An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

open air meetings …”

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991

Chapter 24

CLYDE’S testimony proceeded to the point where the family

had removed from Quincy, Illinois (a place resorted to on

account of some Salvation Army work offered his father and

mother), to Kansas City, where from his twelfth to his

fifteenth year he had browsed about trying to find

something to do while still resenting the combination of

school and religious work expected of him.

“Were you up with your classes in the public schools?”

“No, sir. We had moved too much.”

“In what grade were you when you were twelve years old?”

“Well, I should have been in the seventh but I was only in

the sixth. That’s why I didn’t like it.”

“And how about the religious work of your parents?”

“Well, it was all right—only I never did like going out nights

on the street corners.”

And so on, through five-and-ten cent store, soda and

newspaper carrier jobs, until at last he was a bell-hop at the

Green-Davidson, the finest hotel in Kansas City, as he

informed them.

“But now, Clyde,” proceeded Jephson who, fearful lest

Mason on the cross-examination and in connection with

Clyde’s credibility as a witness should delve into the matter

of the wrecked car and the slain child in Kansas City and so

mar the effect of the story he was now about to tell, was

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determined to be beforehand in this. Decidedly, by

questioning him properly he could explain and soften all

that, whereas if left to Mason it could be tortured into

something exceedingly dark indeed. And so now he

continued:

“And how long did you work there?”

“A little over a year.”

“And why did you leave?”

“Well, it was on account of an accident”

“What kind of an accident?”

And here Clyde, previously prepared and drilled as to all

this plunged into the details which led up to and included

the death of the little girl and his flight—which Mason, true

enough, had been intending to bring up. But, now, as he

listened to all this, he merely shook his head and grunted

ironically, “He’d better go into all that,” he commented. And

Jephson, sensing the import of what he was doing—how

most likely he was, as he would have phrased it, “spiking”

one of Mr. Mason’s best guns, continued with:

“How old were you then, Clyde, did you say?”

“Between seventeen and eighteen.”

“And do you mean to tell me,” he continued, after he had

finished with all of the questions he could think of in

connection with all this, “that you didn’t know that you might

have gone back there, since you were not the one who took

the car, and after explaining it all, been paroled in the

custody of your parents?”

“Object!” shouted Mason. “There’s no evidence here to

show that he could have returned to Kansas City and been

paroled in the custody of his parents.”

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“Objection sustained!” boomed the judge from his high

throne. “The defense will please confine itself a little more

closely to the letter of the testimony.”

“Exception,” noted Belknap, from his seat.

“No, sir. I didn’t know that,” replied Clyde, just the same.

“Anyhow was that the reason after you got away that you

changed your name to Tenet as you told me?” continued.

Jephson.

“Yes, sir.”

“By the way, just where did you get that name of Tenet,

Clyde?”

“It was the name of a boy I used to play with in Quincy.”

“Was he a good boy?”

“Object!” called Mason, from his chair. “Incompetent,

immaterial, irrelevant.”

“Oh, he might have associated with a good boy in spite of

what you would like to have the jury believe, and in that

sense it is very relevant,” sneered Jephson.

“Objection sustained!” boomed Justice Oberwaltzer.

“But didn’t it occur to you at the time that he might object or

that you might be doing him an injustice in using his name

to cover the identity of a fellow who was running away?”

“No, sir—I thought there were lots of Tenets.”

An indulgent smile might have been expected at this point,

but so antagonistic and bitter was the general public toward

Clyde that such levity was out of the question in this

courtroom.

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“Now listen, Clyde,” continued Jephson, having, as he had

just seen, failed to soften the mood of the throng, “you

cared for your mother, did you?—or didn’t you?”

Objection and argument finally ending in the question being

allowed.

“Yes, sir, certainly I cared for her,” replied Clyde—but after

a slight hesitancy which was noticeable—a tightening of the

throat and a swelling and sinking of the chest as he exhaled

and inhaled.

“Much?”

“Yes, sir—much.” He didn’t venture to look at any one now.

“Hadn’t she always done as much as she could for you, in

her way?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then, Clyde, how was it, after all that, and even

though that dreadful accident had occurred, you could run

away and stay away so long without so much as one word

to tell her that you were by no means as guilty as you

seemed and that she shouldn’t worry because you were

working and trying to be a good boy again?”

“But I did write her—only I didn’t sign my name.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Yes, sir. I sent her a little money. Ten dollars once.”

“But you didn’t think of going back at all?”

“No, sir. I was afraid that if I went back they might arrest

me.”

“In other words,” and here Jephson emphasized this with

great clearness, “you were a moral and mental coward, as

Mr. Belknap, my colleague, said.”

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“I object to this interpretation of this defendant’s testimony

for the benefit of the jury!” interrupted Mason.

“This defendant’s testimony really needs no interpretation. It

is very plain and honest, as any one can see,” quickly

interjected Jephson.

“Objection sustained!” called the judge. “Proceed. Proceed.”

“And it was because you were a moral and mental coward

as I see it, Clyde—not that I am condemning you for

anything that you cannot help. (After all, you didn’t make

yourself, did you?)”

But this was too much, and the judge here cautioned him to

use more discretion in framing his future questions.

“Then you went about in Alton, Peoria, Bloomington,

Milwaukee, and Chicago—hiding away in small rooms in

back streets and working as a dishwasher or soda fountain

man, or a driver, and changing your name to Tenet when

you really might have gone back to Kansas City and

resumed your old place?” continued Jephson.

“I object! I object!” yelled Mason. “There is no evidence

here to show that he could have gone there and resumed

his old place.”

“Objection sustained,” ruled Oberwaltzer, although at the

time in Jephson’s pocket was a letter from Francis X.

Squires, formerly captain of the bell-hops of the Green-

Davidson at the time Clyde was there, in which he

explained that apart from the one incident in connection

with the purloined automobile, he knew nothing derogatory

to Clyde; and that always previously, he had found him

prompt, honest, willing, alert and well-mannered. Also that

at the time the accident occurred, he himself had been

satisfied that Clyde could have been little else than one of

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those led and that if he had returned and properly explained

matters he would have been reinstated. It was irrelevant.

Thereafter followed Clyde’s story of how, having fled from

the difficulties threatening him in Kansas City and having

wandered here and there for two years, he had finally

obtained a place in Chicago as a driver and later as a bell-

boy at the Union League, and also how while still employed

at the first of these places he had written his mother and

later at her request was about to write his uncle, when,

accidentally meeting him at the Union League, he was

invited by him to come to Lycurgus. And thereupon, in their

natural order, followed all of the details, of how he had gone

to work, been promoted and instructed by his cousin and

the foreman as to the various rules, and then later how he

had met Roberta and still later Miss X. But in between came

all the details as to how and why he had courted Roberta

Alden, and how and why, having once secured her love he

felt and thought himself content—but how the arrival of

Miss X, and her overpowering fascination for him, had

served completely to change all his notions in regard to

Roberta, and although he still admired her, caused him to

feel that never again as before could he desire to marry her.

But Jephson, anxious to divert the attention of the jury from

the fact that Clyde was so very fickle—a fact too trying to be

so speedily introduced into the case—at once interposed

with: