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The Ne'er-Do-Well, by Rex Beach

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The Ne'er-Do-Well, by Rex Beach

Title: The Ne'er-Do-Well

Author: Rex Beach

Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook 5405] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was

first posted on July 7, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NE'ER-DO-WELL ***

Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE NE'ER-DO-WELL

By REX BEACH

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

Illustrated

MY WIFE

CONTENTS

I. VICTORY

II. THE TRAIL DIVIDES

III. A GAP

IV. NEW ACQUAINTANCES

V. A REMEDY IS PROPOSED

VI. IN WHICH KIRK ANTHONY IS GREATLY SURPRISED

VII. THE REWARD OF MERIT

VIII. EL COMANDANTE TAKES A HAND

IX. SPANISH LAW

X. A CHANGE OF PLAN

XI. THE TRUTH ABOUT MRS. CORTLANDT

The Ne'er-Do-Well, by Rex Beach

XII. A NIGHT AT TABOGA

XIII. CHIQUITA

XIV. THE PATH THAT LED NOWHERE

XV. ALIAS JEFFERSON LOCKE

XVI. "8838"

XVII. GARAVEL THE BANKER

XVIII. THE SIEGE OF MARIA TORRES

XIX. "LA TOSCA"

XX. AN AWAKENING

XXI. THE REST OF THE FAMILY

XXII. A CHALLENGE AND A CONFESSION

XXIII. A PLOT AND A SACRIFICE

XXIV. A BUSINESS PROPOSITION

XXV. CHECKMATE!

XXVI. THE CRASH

XXVII. A QUESTION

XXVIII. THE ANSWER

XXIX. A LAST APPEAL

XXX. DARWIN K ANTHONY

THE NE'ER-DO-WELL

VICTORY

It was a crisp November night. The artificial brilliance of Broadway was rivalled by a glorious moonlit sky.

The first autumn frost was in the air, and on the side-streets long rows of taxicabs were standing, their motors

blanketed, their chauffeurs threshing their arms to rout the cold. A few well-bundled cabbies, perched upon

old-style hansoms, were barking at the stream of hurrying pedestrians. Against a background of lesser lights

myriad points of electric signs flashed into everchanging shapes, winking like huge, distorted eyes; fanciful

designs of liquid fire ran up and down the walls or blazed forth in lurid colors. From the city's canons came an

incessant clanging roar, as if a great river of brass and steel were grinding its way toward the sea.

The Ne'er-Do-Well, by Rex Beach

Crowds began to issue from the theatres, and the lines of waiting vehicles broke up, filling the streets with the

whir of machinery and the clatter of hoofs. A horde of shrill-voiced urchins pierced the confusion, waving

their papers and screaming the football scores at the tops of their lusty lungs, while above it all rose the hoarse

tones of carriage callers, the commands of traffic officers, and the din of street-car gongs.

In the lobby of one of the playhouses a woman paused to adjust her wraps, and, hearing the cries of the

newsboys, petulantly exclaimed:

"I'm absolutely sick of football. That performance during the third act was enough to disgust one."

Her escort smiled. "Oh, you take it too seriously," he said. "Those boys don't mean anything. That was merely

Youth-- irrepressible Youth, on a tear. You wouldn't spoil the fun?"

"It may have been Youth," returned his companion, "but it sounded more like the end of the world. It was a

little too much!"

A bevy of shop-girls came bustling forth from a gallery exit.

"Rah! rah! rah!" they mimicked, whereupon the cry was answered by a hundred throats as the doors belched

forth the football players and their friends. Out they came, tumbling, pushing, jostling; greeting scowls and

smiles with grins of insolent good-humor. In their hands were decorated walking-sticks and flags, ragged and

tattered as if from long use in a heavy gale. Dignified old gentlemen dived among them in pursuit of top-hats;

hysterical matrons hustled daughters into carriages and slammed the doors.

"Wuxtry! Wuxtry!" shrilled the newsboys. "Full account of the big game!"

A youth with a ridiculous little hat and heliotrope socks dashed into the street, where, facing the crowd, he led

a battle song of his university. Policemen set their shoulders to the mob, but, though they met with no open

resistance, they might as well have tried to dislodge a thicket of saplings. To-night football was king.

