The Miracle Man

The Miracle Man

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Miracle Man, by Frank L.
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Title: The Miracle Man
Author: Frank L. Packard
Release Date: April 7, 2005 [EBook #15578]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE MIRACLE MAN
BY FRANK L. PACKARD
AUTHOR OF GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN, ETC.

NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
1914
TO NEARLY EVERYBODY

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I
THE "ROOST"
II A NEW CULT
III NEEDLEY
IV THE PATRIARCH
V A STRANGE CONVERSATION
VI OFFICIALLY ENDORSED
VII THE PATRIARCH'S GRAND NIECE
VIII IN WHICH THE BAIT IS NIBBLED
IX THE PILGRIMAGE
X THE MIRACLE
XI THE AFTERMATH
XII "SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY"
XIII REAL MONEY

XIV KNOTTING THE STRINGS
XV THE MIRACLE OVERDONE
XVI A FLY IN THE OINTMENT
XVII IN WHICH HELENA TAKES A RIDE
XVIII THE BOOMERANG
XIX THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS
XX TO THE VICTOR ARE THE SPOILS
XXI FACE VALUE
XXII THE SHRINE
XXIII THE WAY OUT
XXIV VALE!

THE MIRACLE MAN

--I--
THE "ROOST"
He was a misshapen thing, bulking a black blotch in the night at the
entrance of the dark alleyway--like some lurking creature in its lair. He
neither stood, nor kneeled, nor sat--no single word would describe his
posture--he combined all three in a sort of repulsive, formless heap.
The Flopper moved. He came out from the alleyway onto the pavement,
into the lurid lights of the Bowery, flopping along knee to toe on one
leg, dragging the other leg behind him--and the leg he dragged was

limp and wobbled from the knee. One hand sought the pavement to
balance himself and aid in locomotion; the other arm, the right, was
twisted out from his body in the shape of an inverted V, the palm of his
hand, with half curled, contorted fingers, almost touching his chin, as
his head sagged at a stiff, set angle into his right shoulder. Hair
straggled from the brim of a nondescript felt hat into his eyes, and
curled, dirty and unshorn, around his ears and the nape of his neck. His
face was covered with a stubble of four days' growth, his body with
rags--a coat; a shirt, the button long since gone at the neck; and trousers
gaping in wide rents at the knees, and torn at the ankles where they
flapped around miss-mated socks and shoes.
A hundred, two hundred people passed him in a block, the populace of
the Bowery awakening into fullest life at midnight, men, women and
children--the dregs of the city's scum--the aristocracy of upper Fifth
Avenue, of Riverside Drive, aping Bohemianism, seeking the lure of
the Turkey Trot, transported from the Barbary Coast of San Francisco.
Rich and poor, squalor and affluence, vice and near-vice surged by him,
voicing their different interests with laughter and sobs and soft words
and blasphemy, and, in a sort of mocking chorus, the composite effect
rose and fell in pitiful, jangling discords.
Few gave him heed--and these few but a cursory, callous glance. The
Flopper, on the inside of the sidewalk, in the shadow of the buildings,
gave as little as he got, though his eyes were fastened sharply, now
ahead, now, screwing around his body to look behind him, on the faces
of the pedestrians as they passed; or, rather, he appeared to look
through and beyond those in his immediate vicinity to the ones that
followed in his rear from further down the street, or approached him
from the next corner.
Suddenly the Flopper shrank into a doorway. From amidst the crowd
behind, the yellow flare of a gasoline lamp, outhanging from a
secondhand shop, glinted on brass buttons. An officer, leisurely
accommodating his pace to his own monarchial pleasure, causing his
hurrying fellow occupants of the pavement to break and circle around
him, sauntered casually by. The Flopper's black eyes contracted with

hate and a scowl settled on his face, as he watched the policeman pass;
then, as the other was lost again in the crowd ahead, he once more
resumed his progress down the block.
The Flopper crossed the intersecting street, his leg trailing a helpless,
sinuous path on its not over-clean surface, and started along the next
block. Halfway down was a garishly lighted establishment. When near
this the Flopper began to hurry desperately, as from further along the
street again his ear caught the peculiar raucous note of an