Gladiator - Philip Wylie (readnow .TXT) 📗

waiter. They drained them, looking at each other over the rims. “Got any money, Hugo?”

Hugo had. He carried on his person the total of his cash assets. Some fifty dollars. “Sure. I have fifty dollars,” he answered.

He felt her red lips against his ear. “Let’s you and me duck this party and have a little one of our own. I’ve got an apartment not far from here.”

He could hear the pounding of his heart. “Let’s.”

They moved unostentatiously from the room. Outside, in the hall, she took his hand. They ran to the front door.

There was the echo of bedlam in his whirling mind when they walked through the almost deserted street. She called to a taxi and they were driven for several blocks. At a cheap dance hall they took a table and drank more liquor. When his head was turned, she narrowed her eyes and calculated the effect of the alcohol against the dwindling of his purse. They danced.

“Gee, you’re a swell dancer.”

“So are you, Bessie.”

“Still wanna go home with Bessie?”

“Mmmm.”

“Let’s go.”

Another taxi ride. The lights seethed past him. A dark house and three flights of rickety stairs. The gritty sound of a key in a lock. A little room with a table, a bed, two chairs, a gaslight turned low, a disheveled profusion of female garments.

“Here we are. Sit down.”

Hugo looked at her tensely. He laughed then, with a harsh sound. She flew into his arms, returning his searching caresses with startling frankness. Presently they moved across the room. He could hear the noises on the street at long, hot intervals.

Hugo opened his eyes and the light smote them with pain. He raised his head wonderingly. His stomach crawled with a foul nausea. He saw the dirty room. Bessie was not in it. He staggered to the washbowl and was sick. He noticed then that her clothes were missing. The fact impressed him as one that should have significance. He rubbed his head and eyes. Then he thought accurately. He crossed the room and felt in his trousers pockets. The money was gone.

At first it did not seem like a catastrophe. He could telegraph to his father for more money. Then he realized that he was in New York, without a ticket back to the campus, separated from his friends, and not knowing the address of the toastmaster. He could not find his fraternity brothers and he could not get back to school without more money. Moreover, he was sick.

He dressed with miserable slowness and went down to the street. Served him right. He had been a fool. He shrugged. A sharp wind blew out of a bright sky.

Maybe, he thought, he should walk back to Webster. It was only eighty miles and that distance could be negotiated in less than two hours by him. But that was unwise. People would see his progress. He sat down in Madison Square Park and looked at the Flatiron Building with a leisurely eye. A fire engine surged up the street. A man came to collect the trash in a green can. A tramp lay down and was ousted by a policeman.

By and by he realized that he was hungry. A little man with darting eyes took a seat beside him. He regarded Hugo at short intervals. At length he said. “You got a dime for a cup of coffee?” His words were blurred by accent.

“No. I came here from school last night and my money was stolen.”

“Ah,” there was a tinge of discouragement in the other’s voice. “And hungry, perhaps?”

“A little.”

“Me⁠—I am also hungry. I have not eaten since two days.”

That impressed Hugo as a shameful and intolerable circumstance. “Let’s go over there”⁠—he indicated a small restaurant⁠—“and eat. Then I’ll promise to send the money by mail. At least, we’ll be fed that way.”

“We will be thrown to the street on our faces.”

“Not I. Nobody throws me on my face. And I’ll look out for you.”

They crossed the thoroughfare and entered the restaurant. The little man ordered a quantity of food, and Hugo, looking guiltily at the waiter, duplicated the order. They became distantly acquainted during the filched repast. The little man’s name was Izzie. He sold secondhand rugs. But he was out of work. Eventually they finished. The waiter brought the check. He was a large man, whose jowls and hips and shoulders were heavily weighted with muscle.

Hugo stood up. “Listen, fellow,” he began placidly, “my friend and I haven’t a cent between us. I’m Hugo Danner, from Webster University, and I’ll mail you the price of this feed tomorrow. I’ll write down my name and⁠—”

He got no further. The waiter spoke in a thick voice. “So! One of them guys, eh? Tryin’ to get away with it when I’m here, huh? Well, I tell you how you’re gonna pay. You’re gonna pay this check with a bloody mush, see?” His fist doubled and drew back. Hugo did not shift his position. The fist came forward, but an arm like stone blocked it. Hugo’s free hand barely flicked to the waiter’s jaw. He rolled under the table. “Come on,” he said, but Izzie had already vanished through the door.

Hugo walked hurriedly up the street and turned a corner. A hand tugged at his coat. He turned and was confronted by Izzie. “I seen you through the window. Jeest, guy, you kin box. Say, I know where you kin clean up⁠—if you got the nerve.”

“Clean up? Where?”

“Come on. We better get out of here anyhow.”

They made their way toward the river. The city changed character on the other side of the elevated railroad, and presently they were walking through a dirty, evil-smelling, congested neighborhood.

“Where are we going, Izzie?”

“Wait a minute, Mr. Danner.”

“What’s the idea?”

“You wait.”

Another series of dirty blocks. Then they came to a bulky building that spread a canopy over the sidewalk. “Here,” Izzie said, and pointed.

His finger indicated a sign, which Hugo read twice. It said: “Battling Ole Swenson will meet all comers in this gymnasium at three this