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Title: The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon - and other humorous tales
Author: Connell, Richard
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon - and other humorous tales" ***
_The Sin of
Monsieur Pettipon_
AND
_Other Humorous Tales_
_Richard Connell_
_The Sin of
Monsieur Pettipon_
AND
_Other Humorous Tales_
BY
_Richard Connell_
[Illustration]
_New York_
_Copyright, 1922,
By George H. Doran Company_
[Illustration]
_Copyright, 1922, by P. F. Collier & Son Co._
_Copyright, 1921, by The Century Co._
_Copyright, 1920, by Street and Smith Corporation_
_Copyright, 1921, by The McCall Company_
_Copyright, 1920, 1921, 1922, By the Curtis Publishing Company_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO LOUISE FOX CONNELL
_My Wife Who Helped Me With These Stories_
CONTENTS
PAGE
I _The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon_ 11
II _Mr. Pottle and the South-Sea Cannibals_ 31
III _Mr. Pottle and Culture_ 51
IV _Mr. Pottle and the One Man Dog_ 69
V _Mr. Pottle and Pageantry_ 101
VI _The Cage Man_ 127
VII _Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?_ 145
VIII _Mr. Braddy's Bottle_ 165
IX _Gretna Greenhorns_ 187
X _Terrible Epps_ 207
XI _Honor Among Sportsmen_ 239
XII _The $25,000 Jaw_ 263
I: _The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon_
Moistening the tip of his immaculate handkerchief, M. Alphonse Marie
Louis Camille Pettipon deftly and daintily rubbed an almost
imperceptible speck of dust from the mirror in Stateroom C 341 of the
liner _Voltaire_ of the Paris-New York Steamship Company, and a little
sigh of happiness fluttered his double chins.
He set about his task of making up the berths in the stateroom with the
air of a high priest performing a sacerdotal ritual. His big pink hands
gently smoothed the crinkles from the linen pillow cases; the woolen
blankets he arranged in neat, folded triangles and stood off to survey
the effect as an artist might. And, indeed, Monsieur Pettipon considered
himself an artist.
To him the art of being a steward was just as estimable as the art of
being a poet; he was a Shelley of the dustpan; a Keats of the sheets. To
him the making up of a berth in one of the cabins he tended was a
sonnet; an orange pip or burnt match on the floor was as intolerable as
a false quantity. Few poets took as much pains with their pens as he did
with his whisk. He loved his work with a zeal almost fanatical.
Lowering himself to his plump knees, Monsieur Pettipon swept the floor
with a busy brush, humming the while a little Provence song:
_"My mama's at Paris,
My papa's at Versailles,
But me, I am here,
Sleeping in the straw._
CHORUS:
_"Oo la la,
Oo la la,
Oo la, oo la,
Oo la la."_
As he sang the series of "Oo la las" he kept time with strokes of his
brush, one stroke to each "la," until a microscope could not have
detected the smallest crumb of foreign matter on the red carpet.
Then he hoisted himself wheezily to his feet and with critical eye
examined the cabin. It was perfection. Once more he sighed the happy
little sigh of work well done; then he gathered up his brush, his
dustpan and his collection of little cleaning rags and entered the
stateroom next door, where he expertly set about making things tidy to
an accompaniment of "Oo la las."
Suddenly in the midst of a "la la," he broke off, and his wide brow
puckered as an outward sign that some disquieting thought was stirring
beneath it. He was not going to be able to buy his little son Napoleon a
violin this trip either.
The look of contentment he usually wore while doing the work he loved
gave way to small furrows of worry. He was saying silently to himself:
"Ah, Alphonse, old boy, this violin situation is getting serious. Your
little Napoleon is thirteen, and it is at that tender age that virtuosos
begin to find themselves. And what is a virtuoso without a violin? You
should be a steward of the first class, old turnip, where each trip you
would be tipped the price of a violin; on second-class tips one cannot
buy even mouth organs. Alas!"
Each trip now, for months, Monsieur Pettipon had said to his wife as he
left his tiny flat in the Rue Dauphine, "This time, Thérèse, I will have
a millionaire. He will see with what care I smooth his sheets and pick
the banana skins from the floor, and he will say, 'This Pettipon is not
such a bad lot. I will give him twenty dollars.' Or he will write to M.
Victor Ronssoy about me, and Monsieur Ronssoy will order the captain to
order the chief steward to make me a steward of the first class, and
then, my dear, I will buy a violin the most wonderful for our little
cabbage."
To which the practical Thérèse would reply, "Millionaires do not travel
second class."
And Monsieur Pettipon would smile hopefully and say "Who can tell?"
although he knew perfectly well that she was right.
And Thérèse would pick a nonexistent hair from the worn collar of his
coat and remark, "Oh, if you were only a steward of the first class, my
Alphonse!"
"Patience, my dear Thérèse, patience," he would say, secretly glowing as
men do when their life ambition is touched on.
"Patience? Patience, indeed!" she would exclaim. "Have you not crossed
on the _Voltaire_ a hundred and twenty-seven times? Has a speck of dust
ever been found in one of your cabins? You should have been promoted
long ago. You are being done a dirtiness, Monsieur Pettipon."
And he would march off to his ship, wagging his big head.
This trip, clearly, there was no millionaire. In C 341 was a young
painter and his bride; his tip would be two dollars, and that would be
enough, for was he not a fellow artist? In C 342 were two lingerie
buyers from New York; they would exact much service, give hints of much
reward and, unless Monsieur Pettipon looked sharp, would slip away
without tipping him at all. In C 343 were school-teachers, two to a
berth; Monsieur Pettipon appraised them at five dollars for the party; C
344 contained two fat ladies--very sick; and C 345 contained two thin
ladies--both sick. Say a dollar each. In C 346 was a shaggy-bearded
individual--male--of unknown derivation, who spoke an explosive brand of
English, which burst out in a series of grunts, and who had economical
habits in the use of soap. It was doubtful, reasoned Monsieur Pettipon,
if the principle of tipping had ever penetrated the wild regions from
which this being unquestionably hailed. Years of experience had taught
Monsieur Pettipon to appraise with a quite uncanny accuracy the amount
of tips he would get from his clients, as he called them.
Still troubled in his mind over his inability to provide a new violin
for the promising Napoleon, Monsieur Pettipon went about his work, and
in the course of time reached Stateroom C 346 and tapped with soft
knuckles.
"Come," grunted the shaggy occupant.
Monsieur Pettipon, with an apologetic flood of "pardons," entered. He
stopped in some alarm. The shaggy one, in violently striped pajamas, was
standing in the center of the cabin, plainly very indignant about
something. He fixed upon Monsieur Pettipon a pair of accusing eyes. With
the air of a conjurer doing a trick he thrust his hand, palm upward,
beneath the surprised nose of Monsieur Pettipon.
"Behold!" cried the shaggy one in a voice of thunder.
Monsieur Pettipon peered into the outstretched hand. In the cupped palm
was a small dark object. It was alive.
Monsieur Pettipon, speechless with horror, regarded the thing with round
unbelieving eyes. He felt as if he had been struck a heavy, stunning
blow.
At last with a great effort he asked weakly, "You found him here,
monsieur?"
"I found him here," declared the shaggy one, nodding his bushy head
toward his berth.
The world of Monsieur Pettipon seemed to come crashing down around his
ears.
"Impossible!" panted Monsieur Pettipon. "It could not be."
"It could be," said the shaggy one sternly, "because it was."
He continued to hold the damnatory evidence within a foot of Monsieur
Pettipon's staring incredulous eyes.
"But, monsieur," protested the steward, "I tell you the thing could not
be. One hundred and twenty-seven times have I crossed on this
_Voltaire_, and such a thing has not been. Never, never, never."
"I did not make him," put in the passenger, with a show of irony.
"No, no! Of course monsieur did not make him. That is true. But perhaps
monsieur----"
The gesture of the overwhelmed Pettipon was delicate but pregnant.
The shaggy passenger glared ferociously at the steward.
"Do you mean I brought him with me?" he demanded in a terrible voice.
Monsieur Pettipon shrugged his shoulders.
"Such things happen," he said soothingly. "When one travels----"
The shaggy one interrupted him.
"He is not mine!" he exploded bellicosely. "He never was mine. I found
him here, I tell you. Here! Something shall be done about this."
Monsieur Pettipon had begun to tremble; tiny moist drops bedewed his
expanse of brow; to lose his job would be tragedy enough; but this--this
would be worse than tragedy; it would be disgrace. His artistic
reputation was at stake. His career was tottering on a hideous brink.
All Paris, all France would know, and would laugh at him.
"Give me the little devil," he said humbly. "I, myself, personally, will
see to it that he troubles you no more. He shall perish at once,
monsieur; he shall die the death. You will have fresh bedding, fresh
carpet, fresh everything. There will be fumigations. I beg that monsieur
will think no more of it."
Savagely he took the thing between plump thumb and forefinger and bore
it from the stateroom, holding it at arm's length. In the corridor, with
the door shut on the shaggy one, Monsieur Pettipon, feverishly agitated,
muttered again and again, "He did bring it with him. He did bring it
with him."
All that night Monsieur Pettipon lay in his berth, stark awake, and
brooded. The material side of the affair was bad enough. The shaggy one
would report the matter to the head steward of the second class;
Monsieur Pettipon would be ignominiously discharged; the sin, he had to
admit, merited the extremest penalty. Jobs are hard to get, particularly
when one is fat and past forty. He saw the Pettipons ejected from their
flat; he saw his little Napoleon a café waiter instead of a virtuoso.
All this was misery enough. But it was the spiritual side that tortured
him most poignantly, that made him toss and moan as the waves swished
against the liner's sides and an ocean dawn stole foggily through the
porthole. He was a failure at the work he loved.
Consider the emotions of an artist who suddenly realizes that his
masterpiece is a tawdry smear; consider the shock to a gentleman, proud
of his name, who finds a blot black as midnight on the escutcheon he had
for many prideful years thought stainless. To the mind of the crushed
Pettipon came the thought that even though his job was irretrievably
lost he still might be able to save his honor.
As early as it was possible he went to the head steward of the second
class, his immediate superior.
There were tears in Monsieur Pettipon's eyes and voice as he said,
"Monsieur Deveau, a great misfortune, as you have doubtless been
informed, has overtaken me."
The head steward of the second class looked up sharply. He was in a
bearish mood, for he had lost eleven francs at cards the night before.
"Well, Monsieur Pettipon?" he asked brusquely.
"Oh, he has heard about it, he has heard about it," thought Monsieur
Pettipon; and his voice trembled as he said aloud, "I have done faithful
work on the _Voltaire_ for twenty-two years, Monsieur Deveau, and such a
thing has never before happened."
"What thing? Of what do you speak? Out with it, man."
"This!" cried Monsieur Pettipon tragically.
He thrust out his great paw of a hand; in it nestled a small dark
object, now lifeless.
The head steward gave it a swift examination.
"Ah!" he exclaimed petulantly. "Must you trouble me with your pets at
this time when I am busy?"
"Pets, monsieur?" The aghast Pettipon raised protesting hands toward
heaven. "Oh, never in this life, monsieur the head steward."
"Then why do you bring him to me with such great care?" demanded the
head steward. "Do you think perhaps, Monsieur Pettipon, that I wish to
discuss entomology at six in the morning? I assure you that such a thing
is not a curiosity to me. I have lived, Monsieur Pettipon."
"But--but he was in one of my cabins," groaned Monsieur Pettipon.
"Indeed?" The head steward was growing impatient. "I did not suppose you
had caught him with a hook and line. Take him away. Drown him. Bury him.
Burn him. Do I care?"
"He is furious," thought Monsieur Pettipon, "at my sin. But he is
pretending not to be. He will save up his wrath until the _Voltaire_
returns to France, and then he will denounce me before the whole ship's
company. I know these long-nosed Normans. Even so, I must save my honor
if I can."
He leaned toward the head steward and said with great earnestness of
tone, "I assure you, monsieur the head steward, that I took every
precaution. The passenger who occupies the cabin is, between ourselves,
a fellow of great dirtiness. I am convinced he brought this aboard with
him. I have my reasons, monsieur. Did I not say to Georges Prunier--he
is steward in the corridor next to mine--'Georges, old oyster, that
hairy fellow in C 346 has a look of itchiness which I do not fancy. I
must be on my guard.' You can ask Georges Prunier--an honest fellow,
monsieur the head steward--if I did not say this. And Georges said,
'Alphonse, my friend, I incline to agree with you.' And I said to
Georges, 'Georges, my brave, it would not surprise me if----'"
The head steward of the second class broke in tartly: "You should write
a book of memoirs, Monsieur Pettipon. When I have nothing to do I will
read it. But now have I not a thousand and two things to do? Take away
your pet. Have him stuffed. Present him to a museum. Do I care?" He
started to turn from Monsieur Pettipon, whose cheeks were quivering like
spilled jelly.
"I entreat you, Monsieur Deveau," begged Pettipon, "to consider how for
twenty-two years, three months and a day, such a thing had not happened
in my cabins. This little rascal--and you can see how tiny he is--is the
only one that has ever been found, and I give you my word, the word of a
Pettipon, that he was not there when we sailed. The passenger brought
him with him. I have my reasons----"
"Enough!" broke in the head steward of the second class with mounting
irritation. "I can stand no more. Go back to your work, Monsieur
Pettipon."
He presented his back to Monsieur Pettipon. Sick at heart the adipose
steward went back to his domain. As he made the cabins neat he did not
sing the little song with the chorus of "oo la las."
"There was deep displeasure in that Norman's eye," said Monsieur
Pettipon to himself. "He does not believe that the passenger is to
blame. Your goose is cooked, my poor Alphonse. You must appeal to the
chief steward."
To the chief steward, in his elaborate office in the first class, went
Monsieur Pettipon, nervously opening and shutting his fat fists.
The chief steward, a tun of a man, bigger even than Monsieur Pettipon,
peeped at his visitor from beneath waggish, furry eyebrows.
"I am Monsieur Pettipon," said the visitor timidly. "For twenty-two
years, three months and a day, I have been second-class steward on the
_Voltaire_, and never monsieur the chief steward, has there been a
complaint, one little complaint against me. One hundred and twenty-seven
trips have I made, and never has a single passenger said----"
"I'm sorry," interrupted the chief steward, "but I can't make you a
first-class steward. No vacancies. Next year, perhaps; or the year
after----"
"Oh, it isn't that," said Monsieur Pettipon miserably. "It is this."
He held out his hand so that the chief steward could see its contents.
"Ah?" exclaimed the chief steward, arching his furry brows. "Is this
perhaps a bribe, monsieur?"
"Monsieur the chief steward is good enough to jest," said Pettipon,
standing first on one foot and then on the other in his embarrassment,
"but I assure you that it has been a most serious blow to me."
"Blow?" repeated the chief steward. "Blow? Is it that in the second
class one comes to blows with them?"
"He knows about it all," thought Monsieur Pettipon. "He is making game
of me." His moon face stricken and appealing, Monsieur Pettipon
addressed the chief steward. "He brought it with him, monsieur the chief
steward. I have my reasons----"
"Who brought what with whom?" queried the chief steward with a trace of
asperity.
"The passenger brought this aboard with him," explained Monsieur
Pettipon. "I have good reasons, monsieur, for making so grave a charge.
Did I not say to Georges Prunier--he is in charge of the corridor next
to mine--'Georges, old oyster, that hairy fellow in C 346 has a look of
itchiness which I do not fancy. I must be on my guard.' You can ask
Georges Prunier--a thoroughly reliable fellow, monsieur, a wearer of the
military medal, and the son of the leading veterinarian in Amiens--if I
did not say this. And Georges said----"
The chief steward held up a silencing hand.
"Stop, I pray you, before my head bursts," he commanded. "Your repartee
with Georges is most affecting, but I do not see how it concerns a busy
man like me."
"But the passenger said he found this in his berth!" wailed Monsieur
Pettipon, wringing his great hands.
"My compliments to monsieur the passenger," said the chief steward, "and
tell him that there is no reward."
"Now I am sure he is angry with me," said Monsieur Pettipon to himself.
"These sly, smiling, fat fellows! I must convince him of my innocence."
Monsieur Pettipon laid an imploring hand on the chief steward's sleeve.
"I can only say," said Monsieur Pettipon in the accents of a man on the
gallows, "that I did all within the power of one poor human to prevent
this dreadful occurrence. I hope monsieur the chief steward will believe
that. I cannot deny that the thing exists"--as he spoke he sadly
contemplated the palm of his hand--"and that the evidence is against me.
But in my heart I know I am innocent. I can only hope that monsieur
will take into account my long and blameless service, my one hundred and
twenty-seven trips, my twenty-two years, three months and----"
"My dear Pettipon," said the chief steward with a ponderous jocosity,
"try to bear your cross. The only way the _Voltaire_ can atone for this
monstrous sin of yours is to be sunk, here, now and at once. But I'm
afraid the captain and Monsieur Ronssoy might object. Get along now,
while I think up a suitable penance for you."
As he went with slow, despairing steps to his quarters Monsieur Pettipon
said to himself, "It is clear he thinks me guilty. Helas! Poor
Alphonse." For long minutes he sat, his huge head in his hands,
pondering.
"I must, I shall appeal to him again," he said half aloud. "There are
certain points he should know. What Georges Prunier said, for instance."
So back he went to the chief steward.
"Holy Blue!" cried that official. "You? Again? Found another one?"
"No, no, monsieur the chief steward," replied Monsieur Pettipon in
agonies; "there is only one. In twenty-two years there has been only
one. He brought it with him. Ask Georges Prunier if I did not say----"
"Name of a name!" burst out the chief steward. "Am I to hear all that
again? Did I not say to forget the matter?"
"Forget, monsieur? Could Napoleon forget Waterloo? I beg that you permit
me to explain."
"Oh, bother you and your explanations!" cried the chief steward with the
sudden impatience common to fat men. "Take them to some less busy man.
The captain, for example."
Monsieur Pettipon bowed himself from the office, covered with confusion
and despair. Had not the chief steward refused to hear him? Did not the
chief steward's words imply that the crime was too heinous for any one
less than the captain himself to pass judgment on it? To the captain
Monsieur Pettipon would have to go, although he dreaded to do it, for
the captain was notoriously the busiest and least approachable man on
the ship. Desperation gave him courage. Breathless at his own temerity,
pink as a peony with shame, Monsieur Pettipon found himself bowing
before a blur of gold and multi-hued decorations that instinct rather
than his reason told him was the captain of the _Voltaire_.
The captain was worried about the fog, and about the presence aboard of
M. Victor Ronssoy, the president of the line, and his manner was brisk
and chilly.
"Did I ring for you?" he asked.
"No," jerked out Monsieur Pettipon, "but if the captain will pardon the
great liberty, I have a matter of the utmost importance on which I wish
to address him."
"Speak, man, speak!" shot out the captain, alarmed by Monsieur
Pettipon's serious aspect. "Leak? Fire? Somebody overboard? What?"
"No, no!" cried Monsieur Pettipon, trickles of moist emotion sliding
down the creases of his round face. "Nobody overboard; no leak; no fire.
But--monsieur the captain--behold this!"
He extended his hand and the captain bent his head over it with quick
interest.
For a second the captain stared at the thing in Monsieur Pettipon's
hand; then he stared at Monsieur Pettipon.
"Ten thousand million little blue devils, what does this mean?" roared
the captain. "Have you been drinking?"
Monsieur Pettipon quaked to the end of his toes.
"No, no!" he stammered. "I am only too sober, monsieur the captain, and
I do not blame you for being enraged. The _Voltaire_ is your ship, and
you love her, as I do. I feel this disgrace even more than you can,
monsieur the captain, believe me. But I beg of you do not be hasty; my
honor is involved. I admit that this thing was found in one of my
cabins. Consider my horror when he was found. It was no less than yours,
monsieur the captain. But I give you my word, the word of a Pettipon,
that----"
The captain stopped the rush of words with, "Compose yourself. Come to
the point."
"Point, monsieur the captain?" gasped Pettipon. "Is it not enough
point that this thing was found in one of my cabins? Such a thing--in
the cabin of Monsieur Alphonse Marie Louis Camille Pettipon! Is that
nothing? For twenty-two years have I been steward in the second class,
and not one of these, not so much as a baby one, has ever been found. I
am beside myself with chagrin. My only defense is that a passenger--a
fellow of dirtiness, monsieur the captain--brought it with him.
He denies it. I denounce him as a liar the most barefaced. For
did I not say to Georges Prunier--a fellow steward and a man of
integrity--'Georges, old oyster, that hairy fellow in C 346 has a look
of itchiness which I do not fancy. I must be on my guard.' And Georges
said----"
The captain, with something like a smile playing about among his
whiskers, interrupted with, "So this is the first one in twenty-two
years, eh? We'll have to look into this, Monsieur Pettipon. Good day."
"Look into this," groaned Pettipon as he stumbled down a gangway. "I
know what that means. Ah, poor Thérèse! Poor Napoleon!"
He looked down at the great, green, hungry waves with a calculating eye;
he wondered if they would be cold. He placed a tentative hand on the
rail. Then an inspiration came to him. M. Victor Ronssoy was aboard; he
was the last court of appeal. Monsieur Pettipon would dare, for the sake
of his honor, to go to the president of the line himself. For tortured
minutes Alphonse Pettipon paced up and down, and something closely
resembling sobs shook his huge frame as he looked about his little
kingdom and thought of his impending banishment. At last by a supreme
effort of will he nerved himself to go to the suite of Monsieur Ronssoy.
It was a splendid suite of five rooms, and Monsieur Pettipon had more
than once peeked into it when it was empty and had noted with fascinated
eyes the perfection of its appointments. But now he twice turned from
the door, his courage oozing from him. On the third attempt, with the
recklessness of a condemned man, he rapped on the door.
The president of the line was a white-haired giant with a chin like an
anvil and bright humorous eyes, like a kingfisher.
"Monsieur Ronssoy," began the flustered, damp-browed Pettipon in a
faltering voice, "I have only apologies to make for this intrusion. Only
a matter of the utmost consequence could cause me to take the liberty."
The president's brow knitted anxiously.
"Out with it," he ordered. "Are we sinking? Have we hit an iceberg?"
"No, no, monsieur the president! But surely you have heard what I,
Alphonse Pettipon, steward in the second class, found in one of my
cabins?"
"Oh, so you're Pettipon!" exclaimed the president, and his frown
vanished. "Ah, yes; ah, yes."
"He knows of my disgrace," thought Monsieur Pettipon, mopping his
streaming brow. "Now all is lost indeed." Hanging his head he addressed
the president: "Alas, yes, I am none other than that unhappy Pettipon,"
he said mournfully. "But yesterday, monsieur, I was a proud man. This
was my one hundred and twenty-eighth trip on the _Voltaire_. I had not a
mark against me. But the world has been black for me, monsieur the
president, since I found this."
He held out his hand so that the president could view the remains lying
in it.
"Ah," exclaimed the president, adjusting his pince-nez, "a perfect
specimen!"
"But note, monsieur the president," begged Monsieur Pettipon, "that he
is a mere infant. But a few days old, I am sure. He could not have been
aboard long. One can see that. I am convinced that it was the passenger
who brought him with him. I have my reasons for making this serious
charge, Monsieur Ronssoy. Good reasons too. Did I not say to Georges
Prunier--a steward of the strictest honesty, monsieur--'Georges, old
oyster, that hairy fellow in C 346 has a look of itchiness which I do
not fancy.' And Georges said, 'Alphonse, my friend----'"
"Most interesting," murmured the president. "Pray proceed."
With a wealth of detail and with no little passion Monsieur Pettipon
told his story. The eyes of the president encouraged him, and he told of
little Napoleon and the violin, and of his twenty-two years on the
_Voltaire_ and how proud he was of his work as a steward, and how severe
a blow the affair had been to him.
When he had finished, Monsieur Ronssoy said, "And you thought it
necessary to report your discovery to the head steward of the second
class?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"And to the chief steward?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"And to the captain?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"And finally to me, the president of the line?"
"Even so, monsieur," said the perspiring Pettipon.
M. Victor Ronssoy regarded him thoughtfully.
"Monsieur Pettipon," he said, "the sort of man I like is the man who
takes his job seriously. You would not have raised such a devil of a
fuss about so small a thing as this if you were not that sort of man. I
am going to have you made steward of my suite immediately, Monsieur
Pettipon. Now you may toss that thing out of the porthole."
"Oh, no, monsieur!" cried Alphonse Pettipon, great, grateful tears
rushing to his eyes. "Never in this life! Him I shall keep always in my
watch charm."
II: _Mr. Pottle and the South-Sea Cannibals_
§1
Mr. Pottle was a barber, but also a man of imagination, and as his hands
went through their accustomed motions, his mind was far away, recalling
what he had read the night before.
"Bright Marquesas sunlight glinted from the cutlass of the
intrepid explorer as with a sweep of his arm he brought the
blade down on the tattooed throat of the man-eating savage."
Mr. Pottle's errant mind was jerked back sharply from the South Seas to
Granville, Ohio, by a protesting voice.
"Hey, Pottle, what's bitin' you? You took a slice out o' my Adam's apple
that time."
Mr. Pottle, with apologetic murmurs, rubbed the wound with an alum
stick; then he dusted his victim with talcum powder, and gave the
patented chair a little kick, so that its occupant was shot bolt
upright.
"Bay rum?" asked Mr. Pottle, professionally.
"Nope."
"Dandruff-Death?"
"Nope."
"Sweet Lilac Tonic?"
"Nope."
"Plain water?"
"Yep."
"Naked savages danced and howled round the great pot in which
the trussed explorer had been placed. The cannibal chief,
fire-brand in hand, made ready to ignite the fagots under the
pot. It began to look bad for the explorer."
Again a shrill voice of protest punctured Mr. Pottle's day-dream.
"Hey, Pottle, come to life! You've went and put Sweet Lilac Tonic on me
'stead of plain water. I ain't going to no coon ball. You've gone and
smelled me up like a screamin' geranium."
"Why, so I have, so I have," said Mr. Pottle, in accents of surprise and
contrition. "Sorry, Luke. It'll wear off in a day or two. Guess I must
be gettin' absent-minded."
"That's what you said last Saddy when you clipped a piece out o' Virgil
Overholt's ear," observed Luke, with some indignation. "What's bitin'
you, anyhow, Pottle? You used to be the best barber in the county before
you took to readin' them books."
"What books?"
"All about cannibals and explorers and the South-Sea Islands," answered
Luke.
"They're good books," said Mr. Pottle warmly. His eyes brightened. "I
just got a new one," he said. "It's called 'Green Isles, Brown
Man-Eaters, and a White Man.' I sat up till two readin' it. It's about
the Marquesas Islands, and it's a darn' excitin' book, Luke."
"It excited you so much you sliced my Adam's apple," grumbled Luke,
clamping on his rubber collar. "You had better cut out this fool
readin'."
"Don't you ever read, Luke?"
"Sure I do. 'The Mornin' News-Press' for week-days, 'The P'lice Gazette'
when I come here to get shaved Saddy nights, and the Bible for Sundays.
That's readin' enough for any man."
"Did you ever read 'Robinson Crusoe'?"
"Nope, but I heard him."
"Heard him? Heard who?"
"Crusoe," said Luke, snapping his ready-tied tie into place.
"Heard him? You couldn't have heard him."
"I couldn't, hey? Well, I did."
"Where?" demanded Mr. Pottle.
"Singin' on a phonograph," said Luke.
Mr. Pottle said nothing; Luke was a regular customer, and in successful
modern business the customer is always right. However, Mr. Pottle seized
a strop and by his vigorous stroppings silently expressed his disgust at
a man who hadn't heard of "Robinson Crusoe," for Robinson was one of Mr.
Pottle's deities.
When Luke reached the door, he turned.
"Say, Pottle," he said, "if you're so nutty about these here South Sea
Islands, why don't you go there?"
Mr. Pottle ceased his stropping.
"I am going," he said.
Luke gave a dubious hoot and vanished. He did not realize that he had
heard Mr. Pottle make the big decision of his life.
§2
That night Mr. Pottle finished the book, and dreamed, as he had dreamed
on many a night since the lure of the South Seas first cast a spell on
him, that in a distant, sun-loved isle, bright with greens and purples,
he reclined beneath the _mana-mana-hine_ (or umbrella fern) on his own
_paepae_ (or platform), a scarlet _pareu_ (or breech-clout) about his
middle, a yellow _hibiscus_ flower in his hair, while the _kukus_ (or
small green turtle-doves) cooed in the branches of the _pevatvii_ (or
banana-tree), and _Bunnidori_ (that is, she, with the Lips of Love), a
tawny maid of wondrous beauty, played softly to him on the ukulele. The
tantalizing fragrance of a bowl of _popoi_ (or pudding) mingled in his
nostrils with the more delicate perfume of the golden blossoms of the
_puu-epu_ (or mulberry-tree). A sound in the jungle, a deep _boom! boom!
boom!_ roused him from this reverie.
