Gian and Gentile had a good deal to do about cutting the first blocks for initials--they got the idea, I think, from Nuremberg. And now there are Dutchmen down here from Amsterdam learning how to print books and paint pictures. Several of them are in Gian's studio, I hear--every once in a while I get them for a trip to the Lido or to Murano.

Gentile Bellini is his brother and looks very much like him. The Grand Turk at Constantinople came here once and saw Gian Bellini at work in the Great Hall. He had never seen a good picture before and was amazed. He wanted the Senate to sell Gian to him, thinking he was a slave. They humored the Pagan by hiring Gentile Bellini to go instead, loaning him out for two years, so to speak.

Gentile went, and the Sultan, who never allowed any one to stand before him, all having to grovel in the dirt, treated Gentile as an equal. Gentile even taught the old rogue to draw a little, and they say the painter had a key to every room in the palace, and was treated like a prince.

Well, they got along all right, until one day Gentile drew the picture of the head of John the Baptist on a charger.

"A man's head doesn't look like that when it is cut off," said the Grand Turk contemptuously. Gentile had forgotten that the Turk was on familiar ground.

"Perhaps the Light of the Sun knows more about painting than I do!" said Gentile, as he kept right on at his work.

"I may not know much about painting, but I'm no fool in some other things I might name," was the reply.

The Sultan clapped his hands three times: two slaves appeared from opposite doors. One was a little ahead of the other, and as this one approached, the Sultan with a single swing of the snickersnee snipped off his head. This teaches us that obedience to our superiors is its own reward. But the lesson was wholly lost on Gentile Bellini, for he did not even remain to examine the severed head for art's sake. The thought that it might be his turn next was supreme, and he leaped through a window, taking the sash with him. Making his way to the docks he found a sailing vessel loading with fruit, bound for Venice. A small purse of gold made the matter easy: the captain of the boat secreted him, and in four days he was safely back in Saint Mark's giving thanks to God for his deliverance.

No, I didn't say Gian was a rogue--I only told you what others say. I am only a poor gondolier--why should I trouble myself about what great folks do? I simply tell you what I hear--it may be so, and it may not. God knows! There is that Pascale Salvini--he has a rival studio--and when that Genoese, Christoforo Colombo, was here and made his stopping-place at Bellini's studio, Pascale told every one that Colombo was a lunatic, and Bellini another, for encouraging him to show his foolish maps and charts. Now, they do say that Colombo has discovered a new world, and Italians are feeling troubled in conscience because they did not fit him out with ships instead of forcing him to go to Spain.

No, I didn't say Bellini was a hypocrite--Pascale's pupils say so, and once they followed him over to Murano--three barca-loads and my gondola beside. You see it was like this: Twice a week just after sundown, we used to see Gian Bellini untie his boat from the landing there behind the Doge's palace, turn the prow, and beat out for Murano, with no companion but that deaf old caretaker. Twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays--always at just the same hour, regardless of the weather--we would see the old hunchback light the lamps, and in a few moments the Master would appear, tuck up his black robe, step into the boat, take the oar and away they would go. It was always to Murano, and always to the same landing--one of our gondoliers had followed them several times, just out of curiosity.

Finally it came to the ears of Pascale that Gian took this regular trip to Murano. "It is a rendezvous," said Pascale. "It is worse than that: an orgy among those lacemakers and the rogues of the glassworks. Oh, to think that Gian should stoop to such things at his age--his pretended asceticism is but a mask--and at his age!"

The Pascale students took it up, and once came in collision with that Tiziano of Cadore, who they say broke a boat-hook over the head of one of them who had spoken ill of the Master.

But this did not silence the talk, and one dark night, when the air was full of flying mist, one of Pascale's students came to me and told me that he wanted me to take a party over to Murano. The weather was so bad that I refused to go--the wind blew in gusts, sheet lightning filled the Eastern sky, and all honest men, but poor belated gondoliers, had hied them home.

I refused to go.

Had I not seen Gian the painter go not half an hour before? Well, if he could go, others could too.

I refused to go--except for double fare.

He accepted and placed the double fare in silver in my palm. Then he gave a whistle and from behind the corners came trooping enough swashbuckler students to swamp my gondola. I let in just enough to fill the seats and pushed off, leaving several standing on the stone steps cursing me and everything and everybody.

As my boat slid away in the fog and headed on our course, I glanced back and saw the three barca-loads following in my wake.

There was much muffled talk, and orders from some one in charge to keep silence. But there was passing of strong drink, and then talk, and from it I gathered that these were all students from Pascale's, out on one of those student carousals, intent on heaven knows what! It was none of my business.

We shipped considerable water, and some of the students were down on their knees praying and bailing, bailing and praying.

At last we reached the Murano landing. All got out, the barcas tied up, and I tied up, too, determined to see what was doing. The strong drink was passed, and a low, heavy-set fellow who seemed to be captain charged all not to speak, but to follow him and do as he did.

