The Sorcery Club. O'Donnell Elliott

[14] All subsequent works dealing with Black Magic were founded on it.

[15] Closely allied to deadly nightshade, and known in botany as Circæa. It is found in damp, shady places and was used to a very large extent in mediæval sorcery.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

LEARNING TO SIN

       Table of Contents

      Messrs. Kelson and Curtis did not live in Pacific Avenue where the Popes hold sway, nor yet in California Street where the Crockers are wont to entertain their millionaire friends. Where they lived, there were no massive granite steps flanked with equally massive pillars—such as herald the approach to the Nob Hill palaces; no rare glass bow-windows looking out on to flower bedecked lawns; no vast betiled hall, with rotundas in the centre; no highly polished oak staircases; no frescoed ceilings; no tufted, cerulean blue silk draperies; and no sweet perfumery—only the smell, if one may so suddenly sink to a third-class expression—only the smell of rank tobacco and equally rank lager beer. No, Messrs. Kelson and Curtis resided within a stone's throw of the five cent baths in Rutter Street—and that was the nearest they ever got to bathing. Their suite of apartments consisted of one room, about ten by eight feet, which served as a dining-room, drawing-room, study, boudoir, kitchen, bedroom, and—from sheer force of habit, I was about to add bathroom; but as I have already hinted cold water on half-empty stomachs and chilly livers is uninviting; besides, soap costs something. Their furniture was antique but not massive; nor could any of it be fairly reckoned superfluous. All told, it consisted of a bedstead (three six-foot planks on four sugar cubes; the bedclothes—a pair of discarded overalls, a torn and much emaciated blanket, a woolly neck wrap, a yellow vest, and the garments they stood in); a small round and rather rickety deal table; and one chair. Of the very limited number of culinary utensils, the frying-pan was by far the most important. Its handle served as a poker, and its pan, as well as for frying, roasting and boiling, did duty for a teapot and a slop-basin. They had no crockery. They had only one thing in abundance—namely, air; for the lower frame of the window having long lacked glass in it, a couple of pages of the Examiner, fixed in it, flapped dismally every time the wind came blowing down 216th Street.

      They had not lived there always. In the palmy days of work, before the firm smashed, they had aspired to what might properly be called diggings; and, moreover, had "digged" in respectable surroundings. It was the usual thing—the thing that is happening always, every hour of the day, in all the great cities of the world—starvation, through lack of employment. Civilization still shuts its eyes to everyday poverty. Who knows? Who cares? Who is responsible? No one. Is there a remedy? Ah! that is a question that requires time. Time—always time! Time for the politician, and time for the starving ones! Half the world thinks, whilst half the world dies; and the cause of it all is time—too much, a damned sight too much—time!

      But Kelson and Curtis could not grumble. They had their room—bare, dirty and well-ventilated—for next to nothing. Fifty cents a week! And they could furnish it as they pleased. Fancy that! What a privilege! They were glad of it all the same—glad of it in preference to the streets; and probably, when asleep, they thought of it as home. But on leaving Hamar's, that evening, they had fully resolved to convert their little room into a cemetery. What else could they do? What can any one do who has no money and no prospect of getting any, and who has reached the pitch of acute hunger? He has passed the stage of wanting work, because, if work were offered to him, he would not be in a fit state to do it—he would be too weak. Too weak to work! What a phenomenon! Yes—to all those who have never missed a day's meals. To others—no! They can understand—and understand only too well—the really poor who have long ceased to eat, cannot work—they are beyond it.

      When Curtis and Kelson staggered down the stairs of the house where Hamar lodged, they realized that unless something turned up pretty soon, it would be too late—they would be past the stage of caring for anything—too feeble to do anything but lie on the ground and pray that death would come quickly.

      "Home?" Kelson inquired, as they emerged on to the pavement.

      "Hell!" Curtis answered, and Kelson, taking it for granted that the terms were synonymous, at once headed for their garret.

      "Don't walk so confoundedly fast," Curtis gasped; "this pain in my side is like a hundred stitches rolled in one. It fairly doubles me up. Ease down a bit, for heaven's sake!"

      Kelson obeyed, and presently came to a dead halt before a dingy-looking restaurant. Both men leaned against the window and gazed wolfishly at the food. A warm, fœtid rush of air from under the grating at their feet tickled their nostrils and mocked their hunger with a mockery past endurance. Arranged on the window-sill was a miscellaneous collection of very smeary plates and dishes, containing an even more miscellaneous collection of food. A half-consumed ham, with more than a mere suspicion of dirt on its yellowish-white fat; some concoction in a bowl that might have been brawn made from some peculiarly liverish pig, or—from one of the many homeless mongrels that roam the streets at night; a pile of noxious-looking mussels, side by side with a glistening mass of particularly yellow whelks; a round of what purported to be beef—very fat and very underdone; some black shiny sausages, and a score or so of luridly red polonies. A similar assortment was to be seen on the counter behind which lolled an anæmic girl, in a dirty cotton blouse, and a much soiled sky-blue skirt.

      A month ago such an exhibition would have been an offence in the fastidious eyes of Messrs. Kelson and Curtis; but now it was otherwise. Their stomachs would have refused nothing short of garbage.

      "Matt!" Curtis's hands had left off clutching at his belt and were now hanging by his side; the fingers twitching to and fro in a manner that fascinated Kelson. "Matt! Is there any logic in our starving?"

      "None, excepting that we haven't a cent between us!" Kelson rejoined.

      "I know that," Curtis went on slowly, "but—I mean—why should we starve when all this grub is within two inches of us! It's unreasonable—it's intolerable."

      "Doesn't the smell of it satisfy you?" Kelson replied, attempting to force a smile, and failing dismally.

      "D—n the smell!" Curtis cried. "It's the ham I want. I'd give my soul for a good munch at it. And just look at that tea, too! Don't you see it steaming over there? What wouldn't I give for just one cup! Ten minutes more and it may be too late. The pain will come on again—and it will be very doubtful if I shall ever get home. I'm close on the stage when one begins to digest one's own stomach. Curse it! I won't starve any longer! Matt! she's in there all by herself!"

      "So I've been thinking," Kelson murmured, glancing uneasily up and down the street. "Still she's a girl, Ed!"

      "That's just it!" Curtis whispered; "it is because she is a girl. If she were a man, in our present condition we shouldn't stand a chance. Come! It's this or dying in the gutters. It's our one and only chance. Let's go in—have a feed—take what we can and make a bolt for it. If she tries to stop us we can settle her right enough."

      "Without being too rough! There's no need to be too rough with her, Ed."

      "I shouldn't stick at much!" Curtis answered. "Occasions like these don't admit of chivalry. Come along! It's the ham I'm after."

      Curtis shuffled forward as he spoke, and the next moment Kelson and he were standing in front of the counter.

      The girl eyed Curtis very dubiously and it is more than likely would have refused to serve him had he been alone. But her expression changed on looking at Kelson. Kelson was one of those individuals who seldom fail to meet with the approval of women—there was a something in him they liked. Probably neither he nor they could have defined that something; but there