"What is it, O Bunnidori?" he asked.
"'Tis a feast, O my Pottle, Lord of the Menikes (that is, white men),"
lisped his companion.
"Upon what do the men in the jungle feast, O plump and pleasing daughter
of delight?" inquired Mr. Pottle, who was up on Polynesian etiquette.
She lowered her already low voice still lower.
"Upon the long pig that speaks," she whispered.
A delicious shudder ran down the spine of the sleeping Mr. Pottle, for
from his reading he knew that "the long pig that speaks" means--man!
For Mr. Pottle had one big ambition, one great suppressed desire. It was
the dearest wish of his thirty-six years of life to meet a cannibal, a
real cannibal, face to face, eye to eye.
Next day he sold his barber's shop. Two months and seventeen days later
he was unpacking his trunk in the tiny settlement of Vait-hua, in the
Marquesas Islands, in the heart of the South Seas.
The air was balmy, the sea deep purple, the nodding palms and giant
ferns of the greenest green were exactly as advertised; but when the
first week or two of enchantment had worn off, Mr. Pottle owned to a
certain feeling of disappointment.
He tasted _popoi_ and found it rather nasty; the hotel in which he
stayed--the only one--was deficient in plumbing, but not in fauna. The
natives--he had expected great things of the natives--were remarkably
like underdone Pullman porters wrapped in bandana handkerchiefs. They
were not exciting, they exhibited no inclination to eat Mr. Pottle or
one another, they coveted his pink shirt, and begged for a drink from
his bottle of Sweet Lilac Tonic.
He mentioned his disappointment at these evidences of civilization to
Tiki Tiu, the astute native who kept the general store.
Mr. Pottle's mode of conversation was his own invention. From the books
he had read he improvised a language. It was simple. He gave English
words a barbaric sound, usually by suffixing "um" or "ee," shouted them
at the top of his voice into the ear of the person with whom he was
conversing, and repeated them in various permutations. He addressed Tiki
Tiu with brisk and confident familiarity.
"Helloee, Tiki Tiu. Me wantum see can-balls. Can-balls me wantum see. Me
see can-balls wantum."
The venerable native, who spoke seventeen island dialects and tongues,
and dabbled in English, Spanish, and French, appeared to apprehend his
meaning; indeed, one might almost have thought he had heard this
question before, for he answered promptly:
"No more can-balls here. All Baptists."
"Where are can-balls? Can-balls where are? Where can-balls are?"
demanded Mr. Pottle.
Tiki Tiu closed his eyes and let blue smoke filter through his nostrils.
Finally he said:
"Isle of O-pip-ee."
"Isle of O-pip-ee?" Mr. Pottle grew excited. "Where is? Is where?"
"Two hundred miles south," answered Tiki Tiu.
Mr. Pottle's eyes sparkled. He was on the trail.
"How go there? Go there how? There go how?" he asked.
Tiki Tiu considered. Then he said:
"I take. Nice li'l' schooner."
"How much?" asked Mr. Pottle. "Much how?"
Tiki Tiu considered again.
"Ninety-three dol's," he said.
"Goodum!" cried Mr. Pottle, and counted the proceeds of 186 hair-cuts
into the hand of Tiki Tiu.
"You take me to-mollow? To-mollow you take me? Me you take to-mollow?
To-mollow? To-mollow? To-mollow?" asked Mr. Pottle.
"Yes," promised Tiki Tiu; "to-mollow."
Mr. Pottle stayed up all night packing; from time to time he referred to
much-thumbed copies of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Green Isles, Brown
Man-Eaters, and a White Man."
Tiki Tiu's nice li'l' schooner deposited Mr. Pottle and his impedimenta
on the small, remote Isle of O-pip-ee; Tiki Tiu agreed to return for him
in a month.
"This is something like it," exclaimed Mr. Pottle as he unpacked his
camera, his ukulele, his razors, his canned soup, his heating outfit,
and his bathing-suit. Only the wild parrakeets heard him; save for their
calls, an ominous silence hung over the thick foliage of O-pip-ee. There
was not the ghost of a sign of human habitation.
Mr. Pottle, vaguely apprehensive of sharks, pitched his pup-tent far up
on the beach; to-morrow would be time enough to look for cannibals.
He lay smoking and thinking. He was happy. The realization of a life's
ambition lay, so to speak, just around the corner. To-morrow he could
turn that corner--if he wished.
He squirmed as something small nibbled at his hip-bone, and he wondered
why writers of books on the South Seas make such scant mention of the
insects. Surely they must have noticed the little creatures, which had,
he discovered, a way of making their presence felt.
He wondered, too, now that he came to think of it, if he hadn't been a
little rash in coming alone to a cannibal-infested isle with no weapons
of defense but a shot-gun, picked up at a bargain at the last minute,
and his case of razors. True, in all the books by explorers he had read,
the explorer never once had actually been eaten; he always lived to
write the book. But what about the explorers who had not written books?
What had happened to them?
He flipped a centipede off his ankle, and wondered if he hadn't been
just a little too impulsive to sell his profitable barber-shop, to come
many thousand miles over strange waters, to maroon himself on the lonely
Isle of O-pip-ee. At Vait-hua he had heard that cannibals do not fancy
white men for culinary purposes. He gave a little start as he looked
down at his own bare legs and saw that the tropic sun had already
tinted them a coffee hue.
Mr. Pottle did not sleep well that night; strange sounds made his eyes
fly open. Once it was a curious scuttling along the beach. Peeping out
from his pup-tent, he saw half a dozen _tupa_ (or giant tree-climbing
crabs) on a nocturnal raid on a cocoanut-grove. Later he heard the big
nuts come crashing down. The day shift of insects had quit, and the
night shift, fresh and hungry, came to work; inquisitive vampire bats
butted their soft heads against his tent.
At dawn he set about finding a permanent abode. He followed a small
fresh-water stream two hundred yards inland, and came to a coral cave by
a pool, a ready-made home, cool and, more important, well concealed. He
spent the day settling down, chasing out the bats, putting up
mosquito-netting, tidying up. He dined well off cocoanut milk and canned
sardines, and was so tired that he fell asleep before he could change
his bathing-suit for pajamas. He slept fairly well, albeit he dreamed
that two cannibal kings were disputing over his prostrate form whether
he would be better as a ragout or stuffed with chestnuts.
Waking, he decided to lie low and wait for the savages to show
themselves, for he knew from Tiki Tiu that the Isle of O-pip-ee was not
more than seven miles long and three or four miles wide; sooner or later
they must pass near him. He figured that there was logic in this plan,
for no cannibal had seen him land; therefore he knew that the cannibals
were on the isle, but they did not know that he was. The advantage was
his.
§3
For days he remained secluded, subsisting on canned foods, cocoanuts,
_mei_ (or breadfruit), and an occasional boiled baby _feke_ (or young
devil-fish), a nest of which Mr. Pottle found on one furtive moonlight
sally to the beach.
Emboldened by this sally and by the silence of the woods, Mr. Pottle
made other expeditions away from his cave; on one he penetrated fully
five hundred yards into the jungle. He was prowling, like a Cooper
Indian, among the _faufee_ (or lacebark-trees) when he heard a sound
that sent him scurrying and quaking back to his lair.
It was a faint sound that the breezes bore to him, so faint that he
could not be sure; but it sounded like some far-off barbaric instrument
mingling its dim notes with those of a human voice raised in a weird,
primeval chant.
But the savages did not show themselves, and finding no cannibals by
night, Mr. Pottle grew still bolder; he ventured on short explorations
by day. He examined minutely his own cove, and then one morning crept
over a low ledge and into the next cove. He made his way cautiously
along the smooth, white beach. The morning was still, calm, beautiful.
Its peace all but drove thoughts of cannibals from his mind. He came to
a strip of land running into the sea; another cove lay beyond. Mr.
Pottle was an impulsive man; he pushed through the _keoho_ (or
thorn-bushes); his foot slipped; he rolled down a declivity and into the
next cove.
He did not stay there; he did not even tarry. What he saw sent him
dashing through the thorn-bushes and along the white sand like a
hundred-yard sprinter. In the sand of the cove were many imprints of
naked human feet.
A less stout-hearted man than Mr. Pottle would never have come out of
his cave again; but he had come eight thousand miles to see a cannibal.
An over-mastering desire had spurred him on; he would not give up now.
Of such stuff are Ohio barbers made.
§4
A few days later, at twilight, he issued forth from his cave again.
Around his loins was a scarlet _pareu_; he had discarded his
bathing-suit as too civilized. In his long, black hair was a yellow
_hibiscus_ flower.
Like a burglar, he crept along the beach to the bushy promontory that
hid the cove where the foot-prints were, he wiggled through the bush, he
slid down to the third beach, and crouched behind a large rock. The
beach seemed deserted; the muttering of the ocean was the only sound Mr.
Pottle heard. Another rock, a dozen feet away, seemed to offer better
concealment, and he stepped out toward it, and then stopped short. Mr.
Pottle stood face to face with a naked, brown savage.
Mr. Pottle's feet refused to take him away; a paralysis such as one has
in nightmares rooted him to the spot. His returning faculties took in
these facts: first, the savage was unarmed; second, Mr. Pottle had
forgotten to bring his shot-gun. It was a case of man to man-eater.
The savage was large, well-fed, almost fat; his long black hair fringed
his head; he did not wear a particularly bloodthirsty expression;
indeed, he appeared startled and considerably alarmed.
Reason told Mr. Pottle that friendliness was the best policy.
Instinctively, he recalled the literature of his youth, and how Buffalo
Bill had acted in a like circumstance. He raised his right hand solemnly
in the air and ejaculated, "How!"
The savage raised his right hand solemnly in the air, and in the same
tone also ejaculated, "How!" Mr. Pottle had begun famously. He said
loudly:
"Who you? You who? Who you?"
The savage, to Mr. Pottle's surprise, answered after a brief moment:
"Me--Lee."
Here was luck. The man-eater could talk the Pottle lingo.
"Oh," said Mr. Pottle, to show that he understood, "you--Mealy."
The savage shook his head.
"No," he said; "Me--Lee. Me--Lee." He thumped his barrel-like chest with
each word.
"Oh, I see," cried Mr. Pottle; "you Mealy-mealy."
The savage made a face that among civilized people would have meant that
he did not think much of Mr. Pottle's intellect.
"Who you?" inquired Mealy-mealy.
Mr. Pottle thumped his narrow chest.
"Me, Pottle. Pottle!"
"Oh, you Pottle-pottle," said the savage, evidently pleased with his own
powers of comprehension.
Mr. Pottle let it go at that. Why argue with a cannibal? He addressed
the savage again.
"Mealy-mealy, you eatum long pig? Eatum long pig you? Long pig you
eatum?"
This question agitated Mealy-mealy. He trembled. Then he nodded his head
in the affirmative, a score of rapid nods.
Mr. Pottle's voice faltered a little as he asked the next question.
"Where you gottum tribe? You gottum tribe where? Tribe you gottum
where?"
Mealy-mealy considered, scowled, and said:
"Gottum velly big tribe not far. Velly fierce. Eatum long pig. Eatum
Pottle-pottle."
Mr. Pottle thought it would be a good time to go, but he could think of
no polite excuse for leaving. An idea occurred to Mealy-mealy.
"Where your tribe, Pottle-pottle?"
His tribe? Mr. Pottle's eyes fell on his own scarlet _pareu_ and the
brownish legs beneath it. Mealy-mealy thought he was a cannibal, too.
With all his terror, he had a second or two of unalloyed enjoyment of
the thought. Like all barbers, he had played poker. He bluffed.
"My tribe velly, velly, velly, velly, velly, velly big," he cried.
"Where is?" asked Mealy-mealy, visibly moved by this news.
"Velly near," cried Mr. Pottle; "hungry for long pig; for long pig
hungry----"
There was suddenly a brown blur on the landscape. With the agility of an
ape, the huge savage had turned, darted down the beach, plunged into the
bush, and disappeared.
"He's gone to get his tribe," thought Mr. Pottle, and fled in the
opposite direction.
When he reached his cave, panting, he tried to fit a cartridge into his
shot-gun; he'd die game, anyhow. But rust had ruined the neglected
weapon, and he flung it aside and took out his best razor. But no
cannibals came.
He was scared, but happy. He had seen his cannibal; more, he had talked
with him; more still, he had escaped gracing the festal board by a
snake's knuckle. He prudently decided to stay in his cave until the
sails of Tiki Tiu's schooner hove in sight.
§5
But an instinct stronger than fear drove him out into the open: his
stock of canned food ran low, and large red ants got into his flour. He
needed cocoanuts and breadfruit and baby _fekes_ (or young octopi). He
knew that numerous succulent infant _fekes_ lurked in holes in his own
cove, and thither he went by night to pull them from their homes.
Hitherto he had encountered only small _fekes_, with tender tentacles
only a few feet long; but that night Mr. Pottle had the misfortune to
plunge his naked arm into the watery nest when the father of the family
was at home. He realized his error too late.
A clammy tentacle, as long as a fire hose, as strong as the arm of a
gorilla, coiled round his arm, and his scream was cut short as the giant
devil-fish dragged him below the water.
The water was shallow. Mr. Pottle got a foothold, forced his head above
water, and began to yell for help and struggle for his life.
The chances against a nude Ohio barber of 140 pounds in a wrestling
match with an adult octopus are exactly a thousand to one. The giant
_feke_ so despised his opponent that he used only two of his eight
muscular arms. In their slimy, relentless clutch Mr. Pottle felt his
strength going fast. As his favorite authors would have put it, "it
began to look bad for Mr. Pottle."
The thought that Mr. Pottle thought would be his last on this earth was,
"I wouldn't mind being eaten by cannibals, but to be drowned by a trick
fish----"
Mr. Pottle threshed about in one final, frantic flounder; his strength
gave out; he shut his eyes.
He heard a shrill cry, a splashing in the water, felt himself clutched
about the neck from behind, and dragged away from the _feke_. He opened
his eyes and struggled weakly. One tentacle released its grip. Mr.
Pottle saw by the tropic moon's light that some large creature was doing
battle with the _feke_. It was a man, a large brown man who with a busy
ax hacked the gristly limbs from the _feke_ as fast as they wrapped
around him. Mr. Pottle staggered to the dry beach; a tentacle was still
wound tight round his shoulder, but there was no octopus at the other
end of it.
The angry noise of the devil-fish--for, when wounded, they snarl like
kicked curs--stopped. The victorious brown man strode out of the water
to where Mr. Pottle swayed on the moonlit sand. It was Mealy-mealy.
"Bad fishum!" said Mealy-mealy, with a grin.
"Good manum!" cried Mr. Pottle, heartily.
Here was romance, here was adventure, to be snatched from the jaws, so
to speak, of death by a cannibal! It was unheard of. But a disquieting
thought occurred to Mr. Pottle, and he voiced it.
"Mealy-mealy, why you save me? Why save you me? Why you me save?"
Mealy-mealy's grin seemed to fade, and in its place came another look
that made Mr. Pottle wish he were back in the anaconda grip of the
_feke_.
"My tribe hungry for long pig," growled Mealy-mealy. He seemed to be
trembling with some powerful emotion. Hunger?
Mr. Pottle knew where his only chance for escape lay.
"My tribe velly, velly, velly hungry, too," he cried. "Velly, velly,
velly near."
He thrust his fingers into his mouth and gave a piercing school-boy
whistle. As if in answer to it there came a crashing and floundering in
the bushes. His bluff had worked only too well; it must be the fellow
man-eaters of Mealy-mealy.
Mr. Pottle turned and ran for his life. Fifty yards he sped, and then
realized that he did not hear the padding of bare feet on the sand
behind him or feel hot breath on the back of his neck. He dared to cast
a look over his shoulder. Far down the beach the moonlight showed him a
flying brown figure against the silver-white sand. It was Mealy-mealy,
and he was going in the opposite direction as fast as ever his legs
would take him.
Surprise drove fear temporarily from Mr. Pottle's mind as he watched the
big cannibal become a blur, then a speck, then nothing. As he watched
Mealy-mealy recede, he saw another dark figure emerge from the bush
where the noise had been, and move slowly out on the moon-strewn beach.
It was a baby wild pig. It sniffed at the ocean, squealed, and trotted
back into the bush.
As he gnawed his morning cocoanut, Mr. Pottle was still puzzled. He was
afraid of Mealy-mealy; that he admitted. But at the same time it was
quite clear that Mealy-mealy was afraid of him. He was excited and more
than a little gratified. What a book he could write! Should he call it
"Cannibal-Bound on O-pip-ee," or, "Cannibals Who have almost Eaten Me"?
Tiki Tiu's schooner would be coming for him very soon now,--he'd lost
track of the exact time,--and he would be almost reluctant to leave the
isle. Almost.
Mr. Pottle had another glimpse of a cannibal next day. Toward evening he
stole out to pick some supper from a breadfruit-tree not far from his
cave, a tree which produced particularly palatable _mei_ (or
breadfruit).
He drew his _pareu_ tight around him and slipped through the bushes; as
he neared the tree he saw another figure approaching it with equal
stealth from the opposite direction; the setting sun was reflected from
the burnished brown of the savage's shoulders. At the same time Mr.
Pottle spied the man, the man spied him. The savage stopped short,
wheeled about, and tore back in the direction from which he had come.
Mr. Pottle did not get a good look at his face, but he ran uncommonly
like Mealy-mealy.
§6
Mr. Pottle thought it best not to climb the _mei_-tree that evening; he
returned hastily to his cave, and finished up the breakfast cocoanut.
Over a pipe he thought. He was pleased, thrilled by his sight of a
cannibal; but he was not wholly satisfied. He had thought it would be
enough for him to get one fleeting glimpse of an undoubted man-eater in
his native state, but it wasn't. Before he left the Isle of O-pip-ee he
wanted to see the whole tribe in a wild dance about a bubbling pot.
Tiki Tiu's schooner might come on the morrow. He must act.
He crept out of the cave and stood in the moonlight, breathing the
perfume of the jungle, feeling the cool night air, hearing the mellow
notes of the Polynesian nightingale. Adventure beckoned to him. He
started in the direction Mealy-mealy had run.
At first he progressed on tiptoes, then he sank to all fours, and
crawled along slowly, pig-wise. On, on he went; he must have crept more
than a mile when a sound stopped him--a sound he had heard before. It
was faint, yet it seemed near: it was the sound of some primitive
musical instrument blending with the low notes of a tribal chant. It
seemed to come from a sheltered hollow not two dozen yards ahead.
He crouched down among the ferns and listened. The chant was crooned
softly in a deep voice, and to the straining ears of Mr. Pottle it
seemed vaguely familiar, like a song heard in dreams. The words came
through the thick tangle of jungle weeds:
"Eeet slon ay a teep a ari."
Mr. Pottle, fascinated, wiggled forward to get a look at the tribe. Like
a snake, he made his tortuous approach. The singing continued; he saw a
faint glow through the foliage--the campfire. He eased himself to the
crest of a little hummock, pushed aside a great fern leaf and looked.
Sitting comfortably in a steamer-chair was Mealy-mealy. In his big brown
hands was a shiny banjo at which he plucked gently. Near his elbow food
with a familiar smell bubbled in an aluminum dish over a trim
canned-heat outfit; an empty baked-bean can with a gaudy label lay
beside it. From time to time Mealy-mealy glanced idly at a pink
periodical popular in American barber-shops. The song he sang to himself
burst intelligibly on Mr. Pottle's ears--
"It's a long way to Tipperary."
Mealy-mealy stopped; his eye had fallen on the staring eyes of Mr.
Pottle. He caught up his ax and was about to swing it when Mr. Pottle
stood up, stepped into the circle of light, pointed an accusing finger
at Mealy-mealy and said:
"Are you a cannibal?"
Mealy-mealy's ax and jaw dropped.
"What the devil are you?" he sputtered in perfect American.
"I'm a barber from Ohio," said Mr. Pottle.
Mealy-mealy emitted a sudden whooping roar of laughter.
"So am I," he said.
Mr. Pottle collapsed limply into the steamer-chair.
"What's your name?" he asked in a weak voice.
"Bert Lee, head barber at the Schmidt House, Bucyrus, Ohio," said the
big man. He slapped his fat, bare chest. "Me--Lee," he said, and laughed
till the jungle echoed.
"Did you read 'Green Isles, Brown Man-Eaters, and a White Man'?" asked
Mr. Pottle, feebly.
"Yes."
"I'd like to meet the man who wrote it," said Mr. Pottle.
III: _Mr. Pottle and Culture_
Out of the bathtub, rubicund and rotund, stepped Mr. Ambrose Pottle. He
anointed his hair with sweet spirits of lilac and dusted his anatomy
with crushed rosebud talcum. He donned a virgin union suit; a pair of
socks, silk where it showed; ultra low shoes; white-flannel trousers,
warm from the tailor's goose; a creamy silk shirt; an impeccable blue
coat; a gala tie, perfect after five tyings; and then went forth into
the spring-scented eventide to pay a call on Mrs. Blossom Gallup.
He approached her new-art bungalow as one might a shrine, with diffident
steps and hesitant heart, but with delicious tinglings radiating from
his spinal cord. Only the ballast of a three-pound box of Choc-O-late
Nutties under his arm kept him on earth. He was in love.
To be in love for the first time at twenty is passably thrilling; but to
be in love for the first time at thirty-six is exquisitely excruciating.
Mr. Pottle found Mrs. Gallup in her living room, a basket of undarned
stockings on her lap. With a pretty show of confusion and many
embarrassed murmurings she thrust them behind the piano, he protesting
that this intimate domesticity delighted him.
She sank back with a little sigh into a gay-chintzed wicker chair, and
the rosy light from a tall piano lamp fell gently on her high-piled
golden hair, her surprised blue eyes, and the ripe, generous outlines of
her figure. To Mr. Pottle she was a dream of loveliness, a poem, an
idyl. He would have given worlds, solar systems to have been able to
tell her so. But he couldn't. He couldn't find the words, for, like many
another sterling character in the barbers' supply business, he was not
eloquent; he did not speak with the fluent ease, the masterful flow that
comes, one sees it often said, from twenty-one minutes a day of
communion with the great minds of all time. His communings had been
largely with boss barbers; with them he was cheery and chatty. But Mrs.
Gallup and her intellectual interests were a world removed from things
tonsorial; in her presence he was tongue-tied as an oyster.
Mr. Pottle's worshiping eye roved from the lady to her library, and his
good-hearted face showed tiny furrows of despair; an array of fat crisp
books in shiny new bindings stared at him: Twenty-one Minutes' Daily
Communion With the Master Minds; Capsule Chats on Poets, Philosophers,
Painters, Novelists, Interior Decorators; Culture for the Busy Man, six
volumes, half calf; How to Build Up a Background; Talk Tips; YOU, Too,
Can Be Interesting; Sixty Square Feet of Self-Culture--and a score more.
"Culture"--always that wretched word!
"Are you fond of reading, Mr. Pottle?" asked Mrs. Gallup, popping a
Choc-O-late Nuttie into her demure mouth with a daintiness almost
ethereal.
"Love it," he answered promptly.
"Who is your favorite poet?"
"S-Shakspere," he ventured desperately.
"He's mine, too." Mr. Pottle breathed easier.
"But," she added, "I think Longfellow is sweet, don't you?"
"Very sweet," agreed Mr. Pottle.
She smiled at him with a sad, shy confidence.
"He did not understand," she said.
She nodded her blonde head toward an enlarged picture of the late Mr.
Gallup, in the full regalia of Past Grand Master of the Beneficent Order
of Beavers.
"Didn't he care for--er--literature?" asked Mr. Pottle.
"He despised it," she replied. "He was wrapped up in the hay-and-feed
business. He began to talk about oats and chicken gravel on our
honeymoon."
Mr. Pottle made a sympathetic noise.
"In our six years of married life," she went on, "he talked of nothing
but duck fodder, carload lots, trade discounts, selling points, bran,
turnover----"
How futile, how inadequate seem mere words in some situations. Mr.
Pottle said nothing; timidly he took her hand in his; she did not draw
it away.
"And he only shaved on Saturday nights," she said.
Mr. Pottle's free hand went to his own face, smooth as steel and art
could make it.
"Blossom," he began huskily, "have you ever thought of marrying again?"
"I have," she answered, blushing--his hand on hers tightened--"and I
haven't," she finished.
"Oh, Blossom----" he began once more.
"If I do marry again," she interrupted, "it will be a literary man."
"A literary man?" His tone was aghast. "A writing fella?"
"Oh, not necessarily a writer," she said. "They usually live in garrets,
and I shouldn't like that. I mean a man who has read all sorts of
books, and who can talk about all sorts of things."
"Blossom"--Mr. Pottle's voice was humble--"I'm not what you might
call----"
There was a sound of clumping feet on the porch outside. Mrs. Gallup
started up.
"Oh, that must be him now!" she cried.
"Him? Who?"
"Why, Mr. Deeley."
"Who's he?" queried Mr. Pottle.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you! He said he might call to-night. Such a nice
man! I met him over in Xenia last week. Such a brilliant
conversationalist. I know you'll like each other."
She hastened to answer the doorbell; Mr. Pottle sat moodily in his
chair, not at all sure he'd like Mr. Deeley.
The brilliant conversationalist burst into the room breezily,
confidently. He was slightly smaller than a load of hay in his belted
suit of ecru pongee; he wore a satisfied air and a pleased mustache.
"Meet Mr. Pottle," said Mrs. Gallup.
"What name?" asked Mr. Deeley. His voice was high, sweet and loud; his
handshake was a knuckle pulverizer.
"Pottle," said the owner of that name.
"I beg pardon?" said Mr. Deeley.
"Pottle," said Mr. Pottle more loudly.
"Sorry," said Mr. Deeley affably, "but it sounds just like 'Pottle' to
me."
"That's what it is," said Mr. Pottle with dignity.
Mr. Deeley laughed a loud tittering laugh.
"Oh, well," he remarked genially, "you can't help that. We're born with
our names, but"--he bestowed a dazzling smile on Mrs. Gallup--"we pick
our own teeth."
"Oh, Mr. Deeley," she cried, "you do say the most ridiculously witty
things!"
Mr. Pottle felt a concrete lump forming in his bosom.
Mr. Deeley addressed him tolerantly. "What line are you in, Mr. Bottle?"
he asked.
"Barbers' supplies," admitted Mr. Pottle.
"Ah, yes. Barbers' supplies. How interesting," said Mr. Deeley.
"Climbing the lather of success, eh?"
Mr. Pottle did not join in the merriment.
"What line are you in?" he asked. He prayed that Mr. Deeley would say
"Shoes," for by a happy inspiration he was prepared to counter with,
"Ah, starting at the bottom," and thus split honors with the Xenian.
But Mr. Deeley did not say "Shoes." He said "Literature." Mrs. Gallup
beamed.
"Oh, are you, Mr. Deeley? How perfectly thrilling!" she said
rapturously. "I didn't know that."
"Oh, yes indeed," said Mr. Deeley. He changed the subject by turning to
Mr. Pottle. "By the way, Mr. Poodle, are you interested in Abyssinia?"
he inquired.
"Why, no--that is, not particularly," confessed Mr. Pottle. He looked
toward her who had quickened his pulse, but her eyes were fastened on
Mr. Deeley.
"I'm surprised to hear you say that," said Mr. Deeley. "A most
interesting place, Abyssinia--rather a specialty of mine."
He threw one plump leg over the other and leaned back comfortably.
"Abyssinia," he went on in his high voice, "is an inland country
situated by the Red Sea between 5° and 15° north latitude, and 35° and
42° east longitude. Its area is 351,019 square miles. Its population is
4,501,477. It includes Shoa, Kaffa, Gallaland and Central Somaliland.
Its towns include Adis-Ababa, Adowa, Adigrat, Aliu-Amber, Debra-Derhan
and Bonger. It produces coffee, salt and gold. The inhabitants are
morally very lax. Indeed, polygamy is a common practice, and----"
"Polly Gammy?" cried Mrs. Gallup in imitation of Mr. Deeley's
pronunciation. "Oh, what is that?"
Mr. Deeley smiled blandly.
"I think," he said, "that it is hardly the sort of thing I care to
discuss in--er--mixed company."
He helped himself to three of the Choc-O-late Nutties.
"That reminds me," he said, "of abbreviations."
"Abbreviations?" Mrs. Gallup looked her interest.
"The world," observed Mr. Deeley, "is full of them. For example, Mr.
Puttle, do you know what R. W. D. G. M. stands for?"
"No," answered Mr. Pottle glumly.
"It stands for Right Worshipful Deputy Grand Master," informed Mr.
Deeley. "Do you know what N. U. T. stands for?"
"I know what it spells," said Mr. Pottle pointedly.
"You ought to," said Mr. Deeley, letting off his laugh. "But we were
discussing abbreviations. Since you don't seem very well informed on
this point"--he shot a smile at Mrs. Gallup--"I'll tell you that N. U.
T. stands for National Union of Teachers, just as M. F. H. stands for
Master of Fox Hounds, and M. I. C. E. stands for Member of Institute of
Civil Engineers, and A. O. H. stands for----"
"Oh, Mr. Deeley, how perfectly thrilling!" Mrs. Gallup spoke; Mr. Pottle
writhed; Mr. Deeley smiled complacently, and went on.
"I could go on indefinitely; abbreviations are rather a specialty of
mine."
It developed that Mr. Deeley had many specialties.
"Are you aware," he asked, focusing his gaze on Mr. Pottle, "that there
is acid in this cherry?" He held aloft a candied cherry which he had
deftly exhumed from a Choc-O-late Nuttie.
"My goodness!" cried Mrs. Gallup. "Will it poison us? I've eaten six."
"My dear lady"--there was a world of tender reassurance in Mr. Deeley's
tone--"only the uninformed regard all acids as poisonous. There are
acids and acids. I've taken a rather special interest in them. Let's
see--there are many kinds--acetic, benzoic, citric, gallic, lactic,
malic, oxalic, palmitic, picric--but why go on?"
"Yes," said Mr. Pottle; "why?"
"Do not interrupt, Mr. Pottle, if you please," said Mrs. Gallup
severely. "I'm sure what Mr. Deeley says interests me immensely. Go on,
Mr. Deeley."
"Thank you, Mrs. Gallup; thank you," said the brilliant
conversationalist. "But don't you think alligators are more interesting
than acids?"
"You know about so many interesting things," she smiled. Mr. Pottle's
very soul began to curdle.
"Alligators are rather a specialty of mine," remarked Mr. Deeley.
"Fascinating little brutes, I think. You know alligators, Mrs. Gallup?"
"Stuffed," said the lady.
"Ah, to be sure," he said. "Perhaps, then, you do not realize that the
alligator is of the family _Crocodilidoe_ and the order _Eusuchia_."
"No? You don't tell me?" Mrs. Gallup's tone was almost reverent.
"Yes," continued Mr. Deeley, in the voice of a lecturer, "there are two
kinds of alligators--the _lucius_, found in the Mississippi; and the
_sinensis_, in the Yang-tse-Kiang. It differs from the _caiman_ by
having a bony septum between its nostrils, and its ventral scutes are
thinly, if at all, ossified. It is carnivorous and piscivorous----"
"How fascinating!" Mrs. Gallup had edged her chair nearer the speaker.
"What does that mean?"
"It means," said Mr. Deeley, "that they eat corn and pigs."
"The strong tail of the alligator," he flowed on easily, "by a lashing
movement assists it in swimming, during which exercise it emits a loud
bellowing."
"Do alligators bellow?" asked Mr. Pottle with open skepticism.
"I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard them bellow," answered
Mr. Deeley pugnaciously. "Apparently, Mr. Puddle, you are not familiar
with the works of Ahn."
Mr. Pottle maintained a blank black silence.
"Oh, who was he?" put in Mrs. Gallup.
"Johann Franz Ahn, born 1796, died 1865, was an educationalist," said
Mr. Deeley in the voice of authority. "His chief work, of which I am
very fond, is a volume entitled, 'Praktischer Lehrgang zur Schnellen und
Leichten Erlergung der Französischen Sprache.' You've read it, perhaps,
Mr. Pobble?"
"No," said Mr. Pottle miserably. "I can't say I ever have." He felt that
his case grew worse with every minute. He rose. "I guess I'd better be
going," he said. Mrs. Gallup made no attempt to detain him.
As he left her presence with slow steps and a heart of lead he heard the
high voice of Mr. Deeley saying, "Now, take alcohol: That's rather a
specialty of mine. Alcohol is a term applied to a group of organic
substances, including methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, amyl----"
Back in his bachelor home the heartsick Mr. Pottle flung his new tie
into a corner, slammed his ultra shoes on the floor, and tossed his
trousers, heedless of rumpling, at a chair, sat down, head in hand, and
thought of a watery grave.
For that he could not hope to compete conversationally or otherwise with
the literary Deeley of Xenia was all too apparent. Mrs. Gallup--he had
called her Blossom but a few brief hours ago--said she wanted a literary
man, and here was one literary to his manicured finger tips.
He would not give up. Pottles are made of stern stuff. Reason told him
his cause was hopeless, but his heart told him to fight to the last. He
obeyed his heart.
Arraying himself in his finest, three nights later he went to call on
Mrs. Gallup, a five-pound box of Choc-O-late Nutties hugged nervously to
his silk-shirted bosom.
A maid admitted him. He heard in the living room a familiar high
masculine voice that made his fists double up. It was saying,
"Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, was born at Stagira in 384 B. C.
and----"
Mr. Deeley paused to greet Mr. Pottle casually; Mrs. Gallup took the
candy with only conventional words of appreciation, and turned at once
to listen, disciple-like, to the discourses of the sage from Xenia, who
for the rest of the evening held the center of the stage, absorbed every
beam of the calcium, and dispensed fact and fancy about a wide variety
of things. He was a man with many and curious specialties. Mrs. Gallup
was a willing, Mr. Pottle a most unwilling listener.
At eleven Mr. Pottle went home, having uttered but two words all
evening, and those monosyllables. He left Mr. Deeley holding forth in
detail on the science of astronomy, with side glances at astrology and
ancestor-worship.
Mr. Pottle's heart was too full for sleep. Indeed, as he walked in the
moonlight through Eastman Park, it was with the partially formed intent
of flinging himself in among the swans that slept on the artificial
lake.
His mind went back to the conversation of Mr. Deeley in Mrs. Gallup's
salon. She had been Blossom to him once, but now--this loudly learned
stranger! Mr. Pottle stopped suddenly and sat down sharply on a park
bench. The topics on which Mr. Deeley had conversed so fluently passed
in an orderly array before his mind: Apes, acoustics, angels, Apollo,
adders, albumen, auks, Alexander the Great, anarchy, adenoids----He had
it! A light, bright as the sun at noon, dawned on Mr. Pottle.
Next morning when the public library opened, Mr. Pottle was waiting at
the door.
A feverish week rushed by in Mr. Pottle's life.
"We'll be having to charge that little man with the bashful grin, rent
or storage or something," said Miss Merk, the seventh assistant
librarian, to Miss Heaslip, the ninth assistant librarian.
Sunday night firm determined steps took Mr. Pottle to the bungalow of
Mrs. Gallup. He heard Mr. Deeley's sweet resonant voice in the living
room. He smiled grimly.
"I was just telling Blossom about a curious little animal I take rather
a special interest in," began the man from Xenia, with a condescending
nod to Mr. Pottle.
Mr. Pottle checked the frown that had started to gather at "Blossom,"
and asked politely, "And what is the beast's name?"
"The aard-vark," replied Mr. Deeley. "He is----"
"The Cape ant bear," finished Mr. Pottle, "or earth pig. He lives on
ants, burrows rapidly, and can be easily killed by a smart blow on his
sensitive snout."
Mr. Deeley stared; Mrs. Gallup stared; Mr. Pottle sailed on serenely.
"A very interesting beast, the aard-vark. But to my mind not so
interesting as the long-nosed bandicoot. You know the long-nosed
bandicoot, I presume, Mr. Deeley?"
"Well, not under that name," retorted the Xenia sage. "You don't mean
antelope?"
"By no means," said Mr. Pottle with a superior smile. "I said
bandicoot--B-a-n-d-i-coot. He is a _Peramelidoe_ of the Marsupial
family, meaning he carries his young in a pouch like a kangaroo."
"How cute!" murmured Mrs. Gallup.
"There are bandicoots and bandicoots," pursued Mr. Pottle; "the
_Peragale_, or rabbit bandicoot; the _Nasuta_, or long-nosed bandicoot;
the _Mysouros_, or saddle-backed bandicoot; the _Choeropus_, or
pig-footed bandicoot; and----"
"Speaking of antelopes----" Mr. Deeley interrupted loudly.
"By all means!" said Mr. Pottle still more loudly. "I've always taken a
special interest in antelopes. Let's see now--the antelope family
includes the gnus, elands, hartebeests, addax, klipspringers, chamois,
gazelles, chirus, pallas, saigas, nilgais, koodoos--pretty name that,
isn't it, Blossom--the blessboks, duikerboks, boneboks, gemsboks,
steinboks----"
He saw that the bright blue eyes of the lady of his dreams were fastened
on him. He turned toward Mr. Deeley.
"You're familiar with Bambara, aren't you?" he asked.
"I beg pardon?" The brilliant conversationalist seemed a little
confused. "Did you say Arabia? I should say I do know Arabia. Population
5,078,441; area----"
"One million, two hundred and twenty-two thousand square miles,"
finished Mr. Pottle. "No, I did not say Arabia; I said Bambara.
B-a-m-b-a-r-a."
"Oh, Bambara," said Mr. Deeley feebly; his assurance seemed to crumple.
"Yes," said Mrs. Gallup. "Do tell us about Bambara; such an intriguing
name."
"It is a country in Western Africa," Mr. Pottle tossed off grandly,
"with a population of 2,004,737, made up of Negroes, Mandingoes and
Foulahs. Its principal products are rice, maize, cotton, millet, yams,
pistachio nuts, French beans, watermelons, onions, tobacco, indigo,
tamarinds, lotuses, sheep, horses, alligators, pelicans, turtles,
egrets, teals and Barbary ducks."
"Oh, how interesting! Do go on, Mr. Pottle." It was the voice of Mrs.
Gallup; to Mr. Pottle it seemed that there was a tender note in it.
"Bambara reminds me of baboons," he went on loudly and rapidly, checking
an incipient remark from Mr. Deeley. "Baboons, you know, are
_Cynocephali_ or dog-headed monkeys; the species includes drills,
mandrills, sphinx, chacma and hamadryas. Most baboons have ischial
callosities----"
"Oh, what do they do with them?" cried wide-eyed Mrs. Gallup.
"They--er--sit on them," answered Mr. Pottle.
"I don't believe it," Mr. Deeley challenged.
Mr. Pottle froze him with a look. "Evidently," he said, "you, Mr.
Deeley, are not familiar with the works of Dr. Oskar Baumann, author of
'Afrikanische Skizzen.' Are you?"
"I've glanced through it," said Mr. Deeley.
"Then you don't remember what he says on Page 489?"
"Can't say that I do," mumbled Mr. Deeley.
"And you appear unfamiliar with the works of Hosea Ballou."
"Who?"
"Hosea Ballou."
"I doubt if there is such a person," said Mr. Deeley stiffly. He did not
appear to be enjoying himself.
"Oh, you do, do you?" retorted Mr. Pottle. "Suppose you look him up in
your encyclopedia--if," he added with crushing emphasis--"if you have
one. You'll find that Hosea Ballou was born in 1771, founded the Trumpet
Magazine, the Universalist Expositor, the Universalist Quarterly Review,
and wrote Notes on the Parables."
"What has that to do with baboons?" demanded Mr. Deeley.
"A lot more than you think," was Mr. Pottle's cryptic answer. He turned
from the Xenian with a shrug of dismissal, and smiled upon Mrs. Gallup.
"Don't you think, Blossom," he said, "that Babylonia is a fascinating
country?"
"Oh, very," she smiled back at him. "I dote on Babylonia."
"Perhaps," suggested Mr. Pottle, "Mr. Deeley will be good enough to tell
us all about it."
Mr. Deeley looked extremely uncomfortable.
"Babylonia--let's see now--well, it just happens that Babylonia is not
one of my specialties."
"Well, tell us about Baluchistan, then," suggested Mr. Pottle.
"Yes, do!" echoed Mrs. Gallup.
"I've forgotten about it," answered the brilliant conversationalist
sullenly.
"Well, tell us about Beethoven, then," pursued Mr. Pottle relentlessly.
"I never was there," growled Mr. Deeley. "Say, when does the next
trolley leave for Xenia?"
"In seven minutes," answered Mrs. Gallup coldly. "You've just got time
to catch it."
The bungalow's front door snapped at the heels of the departing sage
from Xenia.
Mr. Pottle hitched his chair close to the sofa where Mrs. Gallup sat.
"Oh, Mr. Pottle," she said softly, "do talk some more! I just love to
hear you. You surprised me. I didn't realize you were such a well-read
man."
Mr. Pottle looked into her wide blue eyes.
"I'm not," he said. "I was bluffing."
"Bluffing?"
"Yes," he said; "and so was your friend from Xenia. He's no more in the
literary line than I am. His job is selling a book called 'Hog
Culture.'"
"But he talks so well----" began Mrs. Gallup.
"Only about things that begin with 'A,'" said Mr. Pottle. "He memorized
everything in the encyclopedia under 'A.' I simply went him one better.
I memorized all of 'A,' and all of 'B' too."
"Oh, the deceitful wretch!"
"I'm sorry, Blossom. Can you forgive me?" he pleaded. "I did it
because----"
She interrupted him gently.
"I know," she said, smiling. "You did it for me. I wasn't calling you a
wretch, Ambrose."
He found himself on the sofa beside her, his arm about her.
"What I really want," she confessed with a happy sigh, "is a good strong
man to take care of me."
"We'll go through the rest of the encyclopedia together, dearest," said
Mr. Pottle.
IV: _Mr. Pottle and the One Man Dog_
"Ambrose! Ambrose dear!" The new Mrs. Pottle put down the book she was
reading--Volume Dec to Erd of the encyclopedia.
"Yes, Blossom dear." Mr. Pottle's tone was fraught with the tender
solicitude of the recently wed. He looked up from his book--Volume Ode
to Pay of the encyclopedia.
"Ambrose, we must get a dog!"
"A dog, darling?"
His tone was still tender but a thought lacking in warmth. His smile, he
hoped, conveyed the impression that while he utterly approved of
Blossom, herself, personally, her current idea struck no responsive
chord in his bosom.
"Yes, a dog."
She sighed as she gazed at a large framed steel-engraving of Landseer's
St. Bernards that occupied a space on the wall until recently tenanted
by a crayon enlargement of her first husband in his lodge regalia.
"Such noble creatures," she sighed. "So intelligent. And so loyal."
"In the books they are," murmured Mr. Pottle.
"Oh, Ambrose," she protested with a pout. "How can you say such a thing?
Just look at their big eyes, so full of soul. What magnificent animals!
So full of understanding and fidelity and--and----"
"Fleas?" suggested Mr. Pottle.
Her glance was glacial.
"Ambrose, you are positively cruel," she said, tiny, injured tears
gathering in her wide blue eyes. He was instantly penitent.
"Forgive me, dear," he begged. "I forgot. In the books they don't have
'em, do they? You see, precious, I don't take as much stock in books as
I used to. I've been fooled so often."
"They're lovely books," said Mrs. Pottle, somewhat mollified. "You said
yourself that you adore dog stories."
"Sure I do, honey," said Mr. Pottle, "but a man can like stories about
elephants without wanting to own one, can't he?"
"A dog is not an elephant, Ambrose."
He could not deny it.
"Don't you remember," she pursued, rapturously, "that lovely book,
'Hero, the Collie Beautiful,' where a kiddie finds a puppy in an ash
barrel, and takes care of it, and later the collie grows up and rescues
the kiddie from a fire; or was that the book where the collie flew at
the throat of the man who came to murder the kiddie's father, and the
father broke down and put his arms around the collie's neck because he
had kicked the collie once and the collie used to follow him around with
big, hurt eyes and yet when he was in danger Hero saved him because
collies are so sensitive and so loyal?"
"Uh huh," assented Mr. Pottle.
"And that story we read, 'Almost Human'," she rippled on fluidly, "about
the kiddie who was lost in a snow-storm in the mountains and the brave
St. Bernard that came along with bottles of spirits around its neck--St.
Bernards always carry them--and----"
"Do the bottles come with the dogs?" asked Mr. Pottle, hopefully.
She elevated disapproving eyebrows.
"Ambrose," she said, sternly, "don't always be making jests about
alcohol. It's so common. You know when I married you, you promised never
even to think of it again."
"Yes, Blossom," said Mr. Pottle, meekly.
She beamed.
"Well, dear, what kind of a dog shall we get?" she asked briskly. He
felt that all was lost.
"There are dogs and dogs," he said moodily. "And I don't know anything
about any of them."
"I'll read what it says here," she said. Mrs. Pottle was pursuing
culture through the encyclopedia, and felt that she would overtake it on
almost any page now.
"Dog," she read, "is the English generic term for the quadruped of the
domesticated variety of _canis_."
"Well, I'll be darned!" exclaimed her husband. "Is that a fact?"
"Be serious, Ambrose, please. The choice of a dog is no jesting matter,"
she rebuked him, and then read on, "In the Old and New Testaments the
dog is spoken of almost with abhorrence; indeed, it ranks among the
unclean beasts----"
"There, Blossom," cried Mr. Pottle, clutching at a straw, "what did I
tell you? Would you fly in the face of the Good Book?"
She did not deign to reply verbally; she looked refrigerators at him.
"The Egyptians, on the other hand," she read, a note of triumph in her
voice, "venerated the dog, and when a dog died they shaved their heads
as a badge of mourning----"
"The Egyptians did, hey?" remarked Mr. Pottle, open disgust on his apple
of face. "Shaved their own heads, did they? No wonder they all turned to
mummies. You can't tell me it's safe for a man to shave his own head;
there ought to be a law against it."
Mr. Pottle was in the barber business.
Unheedful of this digression, Mrs. Pottle read on.
"There are many sorts of dogs. I'll read the list so we can pick out
ours. You needn't look cranky, Ambrose; we're going to have one. Let me
see. Ah, yes. 'There are Great Danes, mastiffs, collies, dalmatians,
chows, New Foundlands, poodles, setters, pointers, retrievers--Labrador
and flat-coated--spaniels, beagles, dachshunds--I'll admit they are
rather nasty; they're the only sort of dog I can't bear--whippets,
otterhounds, terriers, including Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Skye and fox, and
St. Bernards.' St. Bernards, it says, are the largest; 'their ears are
small and their foreheads white and dome-shaped, giving them the well
known expression of benignity and intelligence.' Oh, Ambrose"--her eyes
were full of dreams--"Oh, Ambrose, wouldn't it be just too wonderful for
words to have a great, big, beautiful dog like that?"
"There isn't any too much room in this bungalow as it is," demurred Mr.
Pottle. "Better get a chow."
"You don't seem to realize, Ambrose Pottle," the lady replied with some
severity, "that what I want a dog for is protection."
"Protection, my angel? Can't I protect you?"
"Not when you're away on the road selling your shaving cream. Then's
when I need some big, loyal creature to protect me."
"From what?"
"Well, burglars."
"Why should they come here?"
"How about all our wedding silver? And then kidnapers might come."
"Kidnapers? What could they kidnap?"
"Me," said Mrs. Pottle. "How would you like to come home from Zanesville
or Bucyrus some day and find me gone, Ambrose?" Her lip quivered at the
thought.
To Mr. Pottle, privately, this contingency seemed remote. His bride was
not the sort of woman one might kidnap easily. She was a plentiful lady
of a well developed maturity, whose clothes did not conceal her heroic
mold, albeit they fitted her as tightly as if her modiste were a
taxidermist. However, not for worlds would he have voiced this
sacrilegious thought; he was in love; he preferred that she should think
of herself as infinitely clinging and helpless; he fancied the rôle of
sturdy oak.
"All right, Blossom," he gave in, patting her cheek. "If my angel wants
a dog, she shall have one. That reminds me, Charley Meacham, the boss
barber of the Ohio House, has a nice litter. He offered me one or two or
three if I wanted them. The mother is as fine a looking spotted coach
dog as ever you laid an eye on and the pups----"
"What was the father?" demanded Mrs. Pottle.
"How should I know? There's a black pup, and a spotted pup, and a yellow
pup, and a white pup and a----"
Mrs. Pottle sniffed.
"No mungles for me," she stated, flatly, "I hate mungles. I want a
thoroughbred, or nothing. One with a pedigree, like that adorably
handsome creature there."
She nodded toward the engraving of the giant St. Bernards.
"But, darling," objected Mr. Pottle, "pedigreed pups cost money. A dog
can bark and bite whether he has a family tree or not, can't he? We
can't afford one of these fancy, blue-blooded ones. I've got notes at
the bank right now I don't know how the dooce I'm going to pay. My
shaving stick needs capital. I can't be blowing in hard-earned dough on
pups."
"Oh, Ambrose, I actually believe
you--don't--care--whether--I'm--kidnaped--or--not!" his wife began, a
catch in her voice. A heart of wrought iron would have been melted by
the pathos of her tone and face.
"There, there, honey," said Mr. Pottle, hastily, with an appropriate
amatory gesture, "you shall have your pup. But remember this, Blossom
Pottle. He's yours. You are to have all the responsibility and care of
him."
"Oh, Ambrose, you're so good to me," she breathed.
The next evening when Mr. Pottle came home he observed something brown
and fuzzy nestling in his Sunday velour hat. With a smothered
exclamation of the kind that has no place in a romance, he dumped the
thing out and saw it waddle away on unsteady legs, leaving him sadly
contemplating the strawberry silk lining of his best hat.
"Isn't he a love? Isn't he just too sweet," cried Mrs. Pottle, emerging
from the living room and catching the object up in her arms. "Come to
mama, sweetie-pie. Did the nassy man frighten my precious Pershing?"
"Your precious what?"
"Pershing. I named him for a brave man and a fighter. I just know he'll
be worthy of it, when he grows up, and starts to protect me."
"In how many years?" inquired Mr. Pottle, cynically.
"The man said he'd be big enough to be a watch dog in a very few months;
they grow so fast."
"What man said this?"
"The kennel man. I bought Pershing at the Laddiebrook-Sunshine Kennels
to-day." She paused to kiss the pink muzzle of the little animal; Mr.
Pottle winced at this but she noted it not, and rushed on.
"Such an interesting place, Ambrose. Nothing but dogs and dogs and dogs.
All kinds, too. They even had one mean, sneaky-looking dachshund there;
I just couldn't trust a dog like that. Ugh! Well, I looked at all the
dogs. The minute I saw Pershing I knew he was my dog. His little eyes
looked up at me as much as to say, 'I'll be yours, mistress, faithful to
the death,' and he put out the dearest little pink tongue and licked my
hand. The kennel man said, 'Now ain't that wonderful, lady, the way he's
taken to you? Usually he growls at strangers. He's a one man dog, all
right, all right'."
"A one man dog?" said Mr. Pottle, blankly.
"Yes. One that loves his owner, and nobody else. That's just the kind I
want."
"Where do I come in?" inquired Mr. Pottle.
"Oh, he'll learn to tolerate you, I guess," she reassured him. Then she
rippled on, "I just had to have him then. He was one of five, but he
already had a little personality all his own, although he's only three
weeks old. I saw his mother--a magnificent creature, Ambrose, big as a
Shetland pony and twice as shaggy, and with the most wonderful
appealing eyes, that looked at me as if it stabbed her to the heart to
have her little ones taken from her. And such a pedigree! It covers
pages. Her name is Gloria Audacious Indomitable; the Audacious
Indomitables are a very celebrated family of St. Bernards, the kennel
man said."
"What about his father?" queried Mr. Pottle, poking the ball of pup with
his finger.
"I didn't see him," admitted Mrs. Pottle. "I believe they are not living
together now."
She snuggled the pup to her capacious bosom.
"So," she said, "its whole name is Pershing Audacious Indomitable, isn't
it, tweetums?"
"It's a swell name," admitted Mr. Pottle. "Er--Blossom dear, how much
did he cost?"
She brought out the reply quickly, almost timidly.
"Fifty dollars."
"Fif----" his voice stuck in his larynx. "Great Cæsar's Ghost!"
"But think of his pedigree," cried his wife.
All he could say was:
"Great Cæsar's Ghost! Fifty dollars! Great Cæsar's Ghost!"
"Why, we can exhibit him at bench shows," she argued, "and win hundreds
of dollars in prizes. And his pups will be worth fifty dollars per pup
easily, with that pedigree."
"Great Cæsar's Ghost," said Mr. Pottle, despondently. "Fifty dollars!
And the shaving stick business all geflooey."
"He'll be worth a thousand to me as a protector," she declared,
defiantly. "You wait and see, Ambrose Pottle. Wait till he grows up to
be a great, big, handsome, intelligent dog, winning prizes and
protecting your wife. He'll be the best investment we ever made, you
mark my words."
Had Pershing encountered Mr. Pottle's eye at that moment the marrow of
his small canine bones would have congealed.
"All right, Blossom," said her spouse, gloomily. "He's yours. You take
care of him. I wonder, I just wonder, that's all."
"What do you wonder, Ambrose?"
"If they'll let him visit us when we're in the poor house."
To this his wife remarked, "Fiddlesticks," and began to feed Pershing
from a nursing bottle.
"Grade A milk, I suppose," groaned Mr. Pottle.
"Cream," she corrected, calmly. "Pershing is no mungle. Remember that,
Ambrose Pottle."
* * * * *
It was a nippy, frosty night, and Mr. Pottle, after much chattering of
teeth, had succeeded in getting a place warm in the family bed, and was
floating peacefully into a dream in which he got a contract for ten
carload lots of Pottle's Edible Shaving Cream. "Just Lather, Shave and
Lick. That's All," when his wife's soft knuckles prodded him in the
ribs.
"Ambrose, Ambrose, do wake up. Do you hear that?"
He sleepily opened a protesting eye. He heard faint, plaintive, peeping
sounds somewhere in the house.
"It's that wretched hound," he said crossly.
"Pershing is not a hound, Ambrose Pottle."
"Oh, all right, Blossom, ALL RIGHT. It's that noble creature, G'night."
But the knuckles tattooed on his drowsy ribs again.
"Ambrose, he's lonesome."
No response.
"Ambrose, little Pershing is lonesome."
"Well, suppose you go and sing him to sleep."
"Ambrose! And us married only a month!"
Mr. Pottle sat up in bed.
"Is he your pup," he demanded, oratorically, "or is he not your pup,
Mrs. Pottle? And anyhow, why pamper him? He's all right. Didn't I walk
six blocks in the cold to a grocery store to get a box for his bed?
Didn't you line it with some of my best towels? Isn't it under a nice,
warm stove? What more can a hound----"
"Ambrose!"
"----noble creature, expect?"
He dived into his pillow as if it were oblivion.
"Ambrose," said his wife, loudly and firmly, "Pershing is lonesome.
Thoroughbreds have such sensitive natures. If he thought we were lying
here neglecting him, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he died of a
broken heart before morning. A pedigreed dog like Pershing has the
feelings of a delicate child."
Muffled words came from the Pottle pillow.
"Well, whose one man dog is he?"
Mrs. Pottle began to sniffle audibly.
"I d-don't believe you'd c-care if I got up and c-caught my d-death of
c-cold," she said. "You know how easily I c-chill, too. But I c-can't
leave that poor motherless little fellow cry his heart out in that big,
dark, lonely kitchen. I'll just have to get up and----"
She stirred around as if she really intended to. The chivalrous Mr.
Pottle heaved up from his pillow like an irate grampus from the depths
of a tank.
"I'll go," he grumbled, fumbling around with goose-fleshed limbs for his
chilly slippers. "Shall I tell him about Little Red Riding Hood or
Goody Two Shoes?"
"Ambrose, if you speak roughly to Pershing, I shall never forgive you.
And he won't either. No. Bring him in here."
"Here?" His tone was aghast; barbers are aseptic souls.
"Yes, of course."
"In bed?"
"Certainly."
"Oh, Blossom!"
"We can't leave him in the cold, can we?"
"But, Blossom, suppose he's--suppose he has----"
The hiatus was expressive.
"He hasn't." Her voice was one of indignant denial. "Pedigreed dogs
don't. Why, the kennels were immaculate."
"Humph," said Mr. Pottle dubiously. He strode into the kitchen and
returned with Pershing in his arms; he plumped the small, bushy, whining
animal in bed beside his wife.
"I suppose, Mrs. Pottle," he said, "that you are prepared to take the
consequences."
She stroked the squirming thing, which emitted small, protesting bleats.
"Don't you mind the nassy man, sweetie-pie," she cooed. "Casting
'spersions on poor li'l lonesome doggie." Then, to her husband,
"Ambrose, how can you suggest such a thing? Don't stand there in the
cold."
"Nevertheless," said Mr. Pottle, oracularly, as he prepared to seek
slumber at a point as remote as possible in the bed from Pershing, "I'll
bet a dollar to a doughnut that I'm right."
Mr. Pottle won his doughnut. At three o'clock in the morning, with the
mercury flirting with the freezing mark, he suddenly surged up from his
pillow, made twitching motions with limbs and shoulders, and stalked out
into the living room, where he finished the night on a hard-boiled army
cot, used for guests.
* * * * *
As the days hurried by, he had to admit that the kennel man's
predictions about the rapid growth of the animal seemed likely of
fulfillment. In a very few weeks the offspring of Gloria Audacious
Indomitable had attained prodigious proportions.
"But, Blossom," said Mr. Pottle, eyeing the animal as it gnawed
industriously at the golden oak legs of the player piano, "isn't he
growing in a sort of funny way?"
"Funny way, Ambrose?"
"Yes, dear; funny way. Look at his legs."
She contemplated those members.
"Well?"
"They're kinda brief, aren't they, Blossom?"
"Naturally. He's no giraffe, Ambrose. Young thoroughbreds have small
legs. Just like babies."
"But he seems so sorta long in proportion to his legs," said Mr. Pottle,
critically. "He gets to look more like an overgrown caterpillar every
day."
"You said yourself, Ambrose, that you know nothing about dogs," his wife
reminded him. "The legs always develop last. Give Pershing a chance to
get his growth; then you'll see."
Mr. Pottle shrugged, unconvinced.
"It's time to take Pershing out for his airing," Mrs. Pottle observed.
A fretwork of displeasure appeared on the normally bland brow of Mr.
Pottle.
"Lotta good that does," he grunted. "Besides, I'm getting tired of
leading him around on a string. He's so darn funny looking; the boys are
beginning to kid me about him."
"Do you want me to go out," asked Mrs. Pottle, "with this heavy cold?"
"Oh, all right," said Mr. Pottle blackly.
"Now, Pershing precious, let mama put on your li'l blanket so you can go
for a nice li'l walk with your papa."
"I'm not his papa," growled Mr. Pottle, rebelliously. "I'm no relation
of his."
However, the neighbors along Garden Avenue presently spied a short,
rotund man, progressing with reluctant step along the street, in his
hand a leathern leash at the end of which ambled a pup whose physique
was the occasion of some discussion among the dog-fanciers who beheld
it.
* * * * *
"Blossom," said Mr. Pottle--it was after Pershing had outgrown two boxes
and a large wash-basket--"you may say what you like but that dog of
yours looks funny to me."
"How can you say that?" she retorted. "Just look at that long heavy
coat. Look at that big, handsome head. Look at those knowing eyes, as if
he understood every word we're saying."
"But his legs, Blossom, his legs!"
"They are a wee, tiny bit short," she confessed. "But he's still in his
infancy. Perhaps we don't feed him often enough."
"No?" said Mr. Pottle with a rising inflection which had the perfume of
sarcasm about it, "No? I suppose seven times a day, including once in
the middle of the night isn't often enough?"
"Honestly, Ambrose, you'd think you were an early Christian martyr being
devoured by tigers to hear all the fuss you make about getting up just
once for five or ten minutes in the night to feed poor, hungry little
Pershing."
"It hardly seems worth it," remarked Mr. Pottle, "with him turning out
this way."
"What way?"
"Bandy-legged."
"St. Bernards," she said with dignity, "do not run to legs. Mungles may
be all leggy, but not full blooded St. Bernards. He's a baby, remember
that, Ambrose Pottle."
"He eats more than a full grown farm hand," said Mr. Pottle. "And steak
at fifty cents a pound!"
"You can't bring up a delicate dog like Pershing on liver," said Mrs.
Pottle, crushingly. "Now run along, Ambrose, and take him for a good
airing, while I get his evening broth ready."
"They extended that note of mine at the Bank, Blossom," said Mr. Pottle.
"Don't let him eat out of ash cans, and don't let him associate with
mungles," said Mrs. Pottle.
Mr. Pottle skulked along side-streets, now dragging, now being dragged
by the muscular Pershing. It was Mr. Pottle's idea to escape the
attention of his friends, of whom there were many in Granville, and who,
of late, had shown a disposition to make remarks about his evening
promenade that irked his proud spirit. But, as he rounded the corner of
Cottage Row, he encountered Charlie Meacham, tonsorialist, dog-fancier,
wit.
"Evening, Ambrose."
"Evening, Charlie."
Mr. Pottle tried to ignore Pershing, to pretend that there was no
connection between them, but Pershing reared up on stumpy hind legs and
sought to embrace Mr. Meacham.
"Where'd you get the pooch?" inquired Mr. Meacham, with some interest.
"Wife's," said Mr. Pottle, briefly.
"Where'd she find it?"
"Didn't find him. Bought him at Laddiebrook-Sunshine Kennels."
"Oho," whistled Mr. Meacham.
"Pedigreed," confided Mr. Pottle.
"You don't tell me!"
"Yep. Name's Pershing."
"Name's what?"
"Pershing. In honor of the great general."
Mr. Meacham leaned against a convenient lamp-post; he seemed of a sudden
overcome by some powerful emotion.
"What's the joke?" asked Mr. Pottle.
"Pershing!" Mr. Meacham was just able to get out. "Oh, me, oh my. That's
rich. That's a scream."
"Pershing," said Mr. Pottle, stoutly, "Audacious Indomitable. You ought
to see his pedigree."
"I'd like to," said Mr. Meacham, "I certainly would like to."
He was studying the architecture of Pershing with the cool appraising
eye of the expert. His eye rested for a long time on the short legs and
long body.
"Pottle," he said, thoughtfully, "haven't they got a dachshund up at
those there kennels?"
Mr. Pottle knitted perplexed brows.
"I believe they have," he said. "Why?"
"Oh, nothing," replied Mr. Meacham, struggling to keep a grip on his
emotions which threatened to choke him, "Oh, nothing." And he went off,
with Mr. Pottle staring at his shoulder blades which titillated oddly as
Mr. Meacham walked.
Mr. Pottle, after a series of tugs-of-war, got his charge home. A worry
wormed its way into his brain like an auger into a pine plank. The worry
became a suspicion. The suspicion became a horrid certainty. Gallant man
that he was, and lover, he did not mention it to Blossom.
But after that the evening excursion with Pershing became his cross and
his wormwood. He pleaded to be allowed to take Pershing out after dark;
Blossom wouldn't hear of it; the night air might injure his pedigreed
lungs. In vain did he offer to hire a man--at no matter what cost--to
take his place as companion to the creature which daily grew more
pronounced and remarkable as to shape. Blossom declared that she would
entrust no stranger with her dog; a Pottle, and a Pottle only, could
escort him. The nightly pilgrimage became almost unendurable after a
total stranger, said to be a Dubuque traveling man, stopped Mr. Pottle
on the street one evening and asked, gravely:
"I beg pardon, sir, but isn't that animal a peagle?"
"He is not a beagle," said Mr. Pottle, shortly.
"I didn't say 'beagle'," the stranger smiled, "I said
'peagle'--p-e-a-g-l-e."
"What's that?"
"A peagle," answered the stranger, "is a cross between a pony and a
beagle." It took three men to stop the fight.
Pershing, as Mr. Pottle perceived all too plainly, was growing more
curious and ludicrous to the eye every day. He had the enormous head,
the heavy body, the shaggy coat, and the benign, intellectual face of
his mother; but alas, he had the bandy, caster-like legs of his putative
father. He was an anti-climax. Everybody in Granville, save Blossom
alone, seemed to realize the stark, the awful truth about Pershing's
ancestry. Even he seemed to realize his own sad state; he wore a
shamefaced look as he trotted by the side of Ambrose Pottle; Mr.
Pottle's own features grew hang-dog. Despite her spouse's hints, Blossom
never lost faith in Pershing.
"Just you wait, Ambrose," she said. "One of these fine days you'll wake
up and find he has developed a full grown set of limbs."
"Like a tadpole, I suppose," he said grimly.
"Joke all you like, Ambrose. But mark my words: you'll be proud of
Pershing. Just look at him there, taking in every word we say. Why,
already he can do everything but speak. I just know I could count on him
if I was in danger from burglars or kidnapers or anything. I'll feel so
much safer with him in the house when you take your trip East next
month."
"The burglar that came on him in the dark would be scared to death,"
mumbled Mr. Pottle. She ignored this aside.
"Now, Ambrose," she said, "take the comb and give him a good combing. I
may enter him in a bench show next month."
"You ought to," remarked Mr. Pottle, as he led Pershing away, "he looks
like a bench."
It was with a distinct sense of escape that Mr. Pottle some weeks later
took a train for Washington where he hoped to have patented and
trade-marked his edible shaving cream, a discovery he confidently
expected to make his fortune.
"Good-by, Ambrose," said Mrs. Pottle. "I'll write you every day how
Pershing is getting along. At the rate he's growing you won't know him
when you come back. You needn't worry about me. My one man dog will
guard me, won't you, sweetie-pie? There now, give your paw to Papa
Pottle."
"I'm not his papa, I tell you," cried Mr. Pottle with some passion as he
grabbed up his suit-case and crunched down the gravel path.
In all, his business in Washington kept him away from his home for
twenty-four days. While he missed the society of Blossom, somehow he
experienced a delicious feeling of freedom from care, shame and
responsibility as he took his evening stroll about the capital. His trip
was a success; the patent was secured, the trade-mark duly registered.
The patent lawyer, as he pocketed his fee, perhaps to salve his
conscience for its size, produced from behind a law book a bottle of an
ancient and once honorable fluid and pressed it on Mr. Pottle.
"I promised the wife I'd stay on the sprinkling cart," demurred Mr.
Pottle.
"Oh, take it along," urged the patent lawyer. "You may need it for a
cold one of these days."
It occurred to Mr. Pottle that if there is one place in the world a man
may catch his death of cold it is on a draughty railroad train, and
wouldn't it be foolish of him with a fortune in his grasp, so to speak,
not to take every precaution against a possibly fatal illness? Besides
he knew that Blossom would never permit him to bring the bottle into
their home. He preserved it in the only way possible under the
circumstances. When the train reached Granville just after midnight, Mr.
Pottle skipped blithely from the car, made a sweeping bow to a milk can,
cocked his derby over his eye, which was uncommonly bright and playful,
and started for home with the meticulous but precarious step of the
tight-rope walker.
It was his plan, carefully conceived, to steal softly as thistledown
falling on velvet, into his bungalow without waking the sleeping
Blossom, to spend the night on the guest cot, to spring up, fresh as a
dewy daisy in the morn, and wake his wife with a smiling and coherent
account of his trip.
Very quietly he tip-toed along the lawn leading to his front door, his
latch key out and ready. But as he was about to place a noiseless foot
on his porch, something vast, low and dark barred his path, and a bass
and hostile growl brought him to an abrupt halt.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't li'l Pershin'," said Mr. Pottle,
pleasantly, but remembering to pitch his voice in a low key. "Waiting on
the porch to welcome Papa Pottle home! Nice li'l Pershin'."
"Grrrrrrr Grrrrrrrrrr Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," replied Pershing. He continued
to bar the path, to growl ominously, to bare strong white teeth in the
moonlight. In Mr. Pottle's absence he had grown enormously in head and
body; but not in leg.
"Pershin'," said Mr. Pottle, plaintively, "can it be that you have
forgotten Papa Pottle? Have you forgotten nice, kind mans that took you
for pretty walks? That fed you pretty steaks? That gave you pretty
baths? Nice li'l Pershin', nice li'l----"
Mr. Pottle reached down to pat the shaggy head and drew back his hand
with something that would pass as a curse in any language; Pershing had
given his finger a whole-hearted nip.
"You low-down, underslung brute," rasped Mr. Pottle. "Get out of my way
or I'll kick the pedigree outa you."
Pershing's growl grew louder and more menacing. Mr. Pottle hesitated; he
feared Blossom more than Pershing. He tried cajolery.
"Come, come, nice li'l St. Bernard. Great, big, noble St. Bernard. Come
for li'l walk with Papa Pottle. Nice Pershin', nice Pershin', you dirty
cur----"
This last remark was due to the animal's earnest but only partially
successful effort to fasten its teeth in Mr. Pottle's calf. Pershing
gave out a sharp, disappointed yelp.
A white, shrouded figure appeared at the window.
"Burglar, go away," it said, shrilly, "or I'll sic my savage St. Bernard
on you."
"He's already sicced, Blottom," said a doleful voice. "It's me, Blottom.
Your Ambrose."
"Why, Ambrose! How queer your voice sounds! Why don't you come in."
"Pershing won't let me," cried Mr. Pottle. "Call him in."
"He won't come," she wailed, "and I'm afraid of him at night like this."
"Coax him in."
"He won't coax."
"Bribe him with food."
"You can't bribe a thoroughbred."
Mr. Pottle put his hands on his hips, and standing in the exact center
of his lawn, raised a high, sardonic voice.
"Oh, yes," he said, "oh, dear me, yes, I'll live to be proud of
Pershing. Oh, yes indeed. I'll live to love the noble creature. I'll be
glad I got up on cold nights to pour warm milk into his dear little
stummick. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, he'll be worth thousands to me. Here I go
down to Washington, and work my head to the bone to keep a roof over us,
and when I get back I can't get under it. If you ask me, Mrs. Blottom
Pottle née Gallup, if you ask me, that precious animal of yours, that
noble creature is the muttiest mutt that ever----"
"Ambrose!" Her edged voice clipped his oration short. "You've been
drinking!"
"Well," said Mr. Pottle in a bellowing voice, "I guess a hound like that
is enough to drive a person to drink. G'night, Blottom. I'm going to
sleep in the flower bed. Frozen petunias will be my pillow. When I'm
dead and gone, be kind to little Pershing for my sake."
"Ambrose! Stop. Think of the neighbors. Think of your health. Come into
the house this minute."
He tried to obey her frantic command, but the low-lying, far-flung bulk
of Pershing blocked the way, a growling, fanged, hairy wall. Mr. Pottle
retreated to the flower bed.
"What was it the Belgiums said?" he remarked. "They shall not pash."
"Oh, what'll I do, what'll I do?" came from the window.
"Send for the militia," suggested Mr. Pottle with savage facetiousness.
"I know," cried his wife, inspired, "I'll send for a veterinarian. He'll
know what to do."
"A veterinarian!" he protested loudly. "Five bones a visit, and us the
joke of Granville."
But he could suggest nothing better and presently an automobile
discharged a sleepy and disgusted dog-doctor at the Pottle homestead. It
took the combined efforts of the two men and the woman to entice
Pershing away from the door long enough for Mr. Pottle to slip into his
house. During the course of Mrs. Pottle's subsequent remarks, Mr. Pottle
said a number of times that he was sorry he hadn't stayed out among the
petunias.
In the morning Pershing greeted him with an innocent expression.
"I hope, Mr. Pottle," said his wife, as he sipped black coffee, "that
you are now convinced what a splendid watch dog Pershing is."
"I wish I had that fifty back again," he answered. "The bank won't give
me another extension on that note, Blossom."
She tossed a bit of bacon to Pershing who muffed it and retrieved it
with only slight damage to the pink roses on the rug.
"I can't stand this much longer, Blossom," he burst out.
"What?"
"You used to love me."
"I still do, Ambrose, despite all."
"You conceal it well. That mutt takes all your time."
"Mutt, Ambrose?"
"Mutt," said Mr. Pottle.
"See! He's heard you," she cried. "Look at that hurt expression in his
face."
"Bah," said Mr. Pottle. "When do we begin to get fifty dollars per pup.
I could use the money. Isn't it about time this great hulking creature
did something to earn his keep? He's got the appetite of a lion."
"Don't mind the nassy mans, Pershing. We're not a mutt, are we,
Pershing? Ambrose, please don't say such things in his presence. It
hurts him dreadfully. Mutt, indeed. Just look at those big, gentle,
knowing eyes."
"Look at those legs, woman," said Mr. Pottle.
He despondently sipped his black coffee.
"Blossom," he said. "I'm going to Chicago to-night. Got to have a
conference with the men who are dickering with me about manufacturing my
shaving cream. I'll be gone three days and I'll be busy every second."
"Yes, Ambrose. Pershing will protect me."
"And when I come back," he went on sternly, "I want to be able to get
into my own house, do you understand?"
"I warned you Pershing was a one man dog," she replied. "You'd better
come back at noon while he's at lunch. You needn't worry about us."
"I shan't worry about Pershing," promised Mr. Pottle, reaching for his
suit-case.
He had not overstated how busy he would be in Chicago. His second day
was crowded. After a trip to the factory, he was closeted at his hotel
in solemn conference in the evening with the president, a vice-president
or two, a couple of assistant vice-presidents and their assistants, and
a collection of sales engineers, publicity engineers, production
engineers, personnel engineers, employment engineers, and just plain
engineers; for a certain large corporation scented profit in his shaving
cream. They were putting him through a business third degree and he was
enjoying it. They had even reached the point where they were discussing
his share in the profits if they decided to manufacture his discovery.
Mr. Pottle was expatiating on its merits.
"Gentlemen," he said, "there are some forty million beards every morning
in these United States, and forty million breakfasts to be eaten by men
in a hurry. Now, my shaving cream being edible, combines----"
"Telegram for Mr. Puddle, Mr. Puddle, Mr. Puddle," droned a bell hop,
poking in a head.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," said Mr. Pottle. He hoped they would think it an
offer from a rival company. As he read the message his face grew white.
Alarming words leaped from the yellow paper.
"_Come home. Very serious accident. Blossom._"
That was all, but to the recently mated Mr. Pottle it was enough. He
crumpled the message with quivering fingers.
"Sorry, gentlemen," he said, trying to smile bravely. "Bad news from
home. We'll have to continue this discussion later."
"You can just make the 10:10 train," said one of the engineers,
sympathetically. "Hard lines, old man."
Granville's lone, asthmatic taxi coughed up Mr. Pottle at the door of
his house; it was dark; he did not dare look at the door-knob. His
trembling hand twisted the key in the lock.
"Who's that?" called a faint voice. It was Blossom's. He thanked God she
was still alive.
He was in her room in an instant, and had switched on the light. She lay
in bed, her face, once rosy, now pale; her eyes, once placid, now
red-lidded and tear-swollen. He bent over her with tremulous anxiety.
"Honey, what's happened? Tell your Ambrose."
She raised herself feebly in bed. He thanked God she could move.
"Oh, it's too awful," she said with a sob. "Too dreadful for words."
"What? Oh, what? Tell me, Blossom dearest. Tell me. I'll be brave,
little woman. I'll try to bear it." He pressed her fevered hands in his.
"I can hardly believe it," she sobbed. "I c-can hardly believe it."
"Believe it? Believe what? Tell me, Blossom darling, in Heaven's name,
tell me."
"Pershing," she sobbed in a heart-broken crescendo, "Pershing has become
a mother!"
Her sobs shook her.
"And they're all mungles," she cried, "all nine of them."
* * * * *
Thunderclouds festooned the usually mild forehead of Mr. Pottle next
morning. He was inclined to be sarcastic.
"Fifty dollars per pup, eh?" he said. "Fifty dollars per pup, eh?"
"Don't, Ambrose," his wife begged. "I can't stand it. To think with eyes
like that Pershing should deceive me."
"Pershing?" snorted Mr. Pottle so violently the toast hopped from the
toaster. "Pershing? Not now. Violet! Violet! Violet!"
Mrs. Pottle looked meek.
"The ash man said he'd take the pups away if I gave him two dollars,"
she said.
"Give him five," said Mr. Pottle, "and maybe he'll take Violet, too."
"I will not, Ambrose Pottle," she returned. "I will not desert her now
that she has gotten in trouble. How could she know, having been brought
up so carefully? After all, dogs are only human."
"You actually intend to keep that----"
She did not allow him to pronounce the epithet that was forming on his
lips, but checked it, with----
"Certainly I'll keep her. She is still a one man dog. She can still
protect me from kidnapers and burglars."
He threw up his hands, a despairing gesture.
* * * * *
In the days that followed hard on the heels of Violet's disgrace, Mr.
Pottle had little time to think of dogs. More pressing cares weighed on
him. The Chicago men, their enthusiasm cooling when no longer under the
spell of Mr. Pottle's arguments, wrote that they guessed that at this
time, things being as they were, and under the circumstances, they were
forced to regret that they could not make his shaving cream, but might
at some later date be interested, and they were his very truly. The bank
sent him a frank little message saying that it had no desire to go into
the barber business, but that it might find that step necessary if Mr.
Pottle did not step round rather soon with a little donation for the
loan department.
It was thoughts of this cheerless nature that kept Mr. Pottle tossing
uneasily in his share of the bed, and with wide-open, worried eyes doing
sums on the moonlit ceiling. He waited the morrow with numb pessimism.
For, though he had combed the town and borrowed every cent he could
squeeze from friend or foe, though he had pawned his favorite case of
razors, he was three hundred dollars short of the needed amount. Three
hundred dollars is not much compared to all the money in the world, but
to Mr. Pottle, on his bed of anxiety, it looked like the Great Wall of
China.
He heard the town clock boom a faint two. It occurred to him that there
was something singular, odd, about the silence. It took him minutes to
decide what it was. Then he puzzled it out. Violet née Pershing was not
barking. It was her invariable custom to make harrowing sounds at the
moon from ten in the evening till dawn. He had learned to sleep through
them, eventually. He pointed out to Blossom that a dog that barks all
the time is a dooce of a watch-dog, and she pointed out to him that a
dog that barks all the time thus advertising its presence and its
ferocity, would be certain to scare off midnight prowlers. He wondered
why Violet was so silent. The thought skipped through his brain that
perhaps she had run away, or been poisoned, and in all his worry, he
permitted himself a faint smile of hope. No, he thought, I was born
unlucky. There must be another reason. It was borne into his brain cells
what this reason must be.
Slipping from bed without disturbing the dormant Blossom, he crept on
wary bare toes from the room and down stairs. Ever so faint chinking
sounds came from the dining room. With infinite caution Mr. Pottle slid
open the sliding door an inch. He caught his breath.
There, in a patch of moonlight, squatted the chunky figure of a masked
man, and he was engaged in industriously wrapping up the Pottle silver
in bits of cloth. Now and then he paused in his labors to pat
caressingly the head of Violet who stood beside him watching with
fascinated interest, and wagging a pleased tail. Mr. Pottle was clamped
to his observation post by a freezing fear. The busy burglar did not see
him, but Violet did, and pointing her bushel of bushy head at him, she
let slip a deep "Grrrrrrrrrrr." The burglar turned quickly, and a
moonbeam rebounded from the polished steel of his revolver as he
leveled it at a place where Mr. Pottle's heart would have been if it had
not at that precise second been in his throat, a quarter of an inch
south of his Adam's apple.
"Keep 'em up," said the burglar, "or I'll drill you like you was an
oil-well."
Mr. Pottle's hands went up and his heart went down. The ultimate straw
had been added; the wedding silver was neatly packed in the burglar's
bag. Mr. Pottle cast an appealing look at Violet and breathed a prayer
that in his dire emergency her blue-blood would tell and she would fling
herself with one last heroic fling at the throat of the robber. Violet
returned his look with a stony stare, and licked the free hand of the
thief.
A thought wave rippled over Mr. Pottle's brain.
"You might as well take the dog with you, too," he said.
"Your dog?" asked the burglar, gruffly.
"Whose else would it be?"
"Where'd you get her?"
"Raised her from a pup up."
"From a pup up?"
"Yes, from a pup up."
The robber appeared to be thinking.
"She's some dog," he remarked. "I never seen one just like her."
For the first time in the existence of either of them, Mr. Pottle felt a
faint glow of pride in Violet.
"She's the only one of her kind in the world," he said.
"I believe you," said the burglar. "And I know a thing or two about
dogs, too."
"Really?" said Mr. Pottle, politely.
"Yes, I do," said the burglar and a sad note had softened the gruffness
of his voice. "I used to be a dog trainer."
"You don't tell me?" said Mr. Pottle.
"Yes," said the burglar, with a touch of pride, "I had the swellest dog
and pony act in big time vaudeville once."
"Where is it now?" Mr. Pottle was interested.
"Mashed to bologny," said the burglar, sadly. "Train wreck. Lost every
single animal. Like that." He snapped melancholy fingers to illustrate
the sudden demise of his troupe. "That's why I took to this," he added.
"I ain't a regular crook. Honest. I just want to get together enough
capital to start another show. Another job or two and I'll have enough."
Mr. Pottle looked his sympathy. The burglar was studying Violet with
eyes that brightened visibly.
"If," he said, slowly, "I only had a trick dog like her, I could start
again. She's the funniest looking hound I ever seen, bar none. I can
just hear the audiences roaring with laughter." He sighed reminiscently.
"Take her," said Mr. Pottle, handsomely. "She's yours."
The burglar impaled him with the gimlet eye of suspicion.
"Oh, yes," he said. "I could get away with a dog like that, couldn't I?
You couldn't put the cops on my trail if I had a dog like that with me,
oh, no. Why, I could just as easy get away with Pike's Peak or a flock
of Masonic Temples as with a dog as different looking as her. No,
stranger, I wasn't born yesterday."
"I won't have you pinched, I swear I won't," said Mr. Pottle earnestly.
"Take her. She's yours."
The burglar resumed the pose of thinker.
"Look here, stranger," he said at length. "Tell you what I'll do. Just
to make the whole thing fair and square and no questions asked, I'll buy
that dog from you."
"You'll what?" Mr. Pottle articulated.
"I'll buy her," repeated the burglar.
Mr. Pottle was incapable of replying.
"Well," said the burglar, "will you take a hundred for her?"
Mr. Pottle could not get out a syllable.
"Two hundred, then?" said the burglar.
"Make it three hundred and she's yours," said Mr. Pottle.
"Sold!" said the burglar.
* * * * *
When morning came to Granville, Mr. Pottle waked his wife by gently,
playfully, fanning her pink and white cheek with three bills of a large
denomination.
"Blossom," he said, and the smile of his early courting days had come
back, "you were right. Violet was a one man dog. I just found the man."
V: _Mr. Pottle and Pageantry_
§1
"He wouldn't give a cent," announced Mrs. Pottle, blotting up the
nucleus of a tear on her cheek with the tip of her gloved finger. "'Not
one red cent,' was the way he put it."
"What did you want a red cent for, honey?" inquired Mr. Pottle,
absently, from out the depths of the sporting page. "Who wouldn't give
you a red cent?"
"Old Felix Winterbottom," she answered.
Mr. Pottle put down his paper.
"Do you mean to say you tackled old frosty-face Felix himself?" he
demanded with interest and some awe.
"I certainly did," replied his wife. "Right in his own office."
Her spouse made no attempt to conceal his admiration.
"What did you say; then what did he say; then what did you say?" he
queried.
"I was very polite," Mrs. Pottle answered, "and tactful. I said 'See
here, now, Mr. Winterbottom, you are the richest man in the county, and
yet you have the reputation of being the most careful with your
money----'"
"I'll bet that put him in a good humor," said Mr. Pottle in a murmured
aside.
"You know perfectly well, Ambrose, that old Felix Winterbottom is never
in a good humor," said his wife. "After talking with him, I really
believe the story that he has never smiled in his life. Well, anyhow, I
said to him, 'See here now, Mr. Winterbottom, I'm going to give you a
chance to show people your heart is in the right place, after all. The
Day Nursery we ladies of the Browning-Tagore Club of Granville are
starting needs just one thousand dollars. Won't you let me put you down
for that amount?'"
Mr. Pottle whistled.
"Did he bite you?" he asked.
"I thought for a minute he was going to," admitted Mrs. Pottle, "and
then he said, 'Are the Gulicks interested in this?' I said, 'Of course,
they are. Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick is Chairman of the Pink Contribution
Team, and Mrs. Wendell Gulick is Chairman----' 'Stop,' said Mr.
Winterbottom, giving me that fishy look of his, like a halibut in a cake
of ice, 'in that case, I wouldn't give a cent, not one red cent.
Good-day, Mrs. Pottle.' I went."
Mr. Pottle wagged his head sententiously.
"You'll never get a nickel out of him now," he declared. "Never. You
might have known that Felix Winterbottom would not go into anything the
Gulicks were in. And," added Mr. Pottle thoughtfully, "I can't say that
I blame old Felix much."
"Ambrose!" reproved Mrs. Pottle, but her rebuke lacked a certain
whole-heartedness, "The Gulicks are nice people; the nicest people in
Granville."
"That's the trouble with them," retorted Mr. Pottle, "they never let you
forget it. That's what ails this town; too much Gulicks. I'm not the
only one who thinks so, either."
She did not attempt rebuttal, beyond saying,
"They're our oldest family."
"Bah," said Mr. Pottle. He appeared to smolder, and then he flamed out,
"Honest, Blossom, those Gulicks make me just a little bit sick to the
stummick. Just because some ancestor of theirs came over in the
Mayflower, and because some other ancestor happened to own the farm this
town was built on, you'd think they were the Duke of Kackiack, or
something. The town grew up and made 'em rich, but what did they ever do
for the town?"
"Well," began Mrs. Pottle, more for the sake of debate than from
conviction, "there's Gulick Avenue, and Gulick Street, and Gulick
Park----"
"Oh, they give their name freely enough," said Mr. Pottle. "But what did
they give to the Day Nursery fund?"
"They did disappoint me," Mrs. Pottle admitted. "They only gave fifty
dollars, which isn't much for the second wealthiest family in town, but
Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick said we could put her name at the head of the
list----"
Mr. Pottle's affable features attained an almost sardonic look.
"Oho," he said, pointedly. "Oho."
He flamed up again,
"That's exactly the amount those pirates added to the rent of my barber
shop," he stated, and then, passion seething in his ordinarily amiable
bosom, he went on, "A fine lot, they are, to be snubbing a self-made man
like Felix Winterbottom, and turning up their thin, blue noses at Felix
Winterbottom's tannery."
"Ambrose," said his wife, with lifted blonde eyebrows, "please don't
make suggestive jokes in my presence."
"Honey swat key Molly pants," returned Mr. Pottle with a touch of
bellicosity. "It's no worse than other tanneries; and it's the biggest
in the state. Those Gulicks give me a pain, I tell you. You can't pick
up a paper without reading, 'Mr. P. Bradley Gulick, one of our leading
citizens, unveiled a tablet in the Gulick Hook and Ladder Company
building yesterday in honor of his ancestor, Saul Gulick, one of the
pioneers who hewed our great state out of the wilderness, and whose
cider-press stood on the ground now occupied by the hook and ladder
company.' Or 'Mrs. Wendell Gulick read a paper before the Society of
Descendants of Officers Above the Rank of Captain on General
Washington's Staff on the heroic part played by her ancestor, Major Noah
Gulick, at the battle of Saratoga.' If it isn't that it's 'The Spinning
Wheel Club met at Mrs. Gulick's palatial residence to observe the
anniversary of the birth of Phineas Gulick, the first red-headed baby
born in Massachusetts.' Bah, is what I say, Bah!"
He seethed and bubbled and broke out again.
"You'd think to hear them blow that the Gulicks discovered ancestors and
had 'em patented. I guess the Pottles had an ancestor or two. Even Felix
Winterbottom had ancestors."
"Probably haddocks," said Mrs. Pottle coldly. "He can keep his old red
cents."
"He will, never fear," her husband assured her. "After the way he and
his family have been treated by the Gulicks, I don't blame him."
Mrs. Pottle pumped up a sigh from the depths of a deep bosom and sank
tearfully to a divan.
"And I'd set my heart on it," she sobbed.
"What, dear?"
"The Day Nursery. And it's to fail for want of a miserable thousand
dollars."
"Don't speak disrespectfully of a thousand dollars, Blossom," Mr. Pottle
enjoined his spouse. "That's five thousand shaves. And don't expect me
to give anything more. You know perfectly well the barber-business is
not what it used to be. I can't give another red cent."
Mrs. Pottle sniffed.
"Who asked you for your red cents?" she inquired, with spirit. "I'll
make the money myself."
"You, Blossom?"
"Yes. Me."
"But how?"
She rose majestically; determination was in her pose, and the light of
inspiration was in her bright blue eyes.
"We'll give a pageant," she announced.
"A pageant?" Mr. Pottle showed some dismay. "A show, Blossom?"
"Evidently," she said, "you have not read your encyclopedia under 'P.'"
"I'm only as far as 'ostriches,'" he answered, humbly.
"'A pageant,'" she quoted, "'is an elaborate exhibition or spectacle, a
series of stately tableaux or living pictures, frequently historic, and
often with poetic spoken interludes.'"
"Ah," beamed Mr. Pottle, nodding understandingly, "a circus!"
"Not in the least, Ambrose. Does your mind never soar? A pageant is a
very beautiful and serious thing, with lots of lovely costumes, hundreds
of people, horses, historic scenes----" she broke off suddenly. "When
was Granville founded?"
He told her. Her eyes sparkled.
"Wonderful," she cried. "This year it will be two hundred years old.
We'll give an historic pageant--the Growth of Civilization in
Granville."
"It sounds expensive," objected Mr. Pottle.
"Don't be sordid, Ambrose," said his wife.
"I'm not sordid, Blossom," he returned. "I'm a practical man. I know
these kermesses and feats. My cousin Julia Onderdonk got up a pageant in
Peoria once and now she hasn't a friend in the place. Besides it only
netted fourteen dollars for the Bide-a-wee Home. Now, honey, why not
give a good, old-fashioned chicken supper in the church hall, with
perhaps a minstrel show afterward? That would get my money----"
"Chicken supper! Minstrel show! Oh, Ambrose." His wife's snort was the
acme of refinement. "Have you no soul? This pageant will be an inspiring
thing. It will make for, I might almost say militate for, a community
spirit. Other communities give pageant after pageant. Shall Granville
lag behind? Here is a chance for a real community get-together. Here is
a chance to give our young people the wonderful history of their native
town----"
"And also a chance for all the Gulick tribe to parade around in colonial
clothes with spinning wheels under their arms," put in Mr. Pottle.
"I'm afraid we can't avoid that," admitted his wife, ruefully. "After
all, they are our oldest family."
She meditated.
"I suppose," she mused, "that Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick would have to be
the Spirit of Progress----"
"Progress shouldn't be fat and wall-eyed," interposed Mr. Pottle. She
ignored this.
"And I suppose that odious freckled daughter of hers would have to be
the Spirit of Liberty or Civilization or something important, and I
suppose that pompous Mr. Gulick would have to be the Pioneer
Spirit--still, I think it could be managed. Now, you, Ambrose, can
be----"
"I don't want to be the spirit of anything," he declared. "Count me out,
Blossom."
Mrs. Pottle assumed a hurt pout.
"For my sake?" she said.
"I'm no actor," he stated.
"Oh, I don't want you to act," she said. "You're to be treasurer."
He wrinkled up his nose and brow into a frown.
"The dirty work," he exclaimed. "That's the way the world over. Us
Pottles do the dirty work and the Gulicks get the glory. No, Blossom,
no, no, no."
An appealing tear, and another, stole down her pink cheek.
"Mr. Gallup wouldn't have treated me that way," she said. Mr. Gallup had
been her first husband.
Mr. Pottle knew resistance was futile.
"Oh, all right. I'll be treasurer."
She smiled. "Now one more tiny favor?"
"Well?"
"I want you to be the Spirit of History and read the historic epilogue."
"Me? I'm no spirit. I'm a boss barber."
"Well, if you don't take the job, I suppose I can get one of the
Gulicks."
He considered a second.
"All right," he said. "I'll be the Spirit of History. But understand one
thing, right here and now: I will not wear tights."
She conceded him that point.
"Say," he asked, struck by a thought, "how do you know what spirits are
going to be in this? Who is going to write this thing, anyhow?"
"I am," said Mrs. Pottle.
§2
"It's not decent," objected Mr. Pottle fervidly. "How can I keep the
respect of the community if I go round like this?"
He indicated his pink knees, which blushed like spring rosebuds beneath
a somewhat nebulous toga of cheese-cloth.
"If I can't wear pants, I don't want to be the Spirit of History," he
added.
"For the fifth and last time," said the tired and harassed voice of Mrs.
Pottle, "you cannot wear pants. Spirits never do. That settles it. Not
another word, Ambrose. Haven't I trouble enough without my own husband
adding to it?"
She pressed her brow as if it ached. Piles of costumes, mostly tinsel
and cheese-cloth, shields, tomahawks, bridles and bits of scenery were
strewn about the Pottle parlor. She sank into a Morris chair, and
stitched fiercely at an angel's wing. Her eyes were the eyes of one at
bay.
"It's been one thing after another," she declaimed. "Those Gulicks are
making my life miserable. And just now I had a note from Etta Runkle's
mother saying that if in the Masque of the Fruits and Flowers of Botts
County her little Etta has to be an onion while little Gertrude Crump is
a violet, she won't lend us that white horse for the Paul Revere's Ride
Scene. So I had to make that hateful stupid child of hers a violet and
change Gertrude Crump to an onion and now Mrs. Crump is mad and won't
let any of her children appear in the pageant."
"Well," remarked Mr. Pottle, "I don't see why you had to have Paul
Revere's Ride anyhow. He didn't ride all the way out here to Ohio, did
he?"
"I know he didn't," she replied, tartly, "I didn't want to put him in.
But Mrs. Gulick insisted. She said it was her ancestor, Elijah Gulick,
who lent Paul Revere the horse. That's why I have to have Paul Revere
stop in the middle of his ride and say,
"_Gallant stallion, swift and noble,
Lent me by my good friend Gulick,
Patriot, scholar, king of horsemen,
Speed ye, speed ye, speed ye onward!_"
Mr. Pottle groaned.
"Is there anything in American history the Gulicks didn't have a hand
in?" he asked. "But say, Blossom, that horse of the Runkle's is no
gallant stallion. She's the one Matt Runkle uses on his milk route.
Every one in town knows Agnes."
"I can't help it," said Mrs. Pottle wearily. "Wendell Gulick, Jr., who
plays Paul Revere, insisted on having a white horse, and Agnes was the
only one I could get."
"They're the insistingest people I ever knew," observed Mr. Pottle.
His wife gave out the saddest sound in the world, the short sob of
thwarted authorship.
"They've just about ruined my pageant," she said. "Mrs. Gulick insisted
on having that battle between the settlers and the Indians just because
a great, great uncle of hers was in it. I didn't want anything rough
like that in my pageant. Besides it happened in the next county, and the
true facts are that the Indians chased the settlers fourteen miles, and
scalped three of them. Of course it wouldn't do to show a Gulick running
from an Indian, so she insisted that I change history around and make
the settlers win the battle. None of the nice young men were willing to
be Indians and be chased, so I had to hire a tough young fellow named
Brannigan--I believe they call him 'Beansy'--and nine other young
fellows from the horseshoe works to play Indian at fifty cents apiece."
Mr. Pottle looked anxious.
"I know that Beansy Brannigan," he said. "How is that gang behaving?"
"Oh, pretty well. But ten Indians at fifty cents an Indian is five
dollars, and we c-can't afford it."
She was tearful again.
"Already the costumes have cost four hundred dollars and more. We'll be
lucky to make expenses if the Gulicks keep on putting in expensive
scenes," she moaned.
She busied herself with the angel's wing, then paused to ask, "Ambrose,
have you learned your historical epilogue?"
For answer he sprang to his feet, wrapped his cheese-cloth toga about
him, struck a Ciceronian attitude, and said loudly:
"_Who am I, oh list'ning peoples?
His'try's spirit, stern and truthful!
Come I here to tell you fully,
Of our Granville's thrilling story,
How Saul and other noble Gulicks,
And a few who shall be nameless,
Hewed a city from the forests,
Blazed the way for civ'lization._"
"Stop," cried Mrs. Pottle. "I can't bear to hear another word about
those Gulicks. You know it well enough."
"There are a few things I wish I could have put in," remarked Mr.
Pottle, wistfully.
His tone made her look up with quick interest.
"What do you mean?" she inquired.
"Oh, I found out a thing or two," he replied, "when I was down at the
capital last week. I happened to drop into the state historical
society's library and run over some old records."
He chuckled.
"P. Bradley Gulick told me I didn't have to go down there to get the
facts. He'd give them to me, he said. So he did. Some of them."
"Ambrose, what do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing. All I will say is this: I'm a patient man and can be
pestered a lot, but just let one of these Gulicks pester me a little too
much one of these days, and I'll rear up on my hind legs, that's all."
There was a glint in his eye, and she saw it.
"Ambrose," she said, "if you do anything to spoil my pageant, I'll never
forgive you."
He snorted.
"Your pageant? It's just as I said it would be. We Pottles will do the
dirty work and the Gulicks will grab the glory. They've behaved so
piggish that everybody in town is sore at them, and I don't see how the
pageant is going to come out on top. You'd probably have gotten that
thousand from old Felix Winterbottom if it hadn't been for them. Then
you wouldn't have to be losing a pound a day over this pageant. Now if
you'd only gotten up a nice old-fashioned chicken supper, and a minstrel
show----"
"Ambrose! Go put on your trousers!"
§3
Despite Mr. Pottle's pessimistic predictions, there was not a vacant
seat or an unused cubic foot of air in the Granville Opera House that
clinging Spring night, when the asbestos curtain, tugged by tyro hands,
jerkily ascended on the prologue of the Grand Historical Pageant of the
Growth of Civilization in Granville for the Benefit of the
Browning-Tagore Club's Day Nursery. Those who did not have relatives in
the cast appeared to have been lured thither by a certain morbid
curiosity as to what a pageant was. Their faces said plainly that they
were prepared for anything.
After the orchestra had raced through "Poet and Peasant," with the
cornet winning by a comfortable margin, Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick, somewhat
short of breath and rendered doubly wall-eyed by an inexpert make-up,
appeared in red, white and blue cheese-cloth, and announced in a high
voice that she was the Spirit of Progress and would look on with a
kindly, encouraging eye while history's storied page was turned and
spread before them, and, she added, in properly poetic language, she
would tell them what it was all about. The audience gave her the
applause due the dowager of the town's leading family, and not one
hand-clap more. Mr. P. Bradley Gulick, bony but impressive, in a Grecian
robe, appeared and proclaimed that he was the Spirit of Civilization. A
Ballet of the Waters followed, and as a climax, Evelyn Gulick, age
thirteen, in appropriate green gauze, announced:
"_Who am I, oh friends and neighbors?
I'm the Spirit of the Waters,
Lordly, swift, Monongahela;
Argosies float on my bosom----_"
She tapped her narrow chest, and a look of horror crept into her face;
her mind seemed to be groping for something. Tremulously she repeated,
"_Argosies float on my bosom._"
The voice of Mrs. Pottle prompted from the wings,
"_And fleets of ships with treasures laden._"
Evelyn clutched at the sound, but it slipped from her, and she wildly
began,
"_Argosies float on my bosom_ (Slap, slap)
_And sheeps of flits--and sheeps of flits----_"
She burst into tears, and turning a spiteful face toward one of the
boxes, she cried,
"You stop making faces at me, Jessie Winterbottom."
Then she fled to the wings.
This served to bring to the attention of the audience the fact that a
strange thing had happened: Felix Winterbottom and his family had come
to the pageant. He was there, concealed as far as possible by the red
plush curtains of the box, defiant and forbidding. From the glance he
now and then cast at the decolleté back of his wife, it was evident that
he had not come voluntarily.
Mrs. Pottle, in the wings, bit a newly manicured fingernail.
"I begged Mrs. Gulick to make that dumb child of hers learn her part,"
she whispered wrathfully to her husband.
"Mrs. Gulick says it's your fault for not prompting loud enough," said
Mr. Pottle.
"She did, did she?" Mrs. Pottle assumed what is known in ring circles as
a fighting face.
"I can't stand much more of their pestering," said Mr. Pottle darkly.
"Ssssh," said his wife. "The Paul Revere scene is going to start."
In the wings, Wendell Gulick, Junior, was making ready to mount his
charger. The charger, as he had specified, was white, peculiarly white,
for it had been found necessary at the last moment to conceal some
harness stains by powdering her liberally with crushed lilac talcum.
Agnes looked resentful but resigned. Mr. Gulick, Junior, was a plump
young man, with nose-glasses, and satisfied lips, who had the
distinction of being the only person in Granville who had ever ridden to
hounds. He cultivated a horsey atmosphere, wore a riding crop pin in his
tie, and was admittedly the local authority on things equine. He looked
most formidable in hip-high leathern boots, a continental garb, and a
powdered wig. It was regretable that the steed did not measure up to her
rider. Save for being approximately white, Agnes had little to
recommend her for the rôle. She had one of those long, sad, philosophic
faces, and she appeared to be considerably taller in the hips than in
the shoulders. She had a habit of looking back over her shoulder with a
surprised expression, as if she missed her milk wagon.
Encouraged by a slap on the flank from a stage-hand, Agnes advanced to
the center of the stage at a brisk, business-like trot, and there
stopped, and nodded to the audience.
"Whoa, Agnes," shouted some bad little boy in the gallery.
Young Mr. Gulick, in the rôle of Paul Revere, affected to pat his
mount's head, and in a voice of thunder, roared:
"_Gallant stallion, swift and noble,_"
Agnes reached out a long neck and nibbled at the scenery.
"_Lent me by my good friend, Gulick,_"
Agnes looked over her shoulder and smiled at her rider.
"_Patriot, scholar, king of horsemen,_"
Agnes scratched herself heartily on a property rock.
"_Speed ye, speed ye, speed ye onward!_"
The business of the scene called for a spirited exit by Paul Revere,
waving his cocked hat. But Agnes had other plans. She liked the taste of
scenery. She did not budge. In vain did the scion of the Gulicks beat
with frantic heels upon her flat flanks.
"Speed ye onward, or we'll be late," he improvised cleverly.
She masticated a canvas leaf from a convenient shrub and did not speed
onward.
"Gid-ap, Agnes," shrilled the boy in the gallery. "The folks is waitin'
for their milk."
The audience grew indecorous.
Even his ruddy make-up could not conceal the fact that Mr. Wendell
Gulick, Junior, was very red in the face, and that his lips were forming
words not in that, or any other pageant. His leathern heels boomed
hollowly on Agnes's barrel of body. To ring down the curtain was
impossible; Agnes had taken her place directly beneath it.
Paul Revere turned a passionate face to the wings,
"Hey, Pottle," he bellowed, "why don't you do something instead of
standing there grinning like a baboon?"
Thus charged, Mr. Pottle's toga-clad figure came nimbly from the wings,
to great applause, and seized Agnes by the bridle. Pottle tugged
lustily. Agnes smiled and did not give way an inch.
"Send for Matt Runkle," hissed Mr. Gulick, Junior.
"Send for Matt Runkle," echoed Mr. Pottle.
"Send for Matt Runkle," cried voices in the audience.
"He's home in bed," wailed Mrs. Pottle from the wings.
"Get one of the Runkle kids," shouted Mr. Pottle, seeking to arouse
Agnes with kicks of his sandal-shod feet.
Little Etta Runkle, partly clad in the tinsel and cheese-cloth of a
violet, and partly in her everyday underwear, was fetched from a
dressing room. She was a bright child and sensed the situation as soon
as it had been explained to her twice.
"Oh," she said, "Pa always says Agnes won't start unless you clink two
milk bottles together."
The audience was calling forth suggestions to Paul Revere, astride, and
Pottle, on foot. They included a bonfire beneath Agnes, and dynamite.
Even the rock-bound face of old Felix Winterbottom, in the depths of the
box, showed the vestige of a crease that might, with a little
imagination, be considered the start of a smile.
A fevered search back stage netted two bottles, dusty and smelling of
turpentine and gin, respectively. Mr. Pottle grasped their necks and
clinked them together with resounding clinks. The effect on Agnes was
electrical. From utter immobility she started with a startled hop. The
unready Mr. Gulick, Junior, after one mad grasp at her mane, rolled
ignominiously from her broad back, and landed on the stage in a position
that was undignified for a Revere and positively painful for a Gulick.
Agnes bolted to the wings. The curtain darted down.
The audience seemed to take this occurrence in a spirit of levity, but
not so Mrs. Pottle. Hot tears gathered in her eyes.
"That wretch would have a white horse," she said. "They would put Paul
Revere's Ride in. Now look. Now look!"
"There, there, honey," said Mr. Pottle, between sympathetic teeth.
"We'll fix 'em."
The pageant pursued its more or less majestic way, but as the history of
Granville was unfolded, scene upon scene, it became all too apparent to
Mrs. Pottle that her poetic opus could not recapture the first serious
mood of the audience. It positively jeered when Miss Eltruda Gulick
announced that she was the Spirit of the Bogardus Canal. But it grew
more interested as the curtain slid up on the battle scene. This, Mrs.
Pottle felt, was her dramatic masterpiece. There lay the peaceful
pioneer settlement--artfully fashioned from paste-board--while the
simple but virile settlers strolled up and down the embryo Main Street
and exchanged couplets. The chief settler, an adipose young man with a
lisp, was Mr. Gurnee Gulick, until then noted as the most adept
practitioner of the modern dance-steps in that part of Ohio. Through a
beard, he announced, falsetto,
"_I give thee greeting, neighbor Gulick,
Upon this blossom-burgeoning morning,
I trust 'tis not the wily red-skin
I just heard whooping in the forest._"
His trust was misplaced. It was, indeed, the wily red-skin in the
persons of Mr. Edward Brannigan--known to intimates as "Beansy," and
nine of his fellow horseshoe makers who had been hired to impersonate
red-men, in rather loose-fitting brown cotton skins. Mr. Brannigan and
fellow red-skins had done their part dutifully at rehearsals, and had
permitted themselves to be knocked down, cuffed about a bit, and finally
put to inglorious rout by the settlers. But on the fateful night of the
pageant, while waiting for their turn to appear, they had passed the
moments with a jug of cider that was standing with reluctant feet at
that high point in its career where it has ceased to be sweet and has
not yet become vinegar. That was no reason why they should not do their
part, for it was not an intricate one. They were to rush on, with
whoops, be annihilated, and retire in confusion.
They did rush on with whoops that left nothing to be desired from the
standpoint of realism. Mrs. Pottle, tense in the wings, was
congratulating herself that one scene at least had dramatic strength. It
was at this moment that Mr. Brannigan, as Chief Winipasuki, sachem of
the Algonquins, encountered Mr. Gulick, the principal settler. In his
enthusiasm, Mr. Gulick over-acted his part. He smote the red-skin
warrior so earnestly on the ear that Mr. Brannigan described a parabola
and dented a papier-mache rock with his hundred and seventy pounds of
muscular body. His part called for him to lie there, prone and impotent,
while the settlers drove off his band.
It may have been a sudden rebellion of a proud spirit. It may have been
the wraith of history in protest; it may have been an inherently
perverse nature; or it may have been the cider. In any event, Chief
Winipasuki got to his feet, war-whooped, and knocked the principal
settler through the paste-board wall of the block-house. Those in the
audience who were fond of realism enjoyed what ensued immensely. The
settlers of the town, who were the nice young men, and the Indians, who
were not so nice but were strong and willing, had at one another, and
although they had only nature's weapons, the battle, as it waged up and
down and back and through the shattered scenery, was stirring enough.
When the curtain was at last brought down, Chief Winipasuki had a
half-nelson on Settler Gulick, who was calling in a loud penetrating
voice for the police.
In all the hub-bub and confusion, in all the delirium of the audience,
Mr. Pottle remained calm enough to note that a miracle had taken place;
Mr. Felix Winterbottom was chuckling. It was a dry, unpracticed chuckle
at best, but it was a chuckle, nevertheless. Mr. Pottle was observing
the phenomenon with wide eyes when he felt his elbow angrily plucked.
"You're to blame for this, Pottle," rasped a voice. It was Gurnee
Gulick's irate father.
"Me?" sputtered Mr. Pottle.
"Yes. You. You knew those ruffians had been drinking."
"I did not."
"Don't contradict me, you miserable little hair-cutting fool."
"What? How dare you----" began Mr. Pottle.
"Bah. You wart!" said Mr. Gulick, and turned his square yard of fat back
on the incensed little man.
Mr. Pottle was taking a step after him as if he intended to leap up and
sink his teeth into the back of Mr. Gulick's overflowing neck, when
another hand clutched him. It was his wife.
Her face was white and tear-stained, her lip quivering.
"They've ruined it, they've ruined it," she exclaimed. "I warned that
simpleton Gurnee Gulick not to be rough with those horseshoe boys. Oh,
dear, oh, dear." She pillowed her brimming eyes in his toga-draped
shoulder.
"You've got to go out, now," she sobbed, "and give the historical
epilogue."
"Never," said Mr. Pottle. "A thousand nevers."
"Please, Ambrose. We've got to end it, somehow."
"Very well," announced Mr. Pottle. "I'll go. But mind you, Blossom
Pottle, I won't be responsible for what I say."
"Neither will I," sobbed his spouse.
Mr. Pottle hitched his toga about him, and strode out on the stage.
There was some applause, but more titters. He held up his hand for
silence, as orators do, and glared so fiercely at his audience that the
theater grew comparatively quiet. At the top of his voice, he began,
"_Who am I, oh list'ning peoples?_"
"Pottle the barber," answered a voice in the gallery.
Mr. Pottle paused, fastened an awful eye on the owner of the voice, and,
stepping out of character, remarked, succinctly:
"If you interrupt me again, Charlie Meacham, I'll come up there and
knock your block off." He swept the house with a ferocious glance. "And
that goes for the rest of you," he added. The intimidated audience went
"ssssssh" at each other; Pottle was popular in Granville. He launched
himself again.
"_Who am I, oh list'ning peoples?
Hist'ry's spirit, stern and truthful!
Come I here to give you an earful,
Of our city's inside history,
How the Gulicks grabbed the real estate,
By foreclosing poor folk's mortgages._"
He did not have to ask for silence now. The hush of death was on the
house, and the audience bent its ears toward him; even old Felix
Winterbottom, on the edge of his chair, cupped a gnarled, attentive ear.
Mr. Pottle went on,
"_You have heard the Gulick's blowing,
Of their wonderful relations._
_Lend an ear, and I will slip you,
What the real, true, red-hot dope is._"
He gave his toga a hitch, advanced to the foot-lights, and continued,
"_Old Saul Gulick was a drinker,
Always full of home-made liquor,
And he got the town of Granville,
From the Indians, by cheating,
Got 'em drunk, the records tell us,
Got 'em boiled and stewed and glassy;
Ere they sobered up, they sold him,
All the land in this fair county,
For a dollar and a quarter,
Which, my friends, he never paid them._"
The audience held its breath; Felix Winterbottom cupped both ears.
Pottle hurried on,
"_Now we come to 'Lijah Gulick,
Him that lent the noble stallion
To Revere, the midnight rider.
Honest, folks, you'll bust out laughing,
When I tell you 'Lijah stole him.
For Elijah was a horsethief,
And, as such, was hanged near Boston.
"Patriot, scholar, king of horsemen"--
Honest, folks, that makes me snicker.
Yes, he let Paul ride his stallion--
And charged him seven bucks an hour!
If you think that I am lying,
You will find all this in writing,
In the library in the state house._"
Sensation! Gasps in the audience. Commotion in the wings. Felix
Winterbottom made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was chuckling.
Pottle drew in a deep breath, and spoke again.
"_Then you've heard of Noah Gulick,
Him that won the Revolution.
If he ever was a major,
George J. Washington never knew it.
When they charged at Saratoga,
He was hiding in a cellar.
Was he on the staff of Washington?
Sure he was--but in the kitchen.
I'll admit he made good coffee--
But a soldier? Quit your kidding.
Now I'll take up Nathan Gulick,
His descendants never mention
That he spent a month in prison
More than once, for stealing chickens----_"
Here Mr. Pottle abruptly stopped. The curtain had been dropped with a
crashing bang by unseen hands in the wings.
As it fell, there was a curious, cackling noise in one of the boxes, the
like of which had never before been heard in Granville. It was Felix
Winterbottom laughing as if he were being paid a dollar a guffaw.
§4
Mr. Pottle sat beside the bedside of Mrs. Pottle, sadly going over a
column of figures, as she lay there, wan, weak, tear-marred, sipping
pale tea.
He cleared his throat.
"As retiring treasurer of the Granville Pageant," he announced, "I
regret to report as follows:
Receipts from tickets $1,250.00
Expenses, including rent, music,
scenery, costumes, and damages, $1,249.17
"This leaves a total net profit of eighty-three cents."
Mrs. Pottle wept softly into her pillow. A whistle outside caused her to
lift a woeful head.
"There's the postman," she said, feebly. "Another bill, I suppose. We
won't even make eighty-three cents."
Mr. Pottle returned with the letter; he opened it; he read it; he
whistled; he read it again; then he read it aloud.
"Dear Mrs. Pottle:
"I never laughed at anything in my life till I saw your
pageant. I pay for what I get.
"Yours,
"FELIX WINTERBOTTOM.
"P. S. Inclosed is my check for one thousand dollars
for the Day Nursery."
Mrs. Pottle sat up in bed. She smiled.
VI: _The Cage Man_
All day long they kept Horace Nimms in a steel-barred cage. For
twenty-one years he had perched on a tall stool in that cage, while
various persons at various times poked things at him through a hole
about big enough to admit an adult guinea pig.
Every evening round five-thirty they let Horace out and permitted him to
go over to his half of a double-barreled house in Flatbush to sleep. At
eight-thirty the next morning he returned to his cage, hung his
two-dollar-and-eighty-nine-cent approximately Panama hat on a peg and
changed his blue-serge-suit coat for a still more shiny alpaca. Then he
sharpened two pencils to needle-point sharpness, tested his pen by
writing "H. Nimms, Esq.," in a small precise hand, gave his adding
machine a few preparatory pokes and was ready for the day's work.
Horace was proud, in his mild way, of being shut up in the cage with all
that money. It carried the suggestion that he was a dangerous man of a
possibly predatory nature. He wasn't. A more patient and docile five
feet and two inches of cashier was not to be found between Spuyten
Duyvil and Tottenville, Staten Island. Cashiers are mostly crabbed. It
sours them somehow to hand out all that money and retain so little for
their own personal use. But Horace was not of this ilk.
The timidest stenographer did not hesitate to take the pettiest
petty-cash slip to his little window and twitter, according to custom:
"Forty cents for carbon paper, and let me have it in large bills,
please, Uncle Horace."
