BLACKER OXEN

By

Gertrude Otherton

I

Lee Clavering’s weary eyes—steel-blue, half closed—roved over the darkened auditorium.

Twelve years ago he had migrated from pre-civil-war Louisiana to Manhattan, the Brains of America—from the ante-bellum to the cerebellum. In that time he had attained the highest position in the gift of the nation. Poets, playwrights, players, painters, pugilists, politicians, prophets, priests, popes, presidents, princes and pullman-car porters cringed before him.

He was L. C., the premier columnist of America, the King Kleagle of the Kolyumist Klan.

His long dark face suggested the cynical, the mysterious, the morose. But his steel-blue eyes were now, as always, searching, with the evergreen hope of finding the consummate 21woman, which proves him really romantic. That he found her in a New York first-night audience proves him a character in fiction.

II

She sat two seats ahead of him. After the first act, she rose to her feet, turned toward him and, with her opera glasses, swept the house.

“European,” Clavering clicked. “All of them are—these sweepers and scrubwomen.”

The columnist spoke. The man took a second look—and saw that Venus rising from the sea had nothing on her (emphasis on her, please!)—the most exquisitely beautiful woman he had ever seen—the only authentic consummate woman, indubitably.

Clavering’s nerves rippled, but the man next to him—old Dinwiddie, swell, suave and sixty—had an apoplectic fit. His eyes bulged. His lips gibbered.

“It’s a ghost—Mary Ogden—belle of New York forty-five years ago, when I was a kid—married Count Zattiany—Hungarian—never been back since——”

“Her daughter, of course,” suggested Clavering.

“Never had any—to speak of—but that’s it—must be—one of the unmentionables—she was 22a gay one—little liaison now and then—relished by the best of men——”

III

Three weeks passed—six more “first-nights”—and “Mary Ogden” was at every one of them, also Lee Clavering. She was “the talk of the town.”

The newspapers were full of the mystery. Who was this enthralling person? Crowds followed her everywhere. She bought a pair of gloves—and seven floor-walkers were hurried to Bellevue in seven separate deliria. She went into the Public Library—and the infatuated populace carried off all the books as souvenirs. She walked around the reservoir—and they drew off the water and sold it for a dollar a bottle.

At the theater they turned the footlights around and threw the spotlights on her. Nobody looked at the stage. The actors forgot their parts, switched from the first act of “The Demi-Vierge” to the second act of “Pollyanna” and no one noticed it, but the author.

On the second Sunday, forty per cent of all the clergymen preached on “Mary has chosen the better part.”

Never had there been such excitement in 23Manhattan since Peter Stuyvesant broke his wooden leg.

IV

After the sixth “first-night,” Lee Clavering followed her home. He found her alone in the great city, on her own doorstep.

“May I?—Am I?—Are you?—Were they?—Was it?—Whoosis?—” he stammered, his temperature rising dangerously.

“Oh,” she said with a faint smile, “I’m locked out——”

“Watch me!” he said.

He tore out the area railing and threw it at a passing taxicab, smashed the area windows, and burst in the door. Entering, he ran rapidly through the house, switched on all the lights, turned on the hot and cold water in every bathroom, upset the furniture and slid down the banisters from the fourth story to the first. Landing in a heap at the bottom, he leaped to his feet and opened the front door.

“Thank you,” she said simply. “Have a drink, Mr. Clavering?”

“You know whom I am, then?” he cyrilled in amazement.

“Certainly. Don’t you?” she answered.

“I—yes—no—” he murmured, his eyes fixed on her, as he poured a drink.

24“That’s the catsup bottle—and do you always drink from a finger bowl?” she asked sweetly.

“Oh, invariably never,” he gasped. “I mean—inevitably always——”

“Won’t you sit down?”

“You make me sit up—and take notice,” he columned feebly, seating himself on the overturned victrola.

“You will pardon my confusion,” he babbled on. “To who—I mean, to wit have I the honor of speaking? How old are you? Have you ever been married? If so, mark a cross within the circle, but not within the triangle—if not, was your husband present when the body was found? If you have any children not in jail, how do you account for it? Who are you, and if not, what is your beautiful name? Answer yes or no.”

“Marie Zattiany,” she answered, with a smile.

“Legitimate or ill—” he paused in midflight, dipped his forefinger into the catsup and dreamily drew a red cross on his shirt-front.

“Pardon me,” he continued, “I was about to ask a personal question. To speak quite impersonally—will you marry me?—if you’re of marriageable age.”

“How old do you think I am? Don’t answer. You’d certainly either flatter me nauseatingly 25or insult me grossly. Come back in three weeks and I will tell you my story.”

She raised her hand for him to kiss, but he ducked and she missed him by an inch.

Outside the house, he remembered the shattered basement-windows. His southern chivalry would not let him leave her unprotected. He lay down on the doorstep and slept soundly until dawn.

V

A column a day keeps the sheriff away and when you’ve got the habit, you keep right on, no matter what your feelings are—or your readers’. It helped L. C. to bear incertitude with fortitude.

The make-up seldom varied. It must open with a poem, preferably an authentic L. C. Horatian ode. His odometer registered three a week. It was his line—“master of the Horatian line,” he had been called. As thus: