Comprehension and Discussion. 1. What did Crane do when he was sixteen?

1. What did Crane do when he was sixteen? How did others view him?

2. Why did he go to live in New York City?

3. What did Captain Murphy say had happened to the pumps?

4. What happened after the fires went out?

5. Why couldn't the men on the boat tow the rafts?

6. Who was John Getchell? What did he do?

7. What did the people on shore at Daytona do?

8. How did Crane behave during the crisis?

9. What can you say about the language used in these old reports?

10. What kind of person do you think Stephen Crane was?

Exercises

A. Use each of the following terms in a sentence:

to be accounted for, correspondent, slum, aid, overboard, grit, partially, to row, timbers, to float, ill-fated, to be only a question of time, surf, to deal with someone severely, to embark, distress, raft, versatile, recent years, literary circles.

B. Fill in the blanks in the following sentences with one of the terms from the list. Change the form if necessary.

Expedition fathom mate survivor

Capsize floating vessel perilous

Corpse chagrin deck

Example: The waves were so high that our boat capsized and then sank.

1. We don't know how far down it is to the bottom of the sea, but we think it's about sixteen ________________.

2. There were several pieces of timber________________ on top of the sea around the wreck of the ship.

3. Stephen Crane was one of the________________ of the wreck of the Commodore.

4. We realized that we were in a________________ sit­uation when the waves began to turn us over.

5. The ________________which sank off Florida was called the Commodore.

6. Higgins drowned during the storm, but we didn't know this until his________________ washed ashore.

7. The________________of Cubans was bound for the island in order to mount a military action.

8. The men bailed water with all of their strength, but much to their________________, the water level in the boat continued to get higher.

9. The worker who is second in command after the captain of a ship is the second________________.

10. He stood on the ________________of the steamer and watched the storm.

C. Fill in the blanks in the following sentences with the correct form of the verb in parentheses.

Example: Crane wanted ___________(go) to Cuba on a ship.

Crane wanted to go to Cuba on a ship.

1. In the dinghy, Crane________________ (row) as well as any man.

2. How did this________________ (happen) ?

3. Three men ________________ (go) down with the ship when it sank.

4. If they find the traitor, they________________ (deal) with him severely.

5. We tried________________ (reach) the shore by rowing.

6. The steamer ________________ (want) to keep out of the way of the Newark, so it________________ (sail) east in a hurry.

7. He didn't seem to know what fear________________ (be).

8. I'm afraid to sail because I________________ (know) how to swim.

9. ________________you ________________ (leave) Jacksonville yesterday?

10. We tried________________ (get) the pumps ________________ (work).

D. Write the plural forms of these words.

Example: hand hands

1- leaf ________________ 6. article ________________

2- half ________________ 7. vessel ________________

3- wave ________________ 8. hero ________________

4- story ________________ 9. watch ________________

5. cruiser ________________ 10. rescue ________________

Unit 5: Van Bibber's Burglar

Richard Harding Davis

Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) was another turn-of-the-century short story writer who also made a living as a reporter. He wrote with a wry humor about sports and big-city living.

PART ONE

There had been a dance uptown, but Van Bibber couldn't go, so he accepted Travers' suggestion that they go over to Jersey City to see a "go" (which was an illegal prize fight without gloves) between a fighter named "Dutchy" Mack and a man who called himself the Black Diamond. They hid the wealth of their clothes by wearing heavy overcoats.

Travers and Van Bibber filled their pockets with cigars, and they also fastened their watches to both key chains. Alf Alpin, who was in charge, was pleased and flattered that they came and insisted that they sit on the platform. It was even whispered that they were the "parties" who were putting up the money to back the Black Diamond against "Hester Street" Jackson. This in itself entitled them to respect. Van Bibber was asked to hold the watch, but he wisely declined. Andy Spielman, the sporting reporter of the Track and Ring, whose watchcase was covered with diamonds, was asked to keep time.

It was two o'clock when the fight ended and three before they reached the city. They had another reporter in the cab with them besides the gentleman who had held the watch; and as Van Bibber was very hungry, and as he doubted that he could get anything at that hour at the club, they accepted Spielman's invitation and went for a steak and onions at the Owl's Nest, Gus McGowan's all-night restaurant on Third Avenue.

It was a very dingy, dirty place, but it was as warm as the engine room of a steamboat, and the steak was perfectly done and tender. It was too late to go to bed, so they sat around the table, with their chairs tipped back and their knees against its edge. The two club men had thrown off their coats, and their wide shirt fronts and silk facings shone grandly in the smoky light of the oil lamps and the red glow from the grill in the corner. They talked about the life the reporters led, and the rich men asked foolish questions, which the reporters answered with­out indicating how foolish they thought the men were.

"And I suppose you have all sorts of curious adventures," said Van Bibber, tentatively.

"Well, no, not what I would call adventures," said one of the reporters. "I have never seen anything that could not be ex­plained or attributed directly to some known cause, such as crime or poverty or drink. You may think at first that you have stumbled on something strange and romantic, but it comes to nothing. You would suppose that in a great city like this one would come across something that could not be explained away —something mysterious. But I have not found it so. Dickens once told James Payn that the most curious thing he ever saw in his rambles around London was a ragged man who stood crouch­ing under the window of a great house where the owner was giving a party. While the man hid beneath a window on the ground floor, a woman, wonderfully dressed and very beautiful, raised the sash from the inside and dropped her bouquet down into the man's hand, and he nodded and stuck it under his coat and ran off with it.

"I call that, now, a really curious thing to see. But I have never come across anything like it, and I have been in every part of this big city, and at every hour of the night and morning. I am not lacking in imagination, but no captured maidens have ever waved to me from barred windows. It is all commonplace and vulgar, and always ends in a dull story."

McGowan, who had fallen asleep behind the bar, woke sud­denly and shivered and rubbed his shirtsleeves briskly. A woman knocked at the side door and asked for food. The man who tended the grill told her to go away. They heard her feeling her way against the wall and cursing as she staggered out of the alley. Three men came in and wanted everybody to drink with them, and they became insolent when the gentlemen declined.

"You see," said the reporter, "it is all like this. Night in a great city is not picturesque and it is not theatrical. It is sodden, sometimes brutal and exciting. It is dramatic, but the plot is old and the motives and characters always the same."

The rumble of heavy market wagons and the rattle of milk carts told them that it was morning, and as they opened the door the cold fresh air swept into the place and made them wrap their collars around their throats. The morning wind swept down the cross street from the East River, and the lights of the street lamps and of the saloon looked old and tawdry. Travers and the report­ers went off to a Turkish bath, and the gentleman who held the watch, who had been asleep for the last hour, went home in a taxi. It was almost clear now and very cold. Van Bibber had the strange feeling one gets when one stays up until the sun rises of having lost a day somewhere, and the fight in Jersey City was far back in the past.

The houses along the cross street were dead as so many blank walls, and only here and there a lace curtain waved out of the open window where some honest citizen was sleeping. The street was deserted; not even a cat or a policeman moved on it, and Van Bibber's footsteps sounded brisk on the sidewalk. There was a great house at the corner of the avenue on which he was walking. The house faced the avenue and a stone wall ran back to the brownstone stable which opened on the side street. There was a door in this wall, and as Van Bibber approached it, it opened cautiously, and a man's head appeared in it for an instant and was withdrawn again like a flash, and the door slammed shut. Van Bibber stopped and looked at the door and at the house and up and down the street. The house was tightly closed, and the streets were still empty.

Van Bibber knew he wouldn't frighten an honest man, so he decided the face he had seen must belong to a dishonest one. It was none of his business, he assured himself, but it was curious, and he liked adventure, and he would have liked to prove his reporter friend wrong. So he approached the door silently, then jumped and caught onto the top of the wall and stuck one foot on the handle of the door, and, with the other on the knocker, drew himself up and looked cautiously down on the other side. He had done this so lightly that the only noise he made was the rattle of the doorknob on which his foot had rested, and the man inside thought that the one outside was trying to open the door, and placed his shoulder to it and pressed against it. Van Bibber looked down directly on the other's head and shoulders. He could see the top of the man's head only two feet below, and he also saw that in one hand he held a revolver and that two bags filled with articles of different sizes lay at his feet.

Comprehension

1. Where did Van Bibber go instead of the dance uptown?

2. How were the two wealthy men treated by Alf Alpin?

3. Where did the men go after the fight? Why?

4. What did the men talk about at the restaurant?

5. What do you know about the food and the atmosphere at the restaurant?

6. What was the story that Dickens told to James Payn?

7. What happened when three other men came into the res­taurant?

8. Where did the men go in the morning? How did they know it was morning?

9. What happened while Van Bibber was walking?

10. What did he discover when he looked over the wall?

PART TWO

Van Bibber knew that the man below had robbed the big house on the corner and that if it had not been for his having passed when he did, the burglar would have escaped with his treasure. His first thought was that he was not a policeman and that a fight with a burglar was not in his line of life; but this was followed by the thought that though the gentleman who owned the property was of no interest to him, he was, as a respectable member of society, more entitled to consideration than the man with the revolver.

The fact that he was now, whether he liked it or not, perched on the top of the wall like Humpty Dumpty, and that the burglar might see him and shoot him the next minute, also had an immediate influence on his movements. So he balanced himself cautiously and noiselessly and dropped upon the man's head and shoulders, bringing him down with him and under him. The revolver went off once in the struggle, but in an instant Van Bibber was standing up over the man and kicked the pistol out of his fingers. Then he picked it up and said, "Now, if you try to get up, I'll shoot at you." He almost said, "And I'll probably miss you," but subdued it. The burglar, much to Van Bibber's astonishment, did not attempt to rise, but sat up with his hands locked across his knees and said: "Shoot then. I'd rather you would."

