UPON a certain June afternoon, toward the end of the month, had you looked into the cellar of Burns, Dolan & Co.'s plumbing-shop you would have found a certain young Irishman by the name of William Grogan eying mechanically, yet professionally, the glowing end of his soldering-iron. There was a fixity in his gaze, a lack-luster in his eye, familiar to all psychologists of dreams. The iron fell upon the drain-pipe scientifically, because William had reduced the building of dreams to a fine art. Having set his hands to their appointed task, they proceeded to go on automatically, leaving his spirit free to roam as it listed. He was like that Hindu Yogi who could set his body grinding corn, take his soul out and go visiting with it.

William belonged to the supreme order of rainbow-chasers. All horizons were merely circles of linked pots of gold. It follows naturally that he possessed a fleet of serviceable magic carpets; and he sailed with superb confidence toward his rainbow-ends. If this or that one vanished, presto! he promptly arched another. It cost nothing. He was twenty-four, and that is the high noon of the rainbow-chaser. Beyond this age one begins to look back at the wrecks.

In parenthesis, before I go any further, do you believe in magic carpets, in our times better known as day-dreams? I mean, do you believe in letting yourself drift on the wings of a pleasant fancy at odd moments during a dull workaday? If you know anything about the preciousness of these little intervals between actions, when you stand or sit motionless and gaze beyond the horizon into that future which presently or by and by is to roll over the rim of the world with fulfilment—why, then, come along. For this is a story of a rainbow, part of which was found.

There are two kinds of poets, professional and instinctive; and William was a poet by instinct. He could not express himself in words; his rhymes were visions. He was by trade a journeyman plumber; inclination as well as necessity had driven him into it. He found Romance in lead pipes, sheet tin, gas and water mains. To his mind there was nothing quite so marvelous as the amazing cobweb of pipes and mains that stretched across the great city a few feet under the surface. Who but a poet would have stripped in fancy the masonry from the cloud-touching monoliths, and viewed the naked pipings, twisting and elbowing, bending and rearing, more wonderful than any magic beanstalk—water and power and light!

Born in New York, thrown upon the streets at nine, at an age which poets (the professional kind) love to call tender, but which in reality is tough, William was, at twenty-four, a thoroughly metropolitan product. He was keen mentally, shrewd in his outlook, philosophical as all men are who in youth knew rude buffets, hunger, and cold. He was kindly, generous, quick-tempered, and quick-forgiving; and he was not above defending his "honor and territory," when occasion required, by the aid of his fists. An idea, entering his head, generally remained there; and when he offered his friendship his heart's blood went with it. He was Irish.

He talked in the argot of the streets; not because he knew no better, but because habit is not only insidious, but tentacled. It was only when he began to attend night-school that he was made to realize that he was not a purist; and, being ambitious, he strove to curb this passion for unorthodox English. On guard, he spoke sensibly and correctly; but if he became excited, embarrassed, or angry, he СКАЧАТЬ

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The Luck of the Irish

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CHAPTER I

The Luck of the Irish. Harold MacGrath
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