The Auction Block

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THE AUCTION BLOCK

By REX BEACH

Author of "THE SILVER HORDE" "THE SPOILERS" "THE IRON TRAIL" Etc.

Illustrated

THE AUCTION BLOCK

CHAPTER I

Peter Knight flung himself into the decrepit arm-chair beside the
center-table and growled:

"Isn't that just my luck? And me a Democrat for twenty years.
There's nothing in politics, Jimmy."

His son James smiled crookedly, with a languid tolerance
bespeaking amusement and contempt. James prided himself upon his
forbearance, and it was rarely indeed that he betrayed more than a
hint of the superiority which he felt toward his parent.

"Politics is all right, provided you're a good picker," he said,
with all the assurance of twenty-two, "but you fell off the wrong
side of the fence, and you're sore."

"Of course I am. Wouldn't anybody be sore?"

"These country towns always go in for the reform stuff, every so
often. If you'd listen to me and--"

His father interrupted harshly: "Now, cut that out. I don't want
to go to New York, and I won't." Peter Knight tried to look
forceful, but the expression did not fit his weak, complacent
features. He was a plump man with red cheeks rounded by habitual
good humor; his chin was short, and beneath it were other chins,
distended and sagging as if from the weight of chuckles within.
When he had succeeded in fixing a look of determination upon his
countenance the result was an artificial scowl and a palpably
false pout. Wearing such a front, he continued: "When I say 'no' I
mean it, and the subject is closed. I like Vale, I know everybody
here, and everybody knows me."

"That's why it's time to move," said Jim, with another unpleasant
curl of his lip. "As long as they didn't know you you got past.
But you'll never hold another office."

"Indeed! My record's open to inspection. I made the best sheriff
in--"

"Two years. Don't kid yourself, pa. Your foot slipped when the
trolley line went through."

"What do you know about the trolley line?" angrily demanded Mr.
Knight.

"Well, I know as much as the county knows. And I know something
about the big dam, too. You got into the mud, pa, but you didn't
go deep enough to find the frogs. Fogarty got his, didn't he?"

Mr. Knight breathed deep with indignation.

"Senator Fogarty is my good friend. I won't let you question his
honor, although you do presume to question mine."

"Of course he's your friend; that's why he's fixed you for this
New York job. He's not like these Reubs; he remembers a good turn
and blows back with another. He's a real politician."

"'Department of Water Supply, Gas, and Electricity,'" sneered
Peter. "It sounds good, but the salary is fifteen hundred a year.
A clerk--at my age!"

"Say, d'you suppose Tammany men live on their salaries?" Jimmy
inquired. "Wake up! This is your chance to horn into the real
herd. In New York politics is a vocation; up here it's a vacation-
-everybody tries it once, like music lessons. If you'd been hooked
up with Tammany instead of the state machine you'd have been taken
care of."

"I tell you I don't like cities. It's no place to raise kids."

At this James betrayed some irritation. "I'm of age, and Lorelei's
a grown woman. If we don't get out of Vale I'll still be a
brakeman on a soda-fountain when I'm your age."

"If you'd worked hard you'd have had an interest in the drug store
now."

"Rats!"

At this juncture Mrs. Knight, having finished the supper dishes
and set her bread to rise, entered the shoddy parlor. Jim turned
to her, shrugging his shoulders with an air of washing his hands
of a disagreeable subject. "Pa's weakened again," he explained.
"He won't go."

"Me, a clerk--at my age!" mumbled Peter.

"I've been trying to tell him that he'd get a half-Nelson on
Tammany inside of a year. He squeezed the sheriff's office till it
squealed, and if he can pinch a dollar out of this burg he can--"

"You shut up! I don't like your way of saying things," snarled Mr.
Knight.

His wife spoke for the first time, with brief conclusiveness.

"I wrote and thanked Senator Fogarty for his offer and told him
you'd accept."

"You--what?" Peter was dumfounded.

"Yes"--Mrs. Knight seemed oblivious of his wrath--"we're going to
make a change."

Mrs. Knight was a large woman well advanced beyond that indefinite
turning-point of middle age; in her unattractive face was none of
the easy good nature so unmistakably stamped upon her husband's.
Peter J. was inherently optimistic; his head was forever hidden in
a roseate aura of hopefulness and expectation. Under easy living
he had grayed and fattened; his eyes were small and colorless, his
cheeks full and veined with tiny sprays Of purple, his hands soft
and limber. What had once been a measure of good looks was hidden
now behind a flabby, indefinite mediocrity which an unusual
carefulness in dress could not disguise. He was big-hearted in
little things; in big things he was small. He told an excellent
story, but never imagined one, and his laugh was hearty though
insincere. Men who knew him well laughed with him, but did not
indorse his notes.