He would peer at the slip, pretend it was for forty dollars, smile a
friendly smile that made little ripples round his eyes and--according to
custom--reply: "Here you be. Now don't be buying yourself a flivver with
it."
When the office force in a large corporation calls the office cashier
"uncle" it is a pretty good indication of the sort of man he is.
For the rest, Horace Nimms was slightly bald, wore convict
eye-glasses--the sort you shackle to your head with a chain--kept his
cuffs up with lavender sleeve garters, carried a change purse, kept a
small red pocket expense book, thought his company the greatest in the
world and its president, Oren Hammer, the greatest man, was devoted to a
wife and two growing daughters, dreamed of a cottage on Long Island with
a few square yards of beets and beans and, finally, earned forty dollars
a week.
Horace Nimms had a figuring mind. Those ten little Arabic symbols and
their combinations and permutations held a fascination for him. To his
ears six times six is thirty-six was as perfect a poem as ever a master
bard penned. When on muggy Flatbush nights he tossed in his brass bed he
lulled himself to sleep by dividing 695,481,239 by 433. At other and
more wakeful moments he amused himself by planning an elaborate
cost-accounting system for his firm, the Amalgamated Soap Corporation,
known to the ends of the earth as the Suds Trust. Sometimes he went so
far as to play the entertaining game of imaginary conversations. He
pictured himself sitting in one of the fat chairs in the office of
President Hammer and saying between puffs on one of the presidential
perfectos: "Now, looky here, Mr. Hammer. My plan for a cost-accounting
system is----"
And he limned on his mental canvas that great man, spellbound,
enthralled, as he, Horace Nimms, dazzled him with an array of figures,
beginning: "Now, let's see, Mr. Hammer. Last year the Western works at
Purity City, Iowa, made 9,576,491 cakes of Pink Petal Toilet and
6,571,233 cakes of Lily White Laundry at a manufacturing cost of 3.25571
cents a cake, unboxed; now the selling cost a cake was"--and so on. The
interview always ended with vigorous hand-shakings on the part of Mr.
Hammer and more salary for Mr. Nimms. But actually the interview never
took place.
It wasn't that Horace didn't have confidence in his system. He did. But
he didn't have an equal amount in Horace Nimms. So he worked on in his
little cage and enjoyed a fair measure of contentment there, because to
him it was a temple of figures, a shrine of subtraction, an altar of
addition. Figures swarmed in his head as naturally as bees swarm about a
locust tree. He could tell you off-hand how many cakes of Grade-B soap
the Southern Works at Spotless, Louisiana, made in the month of May,
1914. He simply devoured statistics. When the door of the cage clanged
shut in the morning he felt soothed, at home; he immersed his own small
worries in a bath of digits and decimal points. He ate of the lotus
leaves of mathematics. He could forget, while juggling with millions of
cakes of soap and thousands of dollars, that his rent was due next week;
that Polly, his wife, needed a new dress; and that on forty a week one
must live largely on beef liver and hope.
He sometimes thought, while Subwaying to his office, that if he could
only get the ear of Oren Hammer some day and tell him about that
cost-accounting system he might get his salary raised to forty-five. But
President Hammer, whose office was on the floor above the cage, was as
remote from Horace as the Pleiades. To get to see him one had to run a
gantlet of superior, inquisitive secretaries. Besides Mr. Hammer was
reputed to be the busiest man in New York City.
"I wash the faces of forty million people every morning," was the way he
put it himself.
But the chief reason why Horace Nimms did not approach Mr. Hammer was
that Horace held him in genuine awe. The president was so big, so
masterful, so decisive. His invariable cutaway intimidated Horace; the
magnificence of his top hat dazzled the little cashier and benumbed his
faculties of speech. Once in a while Horace rode down in the same
elevator with him and--unobserved--admired his firm profile, the
concentration of his brow and the jutting jaw that some one had once
said was worth fifty thousand a year in itself, merely as a symbol of
determination. Horace would sooner have slapped General Pershing on the
back or asked President Wilson to dinner in Flatbush than have addressed
Oren Hammer. An uncommendable attitude? Yes. But after all those years
behind bars, perhaps subconsciously his spirit had become a little
caged.
One cool September morning Horace entered the cage humming "Annie
Rooney." Coming over in the Subway he had straightened out a little
quirk in his cost-accounting system that would save the company
one-ninety-fifth of a cent a cake. He took off his worn serge coat, was
momentarily concerned at the prospect of having to make it last another
season and then with a hitch on his lavender sleeve garters he slipped
into his alpaca office coat and added up a few numbers on the adding
machine for the sheer joy of it.
He had not been sitting on his high stool long when he became aware that
a man, a stranger, was regarding him fixedly through the steel screen.
The man had calmly placed a chair just outside the cage and was
examining the little cashier with the scrutinizing eye of an
ornithologist studying a newly discovered species of emu.
Horace was a bit disconcerted. He knew his accounts were in order and
accurate to the last penny. He had nothing to fear on that score.
Nevertheless, he didn't like the way the man stared at him.
"If he has something to say to me," thought Horace, "why does he say it
with glowers?"
He would have asked the starer what the devil he was looking at, but
Horace was incapable of incivility. He began nervously to total up a
column of figures and was not a little upset to find that under the cold
gaze he had made his first mistake in addition since the spring of '98.
He cast a furtive glance or two through the steel netting at the
stranger outside, who continued to focus a pair of prominent blue eyes
on the self-conscious cashier. Horace couldn't have explained why those
particular eyes rattled him; some mysterious power--black art perhaps.
The staring man was quite bald, and his head, shaped like a pineapple
cheese, had been polished until it seemed almost to glitter in the
September sun. The eyes, light blue and bulgy, reminded Horace of
poached eggs left out in the cold for a week. They had also a certain
fishy quality; impassive, yet hungry, like a shark's. Without being
actually fat, the mysterious starer had the appearance of being plump
and soft; perhaps it was the way he clasped two small, perfectly
manicured hands over a perceptible rotundity at his middle, an
unexpected protuberance, as if he were attempting to conceal a honeydew
melon under his vest.
Horace Nimms did his best to concentrate on the little columns of
figures he was so fond of drilling and parading, but his glance strayed,
almost against his will, to the bald-headed man with the fishy blue
eyes, who continued to fasten on Horace the glance a python aims at a
rabbit before he bolts him.
At length, after half an hour, Horace could stand it no longer. He
addressed the stranger politely.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Horace with his avuncular
smile.
The starer, without once taking his eyes off Horace, rose, advanced to
the little window and thrust through it an oversized card.
"You may go on with your work," he said, "just as if you were not under
observation. I am here under Mr. Hammer's orders."
His voice was peculiar--a nasal purr.
The caged cashier glanced at the card. It read:
S. WALMSLEY COWAN
EFFICIENCY EXPERT EXTRAORDINARY
AUTHOR OF "PEP, PERSONALITY, PERSONNEL,"
"HOW TO ENTHUSE EMPLOYEES"
Horace Nimms had a disquieting sensation. He had heard rumors of a man
prowling about in the company, subjecting random employees to strange
tests, firing some, moving others to different jobs, but he had always
felt that twenty-one years of service and the steel bars of his cage
protected him. And now here was the man, and he, Horace Nimms, was under
observation. He had always associated the phrase with reports of lunacy
cases in the newspapers. Mr. Cowan returned to his seat near the cage
and resumed his silent watch on its inmate. Horace tried to do his work,
but he couldn't remember when he had had such a poor day. The figures
would come wrong and his hand would tremble a little no matter how hard
he tried to forget the vigilant Mr. Cowan who sat watching him.
At the end of a trying day Horace dismounted from his high stool,
hitched up his lavender sleeve garters and inserted himself into his
worn blue serge coat. He would be glad to get back to Flatbush. Polly
would have some fried beef liver and a bread pudding for supper, and
they would discuss for the hundredth time just what the ground-floor
plan of that cottage would be--if it ever was.
But Mr. Cowan was waiting for him.
"Step this way, will you--ple-e-ese," said the expert.
Horace never remembered when he had heard a word that retained so little
of its original meaning as Mr. Cowan's "ple-e-ese." Clearly it was
tossed in as a sop to the hypersensitive. His "ple-e-ese" could have
been translated as "you worm."
Horace, with a worried brow, followed Mr. Cowan into one of those
goldfish-bowl offices affected by large companies with many executives
and a limited amount of office space. It contained only a plain table
and two stiff chairs.
"Sit down," said Mr. Cowan, "ple-e-ese."
It is a difficult linguistic feat to purr and snap at the same time, but
Mr. Cowan achieved it.
Horace sat down and Mr. Cowan sat opposite him, with his unwinking blue
eyes but two feet from Horace's mild brown ones and with no charitable
steel screen between them.
"I am going to put you to the test," said Mr. Cowan.
Horace wildly thought of thumbscrews. He sat bolt upright while Mr.
Cowan whipped from his pocket a tape measure and, bending over, measured
the breadth of Horace Nimms' brow. With an ominous clucking noise the
expert set down the measurement on a chart in front of him. Then he
carefully measured each of Horace's ears. The measurements appeared to
shock him. He wrote them down. He applied his tape to Horace's nose and
measured that organ. He surveyed Horace's forehead from several
different angles. He measured the circumference of Horace's head. The
result caused Mr. Cowan acute distress, for he set it down on his
elaborate chart and glowered at it a full minute.
Then he transferred his attention and tape to Horace's stubby hands. He
measured them, counted the fingers, contemplated the thumb gravely and
wrote several hundred words on the chart. Horace thought he recognized
one of the words as "mechanical."
"Now," said Mr. Cowan solemnly, "we will test your mental reactions."
He said this more to himself than to Horace Nimms, on whose brow tiny
pearls of perspiration were appearing. Mr. Cowan drew forth a stop watch
and spread another chart on the table before him.
"Fill this out--ple-e-ese," he said, pushing the chart toward Horace.
"You have just five minutes to do it."
Horace Nimms, dismayed, almost dazed, seized the paper and started to
work at it with feverish confusion. He boggled through a maze full of
pitfalls for a tired, rattled man:
If George Washington discovered America, write the capital of Nebraska
in this space.........But if he was called the Father of His Country,
how much is 49 × 7?........Now name three presidents of the United
States in alphabetical order, including Jefferson, but do not do so if
ice is warm.........If Adam was the first man, dot all the "i's" in
"eleemosynary" and write your last name backward.........Omit the next
three questions with the exception of the last two: How much is 6 × 9 =
54?........What is the capital of Omaha?........How many "e's" are there
in the sentence, "Tell me, pretty maiden, are there any more at home
like you?"........Put a cross over all the consonants in the foregoing
sentence. Now fill in the missing words in the following sentences:
"While picking........I was stung in the........by a........." "Don't
bite the........that feeds you."
How old are you? Multiply your age by the year you were born in. Erase
your answer. If a pound of steel is heavier than a pound of oyster
crackers, don't write anything in this space.........Otherwise write
three words that rhyme with "icicle." Now write your name, and then
cross out all the consonants.
Name three common garden vegetables.........
It seemed to Horace Nimms that he had floundered along for less than a
minute when Mr. Cowan said briskly, "Time," and took the paper from
Horace.
"Now the association test," said Mr. Cowan, drawing forth still another
chart, very much as a magician draws forth a rabbit from a hat.
"I'll say a word," he went on, seeming to grow progressively more
affable as Horace grew more discomfited, "and you will say the word it
suggests immediately after--ple-e-ese," he added as an afterthought.
Horace Nimms moistened his dry lips. Mr. Cowan pulled out his stop
watch.
"Oyster?" said Mr. Cowan.
"S-stew!" quavered Horace.
"Flat?"
"Bush!"
"Hammer?"
"President!"
"Soap?"
"Cakes!"
"Money?"
"Forty-five!"
"Up?"
"Down!"
"Man?"
"Cage!"
"Most peculiar," muttered Mr. Cowan as he noted down the answers. "We'll
have to look into this."
Horace could not suppress a shudder.
"That's all," said Mr. Cowan.
When Horace arrived at his Flatbush flat, late for supper, he did not
enjoy the bread pudding, though it was a particularly good one--with
raisins. Nor did he go to sleep quickly, no matter how many numbers he
multiplied. He was thinking what it would mean to him at his age if Mr.
Cowan should have him put out of his cage. His dreams were haunted by a
pair of eyes like those of a frozen owl.
The next afternoon Horace Nimms, busy in his cage, received a notice
that there would be an organization meeting at the end of the day. He
went. The meeting had been called by S. Walmsley Cowan, who in his talks
to large groups adopted the benevolent big-brother manner and turned on
and off a beaming smile.
"My friends," he began, "it is no secret to some of you that Mr. Hammer
has not been pleased with the way things are going in the company. He
has felt that there has been a great deal of waste of time and money;
that neither the volume of business nor the profits on it are what they
should be. He has commissioned me to find out what is wrong in the
company and to put pep, efficiency, enthusiasm into our organization."
He smiled a modest smile.
"I rather fancy," he continued, "that I'll succeed. I have been
conducting the tests with which you are all doubtless familiar through
reading my books, 'Pep, Personality, Personnel,' and 'How to Enthuse
Employees.' I have made a most interesting and startling discovery. Most
of you are in the wrong jobs!"
He paused. The men and women looked at each other uneasily. Then he went
on.
"I'll cite just one instance. Yesterday I tested the mentality of one of
you. I found that he was of the cage, or solitary, type of worker. See
Page 239 of my book on Getting Into Men's Brains. But he was already
working in a cage! Here was a problem. Could it be that that was where
he would do best? No! Then a happy solution struck me. He was in the
wrong cage. So I am going to transfer him from a mathematical cage to a
mechanical cage. I am going to transfer him to be an elevator operator.
This may surprise you, my friends, but science is always surprising.
Just fancy! This man has been working with figures for more than twenty
years, and I discover by measuring that his thumbs are of the purely
mechanical type, and all that time he would have been much happier
running an elevator. Now by an odd coincidence I found that one of the
elevator operators has a pure type of mathematical ear, so I am
transferring him to the cashier's cage. He may seem a bit awkward there
at first, but we shall see, we shall see."
He turned on his smile. But the eyes of the employees had turned
sympathetically to the pale face of Horace Nimms. How old and tired
Uncle Horace looked, they thought. In a nightmare Horace heard his doom
pronounced. After twenty-one years! His temple of figures!
S. Walmsley Cowan unconcernedly began one of his celebrated
pep-and-punch talks calculated to send morale up as a candle sends up
the mercury in a thermometer.
"Friends," he said, thumping the table before him, "when Opportunity
comes to knock be on the front porch! Don't hold back! He who hesitates
is lost. It may be that the humble will inherit the earth, but that will
be when all the bold have died. Don't hide your light under a basket;
don't keep your ideas locked up in your skulls. Bring 'em out! Let's
have a look at them. You wouldn't wear a diamond ring inside your shirt,
would you? Be sure you're right, then holler your head off. Get what is
coming to you! Nobody will bring it on a platter; you've got to step up
and grab it. When you have an impulse, think it over. If it looks like
the real goods, obey it. Get me? Obey it! Nobody will bite you. Think
all you like, but for heaven's sake, act!"
It was for such talks that Mr. Cowan was famous. Even Horace Nimms
forgot his impending fall as the efficiency expert extraordinary
declaimed the gospel of action and boldness.
But when the meeting was over, silent misery came into the heart of the
little cashier and like an automaton he stumbled into the Subway. He ate
his bread pudding without tasting it and tried to talk to Polly about
the proposed living room in the Long Island cottage. He hadn't the
courage to tell her what had happened; indeed he hardly realized what
had happened himself.
In the morning he tried to pretend to himself that it was all a joke;
surely Mr. Cowan couldn't have meant it. But when he reached his cage he
saw another figure already in that temple of addition and subtraction.
He rattled the wire door timidly. The figure turned.
"Wadda yah want?" it asked bellicosely.
Horace Nimms recognized the bluish jaw of Gus, one of the elevator men.
Sick at heart, Horace turned away. In the blur of his thoughts was the
one that he must keep his job, some job, any job. One can't save much on
forty a week in Flatbush. And that he should work for any one but the
Amalgamated Soap Corporation was unthinkable. So without knowing exactly
how it happened, he found himself in a blue-and-gray uniform clumsily
trying to vindicate his mechanical hands and attempting to stop his car
within six inches of the floors. All morning he patiently escorted his
car up and down the elevator shaft--twenty stories up, twenty stories
down, twenty stories up, twenty stories down. He thought of the Song of
the Shirt.
At noon he stopped his car at the eighteenth floor and two passengers
got on. Horace recognized them. One was Jim Wright, assistant to
President Hammer; the other was Mr. Perrine, Western sales manager. They
were in animated conversation.
"That fellow has the crust of a mud turtle and the tact of a
rattlesnake," Mr. Perrine was saying.
"Remember," Jim Wright reminded him, "he is an efficiency expert
extraordinary. The big boss seems to have confidence in him."
"He won't have quite so much," said Mr. Perrine, "when he hears that he
put an elevator man in as cashier. I hear he walked off with six hundred
dollars before he'd been on the job an hour."
Horace pricked up his ears. He made the car go as slowly as possible.
"He did?" Jim Wright was excited. "And this is one of the boss' bad days
too! Just before I left him he was saying, 'The Amalgamated has about as
much system as a piece of cheese. Why, these high-salaried executives
can't tell me how much it costs them to make and sell a cake of soap!'"
Then Horace reluctantly let them out of the elevator at the street
floor.
All that afternoon he struggled with an impulse. The words of Mr.
Cowan's oration of the night before began to come back to him. If only
he had obeyed his impulses----
As he was a new man, they gave him the late shift. At one minute to six
the indicator in his car gave two short, sharp, peremptory buzzes.
Horace, who was mastering the elements of elevator operating, shot up to
the eighteenth floor. A single passenger got on. With a little gasp
Horace recognized the cutaway coat and top hat of the president of the
Amalgamated.
Horace set his teeth. His small frame grew tense. He turned the lever
and the car started to glide downward. Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen,
fourteen, thirteen, twelve! Then with a quick twist of his wrist Horace
stalled the car between the twelfth and eleventh floors and slipped the
controlling key into his pocket. Then he turned and faced the big
president.
"You don't know a hell of a lot about running an elevator," remarked
Oren Hammer.
"No, I don't," said Horace Nimms in a strange, loud voice that he didn't
recognize. "But I do know how much it costs a cake to make Pink Petal
Toilet."
"What's that? Who the devil are you?" The great man was more surprised
than angry.
"Nimms," said Horace briefly. "Office cashier on seventeenth floor
twenty-one years. Elevator operator one day. Mr. Cowan's orders."
Mr. Hammer's brow contracted.
"So you think you can tell me how much Pink Petal costs a cake to make,
eh?" he said.
He had the reputation of never overlooking an opportunity.
The imaginary conversations that Horace had been having crowded back
into his mind.
"Now, looky here, Mr. Hammer," he began. "The Western works made
9,576,491 cakes of Pink Petal Toilet last year. Now the cost a cake
was--" and so on. Horace was on familiar ground now. Figures and
statistics tripped from his tongue; the details he had bottled up inside
him so long came pouring forth. He knew the business of the Amalgamated
down to the last stamp and rubber band. Oren Hammer, listening with
keen interest, now and then put in a short, direct question. Horace
Nimms snapped back short, direct answers. Once launched, he forgot all
about the cutaway coat and the dazzling top hat and even about the
big-jawed man who washed the faces of forty million people every
morning. Horace was talking to get back into his cage and words came
with a new-found eloquence.
"By George," exclaimed President Hammer, "you know more about the
business than I do myself! And Cowan told you you didn't have a figuring
mind, did he? I want you to report at my office the first thing
to-morrow morning."
Horace Nimms, in the black suit he saved for funerals and weddings, and
a new tie, was ushered into the big office of President Hammer the next
morning. Outwardly, it was his hope, he was calm; inwardly, he knew, he
was quaking.
"Have a cigar, Nimms," said Oren Hammer, passing Horace one of the
presidential perfectos of his dreams. Then he summoned a secretary.
"Ask Mr. Cowan to come in, will you?" he said.
The efficiency expert extraordinary entered, beaming affably.
"Good morning to you, Mr. Hammer," he called out in a cheery voice. Then
he stopped short as he recognized Horace.
"Oh, come here, Cowan," said President Hammer genially. "Before you go I
want you to meet Mr. Nimms. He is going to install a new cost-accounting
system for us. Just step down to the cashier's cage with him, will you,
and get your salary to date."
VII: _Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?_
"One, two, three, bend! One, two, three, bend!" So barked the physical
instructor, a bulgy man with muscles popping out all over him as if his
skin had been stuffed with hard-boiled eggs.
Little Peter Mullaney oned, twoed, threed and bent with such earnest and
whole-hearted violence that his blue eyes seemed likely to be jostled
from their sockets and the freckles to be jarred loose from his thin,
wiry arms. Though breathless, and not a little sinew-sore from the stiff
setting-up exercises, his small, sharp-jawed face wore a beatified look,
the look that bespeaks the rare, ecstatic thrill that comes to mortals
so seldom in this life of taxes, prohibitions and denied ambitions. Such
a look might a hero-worshiping boy wear if seen by his gang in the
company of Jack Dempsey, or a writer if caught in the act of taking tea
with Shaw. Peter Mullaney was standing at the very door of his life's
ambition; he was about to be taken "on the cops."
To be taken "on the cops"--the phrase is departmental argot and is in
common use by those who enjoy that distinction--this had been the ideal
of Peter Mullaney since the days when he, an undersized infant, had
tottered around his Christopher Street back-yard, an improvised
broom-stick billy in his hand, solemnly arresting and incarcerating his
small companions. To wear that spruce, brass-button studded blue
uniform, and that glittering silver shield, to twirl a well-trained
night-stick on its cord, to eye the layman with the cold, impassive eye
of authority, to whisper mysterious messages into red iron signal boxes
on street-corners, to succor the held-up citizen and pursue the crook to
his underworld lair, to be addressed as "Officer"--he had lived for this
dream.
And here he was, the last man on a row of thirty panting, perspiring
probationary patrolmen, ranged, according to height, across the
gymnasium of the police training school. From big Dan Mack, six feet
four in his socks, they graded down as gently as a ramp to little Peter
on the end of the line a scant, a bare five feet five and seven-eighths
inches tall including the defiant bristle of his red pompadour.
Peter was happy, and with reason. It was by no generous margin that
Peter had gained admission to the school that was to prepare him for his
career. By the sheerest luck he had escaped being cast into the exterior
darkness; by the slimmest degree he had wiggled into the school, and
whether he could attain the goal on which he had kept his eye for twenty
years--or ever since he was four--was still decidedly in doubt. The law
said in plain, inexorable black and white that the minimum height a
policeman can be is five feet and six inches. Peter Mullaney lacked that
stature by the distance between a bumble-bee's eyes; and this, despite
the fact that for years he had sought most strenuously, by exercise,
diet and even torture to stretch out his body to the required five feet
six. When he was eighteen and it seemed certain that an unsympathetic
fate had meant him to be a short man, his father found him one day in
the attic, lashed to a beam, with a box full of window-weights tied to
his feet, and his face gray with pain.
"Shure, me bye," remarked old man Mullaney as he cut Peter down, "are ye
after thinkin' that the Mullaneys is made of Injy rubber? Don't it say
in the Bible, 'What man by takin' thought can add a Cupid to his
statue?'"
Peter, in hot and anguished rebellion against this all too evident law
of nature had sought relief by going straight out of the house and
licking the first boy he met who was twice as big as he was, in a fight
that is still remembered in the Second Ward. But stretching and wishing
and even eating unpleasant and expensive tablets, alleged by their
makers to be made from giraffes' glands, did not bring Peter up to a
full and unquestionable five feet six.
When Peter came up for a preliminary examination which was to determine
whether he possessed the material from which policemen are made,
Commissioner Kondorman, as coldly scientific as his steel scales and
measures, surveyed the stricken Peter, as he stood there on the scales,
his freckles in high relief on his skin, for he was pale all over at the
thought that he might be rejected.
"Candidate Mullaney," said the Commissioner, "you're too short."
Peter felt marble lumps swelling in his throat.
"If you'd only give me a chance, Commissioner," he was able to gulp out,
"I'd----"
Commissioner Kondorman, who had been studying the records spread on his
desk, cut the supplicant short with:
"Your marks in the other tests are pretty good, though you seem a little
weak in general education. But your strength test is unusually high for
a small man. However, regulations are regulations and I believe in
sticking to them. Next candidate!"
Peter did not go.
"Commissioner," he began urgently, "all I ask is a chance----"
His eyes were tense and pleading.
The Chief Inspector, grizzled Matthew McCabe, plucked at the
Commissioner's coat-sleeve.
"Well, Chief?" inquired Commissioner Kondorman, a little impatiently.
"He's a good lad," put in the Chief Inspector, "and well spoke of in the
Second Ward."
"He's under height," said the Commissioner, briefly.
"But he knows how to handle his fists," argued the old Chief Inspector.
"Does he?" said the Commissioner, skeptically. "He looks rather small."
He examined Peter through his eye-glasses; beneath that chill and
critical gaze Peter felt that he had shrunk to the size of a bantam
rooster; the lumps in his throat were almost choking him; in an agony of
desperation, he cried,
"Bring in the biggest man you got. I'll fight him."
The Commissioner's face was set in hard, and one would have thought,
immovable lines, yet he achieved the feat of turning up, ever so
slightly, the corners of his lips in an expression which might pass as
the germ of a smile, as he gazed at the small, nude, freckled figure
before him with its vivid shaving-brush hair, its intense eyes and its
clenched fists posed in approved prize-ring form. Again the official
bent over the records and studied them.
"Character recommendations seem pretty good," he mused. "Never has used
tobacco or liquor----"
"'Fraid it might stunt me," muttered Peter, "so I couldn't get on the
cops."
The commissioner stared at him with one degree more of interest.
"Give the lad a chance," urged the Chief Inspector. "He only lacks a
fraction of an inch. He may grow."
"Now, Chief," said the Commissioner turning to the official by his side,
"you know I'm a stickler for the rules. What's the good of saying
officers must be five feet six and then taking men who are shorter?"
"You know how badly we need men," shrugged the Chief Inspector, "and
Mullaney here strikes me as having the making of a good cop. It will do
no harm to try him out."
The Commissioner considered for a moment. Then he wheeled round and faced
Peter Mullaney.
"You've asked for a chance," he shot out. "You'll get it. You can attend
police training school for three months. I'll waive the fact that you're
below the required height, for the time being. But if in your final
examinations you don't get excellent marks in every branch, by the Lord
Harry, you get no shield from me. Do you understand? One slip, and
good-by to you. Next candidate!"
They had to guide Peter Mullaney back to his clothes; he was in a dazed
blur of happiness.
Next day, with the strut of a conqueror and with pride shining from
every freckle, little Peter Mullaney entered the police training school.
To fit himself physically for the task of being a limb of the law, he
oned, twoed, threed and bent by the hour, twisted the toes of two
hundred pound fellow students in frantic jiu jitsu, and lugged other
ponderous probationers about on his shoulders in the practice of first
aid to the injured. This physical side of his schooling Peter enjoyed,
and, despite his lack of inches, did extremely well, for he was quick,
tough and determined. But it was the book-work that made him pucker his
brow and press his head with his hands as if to keep it from bursting
with the facts he had to jam into it.
It was the boast of Commissioner Kondorman that he was making his police
force the most intelligent in the world. Give him time, he was fond of
saying, and there would not be a man on it who could not be called
well-informed. He intended to see to it that from chief inspector down
to the greenest patrolman they could answer, off-hand, not only
questions about routine police matters, but about the whole range of the
encyclopedia.
"I want well-informed men, intelligent men," he said. "Men who can tell
you the capital of Patagonia, where copra comes from, and who discovered
the cotton-gin. I want men who have used their brains, have read and
thought a bit. The only way I can find that out is by asking questions,
isn't it?"
The anti-administration press, with intent to slight, called the
policemen "Kondorman's Encyclopedias bound in blue," but he was not in
the least perturbed; he made his next examination a bit stiffer.
Peter Mullaney, handicapped by the fact that his span of elementary
schooling had been abbreviated by the necessity of earning his own
living, struggled valiantly with weighty tomes packed with statutes,
ordinances, and regulations--what a police officer can and cannot do
about mayhem, snow on the sidewalks, arson, dead horses in the street,
kidnaping, extricating intoxicated gentlemen from man-holes, smoking
automobiles, stray goats, fires, earthquakes, lost children, blizzards,
disorderly conduct and riots. He prepared himself, by no small exertion,
to tell an inquiring public where Bedford street is, if traffic can go
both ways on Commerce street, what car to take to get from Hudson street
to Chatham Square, how to get to the nearest branch library, quick
lunch, public bath, zoo, dispensary and garage, how to get to the Old
Slip Station, Flower Hospital, the St. Regis, Coney Island, Duluth and
Grant's Tomb. He stuffed himself with these pertinent facts; he wanted
to be a good cop. He could not see exactly how it would help him to know
in addition to an appalling amount of local geography and history, the
name of the present ruler of Bulgaria, what a zebu is, and who wrote
"Home, Sweet Home." But since questions of this sort were quite sure to
bob up on the examination he toiled through many volumes with a zeal
that made his head ache.
