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  CHAPTER III--THE SKY SIGN

  Peter Pape sighed a chestful of relief. They pulled on like ordinarypants. But of course that was what they were expected to do. Weren'tthey direct from the work room of the most expensive tailor he couldlocate in Gotham? Even so, he had inserted his silk-socked toes intotheir twin tunnels with some foreboding. They were different, theselong, straight leg-sheaths of his first full-dress suit.

  There. The secret is out. Our East-exiled Westerner had followed advice.Praying that news of his lapse never would wing back to Hellroaring, hehad submitted himself to measurements for a claw-hammer, known chieflyby rumor on the range as a "swallow-tail." The result had been deliveredlate that afternoon, one week since the signs of Broadway had directedhim aright. The suit had seemed in full possession of the dressing roomof his hotel suite when he had returned from his usual park-path sprinton Polkadot, an event to-day distinguished by the whipcord ridingbreeches of approved balloon cut which had displaced his goat-skinchaps. Somehow it helped to fill an apartment which hitherto had feltrather empty; with its air of sophistication suggested the next move inthe role for which it was the costume _de luxe_.

  The trousers conquered in combat, Pape essayed to don the stiff-bosomedshirt which, according to the diagram pinned on the wall picturing aconventional gentleman ready for an evening out, must encase his chest.His chief conclusion, after several preparatory moments, was that thehiring of a valet was not adequate cause for a lynching with the firsthandy rope. No. There were arguments pro valet which should stay thehand of any one who ever had essayed to enter the costume _de luxe_ ofsaid conventional gentleman. What those patent plungers of his realpearl studs couldn't and didn't do! With the contrariness of as manymavericks, they preferred to puncture new holes in the immaculate linen,rather than enter the eyelets of the shirt-maker's provision.

  But we won't go into the matter. Other writers have done it so often andso soulfully. The one best thing that may be remarked about such trialsof the spirit is that they have an end as well as a beginning. At lastand without totally wrecking the work of the launderer, Why-Not Pape'sfamed will to win won. The shirt was harnessed; hooked-up; coupled.

  Now came the test of tests for his patience and persistence--for histongue and other such equipment of the genus human for the exercise ofself-control. This was not trial by fire, although the flames ofsuppression singed him, but by choking. Again he thought tolerantly ofvalets; might have asked even the loan of m'lady's maid had he beenacquainted personally with any of his fair neighbors.

  "They'd ought to sell block and tackle with every box of 'em," heassured the ripe-tomato-colored cartoon of himself published in thedresser mirror.

  Smoothing out certain of his facial distortions, lest they becomemuscularly rooted, to the ruin of his none too comely visage, heretrieved a wandering son-of-a-button from beneath the radiator andreturned to the fray with a fresh strip of four-ply. When thrice he hadthreatened out loud to tie on a bandanna and let it go at that, by someslip or trick of his fingers he accomplished the impossible. His neckprotruded proudly from his first stiff collar since the Sunday dress-upsof Lord Fauntleroy days--before the mother and father of faint but fondmemory had gone, literally and figuratively "West," leaving their orphanto work the world "on his own."

  Around the collar the chart entitled, "Proper Dress for Gents at AllHours," dictated that he tie a narrow, white silk tie. Anticipatingdifficulties here, he had ordered a dozen. And he needed most of them;tried out one knot after another of his extensive repertoire; at last,by throwing a modified diamond hitch, accomplished an effect whichgratified him, although probably no dress-tie had been treated quitethat way before.

  His chortle of relief that he was at ordeal's end proved to bepremature. Peering coldly and pointedly at him from across the room,their twin rows of pop-eyes perpendicularly placed, stood his patentleathers. Clear through his arches he already had felt theirmaliciousness and, as the worst of his trials, had left them to thelast. All too late he recalled the fact that brand new buttoned shoesonly meet across insteps and ankles by suasion of a hook, even as rangeboots yield most readily to jacks. Prolific as had been the growth ofhis toilet articles since a week ago, that small instrument of torturewas not yet a fruit thereof. Further delay ensued before response to theorder which he telephoned the desk for "one shoe-hooker--quick."

  Peter Stansbury Pape had emerged from the West of his upgrowing andself-making with two projects in view--one grave, one much less so. Thegrave, when its time came, would involve a set-to in the street calledWall with a certain earnest little group of shearers who, seeming totake him for a woolly lamb, _almost_ had lifted his fleece. Animated bya habit of keeping his accounts in life square, steady in his stand asthe mountain peaks that surrounded his home ranch, his courage fortifiedagainst fear because he recognized it at first sight and refused toyield to it, he was biding the right time to betake himself "down-town"for the round-up reckoning. But of all that, more anon.