We took a side street where there was little travel and followed through the dark and dripping way, fully a half-mile, down there in that end of the island called the sailors' broglio, where they say no man's life is safe if he has a silver coin or two. There was much music in the wine-shops and shouts of mirth and dancing feet on stone floors, but the rain had driven every one from the streets.

We came to a long, low, stone building that used to be a theater, but was now a dance-hall upstairs and a warehouse below. There were lights upstairs and sounds of music. The stairway was dark, but we felt our way up and on tiptoe advanced to the big double door, from under which the light streamed.

We had received our orders, and when we got to the landing we stood there just an instant. "Now we have him--Gian the hypocrite!" whispered the stout man in a hoarse breath. We burst in the doors with a whoop and a bang. The change from the dark to the light sort of blinded us at first. We all supposed that there was a dance in progress of course, and the screams from women were just what we expected; but when we saw several overturned easels and an old man, half-nude, and too scared to move, seated on a model throne, we did not advance into the hall as we intended. That one yell we gave was all the noise we made. We stood there in a bunch, just inside the door, sort of dazed and uncertain. We did not know whether to retreat, or charge on through the hall as we had intended. We just stood there like a lot of driveling fools.

"Keep right at your work, my good people. Keep right at your work!" called a pleasant voice. "I see we have some visitors."

And Gian Bellini came forward. His robe was still tucked up under the blue sash, but he had laid aside his black cap, and his tumbled gray hair looked like the aureole of a saint. "Keep right at your work," he said again, and then came forward and bade us welcome and begged us to have seats.

I dared not run away, so I sat down on one of the long seats that were ranged around the wall. My companions did the same. There must have been fifty easels, all ranged in a semicircle around the old man who posed as a model. Several of the easels had been upset, and there was much confusion when we entered.

"Just help us to arrange things--that is right, thank you," said Gian to the stout man who was captain of our party. To my astonishment the stout man was doing just as he was bid, and was pacifying the women students and straightening up their easels and stools.

I was interested in watching Gian walking around, helping this one with a stroke of his crayon, saying a word to that, smiling and nodding to another. I just sat there and stared. These students were not regular art students, I could see that plainly. Some were children, ragged and barelegged, others were old men who worked in the glass-factories, and surely with hands too old and stiff to ever paint well. Still others were women and young girls of the town. I rubbed my eyes and tried to make it out!

The music we heard I could still hear--it came from the wine-shop across the way. I looked around and what do you believe? My companions had all gone. They had sneaked out one by one and left me alone.

I watched my chance and when the Master's back was turned I tiptoed out, too.

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When I got down on the street I found I had left my cap, but I dared not go back after it. I made my way down to the landing, half running, and when I got there not a boat was to be seen--the three barcas and my gondola were gone.

I thought I could see them, out through the mist, a quarter of a mile away. I called aloud, but no answer came back but the hissing wind. I was in despair--they were stealing my boat, and if they did not steal it, it would surely be wrecked--my all, my precious boat!

I cried and wrung my hands. I prayed! And the howling winds only ran shrieking and laughing around the corners of the building.

I saw a glimmering light down the beach at a little landing. I ran to it, hoping some gondolier might be found who would row me over to the city. There was one boat at the landing and in it a hunchback, sound asleep, covered with a canvas. It was Gian Bellini's boat. I shook the hunchback into wakefulness and begged him to row me across to the city. I yelled into his deaf ears, but he pretended not to understand me. Then I showed him the silver coin--the double fare--and tried to place it in his hand. But no, he only shook his head.

I ran up the beach, still looking for a boat.

An hour had passed.

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I got back to the landing just as Gian came down to his boat.

I approached him and explained that I was a poor worker in the glass-factory, who had to work all day and half the night, and as I lived over in the city and my wife was dying, I must get home. Would he allow me to ride with His Highness? "Certainly--with pleasure, with pleasure!" he answered, and then pulling something from under his sash he said, "Is this your cap, Signor?" I took my cap, but my tongue was paralyzed for the moment so I could not thank him.

The wind had died down, the rain had ceased, and from between the blue-black clouds the moon shone out. Gian rowed with a strong, fine stroke, singing a "Te Deum Laudamus" softly to himself the while.

I lay there and wept, thinking of my boat, my all, my precious boat!

We reached the landing--and there was my boat, safely tied up, not a cushion nor a cord missing.

Gian Bellini? He may be a rogue as Pascale Salvini says--God knows! How can I tell--I am only a poor gondolier!

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So here then endeth the Volume entitled "The Mintage," the same being Ten Stories and One More written by Elbert Hubbard. The whole done into a printed book by The Roycrofters at their Shop, which is in the Village of East Aurora, Erie County, New York State, this year of Grace mcmx and from the founding of The Roycroft Shop the Sixteenth.