When he had been working diligently in the training school for three
months lacking a day, the great moment came when he was given a chance
to put theory into practice, by being sent forth, in a uniform slightly
too large for him, to patrol a beat in the company of a veteran officer,
so that he might observe, at first hand, how an expert handled the many
and varied duties of the police job. Except that he had no shield, no
night stick, and no revolver, Peter looked exactly like any of the other
guardians of law. He trudged by the side of the big Officer Gaffney,
trying to look stern, and finding it hard to keep his joy from breaking
out in a smile. If Judy McNulty could only see him now! They were to be
married as soon as he got his shield.
But joy is never without its alloy. Even as Peter strode importantly
through the streets of the upper West Side, housing delicious thrills in
every corpuscle from the top of his blue cap to the thick soles and
rubber heels of his shiningly new police shoes, a worry kept plucking at
his mind. On the morrow he was to take his final examination in general
education, and that was no small obstacle between him and his shield. He
had labored to be ready, but he was afraid.
That worry grew as he paced along, trying to remember whether the Amazon
is longer than the Ganges and who Gambetta was. He did not even pay
close attention to his mentor, although on most occasions those five
blue service stripes on Officer Gaffney's sleeve, representing a quarter
of a century on the force, would have caused Peter to listen with rapt
interest to Officer Gaffney's genial flow of reminiscence and advice.
Dimly he heard the old policeman rumbling:
"When I was took on the cops, Pether, all they expected of a cop was two
fists and a cool head. But sthyles in cops changes like sthyles in hats,
I guess. I've seen a dozen commissioners come and go, and they all had
their own ideas. The prisint comish is the queerest duck of the lot, wid
his "Who was Pernambuco and what the divil ailed him, and who invinted
the gin rickey and who discovered the Gowanus Canal." Not that I'm agin
a cop bein' a learned man. Divil a bit. Learnin' won't hurt him none if
he has two fists and a clear head."
He paused to take nourishment from some tabloid tobacco in his
hip-pocket, and rumbled on,
"Whin I was took on the cops, as I say, they was no graduatin' exercises
like a young ladies' siminary. The comish--it was auld Malachi
Bannon--looked ye square in the eye and said, 'Young fella, ye're about
to go forth and riprisint the majesty of the law. Whin on juty be clane
and sober and raisonably honest. Keep a civil tongue in your head for
ivrybody, even Republicans. Get to know your precinct like a book. Don't
borrow trouble. But above all, rimimber this: a cop can do a lot of
queer things and square himself wid me afterward, but there's one sin no
cop can square--the sin of runnin' away whin needed. Go to your post.'"
Little Peter nodded his head.
They paced along in silence for a time. Then Peter asked,
"Jawn----"
"What, Pether?"
"Jawn, where is the Tropic of Capricorn?"
Officer Gaffney wrinkled his grey eyebrows quizzically.
"The Tropic of Whichicorn?" he inquired.
"The Tropic of Capricorn," repeated Peter.
"Pether," said Officer Gaffney, dubiously, scratching his head with the
tip of his night-stick, "I disrimimber but I think--I think, mind ye,
it's in the Bronx."
They continued their leisurely progress.
"'Tis a quiet beat, this," observed Officer Gaffney. "Quiet but
responsible. Rich folks lives in these houses, Pether, and that draws
crooks, sometimes. But mostly it's as quiet as a Sunday in Dooleyville."
He laughed deep in his chest.
"It makes me think," he said, "of Tommie Toohy, him that's a lieutinant
now over in Canarsie. 'Tis a lesson ye'd do well to mind, Pether."
Peter signified that he was all ears.
"He had the cop bug worse than you, even, Pether," said the veteran.
Peter flushed beneath his freckles.
"Yis, he had it bad, this Tommie Toohy," pursued Officer Gaffney. "He
was crazy to be a cop as soon as he could walk. I never seen a happier
man in me life than Toohy the day he swaggers out of the station-house
to go on post up in the twenty-ninth precinct. In thim days there was
nawthin' up there but rows of little cottages wid stoops on thim;
nawthin but dacint, respictable folks lived there and they always give
that beat to a recruity because it was so quiet. Well, Toohy goes on
juty at six o'clock in the evenin', puffed up wid importance and
polishing his shield every minute or two. 'Tis a short beat--up one side
of Garden Avenue and down on the other side. Toohy paces up and down,
swingin' his night-stick and lookin' hard and suspicious at every man,
woman or child that passes him. He was just bustin' to show his
authority. But nawthin' happened. Toohy paced up and back, up and back,
up and back. It gets to be eight o'clock. Nawthin happens. Toohy can
stand it no longer. He spies an auld man sittin' on his stoop,
peacefully smokin' his evenin' pipe. Toohy goes up to the old fellow and
glares at him.
"'What are you doin' there?' says Toohy.
"'Nawthin,' says the auld man.
"'Well,' says Toohy, wid a stern scowl, shakin' his night-stick at the
scared auld gazabo, 'You go in the house.'"
Peter chuckled.
"But Toohy lived to make a good cop for all that," finished the veteran.
"Wid all his recruity monkey-shines, he never ran away whin needed."
"I wonder could he bound Bolivia," said Peter Mullaney.
"I'll bet he could," said Officer Gaffney, "if it was in his precinct."
Late next afternoon, Peter sat gnawing his knuckles in a corner of the
police schoolroom. All morning he had battled with the examination in
general education. It had not been as hard as he had feared, but he was
worried nevertheless. So much was at stake.
He was quivering all over when he was summoned to the office of the
Commissioner, and his quivering grew as he saw the rigid face of
Commissioner Kondorman, and read no ray of hope there. Papers were
strewn over the official desk. Kondorman looked up, frowned.
"Mullaney," he said, bluntly, "you've failed."
"F-failed?" quavered Peter.
"Yes. In general education. I told you if you made excellent marks we'd
overlook your deficiency in height. Your paper"--he tapped it with his
finger--"isn't bad. But it isn't good. You fell down hard on question
seventeen."
"Question seventeen?"
"Yes. The question is, 'Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?' And your
answer is"--the Commissioner paused before he pronounced the damning
words--"'The Tropic of Capricon is in the Bronx.'"
Peter gulped, blinked, opened and shut his fists, twisted his cap in his
hands, a picture of abject misery. The Commissioner's voice was crisp
and final.
"That's all, Mullaney. Sorry. Turn in your uniform at once. Well?"
Peter had started away, had stopped and was facing the commissioner.
"Commissioner," he begged----
"That will do," snapped the Commissioner. "I gave you your chance; you
understood the conditions."
"It--it isn't that," fumbled out Peter Mullaney, "but--but wouldn't you
please let me go out on post once more with Officer Gaffney?"
"I don't see what good that would do," said Commissioner Kondorman,
gruffly.
Tears were in Peter's eyes.
"You see--you see----" he got out with an effort, "it
would be my last chance to wear the uniform--and
I--wanted--somebody--to--see--me--in--it--just--once."
The Commissioner stroked his chin reflectively.
"Were you scheduled to go out on post for instruction," he asked, "if
you passed your examination?"
"Yes, sir. From eight to eleven."
The Commissioner thought a moment.
"Well," he said, "I'll let you go. It won't alter the case any, of
course. You're through, here. Turn in your uniform by eleven thirty,
sure."
Peter mumbled his thanks, and went out of the office with shoulders that
drooped as if he were carrying a safe on them.
* * * * *
It was with heavy steps and a heavier heart that little Peter Mullaney,
by the side of his mentor, passed the corner where Judy McNulty stood
proudly waiting for him. He saluted her gravely with two fingers to his
visor--police officers never bow--and kept his eyes straight ahead. He
did not have the heart to stop, to speak to her, to tell her what had
happened to him. He hadn't even told Officer Gaffney. He stalked along
in bitter silence; his eyes were fixed on his shoes, the stout, shiny
police shoes he had bought to wear at his graduation, the shoes he was
to have worn when he stepped up to the Commissioner and received his
shield, with head erect and a high heart. His empty hands hung heavily
at his sides; there was no baton of authority in them; there never would
be. Beneath the place his silver shield would never cover now was a cold
numbness.
* * * * *
"Damn the Tropic of Capricorn," came from between clenched teeth, "Damn
the Tropic of Capricorn."
Gaffney's quick ears heard him.
"Still thinkin' about the Tropic of Capricorn?" he asked, not knowing
that the words made Peter wince. "Well, me bye, 'twill do no harm to
know where it is. I'm not denyin' that it's a gran' thing for a cop to
be a scholar. But just the same 'tis me firm belief that a man may be
able to tell the difference bechune a begonia and a petunia, he may be
able to tell where the--now--Tropic of Unicorn is, he may know who wrote
"In the Sweet Bye and Bye," and who invented the sprinklin' cart, he may
be able to tell the population of Peking and Pann Yann, but he ain't a
cop at all if he iver runs away whin needed. Ye can stake your shield on
that, me bye."
His shield? Peter dug his nails into the palm of his hand. Blind hate
against the Commissioner, against the whole department, flared up in
him. He'd strip the uniform off on the spot, he'd hurl it into the
gutter, he'd----
Officer Gaffney had stopped short. A woman was coming through the night,
running. As she panted up to them in the quiet, deserted street, the two
men saw that she was a middle-aged woman in a wrapper, and that she was
white with fright.
"Burglars," she gasped.
"Where?" rapped out Officer Gaffney.
"Number 97."
"Be calm, ma'am. What makes ye think they're burglars?"
"I heard them.... Moving around.... In the drawing room.... Upstairs."
"Who are you?" asked the old policeman, imperturbably.
"Mrs. Finn--caretaker. The family is away."
"Pether," said Officer Gaffney, "you stay here and mind the beat like a
good bucko, while I stroll down to ninety-sivin wid Mrs. Finn."
"Let me come too, Jawn," cried Peter.
Gaffney laid his big hand on little Peter's chest.
"'Tis probably a cat movin' around," he said softly so that Mrs. Finn
could not hear. "Lonely wimmin is always hearin' things. Besides me
ambitious but diminootive frind, if they was yeggs what good could ye do
wid no stick and no gun? You stay here on the corner like I'm tellin'
you and I'll be back in ten minutes by the clock."
* * * * *
Peter Mullaney waited on the corner. He saw the bulky figure of Officer
Gaffney proceed at a dignified but rapid waddle down the block, followed
by the smaller, more agitated figure of the woman. He saw Officer
Gaffney go into the basement entrance, and he saw Mrs. Finn hesitate,
then timidly follow. He waited. A long minute passed. Another. Another.
Then the scream of a woman hit his ears. He saw Mrs. Finn dart from the
house, wringing her hands, screaming. He sprinted down to her.
"They've kilt him," screamed the woman. "Oh, they've kilt the officer."
"Who? Tell me. Quick!"
"The yeggs," she wailed. "There's two of them. The officer went
upstairs. They shot him. He rolled down. Don't go in. They'll shoot you.
Send for help."
Peter stood still. He was not thinking of the yeggs, or of Gaffney. He
was hearing Kondorman ask, "Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?" He was
hearing Kondorman say, "You've failed." Something had him tight.
Something was asking him, "Why go in that house? Why risk your life?
You're not a cop. You'll never be a cop. They threw you out. They made a
fool of you for a trifle."
Peter started back from the open door; he looked down; the street light
fell on the brass buttons of his uniform; the words of the old policeman
darted across his brain: "A cop never runs away when needed."
He caught his breath and plunged into the house. At the foot of the
stairs leading up to the second floor he saw by the street light that
came through the opened door, the sprawling form of a big man; the light
glanced from the silver badge on his broad chest. Peter bent over
hastily.
"Is it you, Pether?" breathed Gaffney, with difficulty. "They got me.
Got me good. Wan of thim knocked me gun from me hand and the other
plugged me. Through the chist. I'm done for, Pether. I can't breathe.
Stop, Pether, stop!"
The veteran tried to struggle to his feet, but sank back, holding
fiercely to Peter's leg.
"Let me go, Jawn. Let me go," whispered Peter hoarsely.
"They'll murder you, Pether. It's two men to wan,--and they're armed."
"Let me go in, I tell you, Jawn. Let me go. A good cop never runs--you
said it yourself--let me go----"
Slowly the grip on Peter's leg relaxed; the dimming eyes of the wounded
man had suddenly grown very bright.
"Ye're right, me little bucko," he said faintly. "Ye'll be a credit to
the foorce, Pether." And then the light died out of his eyes and the
hand that had grasped Peter fell limp to the floor.
Peter was up the stairs that led to the second floor in three swift,
wary jumps. He heard a skurry of footsteps in the back of the house.
Dashing a potted fern from its slender wooden stand, he grasped the end
of the stand, and swinging it like a baseball bat, he pushed through
velvet curtains into a large room. There was enough light there from the
moon for him to see two black figures prying desperately at a door. They
wheeled as he entered. Bending low he hurled himself at them as he had
done when playing football on a back lot. There was a flash so near that
it burned his face; he felt a sharp fork of pain cross his head as if
his scalp had been slashed by a red-hot knife. With all the force in his
taut body he swung the stand at the nearest man; it caught the man
across the face and he went down with a broken, guttural cry. A second
and a third shot from the revolver of the other man roared in Peter's
ears. Still crouching, Peter dived through the darkness at the knees of
the man with the gun; together they went to the floor in a cursing,
grunting tangle.
The burglar struggled to jab down the butt of his revolver on the head
of the small man who had fastened himself to him with the death grip of
a mongoose on a cobra. They thrashed about the room. Peter had gotten a
hold on the man's pistol wrist and he held to it while the man with his
free hand rained blow after blow on the defenseless face and bleeding
head of the little man. As they fought in the darkness, the burglar with
a sudden violent wrench tore loose the clinging Peter, and hurled him
against a table, which crashed to the floor with the impact of Peter's
one hundred and thirty pounds of muscle and bone.
As Peter hurtled back, his arms shot out mechanically to break his fall;
one groping hand closed on a heavy iron candle-stick that had stood on
the table. He was up in a flash, the candle-stick in his hand. His eyes
were blinded by the blood from his wound; he dashed the blood away with
his coat-sleeve. With a short, sharp motion he hurled the candle-stick
at his opponent's head, outlined against a window, not six feet away. At
the moment the missile flew from Peter's hand, the yegg steadied himself
and fired. Then he reeled to the floor as the candle-stick's heavy base
struck him between the eyes.
For the ghost of a second, Peter Mullaney stood swaying; then his hands
clawed at the place on his chest where his shield might have been as if
his heart had caught fire and he wished to tear it out of himself; then,
quite gently, he crumpled to the floor, and there was the quiet of night
in the room.
* * * * *
As little Peter Mullaney lay in the hospital trying to see through his
bandages the flowers Judy McNulty had brought him, he heard the voice of
the doctor saying:
"Here he is. Nasty chest wound. We almost lost him. He didn't seem to
care much whether he pulled through or not. Was delirious for hours.
Kept muttering something about the Tropic of Capricorn. But I think
he'll come through all right now. You just can't kill one of these tough
little micks."
Peering through his bandages, Peter Mullaney saw the square shoulders
and stern face of Commissioner Kondorman.
"Good morning, Mullaney," the Commissioner said, in his formal official
voice. "I'm glad to hear that you're going to get better."
"Thank you, Commissioner," murmured Peter, watching him with wondering
eyes.
Commissioner Kondorman felt round in an inside pocket and brought out a
small box from which he carefully took something that glittered in the
morning sunlight. Bending over the bed, he pinned it on the night-shirt
of Peter Mullaney. Peter felt it; stopped breathing; felt it again;
slowly pulled it out so that he could look at it.
"It was Officer John Gaffney's," said the Commissioner, and his voice
was trying hard to be official and formal, but it was getting husky. "He
was a brave officer. I wanted another brave officer to have his shield."
"But, Commissioner," cried Peter, winking very hard with both eyes, for
they were blurring, "haven't you made a mistake? You must have got the
wrong man. Don't you remember? I'm the one that said the Tropic of
Capricorn is in the Bronx!"
"Officer Mullaney," said Commissioner Kondorman in an odd voice, "if a
cop like you says the Tropic of Capricorn is in the Bronx, then, by the
lord Harry, that's where the Tropic of Capricorn is."
VIII: _Mr. Braddy's Bottle_
§1
"This," said Mr. William Lum solemnly, "is the very las' bottle of this
stuff in these United States!"
It was a dramatic moment. He held it aloft with the pride and tender
care of a recent parent exhibiting a first-born child. Mr. Hugh Braddy
emitted a long, low whistle, expressive of the awe due the occasion.
"You don't tell me!" he said.
"Yes, siree! There ain't another bottle of this wonderful old hooch left
anywhere. Not anywhere. A man couldn't get one like it for love nor
money. Not for love nor money." He paused to regard the bottle fondly.
"Nor anything else," he added suddenly.
Mr. Braddy beamed fatly. His moon face--like a
two-hundred-and-twenty-pound Kewpie's--wore a look of pride and
responsibility. It was his bottle.
"You don't tell me!" he said.
"Yes, siree. Must be all of thirty years old, if it's a day. Mebbe
forty. Mebbe fifty. Why, that stuff is worth a dollar a sniff, if it's
worth a jit. And you not a drinking man! Wadda pity! Wadda pity!"
There was a shade of envy in Mr. Lum's tone, for Mr. Lum was, or had
been, a drinking man; yet Fate, ever perverse, had decreed that Mr.
Braddy, teetotaler, should find the ancient bottle while poking about in
the cellar of his very modest new house--rented--in that part of Long
Island City where small, wooden cottages break out in clusters, here and
there, in a species of municipal measles.
Mr. Braddy, on finding the treasure, had immediately summoned Mr. Lum
from his larger and more pretentious house near by, as one who would be
able to appraise the find, and he and Mr. Lum now stood on the very spot
in the cellar where, beneath a pile of old window blinds, the venerable
liquor had been found. Mr. Braddy, it was plain, thought very highly of
Mr. Lum's opinions, and that great man was good-naturedly tolerant of
the more placid and adipose Mr. Braddy, who was known--behind his
back--in the rug department of the Great Store as "Ole Hippopotamus."
Not that he would have resented it, had the veriest cash boy called him
by this uncomplimentary but descriptive nickname to his face, for Mr.
Braddy was the sort of person who never resents anything.
"Y'know, Mr. Lum," he remarked, crinkling his pink brow in philosophic
thought, "sometimes I wish I had been a drinking man. I never minded if
a man took a drink. Not that I had any patience with these here booze
fighters. No. Enough is enough, I always say. But if a fella wanted to
take a drink, outside of business hours, of course, or go off on a spree
once in a while--well, I never saw no harm in it. I often wished I could
do it myself."
"Well, why the dooce didn't you?" inquired Mr. Lum.
"As a matter of solid fact, I was scared to. That's the truth. I was
always scared I'd get pinched or fall down a manhole or something. You
see, I never did have much nerve." This was an unusual burst of
confidence on the part of Mr. Braddy, who, since he had moved into Mr.
Lum's neighborhood a month before, had played a listening rôle in his
conferences with Mr. Lum, who was a thin, waspy man of forty-four, in
ambush behind a fierce pair of mustachios. Mr. Braddy, essence of
diffidence that he was, had confined his remarks to "You don't tell me!"
or, occasionally, "Ain't it the truth?" in the manner of a Greek chorus.
* * * * *
Now inspired, perhaps, by the discovery that he was the owner of a
priceless bottle of spirits, he unbosomed himself to Mr. Lum. Mr. Lum
made answer.
"Scared to drink? Scared of anything? Bosh! Tommyrot! Everybody's got
nerve. Only some don't use it," said Mr. Lum, who owned a book called
"The Power House in Man's Mind," and who subscribed for, and quoted
from, a pamphlet for successful men, called "I Can and I Will."
"Mebbe," said Mr. Braddy. "But the first and only time I took a drink I
got a bad scare. When I was a young feller, just starting in the rugs in
the Great Store, I went out with the gang one night, and, just to be
smart, I orders beer. Them was the days when beer was a nickel for a
stein a foot tall. The minute I taste the stuff I feel uncomfortable. I
don't dare not drink it, for fear the gang would give me the laugh. So I
ups and drinks it, every drop, although it tastes worse and worse. Well,
sir, that beer made me sicker than a dog. I haven't tried any drink
stronger than malted milk since. And that was all of twenty years ago.
It wasn't that I thought a little drinking a sin. I was just scared;
that's all. Some of the other fellows in the rugs drank--till they
passed a law against it. Why, I once seen Charley Freedman sell a party
a genuine, expensive Bergamo rug for two dollars and a half when he was
pickled. But when he was sober there wasn't a better salesman in the
rugs."
Mr. Lum offered no comment; he was weighing the cob-webbed bottle in his
hand, and holding it to the light in a vain attempt to peer through the
golden-brown fluid. Mr. Braddy went on:
"I guess I was born timid. I dunno. I wanted to join a lodge, but I was
scared of the 'nitiation. I wanted to move out to Jersey, but I didn't.
Why, all by life I've wanted to take a Turkish bath; but somehow, every
time I got to the door of the place I got cold feet and backed out. I
wanted a raise, too, and by golly, between us, I believe they'd give it
to me; but I keep putting off asking for it and putting off and putting
off----"
"I was like that--once," put in Mr. Lum. "But it don't pay. I'd still be
selling shoes in the Great Store--and looking at thousands of feet every
day and saying thousands of times, 'Yes, madam, this is a three-A, and
very smart, too,' when it is really a six-D and looks like hell on her.
No wonder I took a drink or two in those days."
He set down the bottle and flared up with a sudden, fierce bristling of
his mustaches.
"And now they have to come along and take a man's liquor away from
him--drat 'em! What did our boys fight for? Liberty, I say. And then,
after being mowed down in France, they come home to find the country
dry! It ain't fair, I say. Of course, don't think for a minute that I
mind losing the licker. Not me. I always could take it or leave it
alone. But what I hate is having them say a man can't drink this and he
can't drink that. They'll be getting after our smokes, next. I read in
the paper last night a piece that asked something that's been on my mind
a long time: 'Whither are we drifting?'"
"I dunno," said Mr. Braddy.
"You'd think," went on Mr. Lum, not heeding, as a sense of oppression
and injustice surged through him, "that liquor harmed men. As if it
harmed anybody but the drunkards! Liquor never hurt a successful man;
no, siree. Look at me!"
Mr. Braddy looked. He had heard Mr. Lum make the speech that customarily
followed this remark a number of times, but it never failed to interest
him.
"Look at me!" said Mr. Lum, slapping his chest. "Buyer in the shoes in
the Great Store, and that ain't so worse, if I do say it myself. That's
what nerve did. What if I did used to get a snootful now and then? I had
the self-confidence, and that did the trick. When old man Briggs
croaked, I heard that the big boss was looking around outside the store
for a man to take his place as buyer in the shoes. So I goes right to
the boss, and I says, 'Look here, Mr. Berger, I been in the shoes
eighteen years, and I know shoes from A to Z, and back again. I can fill
Briggs' shoes,' I says. And that gets him laughing, although I didn't
mean it that way, for I don't think humor has any place in business.
"'Well,' he says, 'you certainly got confidence in yourself. I'll see
what you can do in Briggs' job. It will pay forty a week.' I knew old
Briggs was getting more than forty, and I could see that Berger needed
me, so I spins on him and I laughs in his face. 'Forty popcorn balls!' I
says to him. 'Sixty is the least that job's worth, and you know it.'
Well, to make a long story short, he comes through with sixty!"
This story never failed to fascinate Mr. Braddy, for two reasons. First,
he liked to be taken into the confidence of a man who made so princely a
salary; and, second, it reminded him of the tormenting idea that he was
worth more than the thirty dollars he found every Friday in his
envelope, and it bolstered up his spirit. He felt that with the
glittering example of Mr. Lum and the constant harassings by his wife,
who had and expressed strong views on the subject, he would some day
conquer his qualms and demand the raise he felt to be due him.
"I wish I had your crust," he said to Mr. Lum in tones of frank
admiration.
"You have," rejoined Mr. Lum. "I didn't know that I had, for a long,
long time, and then it struck me one day, as I was trying an
Oxford-brogue style K6 on a dame, 'How did Schwab get where he is? How
did Rockefeller? How did this here Vanderlip? Was it by being humble?
Was it by setting still?' You bet your sweet boots it wasn't. I just
been reading an article in 'I Can and I Will,' called 'Big Bugs--And How
They Got That Way,' and it tells all about those fellows and how most of
them wasn't nothing but newspaper reporters and puddlers--whatever that
is--until one day they said, 'I'm going to do something decisive!' And
they did it. That's the idea. Do something decisive. That's what I did,
and look at me! Braddy, why the devil don't you do something decisive?"
"What?" asked Mr. Braddy meekly.
"Anything. Take a plunge. Why, I bet you never took a chance in your
life. You got good stuff in you, Braddy, too. There ain't a better
salesman in the rugs. Why, only the other day I overheard Berger say,
'That fellow Braddy knows more about rugs than the Mayor of Bagdad
himself. Too bad he hasn't more push in him.'"
"I guess mebbe he's right," said Mr. Braddy.
"Right? Of course, he's right about you being a crack salesman. Why, you
could sell corkscrews in Kansas," said Mr. Lum. "You got the stuff, all
right. But the trouble is you can sell everything but yourself. Get
busy! Act! Do something! Make a decision! Take a step!"
Mr. Braddy said nothing. Little lines furrowed his vast brow; he half
closed his small eyes; his round face took on an intent, scowling look.
He was thinking. Silence filled the cellar. Then, with the air of a man
whose mind is made up, Hugh Braddy said a decisive and remarkable thing.
"Mr. Bill Lum," he said, "I'm going to get drunk!"
"What? You? Hugh Braddy? Drunk? My God!" The idea was too much even for
the mind of Mr. Lum.
"Yes," said Mr. Braddy, in a hollow voice, like Cæsar's at the Rubicon,
"I'm going to drink what's in that bottle this very night."
"Not all of it?" Mr. Lum, as an expert in such things, registered
dismay.
"As much as is necessary," was the firm response. Mr. Lum brightened
considerably at this.
"Better let me help you. There's enough for both of us. Plenty," he
suggested.
"Are you sure?" asked Mr. Braddy anxiously.
"Sure," said Mr. Lum.
§2
And he was right. There was more than enough. It was nine o'clock that
night when the cellar door of Mr. Braddy's small house opened
cautiously, and Mr. Braddy followed his stub nose into the moonlight.
Mr. Lum, unsteady but gay, followed.
Mr. Braddy, whose customary pace was a slow, dignified waddle,
immediately broke into a brisk trot.
"Doan' go so fas', Hoo," called Mr. Lum, for they had long since reached
the first-name stage.
"Gotta get to city, N'Yawk, b'fore it's too late," explained Mr. Braddy,
reining down to a walk.
"Too late for what, Hoo?" inquired Mr. Lum.
"I dunno," said Mr. Braddy.
They made their way, by a series of skirmishes and flank movements, to
the subway station, and caught a train for Manhattan. Their action in
doing this was purely automatic.
Once aboard, they began a duet, which they plucked out of the dim past:
"Oh, dem golden slippers! Oh, dem golden slippers!"
This, unfortunately, was all they could remember of it, but it was
enough to supply them with a theme and variations that lasted until they
arrived in the catacombs far below the Grand Central Station. There they
were shooed out by a vigilant subway guard.
They proceeded along the brightly lighted streets. Mr. Braddy's step was
that of a man walking a tight-rope. Mr. Lum's method of progression was
a series of short spurts. Between the Grand Central and Times Square
they passed some one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine persons, of
whom one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine remarked, "Where did
they get it?"
On Broadway they saw a crowd gathered in front of a building.
"Fight," said Mr. Braddy hopefully.
"'Naccident," thought Mr. Lum. At least a hundred men and women were
industriously elbowing each other and craning necks in the hope of
seeing the center of attraction. Mr. Braddy, ordinarily the most timid
of innocent bystanders, was now a lion in point of courage.
"Gangway," he called. "We're 'tectives," he added bellicosely to those
who protested, as he and Mr. Lum shoved and lunged their way through the
rapidly growing crowd. The thing which had caused so many people to
stop, to crane necks, to push, was a small newsboy who had dropped a
dime down through an iron grating and who was fishing for it with a
piece of chewing gum tied on the end of a string.
They spent twenty minutes giving advice and suggestions to the fisher,
such as:
"A leetle to the left, now. Naw, naw. To the right. Now you got it.
Shucks! You missed it. Try again." At length they were rewarded by
seeing the boy retrieve the dime, just before the crowd had grown to
such proportions that it blocked the traffic.
The two adventurers continued on their way, pausing once to buy four
frankfurters, which they ate noisily, one in each hand.