His face was bitter and hopeless.

"Go ahead, I won't move. Shoot me."

It was a very unpleasant situation. Van Bibber put the gun down and asked the burglar to tell him all about it.

"You haven't got much heart," said Van Bibber, finally. "You're a pretty poor sort of a burglar, I think."

"What's the use?" said the man. "I won't go back—I won't go back there alive. I've served my time forever in that hole. If I have to go back again, I'll never survive. I'll die if I go back there, I tell you!"

"Go back where?" asked Van Bibber, gently, and greatly in­terested. "To prison?"

"To prison, yes!" cried the man, hoarsely. "To a grave. That's where. Look at my face," he said, "and look at my hair. That ought to tell you where I've been. With all the color gone out of my skin, and all the life out of my legs. You needn't be afraid of me. I couldn't hurt you if I wanted to. I'm a skeleton and a baby. I couldn't kill a cat. And now you're going to send me back again for another lifetime. For twenty years, this time, into that cold, awful hole."

Van Bibber shifted the pistol from one hand to the other and eyed his prisoner doubtfully.

"How long have you been out?" he asked, seating himself on the steps of the kitchen and holding the revolver between his knees. The sun was driving the morning mist away, and he had forgotten the cold.

"I got out yesterday," said the man.

Van Bibber glanced at the bags and lifted the revolver. "You didn't waste much time," he said.

"No," answered the man, sullenly, "no, I didn't. I knew this place and I wanted money to get West to my folks, and the Society said I'd have to wait until I earned it, and I couldn't wait. I haven't seen my wife or daughter for seven years. Seven years, young man; think of that—seven years. Do you know how long that is? Seven years without seeing your wife or your child! And they're straight people, they are," he added hastily. "My wife moved West after I was put away and took another name, and my girl never knew about me. She thinks I'm away at sea. I was to join them. That was the plan. I was to join them, and I thought I could lift enough here to get the fare, and now," he added, dropping his face in his hands, "I've got to go back. And I had meant to live straight after I got West—God help me, but I did! Not that it makes much difference now. And I don't care whether you believe it or not neither," he added, fiercely.

"I didn't say whether I believed it or not," answered Van Bibber, with grave consideration.

He eyed the man for a brief space without speaking, and the burglar looked back at him, defiantly and with no hope in his eyes. Perhaps it was because of this fact, or perhaps it was the wife and child that moved Van Bibber, but whatever his motives were, he acted on them promptly. "I suppose, though," he said, as though speaking to himself, "that I ought to give you up."

"I'll never go back alive," said the burglar, quietly.

"Well, that's bad, too," said Van Bibber. "Of course, I don't know whether you're lying or not, and as to your meaning to live honestly, I very much doubt it; but I'll give you a ticket to wherever your wife is, and I'll see you on the train. And you can get off at the next station and rob my house tomorrow night, if you feel that way about it. Throw those bags inside that door where the servant will see them before the milkman does, and walk on out ahead of me, and keep your hands in your pockets, and don't try to run. I have your pistol, you know."

The man placed the bags inside the kitchen door, and, with a doubtful look at his custodian, stepped out into the street and walked toward Grand Central Station. Van Bibber kept just behind him, and kept turning the question over in his mind as to what he ought to do. He felt very guilty as he passed each policeman, but he recovered himself when he thought of the wife and child who lived in the West and who were "straight."

"Where to?" asked Van Bibber, as he stood at the ticket-office window. "Helena, Montana," answered the man with, for the first time, a look of relief. Van Bibber bought the ticket and handed it to the burglar. "I suppose you know," he said, "that you can sell that at a place downtown for half the money." "Yes, I know that," said the burglar.

There was a half hour before the train left, and Van Bibber took the man into the restaurant and watched him eat every­thing placed before him. Then Van Bibber gave him some money and told him to write to him, and shook hands with him. The man nodded eagerly and pulled off his hat as the car drew out of the station, and Van Bibber went downtown, still won­dering if he had done the right thing.

He went to his rooms and changed his clothes, took a cold bath, and crossed over to Delmonico's for his breakfast. He was one of the few customers there; most of the waiters were just beginning to set up for the morning trade. He relaxed and looked over the headlines of the morning newspaper. At first, he lei­surely scanned the stories, but then he noticed that an account of the dance listed him as being in attendance. With greater interest he read of the fight between "Dutchy" Mack and the Black Diamond, and then he read carefully how "Abe" Hubbard, alias "Jimmie the Gent," a burglar, had broken jail in New Jersey and had been traced to New York. There was a description of the man, and Van Bibber breathed quickly as he read it. "The detectives have a clue to his whereabouts," the account said, "if he is still in the city they are confident of recapturing him. But they fear that the same friends who helped him to break jail will probably assist him from the country or to get out West."

"They may do that," murmured Van Bibber to himself, with a smile of grim contentment. "They probably will."

Then he said to the waiter, "Oh, I don't know. Some bacon and eggs, orange juice, toast, and coffee."