His wife was of a totally different stamp, showing evidence of
unusual force. Her thin lips, her clean-cut nose betokened
purpose; a pair of alert, unpleasant eyes spoke of a mental
activity that was entirely lacking in her mate, and she was
generally recognized as the source of what little prominence he
had attained.

"Yes, we're going to make a change," she repeated. "I'm glad, too,
for I'm tired of housework."

"You don't have to do your own work. There's Lorelei to help."

"You know I wouldn't let her do it."

"Afraid it would spoil her hands, eh?" Mr. Knight snorted,
disdainfully. "What are hands made for, anyhow? Honest work never
hurt mine."

Jim stirred and smiled; the retort upon his lips was only too
obvious.

"She's too pretty," said the mother. "You don't realize it; none
of us do, but--she's beautiful. Where she gets her good looks from
I don't know." "What's the difference? It won't hurt her to wash
dishes. She wouldn't have to keep it up forever, anyhow; she can
have any fellow in the county."

"Yes, and she'll marry, sure, if we stay here."

Knight's colorless eyes opened. "Then what are you talking about
going away to a strange place for? It ain't every girl that can
have her pick."

Mrs. Knight began slowly, musingly: "You need some plain talk,
Peter. I don't often tell you just what I think, but I'm going to
now. You're past fifty; you've spent twenty years puttering around
at politics, with business as a side issue, and what have you got
to show for it? Nothing. The reformers are in at last, and you're
out for good. You had your chance and you missed it. You were
always expecting something big, some fat office with big profits,
but it never came. Do you know why? Because YOU aren't big, that's
why. You're little, Peter; you know it, and so does the party."

The object of this address swelled pompously; his cheeks deepened
in hue and distended; but while he was summoning words for a
defense his wife ran on evenly:

"The party used you just as long as you could deliver something,
but you're down and out now, and they've thrown you over. Fogarty
offers to pay his debt, and I'm not going to refuse his help."

"I suppose you think you could have done better if you'd been in
my place," Peter grumbled. He was angry, yet the undeniable truth
of his wife's words struck home. "That's the woman of it. You kick
because we're poor, and then want me to take a fifteen-hundred-
dollar job."

"Bother the salary! It will keep us going as long as necessary"

"Eh?" Mr. Knight looked blank.

"I'm thinking of Lorelei. She's going to give us our chance."

"Lorelei?"

"Yes. You wonder why I've never let her spoil her hands--why I've
scrimped to give her pretty clothes, and taught her to take care
of her figure, and made her go out with young people. Well, I knew
what I was doing; it was part of her schooling. She's old enough
now; and she has everything that any girl ever had, so far as
looks go. She's going to do for us what you never have been and
never will be able to do, Peter Knight. She's going to make us
rich. But she can't do it in Vale."

"Ma's right," declared James. "New York's the place for pretty
women; the town is full of them."

"If it's full of pretty women what chance has she got?" queried
Peter. "She can't break into society on my fifteen hundred--"

"She won't need to. She can go on the stage."

"Good Lord! What makes you think she can act?"

"Do you remember that Miss Donald who stopped at Myrtle Lodge last
summer? She's an actress."

"No!" Mr. Knight was amazed.

"She told me a good deal about the show business. She said Lorelei
wouldn't have the least bit of trouble getting a position. She
gave me a note to a manager, too, and I sent him Lorelei's
photograph. He wrote right back that he'd give her a place."

"Really?"

"Yes; he's looking for pretty girls with good figures. His name is
Bergman."

Jim broke in eagerly. "You've heard of Bergman's Revues, pa. We
saw one last summer, remember? Bergman's a big fellow."

"THAT show? Why, that was--rotten. It isn't a very decent life,
either."

"Don't worry about Sis," advised Jim. "She can take care of
herself, and she'll grab a millionaire sure--with her looks. Other
girls are doing it every day--why not her? Ma's got the right
idea."

Impassively Mrs. Knight resumed her argument. "New York is where
the money is--and the women that go with money. It's the market-
place. The stage advertises a pretty girl and gives her chances to
meet rich men. Here in Vale there's nobody with money, and,
besides, people know us. The Stevens girls have been nasty to
Lorelei all winter, and she's never invited to the golf-club
dances any more."