Out through the crowd came a score of deep-chested young men moving together as if to resist an attack,

whereupon a mighty roar went up. The cheer-leader increased his antics, and the barking yell changed to a

measured chant, to the time of which the army marched down the street until the twenty athletes dodged in

through the revolving doors of a cafe, leaving Broadway rocking with the tumult.

All the city was football-mad, it seemed, for no sooner had the new-comers entered the restaurant than the

diners rose to wave napkins or to cheer. Men stepped upon chairs and craned for a better sight of them;

women raised their voices in eager questioning. A gentleman in evening dress pointed out the leader of the

squad to his companions, explaining:

"That is Anthony--the big chap. He's Darwin K. Anthony's son. You've heard about the Anthony bill at

Albany?"

"Yes, and I saw this fellow play football four years ago. Say! That was a game."

"He's a worthless sort of chap, isn't he?" remarked one of the women, when the squad had disappeared up the

stairs.

"Just a rich man's son, that's all. But he certainly could play football."

"Didn't I read that he had been sent to jail recently?"

The Ne'er-Do-Well, by Rex Beach

"No doubt. He was given thirty days."

"What! in PRISON?" questioned another, in a shocked voice.

"Only for speeding. It was his third offence, and his father let him take his medicine."

"How cruel!"

"Old man Anthony doesn't care for this sort of thing. He's right, too. All this young fellow is good for is to

spend money."

Up in the banquet-hall, however, it was evident that Kirk Anthony was more highly esteemed by his mates

than by the public at large. He was their hero, in fact, and in a way he deserved it. For three years before his

graduation he had been the heart and sinew of the university team, and for the four years following he had

coached them, preferring the life of an athletic trainer to the career his father had offered him. And he had

done his chosen work well.

Only three weeks prior to the hard gruel of the great game the eleven had received a blow that had left its

supporters dazed and despairing. There had been a scandal, of which the public had heard little and the

students scarcely more, resulting in the expulsion of the five best players of the team. The crisis might have

daunted the most resourceful of men, yet Anthony had proved equal to it. For twenty-one days he had labored

like a real general, spending his nights alone with diagrams and little dummies on a miniature gridiron, his

days in careful coaching. He had taken a huge, ungainly Nova Scotian lad named Ringold for centre; he had

placed a square-jawed, tow-headed boy from Duluth in the line; he had selected a high-strung, unseasoned

chap, who for two years had been eating his heart out on the side-lines, and made him into a quarter-back.

Then he had driven them all with the cruelty of a Cossack captain; and when at last the dusk of this November

day had settled, new football history had been made. The world had seen a strange team snatch victory from

defeat, and not one of all the thirty thousand onlookers but knew to whom the credit belonged. It had been a

tremendous spectacle, and when the final whistle blew for the multitude to come roaring down across the

field, the cohorts had paid homage to Kirk Anthony, the weary coach to whom they knew the honor belonged.

Of course this fervid enthusiasm and hero-worship was all very immature, very foolish, as the general public

acknowledged after it had taken time to cool off. Yet there was something appealing about it, after all. At any

rate, the press deemed the public sufficiently interested in the subject to warrant giving it considerable

prominence, and the name of Darwin K. Anthony's son was published far and wide.

Naturally, the newspapers gave the young man's story as well as a history of the game. They told of his

disagreement with his father; of the Anthony anti-football bill which the old man in his rage had driven

through the legislature and up to the Governor himself. Some of them even printed a rehash of the railroad

man's famous magazine attack on the modern college, in which he all but cited his own son as an example of

the havoc wrought by present- day university methods. The elder Anthony's wealth and position made it good

copy. The yellow journals liked it immensely, and, strangely enough, notwithstanding the positiveness with

which the newspapers spoke, the facts agreed essentially with their statements. Darwin K. Anthony and his

son had quarrelled, they were estranged; the young man did prefer idleness to industry. Exactly as the

published narratives related, he toiled not at all, he spun nothing but excuses, he arrayed himself in sartorial

glory, and drove a yellow racing-car beyond the speed limit.

It was all true, only incomplete. Kirk Anthony's father had even better reasons for his disapproval of the

young man's behavior than appeared. The fact was that Kirk's associates were of a sort to worry any observant

parent, and, moreover, he had acquired a renown in that part of New York lying immediately west of

Broadway and north of Twenty-sixth Street which, in his father's opinion, added not at all to the lustre of the

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