The Drums of Jeopardy

"Thank you! You might just as well wish a brick on me!"

Kitty left the office at a quarter of six. The phrase kept running

through her head--the drums of jeopardy. A little shiver ran up her

spine. Money, love, tragedy, death! This terrible and wonderful old

world, of which she had seen little else than city streets, suddenly

exhibited wide vistas. She knew now why she had begun to save--travel.

Just as soon as she had a thousand she would go somewhere. A great

longing to hear native drums in the night.

Even as the wish entered her mind a new sound entered her ears. The

Subway car wheels began to beat--tumpitum-tump! tumpitum-tump! Fudge!

She opened her evening paper and scanned the fashions, the dramatic

news, and the comics. Being a woman she read the world news last. On the

front page she saw a queer story, dated at Albany: Mysterious guests at

a hotel; how they had fought and fled in the early morning. There had

been left behind a case with foreign orders incrusted with several

thousand dollars' worth of gems. Bolsheviki, said the police; just as

they said auto bandits a few years ago when confronted with something

they could not understand. The orders had been turned over to the

Federal authorities from whom it was learned that they were all royal

and demi-royal. Neither of the two guests had returned up to noon, and

one had fled, leaving even his hat and coat. But there was nothing to

indicate his identity.

"Loot!" murmured Kitty. "All the scum in the world rising to the

top"--quoting Cutty. "Poor things!" as she thought of the gentle ladies

who had died horribly in bedrooms and cellars.

Kitty was beginning to cast about for more congenial quarters. There

were too many foreigners in the apartments, and none of them especially

good housekeepers. Always, nowadays, somebody had a washing out on the

line, the odour of garlic was continuously in the air, and there were

noisy children under foot in the halls. The families she and her mother

had known were all gone; and Kitty was perhaps the oldest inhabitant in

the block.

The living-room windows faced Eightieth Street; bedrooms, dining room,

and kitchen looked out upon the court. From the latter windows one could

step out upon the fire-escape platform, which ran round the three sides

of the court.

Among the present tenants she knew but one, an old man by the name of

Gregory, who lived opposite. The acquaintance had never ripened into

friendship; but sometimes Kitty would borrow an egg and he would borrow

some sugar. In the summertime, when the windows were open at night, she

had frequently heard the music of a violin swimming across the court.

Polish, Russian, and Hungarian music, always speaking with a tragic

note; nothing she had ever heard in concerts. Once, however, she had

heard him begin something from Thais, and stop in the middle of it; and

that convinced her that he was a master. She was fond of good music. One

day she asked Gregory why he did not teach music instead of valeting

at a hotel. His answer had been illuminative. It was only his body that

pressed clothes; but it would have torn his soul to listen daily to the

agonized bow of the novice. Kitty was lonely through pride as much as

anything. As for friends, she had a regiment of them. But she rarely

accepted their hospitality, realizing that she could not return it. No

young men called because she never invited them. All this, however, was

going to change when she moved.