At this intelligence Mr. Knight burst forth indignantly:

"They're putting on a lot of airs since the Interurban went
through; but Ben Stevens forgets who helped him get the franchise.
I could tell a lot of things--"

"Bergman writes," continued Mrs. Knight, "that Lorelei wouldn't
have to go on the road at all if she didn't care to. The real
pretty show-girls stay right in New York."

Jim added another word. "She's the best asset we've got, pa, and
if we all work together we'll land her in the money, sure."

Peter Knight pinched his full red lips into a pucker and stared
speculatively at his wife. It was not often that she openly showed
her hand to him.

"It seems like an awful long chance," he said.

"Not so long, perhaps, as you think," his wife assured him.
"Anyhow, it's our ONLY chance, and we're not popular in Vale."

"Have you talked to her about it?"

"A little. She'll do anything we ask. She's a good girl that way."

The three were still buried in discussion when Lorelei appeared at
the door.

"I'm going over to Mabel's," she paused a moment to say. "I'll be
back early, mother."

In Peter Knight's eyes, as he gazed at his daughter, there was
something akin to shame; but Jim evinced only a hard, calculating
appraisal. Both men inwardly acknowledged that the mother had
spoken less than half the truth, for the girl was extravagantly,
bewitchingly attractive. Her face and form would have been
noticeable anywhere and under any circumstances; but now in
contrast with the unmodified homeliness of her parents and brother
her comeliness was almost startling. The others seemed to
harmonize with their drab surroundings, with the dull,
unattractive house and its furnishings, but Lorelei was in violent
opposition to everything about her. She wore her beauty
unconsciously, too, as a princess wears the purple of her rank.
Neither in speech nor in look did she show a trace of her father's
fatuous commonplaceness, and she gave no sign of her mother's
coldly calculating disposition. Equally the girl differed from her
brother, for Jim was anemic, underdeveloped, sallow; his only mark
of distinction being his bright and impudent eye, while she was
full-blooded, healthy, and clean. Splendidly distinctive, from her
crown of warm amber hair to her shapely, slender feet, it seemed
that all the hopes, all the aspirations, all the longings of
bygone generations of Knights had flowered in her. As muddy waters
purify themselves in running, so had the Knight blood, coming
through unpleasant channels, finally clarified and sweetened
itself in this girl. In the color of her eyes she resembled
neither parent; Mrs. Knight's were close-set and hard; Peter's
shallow, indefinite, weak. Lorelei's were limpid and of a twilight
blue. Her single paternal inheritance was a smile perhaps a trifle
too ready and too meaningless. Yet it was a pleasant smile,
indicative of a disposition toward courtesy, if not self-
depreciation.

But there all resemblance ceased. Lorelei Knight was mysteriously
different from her kin; she might almost have sprung from a
different strain, and except as one of those "throwbacks" which
sometimes occur in a mediocre family, when an exotic offspring
blooms like a delicate blossom in a bed of weeds, she was
inexplicable. Simple living had made her strong, yet she remained
exquisite; behind a natural and a deep reserve she was vibrant
with youth and spirits.

In the doorway she hesitated an instant, favoring the group with
her shadowy, impersonal smile. In her gaze there was a faint
inquiry, for it was plain that she had interrupted a serious
discussion. She came forward and rested a hand upon her father's
thinly haired bullet-head. Peter reached up and took it in his own
moist palm.

"We were just talking about you," he said.

"Yes?" The smile remained as the girl's touch lingered.

"Your ma thinks I'd better accept that New York offer on your
account."

"On mine? I don't understand."

Peter stroked the hand in his clasp, and his weak, upturned face
was wrinkled with apprehension. "She thinks you should see the
world and--make something of yourself."

"That would be nice." Lorelei's lips were still parted as she
turned toward her mother in some bewilderment.

"You'd like the city, wouldn't you?" Mrs. Knight inquired.

"Why, yes; I suppose so."

"We're poor--poorer than we've ever been. Jim will have to work,
and so will you."

"I'll do what I can, of course; but--I don't know how to do
anything. I'm afraid I won't be much help at first."

"We'll see to that. Now, run along, dearie."

When she had gone Peter gave a grunt of conviction.

"She IS pretty," he acknowledged; "pretty as a picture, and you
certainly dress her well. She'd ought to make a good actress."

Jim echoed him enthusiastically. "Pretty? I'll bet Bernhardt's got
nothing on her for looks. She'll have a brownstone hut on Fifth
Avenue and an air-tight limousine one of these days, see if she
don't."

"When do you plan to leave?" faltered the father.

Mrs. Knight answered with some satisfaction: "Rehearsals commence
in May."