  His "less so" was to learn life as it is lived along Gay Way, althoughhe had made no promise to himself to become a part thereof. A sincerewish to explore the greatest Main Street on any map, whose denizens sofar had shown themselves elusive as outlaw broncs to a set-down puncher,had moved him to acceptance of the suggestion of 'Donis Moore.

  While awaiting the pleasure--or the pain--of the shoe-hook, heconsidered the indifference of his reception at the Astor, a hotelselected for its location "in the heart of things." In the heart ofthings--in the thick of the fight--in the teeth of the wind--right therewas where Pape liked best to be. But the room-clerk had seemedunimpressed by his demand for the most luxurious one-man apartment ontheir floor plan. The cashier had eyed coldly the "herd" of New Yorkdrafts which he had offered for "corralling" in the treasury of thehouse. Clerks, elevator boys, even the dry-bar tenders had parried hisquestions and comments with that indifferent civility which had madethis world, said to be the Real, seem false as compared with his haleand hearty Out-West.

  The reply to his first inquiry, anent hotel stable accommodations forthe intimate equine friend who, as a matter of course, had accompaniedhim on an American Express Company ticket, had been more of a shock tohim than the height of Mt. Woolworth, first seen while ferrying theHudson. Mr. Astor's palace, he was told, had a garage of one-hundred-carcapacity, but no stable at all, not even stall space for one paintedpony. There were more rooms in the "one-man" suite than he knew how toutilize in his rather deficient home life, but the idea of attempting tosmuggle Polkadot to the seventh landing, as suggested by the boast of amore modern hostelry that it elevated automobiles to any floor, wasabandoned as likely to get them both put out. He had tramped manyside-street trails before he had found, near the river, the stable of acontractor who still favored horses. Only this day had he learned of ariding academy near the southern fringe of Central Park where the beastmight be boarded in style better suited to his importance in oneestimation at least.

  It is a pleasure to state that money really didn't matter with Pape; inany calculable probability, never would. That constitutional demand ofhis--why not, why not?--had drilled into certain subterranean lakesbeneath the range on which his unsuspecting cattle had grazed for years;had drilled until fonts of oleose gold had up-flowed. For months pasthis oil royalties literally had swamped the county-seat bank. He hadbeen forced to divert the tide to Chicago and retain an attorney tofigure his income tax. Upon him--in the _now_, instead of the hazy,hoped-for future--was the vacation time toward which he had toiledphysically through the days of the past and through the nights hadself-trained his mind with equal vigor.

  The time had come. But the place--well, so far, America's Bagdad hadoffered nothing approaching his expectations. Perhaps the fault had beenin his surface unfitness for the censorious gaze of the Bagdadians.Perhaps clothes had unmade his outer man to folks too hurried to learnhis inner. However, thanks to the official Sage of Traffic Squad "B," henow had remedied superficial defects.

  In truth, an
y one fairly disposed who saw his descent of the Astor'sfront steps, would have conceded that. Despite the vicissitudes ofpreparation, the result was good. A tall, strong-built, free-swingingyoung man came to a halt at curb's edge, a young man immaculatelyarrayed, from silky top of hat to tips of glistening boots. Hisattention, however, was not upon the impression which he might or mightnot be making. Having done his best by himself, he was not interested incasual applause. There was a strained eagerness in his eyes as, leaningoutward, he peered up The Way.

  The night was cloudy, so that the overhead darkness of eight-thirty wasnot discounted by any far-off moon or wan-winking stars. The sky lookedlike a black velvet counter for the display of man-made jewelry--Edisondiamonds in vast array--those great, vulgar "cluster pieces" of StageStreet.

  And high above all others--largest, most brilliant, most vulgar,perhaps--was a trinket transformed from some few bubbles of oil, thelatest acquisition of one Westerner.

  There it was--_there it was_! Pape chortled aloud from the thrill offirst sight of it. Cryptic and steady it blazed, overtopping aquick-change series of electric messages regarding the merits of diversbrands of underwear, chewing gum, pneumatic tires, corsets, automobiles,hosiery, movies and such. His heart swelled from pride, his pulsequickened and his mind lit as he viewed it. The while, his lips moved tothe words emblazoned within its frame of lurid, vari-colored roses.

  WELCOME TO OUR CITY WHY-NOT PAPE