“But I tell you it isn’t here!” he babbled. “I’ve looked, and it’s not here! I can’t find it!...Here, you fellows!” he shouted to some firemen who were dragging a heavy hose across the gravelled court. “I’m locked in! I want out of here!”
Most of the firemen paid no attention to him at all, but one of them looked up at the man, said briefly: “O.K., chief!”—and then went on about his work.
“Do you hear me?” the man screamed. “You firemen, you! I tell you…1″
“Dad…Dad”—a young man beside the woman on the ground now spoke up quietly—“don’t get so excited. You’re in no danger there. All the fire is on the other side. They’ll let you out in a minute when they can get to you.”
Across the court, at the very entrance from which the Jacks had issued, a man in evening clothes, accompanied by his chauffeur, had been staggering in and out with great loads of ponderous ledgers. He had already accumulated quite a pile of them, which he was stacking up on the gravel and leaving under the guardianship of his butler. From the beginning this man had been so absorbed in what he was doing that he was completely unconscious of the milling throng round him. Now, as he again prepared to rush into the smoke-filled corridor with his chauffeur, he was stopped by the police.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the policeman said, “but you can’t go in there again. We’ve got orders not to let anybody in.”
“But I’ve got to!” the man shouted. “I’m Philip J. Baer!” At the sound of this potent name, all those within hearing distance instantly recognised him as a wealthy and influential figure in the motion picture industry, and one whose accounts had recently been called into investigation by a board of governmental inquiry. “There are seventy-five millions dollars’ worth of records in my apartment,” he shouted, “and I’ve got to get them out! They’ve got to be saved!”
He tried to push his way in, but the policeman thrust him back.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Baer,” he said obdurately, “but we have our orders. You can’t come in.”
The effect of this refusal was instantaneous and shocking. The one principle of Mr. Baer’s life was that money is the only thing that counts because money can buy anything. That principle had been flouted. So the naked philosophy of tooth and claw, which in moments of security and comfort was veiled beneath a velvet sheath, now became ragingly insistent. A tall, dark man with a rapacious, beak-nosed face, he became now like a wild animal, a beast of prey. He went charging about among the crowds of people, offering everyone fabulous sums if they would save his cherished records. He rushed up to a group of firemen, seizing one of them by the arm and shaking him, shouting:
“I’m Philip J. Baer—I live in there! You’ve got to help me! I’ll give any man here ten thousand dollars if he’ll get my records out!”
The burly fireman turned his weathered face upon the rich man. “On your way, brother!” he said.
“But I tell you!” Mr. Baer shouted. “You don’t know who I am! I’m----”
“I don’t care who you are!” the fireman said. “On your way now! We’ve got work to do!”
And, roughly, he pushed the great man aside.
Most of the crowd behaved very well under the stress of these unusual circumstances. Since there was no actual fire to watch, the people shifted and moved about, taking curious side looks at one another out of the corners of their eyes. Most of them had never even seen their neighbours before, and now for the first time they had an opportunity to appraise one another. And in a little while, as the excitement and their need for communication broke through the walls of their reserve, they began to show a spirit of fellowship such as that enormous beehive of life had never seen before. People who, at other times, had never deigned so much as to nod at each other were soon laughing and talking together with the familiarity of long acquaintance.
A famous courtesan, wearing a chinchilla coat which her aged but wealthy lover had given her, now took off this magnificent garment and, walking over to an elderly woman with a delicate, patrician face, she threw the coat over this woman’s thinly covered shoulders, at the same time saying in a tough but kindly voice:
“You wear this, dearie. You look cold.”
And the older woman, after a startled expression had crossed her proud face, smiled graciously and thanked her tarnished sister in a sweet tone. Then the two women stood talking together like old friends.
A haughty old Bourbon of the Knickerbocker type was seen engaged in cordial conversation with a Tammany politician whose corrupt plunderings were notorious, and whose companionship, in any social sense, the Bourbon would have spurned indignantly an hour before.
Aristocrats of ancient lineage who had always held to a tradition of stiff-necked exclusiveness could be seen chatting familiarly with the plebeian parvenus of the new rich who had got their names and money, both together, only yesterday.