CHAPTER II

Mr. Cambell Pope was a cynic. He had cultivated a superb contempt
for those beliefs which other people cherish; he rejoiced in an
open rebellion against convention, and manifested this hostility
in an exaggerated carelessness of dress and manner. It was perhaps
his habit of thought as much as anything else that had made him a
dramatic critic; but it was a knack for keen analysis and a
natural, caustic wit that had raised him to eminence in his field.
Outwardly he was a sloven and a misanthrope; inwardly he was
simple and rather boyish, but years of experience in a box-office,
then as advance man and publicity agent for a circus, and finally
as a Metropolitan reviewer, had destroyed his illusions and soured
his taste for theatrical life. His column was widely read; his
name was known; as a prophet he was uncanny, hence managers
treated him with a gingerly courtesy not always quite sincere.

Most men attain success through love of their work; Mr. Pope had
become an eminent critic because of his hatred for the drama and
all things dramatic. Nor was he any more enamoured of journalism,
being in truth by nature bucolic, but after trying many
occupations and failing in all of them he had returned to his desk
after each excursion into other fields. First-night audiences knew
him now, and had come to look for his thin, sharp features. His
shapeless, wrinkled suit that resembled a sleeping-bag; his
flannel shirt, always tieless and frequently collarless, were
considered attributes of genius; and, finding New York to be
amazingly gullible, he took a certain delight in accentuating his
eccentricities. At especially prominent premieres he affected a
sweater underneath his coat, but that was his nearest approach to
formal evening dress. Further concession to fashion he made none.

Owing to the dearth of new productions this summer, Pope had
undertaken a series of magazine articles descriptive of the
reigning theatrical beauties, and, while he detested women in
general and the painted favorites of Broadway in particular, he
had forced himself to write the common laudatory stuff which the
public demanded. Only once had he given free rein to his
inclinations and written with a poisoned pen. To-night, however,
as he entered the stage door of Bergman's Circuit Theater, it was
with a different intent.

Regan, the stage-door tender, better known since his vaudeville
days as "The Judge," answered his greeting with a lugubrious shake
of a bald head.

"I'm a sick man, Mr. Pope. Same old trouble."

"M-m-m. Kidneys, isn't it?"

"No. Rheumatism. I'm a beehive swarmin' with pains."

"To be sure. It's Hemphill, the door-man at the Columbus, who has
the floating kidney. I paid for his operation."

"Hemphill. Operation! Ha!" The Judge cackled in a voice hoarse
from alcoholic excesses. "He bilked you, Mr. Pope. He's the guy
that put the kid in kidney. There's nothing wrong with him. He
could do his old acrobatic turn if he wanted to."

"I remember the act."

"Me an' Greenberg played the same bill with him twenty years ago."
The Judge leaned forward, and a strong odor of whisky enveloped
the caller. "Could you slip me four bits for some liniment?"

The critic smiled. "There's a dollar, Regan. Try Scotch for a
change. It's better for you than these cheap blends. And don't
breathe toward a lamp, or you'll ignite."

The Judge laughed wheezingly. "I do take a drop now and then."

"A drop? You'd better take a tumble, or Bergman will
let you out."

"See here, you know all the managers, Mr. Pope. Can't you find a
job for a swell dame?" the Judge inquired, anxiously.

"Who is she?"

"Lottie Devine. She's out with the 'Peach Blossom Girls.'"

"Lottie Devine. Why, she's your wife, isn't she?"

"Sure, and playing the 'Wheel' when she belongs in musical comedy.
She dances as good as she did when we worked together--after she
gets warmed up--and she looks great in tights--swellest legs in
burlesque, Mr. Pope. Can't you place her?"

"She's a trifle old, I'm afraid."

"Huh! She wigs up a lot better'n some of the squabs in this
troupe. Believe me, she'd fit any chorus."

"Why don't you ask Bergman?"

Mr. Regan shook his hairless head. "He's dippy on 'types.' This
show's full of 'em: real blondes, real brunettes, bold and dashin'
ones, tall and statelies, blushers, shrinkers, laughers, and
sadlings. He won't stand for make-up; he wants 'em with the dew
on. They've got to look natural for Bergman. That's some of 'em
now." He nodded toward a group of young, fresh-cheeked girls who
had entered the stage door and were hurrying down the hall. "There
ain't a Hepnerized ensemble in the whole first act, and they wear
talcum powder instead of tights. It's dimples he wants, not
'fats.' How them girls stand the draught I don't know. It would
kill an old-timer."

"I've come to interview one of Bergman's 'types'; that new beauty,
Miss Knight. Is she here yet?"

"Sure; her and the back-drop, too. She carries the old woman for
scenery." Mr. Regan took the caller's card and shuffled away,
leaving Pope to watch the stream of performers as they entered and
made for their quarters. There were many women in the number, and
all of them were pretty. Most of them were overdressed in the
extremes of fashion; a few quietly garbed ladies and gentlemen
entered the lower dressing-rooms reserved for the principals.

It was no novel sight to the reviewer, whose theatrical
apprenticeship had been thorough, yet it never failed to awaken
his deepest cynicism. Somewhere within him was a puritanical
streak, and he still cherished youthful memories. He reflected now
that it was he who had laid the foundation for the popularity of
the girl he had come to interview; for he had picked her out of
the chorus of the preceding Revue and commented so
enthusiastically upon her beauty that this season had witnessed
her advancement to a speaking part. Through Pope's column
attention had been focused upon Bergman's latest acquisition; and
once New York had paused to look carefully at this fresh young
new-comer, her fame had spread. But he had never met the girl
herself, and he wondered idly what effect success had had upon
her. A total absence of scandal had argued against any previous
theatrical experience.

Meanwhile he exchanged greetings with the star--a clear-eyed man
with the face of a scholar and the limbs of an athlete. The latter
had studied for the law; he had the drollest legs in the business,
and his salary exceeded that of Supreme Court Justice. They were
talking when Mr. Regan returned to tell the interviewer that he
would be received.

Pope followed to the next floor and entered a brightly lighted,
overheated dressing-room, where Lorelei and her mother were
waiting. It was a glaring, stuffy cubbyhole ventilated by means of
the hall door and a tiny window opening from the lavatory at the
rear. Along the sides ran mirrors, beneath which was fixed a wide
make-up shelf. From the ceiling depended several unshaded
incandescent globes which flooded the place with a desert heat and
radiance. An attempt had been made to give the room at least a
semblance of coolness by hanging an attractively figured cretonne
over the entrance and over the wardrobe hooks fixed in the rear
wall; but the result was hardly successful. The same material had
been utilized to cover the shelves which were littered with a
bewildering assortment of make-up tins, cold-cream cans, rouge and
powder boxes, whitening bottles, wig-blocks, and the multifarious
disordered accumulations of a dressing-room. The walls were half
hidden behind photographs, impaled upon pins, like entomological
specimens; photographs were thrust into the mirror frames, they
were propped against the heaps of tins and boxes or hidden beneath
the confusion of toilet articles. But the collection was not
limited to this variety of specimen. One section of the wall was
devoted to telegraph and cable forms, bearing messages of
felicitation at the opening of "The Revue of 1913." A zoologist
would have found the display uninteresting; but a society reporter
would have reveled in the names--and especially in the sentiments--
inscribed upon the yellow sheets. Some were addressed to Lorelei
Knight, others to Lilas Lynn, her roommate.

Pope found Lorelei completely dressed, in expectation of his
arrival. She wore the white and silver first-act costume of the
Fairy Princess. Both she and her mother were plainly nonplussed at
the appearance of their caller; but Mrs. Knight recovered quickly
from the shock and said agreeably:

"Lorelei was frightened to death at your message yesterday. She
was almost afraid to let you interview her after what you wrote
about Adoree Demorest."

Pope shrugged. "Your daughter is altogether different to the star
of the Palace Garden, Mrs. Knight. Demorest trades openly upon her
notoriety and--I don't like bad women. New York never would have
taken her up if she hadn't been advertised as the wickedest woman
in Europe, for she can neither act, sing, nor dance. However,
she's become the rage, so I had to include her in my series of
articles. Now, Miss Knight has made a legitimate success as far as
she has gone."

He turned to the girl herself, who was smiling at him as she had
smiled since his entrance. He did not wonder at the prominence her
beauty had brought her, for even at this close range her make-up
could not disguise her loveliness. The lily had been painted, to
be sure, but the sacrilege was not too noticeable; and he knew
that the cheeks beneath their rouge were faintly colored, that the
lashes under the heavy beading were long and dark and sweeping. As
for her other features, no paint could conceal their perfection.
Her forehead was linelessly serene, her brows were straight and
too well-defined to need the pencil. As for her eyes, too much had
been written about them already; they had proven the despair of
many men, or so rumor had it. He saw that they had depths and
shadows and glints of color that he could not readily define. Her
nose, pronounced perfect by experts on noses, seemed faultless
indeed. Her mouth was no tiny cupid's bow, but generous enough for
character. Of course, the lips were glaringly red now, but the
expression was none the less sweet and friendly.

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