Suddenly the veteran drinker, Mr. Lum, was struck by a disquieting
thought.
"Hoo, I gotta go home. My wife'll be back from the movies by eleven, and
if I ain't home and in bed when she gets there, she'll skin me alive;
that's what she'll do."
Mr. Braddy was struck by the application of this to his own case.
"Waddabout me, hey? Waddabout me, B'lum?" he asked plaintively.
"Angelica will just about kill me."
Mr. Lum, leaning against the Automat, darkly considered this
eventuality. At length he spoke.
"You go getta Turkish bath. Tell 'Gellica y' hadda stay in store all
night to take inventory. Turkish bath'll make you fresh as a daisy.
Fresh as a li'l' daisy--fresh as a li'l' daisy----" Saying which Mr. Lum
disappeared into the eddying crowd and was gone. Mr. Braddy was alone in
the great city.
But he was not dismayed. While disposing of the ancient liquor, he and
Mr. Lum had discussed philosophies of life, and Mr. Braddy had decided
that his was, "A man can do what he is a-mind to." And Mr. Braddy was
very much a-mind to take a Turkish bath. To him it represented the last
stroke that cut the shackles of timidity. "I can and I will," he said a
bit thickly, in imitation of Mr. Lum's heroes.
§3
There was a line of men, mostly paunchy, waiting to be assigned dressing
rooms when Mr. Braddy entered the Turkish bath, egged sternly on by his
new philosophy. He did not shuffle meekly into the lowest place and wait
the fulfillment of the biblical promise that some one would say,
"Friend, go up higher." Not he. "I can and I will," he remarked to the
man at the end of the line, and, forthwith, with a majestic, if rolling,
gait, advanced to the window where a rabbit of a man, with nose glasses
chained to his head, was sleepily dealing out keys and taking in
valuables. The other men in line were too surprised to protest. Mr.
Braddy took off his huge derby hat and rapped briskly on the counter.
"Service, here. Li'l' service!"
The Rabbit with the nose glasses blinked mildly.
"Wotja want?" he inquired.
"Want t' be made fresh as a li'l' daisy," said Mr. Braddy.
"Awright," said the Rabbit, yawning. "Here's a key for locker number
thirty-six. Got any valuables? One dollar, please."
Mr. Braddy, after some fumbling, produced the dollar, a dog-eared
wallet, a tin watch, a patent cigar cutter, a pocket piece from a pickle
exhibit at the World's Fair in Chicago, and some cigar coupons.
The Rabbit handed him a large key on a rubber band.
"Put it on your ankle. Next," he yawned.
And then Mr. Braddy stepped through the white door that, to him, led
into the land of adventure and achievement.
He found himself in a brightly lighted corridor pervaded by an aroma not
unlike the sort a Chinese hand laundry has. There were rows of little,
white doors, with numbers painted on them. Mr. Braddy began at once a
search for his own dressing room, No. 36; but after investigating the
main street and numerous side alleys, in a somewhat confused but
resolute frame of mind, he discovered that he was lost in a rabbit
warren of white woodwork. He found Nos. 96, 66, 46, and 6, but he could
not find No. 36. He tried entering one of the booths at random, but was
greeted with a not-too-cordial, "Hey, bo; wrong stall. Back out!" from
an ample gentleman made up as grandpa in the advertisements of Non-Skid
underwear. He tried bawling, "Service, li'l' service," and rapping on
the woodwork with his derby, but nothing happened, so he replaced his
hat on his head and resumed his search. He came to a door with no number
on it, pushed it open, and stepped boldly into the next room.
Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat--it was the shower bath
on Mr. Braddy's hat.
"'Srainin'," he remarked affably.
An attendant, clad in short, white running pants, spied him and came
bounding through the spray.
"Hey, mister, why don't you take your clothes off?"
"Can't find it," replied Mr. Braddy.
"Can't find what?" the attendant demanded.
"Thirry-sizz."
"Thirry sizz?"
"Yep, thirry-sizz."
"Aw, he means room number thoity-six," said a voice from under one of
the showers.
The attendant conducted Mr. Braddy up and down the white rabbit warren,
across an avenue, through a lane, and paused at last before No. 36. Mr.
Braddy went in, and the attendant followed.
"Undress you, mister?"
The Mr. Braddy of yesterday would have been too weak-willed to protest,
but the new Mr. Braddy was the master of his fate, the captain of his
soul, and he replied with some heat:
"Say, wadda you take me for? Can undress m'self." He did so, muttering
the while: "Undress me? Wadda they take me for? Wadda they take me for?"
Then he strode, a bit uncertainly, out into the corridor, pink,
enormous, his key dangling from his ankle like a ball and chain. The man
in the white running pants piloted Mr. Braddy into the hot room. Mr.
Braddy was delighted, intrigued by it. On steamer chairs reclined other
large men, stripped to their diamond rings, which glittered faintly in
the dim-lit room. They made guttural noises, as little rivulets glided
down the salmon-pink mounds of flesh, and every now and then they drank
water from large tin cups. Mr. Braddy seated himself in the hot room,
and tried to read a very damp copy of an evening paper, which he decided
was in a foreign language, until he discovered he was holding it upside
down.
An attendant approached and offered him a cup of water. The temptation
was to do the easy thing--to take the proffered cup; but Mr. Braddy
didn't want a drink of anything just then, so he waved it away,
remarking lightly, "Never drink water," and was rewarded by a battery of
bass titters from the pink mountains about him, who, it developed from
their conversation, were all very important persons, indeed, in the
world of finance. But in time Mr. Braddy began to feel unhappy. The heat
was making him ooze slowly away. Hell, he thought, must be like this. He
must act. He stood up.
"I doan like this," he bellowed. An attendant came in response to the
roar.
"What, you still in the hot room? Say, mister, it's a wonder you ain't
been melted to a puddle of gravy. Here, come with me. I'll send you
through the steam room to Gawge, and Gawge will give you a good rub."
He led Mr. Braddy to the door of the steam room, full of dense, white
steam.
"Hey, Gawge," he shouted.
"Hello, Al, wotja want?" came a voice faintly from the room beyond the
steam room.
"Oh, Gawge, catch thoity-six when he comes through," shouted Al.
He gave Mr. Braddy a little push and closed the door. Mr. Braddy found
himself surrounded by steam which seemed to be boiling and scalding his
very soul. He attempted to cry "Help," and got a mouthful of rich steam
that made him splutter. He started to make a dash in the direction of
Gawge's door, and ran full tilt into another mountain of avoirdupois,
which cried indignantly, "Hey, watch where you're going, will you? You
ain't back at dear old Yale, playing football." Mr. Braddy had a touch
of panic. This was serious. To be lost in a labyrinth of dressing rooms
was distressing enough, but here he was slowly but certainly being
steamed to death, with Gawge and safety waiting for him but a few feet
away. An idea! Firemen, trapped in burning buildings, he had read in the
newspapers, always crawl on their hands and knees, because the lower air
is purer. Laboriously he lowered himself to his hands and knees, and,
like a flabby pink bear, with all sense of direction gone, he started
through the steam.
"Hey!"
"Lay off me, guy!"
"Ouch, me ankle!"
"Wot's the big idea? This ain't no circus."
"Leggo me shin."
"Ouf!"
The "ouf" came from Mr. Braddy, who had been soundly kicked in the
mid-riff by an angry dweller in the steam room, whose ankle he had
grabbed as he careered madly but futilely around the room. Then,
success! The door! He opened it.
"Where's Gawge?" he demanded faintly.
"Well, I'll be damned! It's thoity-six back again!"
It was Al's voice; not Gawge. Mr. Braddy had come back to the same door
he started from!
He was unceremoniously thrust by Al back into the steaming hell from
which he had just escaped, and once more Al shouted across, "Hey, Gawge,
catch thoity-six when he comes through."
Mr. Braddy, on his hands and knees, steered as straight a course as he
could for the door that opened to Gawge and fresh air, but the
bewildering steam once again closed round him, and he butted the tumid
calves of one of the Moes and was roundly cursed. Veering to the left,
he bumped into the legs of another Moe so hard that this Moe went down
as if he had been submarined, a tangle of plump legs, arms, and
profanity. Mr. Braddy, in the confusion, reached the door and pushed it
open.
"Holy jumpin' mackerel! Thoity-six again! Say, you ain't supposed to
come back here. You're supposed to keep going straight across the steam
room to Gawge." It was Al, enraged.
Once more Mr. Braddy was launched into the steam room. How many times he
tried to traverse it--bear fashion--he never could remember, but it must
have been at least six times that he reappeared at the long-suffering
Al's door, and was returned, too steamed, now, to protest. Mr. Braddy's
new-found persistence was not to be denied, however, and ultimately he
reached the right door, to find waiting for him a large, genial soul who
was none other than Gawge, and who asked, with untimely facetiousness,
Mr. Braddy thought:
"Didja enjoy the trip?"
Gawge placed Mr. Braddy on a marble slab and scrubbed him with a large
and very rough brush, which made Mr. Braddy scream with laughter,
particularly when the rough bristles titillated the soles of his feet.
"Wot's the joke?" inquired Gawge.
"You ticker me," gasped Mr. Braddy.
He was rather enjoying himself now. It made him feel important to have
so much attention. But he groaned and gurgled a little when Gawge
attacked him with cupped hands and beat a tattoo up and down his spine
and all over his palpitating body. Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop,
wop wop went Gawge's hands.
Then he rolled Mr. Braddy from the slab, like jelly from a mold. Mr.
Braddy jelled properly and was stood in a corner.
"All over?" he asked. Zizzzzzz! A stream of icy water struck him between
his shoulder blades.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" he cried. The stream, as if in response to his
outcries, immediately became boiling hot. First one, then the other
played on him. Then they stopped. An attendant appeared and dried Mr.
Braddy vigorously with a great, shaggy towel, and then led him to a
dormitory, where, on white cots, rows of Moes puffed and wheezed and
snored and dreamed dreams of great profits.
Mr. Braddy tumbled happily into his cot, boiled but triumphant. He had
taken a Turkish bath! The world was at his feet! He had made a decision!
He had acted on it! He had met the demon Timidity in fair fight and
downed him. He had been drunk, indubitably drunk, for the first and
last time. He assured himself that he never wanted to taste the stuff
again. But he couldn't help but feel that his one jamboree had made a
new man of him, opening new lands of adventure, showing him that "he
could if he would." As he buried his head in the pillow, he rehearsed
the speech he would make to Mr. Berger, the manager, in the morning.
Should he begin, "Mr. Berger, if you think I'm worth it, will you please
raise my pay five dollars a week?" No, by Heaven, a thousand noes! He
was worth it, and he would say so. Should he begin, "See here, Mr.
Berger, the time has come for you to raise my salary ten dollars?" No,
he'd better ask for twenty dollars while he was about it, and compromise
on ten dollars as a favor to his employers. But then, again, why stop at
twenty dollars? His sales in the rugs warranted much more. "I can have
thirty dollars, and I will," he said a number of times to the pillow.
Carefully he rehearsed his speech: "Now, see here, Berger----" and then
he was whirled away into a dream in which he saw a great hand take down
the big sign from the front of the Great Store, and put up in its place
a still larger sign, reading:
BRADDY'S GREATER STORE
Dry Goods and Turkish Baths
Hugh Braddy, Sole Prop.
§4
He woke feeling very strange, and not exactly as fresh as a daisy. He
felt much more like a cauliflower cooled after boiling. His head buzzed
a bit, with a sort of gay giddiness, but for all that he knew that he
was not the same Hugh Braddy that had been catapulted from bed by an
alarm clock in his Long Island City home the morning before.
"A man can do what he's a mind to," he said to himself in a slightly
husky voice. His first move was to get breakfast. The old Hugh Braddy
would have gone humbly to a one-armed beanery for one black coffee and
one doughnut--price, one dime. The new Hugh Braddy considered this
breakfast, and dismissed it as beneath a man of his importance. Instead,
he went to the Mortimore Grill and had a substantial club breakfast. He
called up Angelica, his wife, and cut short her lecture
with--"Unavoidable, m'dear. Inventory at the store." His tone, somehow,
made her hesitate to question him further. "It'll be all right about
that raise," he added grandly. "Have a good supper to-night. G'by."
He bought himself an eleven-cent cigar, instead of his accustomed
six-center, and, puffing it in calm defiance of a store rule, strode
into the employees' entrance of the Great Store a little after nine.
Without wavering, he marched straight to the office of Mr. Berger, who
looked up from his morning mail in surprise.
"Well, Mr. Braddy?"
Mr. Braddy blew a smoke ring, playfully stuck his finger through it, and
said:
"Mr. Berger, I'm thinking of going with another concern. A fellow was in
to see me the other day, and he says to me, 'Braddy, you are the best
rug man in this town.' And he hinted that if I'd come over with his
concern they'd double my salary. Now, I've been with the Great Store
more than twenty years, and I like the place, Mr. Berger, and I know the
ropes, so naturally I don't want to change. But, of course, I must go
where the most money is. I owe that to Mrs. B. But I'm going to do the
square thing. I'm going to give you a chance to meet the ante. Sixty's
the figure."
He waved his cigar, signifying the utter inconsequence of whether Mr.
Berger met the ante or not. Before the amazed manager could frame a
reply, Mr. Braddy continued:
"You needn't make up your mind right away, Mr. Berger. I don't have to
give my final decision until to-night. You can think it over. I suggest
you look up my sales record for last year before you reach any
decision." And he was gone.
All that day Mr. Braddy did his best not to think of what he had done.
Even the new Mr. Braddy--philosophy and all--could not entirely banish
the vision of Angelica if he had to break the news that he had issued an
ultimatum for twice his salary and had been escorted to the exit.
He threw himself into the work of selling rugs so vigorously that his
fellow salesmen whispered to each other, "What ails the Ole
Hippopotamus?" He even got rid of a rug that had been in the department
for uncounted years--showing a dark-red lion browsing on a field of rich
pink roses--by pointing out to the woman who bought it that it would
amuse the children.
At four o'clock a flip office boy tapped him on the shoulder and said,
"Mr. Boiger wants to see you." Mr. Braddy, whose head felt as if a hive
of bees were establishing a home there, but whose philosophy still
burned clear and bright, let Mr. Berger wait a full ten minutes, and
then, with dignified tread that gave no hint of his inward qualms,
entered the office of the manager.
It seemed an age before Mr. Berger spoke.
"I've been giving your proposition careful consideration, Mr. Braddy,"
he said. "I have decided that we'd like to keep you in the rugs. We'll
meet that ante."
IX: _Gretna Greenhorns_
§1
The brown eyes of Chester Arthur Jessup, Jr., were fixed on the maroon
banner of the Clintonia High School which adorned his bedroom wall, but
they did not see that vivid emblem of the institution in whose academic
halls he was a senior. Rather, they appeared to look through it, beyond
it, into some far-away land. Bright but unseeing, they proclaimed that
their owner was in that state of mild hypnosis known as
"turkey-dreaming." His lips were parted in a slight smile, and the shoe
which he had been in the act of removing as he sat on his bed was poised
in mid-air above the floor, for reverie had overcome him in the very
midst of preparations for an evening call.
The object of his pensive musings was at that moment eating her evening
meal some blocks away in the home of her parents. Fondly, with that
inward eye which is alleged to be the bliss of solitude, Chester
followed the process. It had only been lately that he could bring
himself to admit that she ate at all. She was so dainty, so ethereal.
And yet reason, and the course he was taking in physiology, told him
that she, even she, must sometimes give way to the unworthy promptings
of necessity, and eat. But that she should eat as ordinary mortals do,
was unthinkable. It was not the first time that Chester, in reverie,
had permitted her a slight refection. The menu of her meals never
varied. To-night, as on other occasions, it consisted of watercress
salad, a mere nibble of it; a delicate dab of ice-cream, no bigger than
a thimble; a small cup of tea, and, perhaps, a lady-finger. The
lady-finger was a concession. On the occasion of his last call, Mildred
had confessed that she could die eating lady-fingers. Of course, later
in the evening she might have a candy or two, but then candy can hardly
be considered food.
A mundane clatter of dishes in the kitchen below caused Chester to start
from his dream, and drop the shoe. He leaped up and began to make
elaborate and excited preparations for dressing.
From an ancient, battered chest of drawers he carefully took a
tissue-paper package containing a Union Forever Suit, whose label
proclaimed that "From Factory to You, No Human Hand Touches It." With
brow puckered in abstract thought, Chester broke the seal and laid the
crisp, immaculate garment on the bed. With intense seriousness, he
regarded it for a moment; apparently it passed his searching
examination, for he turned again to the chest of drawers and drew forth
a smaller package, from which he extracted new socks of lustrous blue.
These he placed on the bed. From beneath the bed he drew a pair of low
shoes, which gleamed in the gaslight from arduous polishing. On their
toes, fanciful artisans had pricked curves and loops and butterfly
designs. Chester gave them a few final rubs with the shirt he had just
discarded and placed them on the bed. At this point there was a hiatus
in the wardrobe. He went out into the hall and shouted down the back
stairs.
"Oh, Ma. Oh, Ma!"
"Well?" came his mother's voice from the regions below.
"Are my trousers pressed yet?"
"My goodness, Chester," she called, "I haven't had time yet. It's only a
little after six. Do come down and eat some supper."
"But I don't want any supper," protested Chester.
"There's apple pudding with cream," she announced.
"Oh, well," said Chester, reluctantly, "I suppose I'd better. Can I have
a dish of it on the back stairs? I'm not dressed."
"Yes. But you have plenty of time. You know you shouldn't make an
evening call before eight-fifteen at the very earliest," said Mrs.
Jessup.
* * * * *
After he had disposed of two helpings of apple pudding, Chester returned
to his room and spent some moments analyzing the comparative merits of a
dozen neckties hanging in an imitation brass stirrup. He had eliminated
all but two, a black one and a red one, when his mother's voice floated
up the back stairs.
"For goodness' sake, Chester, do be careful of that bathtub. It's
running over again. How many times do I have to tell you to watch it?"
Chester bounded to the bathroom and shut off the water. It had, indeed,
started to overflow the tub, and Chester, accepting the Archimedian
principle without ever having heard of it, perceived that he must let
some of the water out before he could put himself in. Accordingly he
pulled out the plug and returned to his own room to wait for a little of
the water to run off.
He made the most of this idle moment. Throwing off his multi-hued Navajo
bathrobe, he surveyed the reflection of his torso in the mirror. He
contracted his biceps and eyed the resulting egg-like bulges with some
satisfaction. Suddenly, his ordinarily amiable face took on a fierce,
dark scowl. He crouched until he was bent almost double. He lowered at
the mirror. His left fist was extended and his right drawn back in the
most approved scientific style of the prize-ring.
"You will, will you?" came from between his clenched teeth, and his left
fist darted out rapidly, three, four, five times, and then he shot out
his right fist with such violence that he all but shattered the mirror.
This last blow seemed to have a cataclysmic effect on Chester's
opponent, for the victorious Chester backed off and waited, still
crouching and lowering, for his victim to rise.
The opponent apparently was a tough one, and not the man to succumb
easily. Chester waited for him to regain his feet and then they were at
it again. Chester let loose a shower of savage uppercuts. From the way
he leaped six inches into the air to deliver his blows it was evident
that his opponent was considerably bigger than he. At length, when all
but breathless from his exertions, Chester with one prodigious punch, a
_coup de grâce_ that there was no withstanding, knocked all the fight
out of his foe. But, seemingly, he was not satisfied with flooring his
giant opponent; with stern, set face, Chester walked to the corner where
the fellow was sprawling, seized him by his collar, and dragged him
across the room. Then, shaking him fiercely, Chester hissed:
"Now, you cad, apologize to this lady for daring to offer her an affront
by passing remarks about her."
The apology would, no doubt, have been forthcoming had not Chester at
that moment heard an unmistakable sound from the bathroom. He abandoned
his prostrate foe and rushed in just in time to see the last of his
bath-water go gargling and gurgling out of the tub.
Chester sat moodily on the edge of the tub until enough hot water had
bubbled into it for him to perform ablutions of appalling thoroughness.
He was red almost to rawness from his efforts with the bath brush, and
was redolent of scented soap and talcum powder when he again returned to
his bedroom.
He dressed with a sort of feverish calmness, now and again pausing to
sigh gently and gaze for a moment into nothingness. By now she had
finished her lady-finger--
His mother had laid his freshly pressed trousers on the bed, and he ran
an appreciative eye along their razor-blade crease. From the chest of
drawers he brought forth a snowy shirt, which, from the piece of
cardboard shoved down its throat and the numerous pins which Chester
extracted impatiently, one could surmise was fresh from the laundry.
When he came to the collar-and-tie stage, he was halted for a time.
Three collars of various shapes were tried and deemed unworthy, and
then, at the last minute, yielding to a sudden wild impulse, he
discarded the black tie in favor of the red one. He slipped on a blue
serge coat, the cut of which endeavored to promote his waist-line to his
shoulder blades, and was all dressed but for the crowning task--to comb
his hair.
By dint of many dismal experiences, Chester knew that this would be
trying, for his hair was abundant but untamed. He tried first to induce
it to part while it was still dry, but the results of this operation, as
he had feared, were negligible. He then attempted to achieve a part
with his hair slightly moistened with witch hazel. For fully five
seconds it looked like a success, but, as Chester started to leave, one
parting look told him that little spikes and wisps were rearing
rebellious heads and quite ruining the perfection of his handiwork. With
a sigh he fell back upon his last resort, the liberal application of a
sticky, jelly-like substance derived from petroleum, which imparted to
his brown hair an unwonted shine. But the part held as if it had been
carved in marble. Arranging his white silk handkerchief so that it
protruded a modish eighth of an inch from his breast pocket, Chester
Arthur Jessup, Jr., sallied forth to make his call.
On the front porch was his family, and Chester would have avoided their
critical eyes if he could. However, the gantlet had to be run, so he
emerged into the family group with a saunter that he hoped might be
described as "nonchalant." In the privacy of his room he often practiced
that saunter; he had seen in the papers that a certain celebrated
criminal had "sauntered nonchalantly into the court-room," and the
phrase had fascinated him.
"What in the name of thunder have you been doing to your hair?" demanded
his father, looking up from his pipe and paper.
"Combing it," replied Chester, coldly.
"With axle grease?" inquired Jessup senior, genially.
"And it does look so nice when it's dry and wavy," put in his mother.
Chester emitted a faint groan.
"Oh, Ma, you never seem to realize that I'm grown up," he protested.
"Wavy hair!" He groaned again.
"Well," remarked the father, "I suppose it's better that way than not
combed at all. Seems to me that last summer you didn't care much
whether it was combed, or cut either, for that matter."
"A woman has come into his life," explained his twenty-two year-old
sister, from behind her novel.
"You just be careful who you go callin' a woman," exclaimed Chester,
turning on her, with some warmth.
"Don't you consider Mildred Wrigley a woman?" asked Hilda, mildly.
"Not in the sense you mean it."
"By the way," said Hilda, "I saw her last night."
Chester's manner instantly became eager and conciliatory. "Did you?
Where?"
"At the Mill Street Baptist Church supper," said Hilda.
"At the supper?" Chester's tone suggested incredulity.
"Yes. And goodness me, I never saw a girl eat so much in my life.
She----"
"Hilda Jessup, how dare you!"
Chester's voice cracked with the emotion he felt at so damnable an
imputation.
"There, there, Hilda, stop your teasing," said Mrs. Jessup. "What if she
did? A big, healthy girl like that----"
"Mother----" Chester's tone was anguished.
"Come, Nell," said Mr. Jessup, "leave him to his illusions. It's a bad
day for romance when a man discovers that his goddess likes a second
helping of corned beef."
"Father, how can you say such things! I will not stay here and listen to
you say such things about one who I----"
"One whom," interrupted Hilda.
Chester flounced down the front steps and slammed the gate after him,
in a manner that could not possibly be described as "nonchalant."
§2
The Wrigley home was four blocks away, and Chester, once out of sight of
his own home, became meditative. He stopped, and after looking about to
see that he was not observed, drew from his inside pocket an envelope,
and for the twelfth time that day counted its contents. Ninety-four
dollars! The savings of a lifetime! It had originally been saved for the
purchase of a motor-cycle, but that was before Mildred Wrigley had
smiled at him one day across the senior study-hall. That seemed but
yesterday, and yet it must have been fully seven weeks before! He
replaced the money and continued on his way.
Chester paused at the Greek Candy Kitchen on Main Street to buy a box of
candy, richly bedight with purple silk, and by carefully gauging his
saunter, contrived to arrive at the Wrigley residence at fourteen
minutes after eight. He gave his tie a final adjustment, his hair a last
frantic smoothing, licked his dry lips--and rang the bell.
"Oh, good evening, Chester."
Mildred Wrigley had a small, birdlike voice. She was looking not so much
at Chester as at the beribboned purple box he held. They went into the
parlor.
"Oh, Chester," cried Mildred, as she opened the purple box, "how sweet
of you to bring me such heavenly candy. I just adore chocolate-covered
cherries. I could just DIE eating them."
She popped two of them into her mouth, and sighed ecstatically. They
discussed, with great thoroughness, the weather of the day, the weather
of the day before and the probable weather of the near future. Then
Mildred moved her chair a quarter of an inch nearer Chester's.
"There, now," she said, with her dimpling smile, "let's be real comfy."
A glow enveloped Chester.
"I had the most heavenly supper to-night," confided Mildred.
"I hardly ate at all," said Chester.
"Oh, you poor, poor boy," said Mildred. "Do pass me another candy."
They discussed school affairs, and the approaching examinations.
"I'm so worried," confessed Mildred. "Horrid old geometry. Stupid
physics. What do I care why apples fall off trees? I'm going to go on
the stage. That miserable old wretch, Miss Shufelt, has been writing
nasty notes to Dad, saying I don't study enough."
Her lip trembled; she looked so small, so weak. "Look here," said
Chester, hoarsely, "we've known each other for a long time now, haven't
we?"
"Yes, ever so long," said Mildred, taking another chocolate-covered
cherry. "Months and months."
"Do you think one person ought to be frank with another person?"
"Of course I do, Chester, if they know each other well enough."
"I mean very frank."
"Well," said Mildred, "if they know each other very, very well, I think
they ought to be very frank."
"How long do you think one person ought to know another person before
he, or for that matter she, ought to be very frank with that person."
"Oh, months and months," answered Mildred.
Chester passed his white silk handkerchief over his damp brow.
"When I say very frank, I mean very frank," he said.
"That's what I mean, too." She took another chocolate-covered cherry.
Chester went on, speaking rapidly.
"For example, if one person should tell another person that he liked
that person and he didn't really mean like at all but another word like
like, only meaning something much more than like--don't you think he
ought to tell that person what he really meant? I mean, of course,
providing that he had known that person months and months and knew her
very well and----"
"I guess he should," she said, taking a sudden keen interest in the toe
of her slipper. Chester plunged on.
"But suppose you were the person that another person had said they
liked, only they really didn't mean like but another word that begins
with 'l,' do you think that person ought to be very frank and tell you
that the way he regarded you did not begin 'li' but began 'lo'?"
"I guess so," she said, without abandoning the minute scrutiny of her
toe.
"Well," said Chester, "that's how I regard you, not with an 'li' but
with an 'lo.'"
Mildred did not look up.
"Oh, Chester," she murmured. He hitched his chair an inch nearer hers,
and with a quick, uncertain movement, took hold of her hand. A loud slam
of the front door caused them both to start.
"It's Dad," whispered Mildred. "And he's mad about something."
Her father, large and red-faced, entered the room.
"Good evening," he said, nodding briefly at Chester.
"Mildred, come into my study a minute, will you. There's something I
want to talk to you about."
* * * * *
The folding doors closed on father and daughter, and Chester was left
balancing himself on the edge of a chair.
Mildred's father had a rumbling voice that now and then penetrated the
folding doors and Chester caught the words "whippersnapper" and
"callow." He heard, too, Mildred's small, high voice, protesting. She
was in tears.
Presently Mildred reappeared, lacrimose. "Oh, that nasty, horrid Miss
Shufelt," she burst out.
"What has she done?" asked Chester.
"The nasty old cat asked Dad to stop in to see her to-night on his way
home from the office, and she told him the awfulest things about me."
"She did?" Chester's voice was rich with loathing. "I just wish I had
her here, that's all I wish," he added fiercely.
"She said," went on Mildred, with fresh sobs, "she
said--I--was--boy--c-c-crazy. And--I--never--studied--and----"
"Darn that woman!" cried Chester.
"And Dad's--going--to--send--me--to--S-Simpson Hall!"
The idea stunned Chester.
"Simpson Hall? Why, that's a boarding school in Massachusetts, miles and
miles from here," he gasped.
"I know it," said Mildred. "I know a girl who went there. It's a nasty,
horrid place." A fresh attack of sobs seized her.
"They'll--make--me--do--c-calisthenics,
and--they--won't--give--me--anything--to--eat--but--b-beans."
Nothing but beans! Mildred eat beans! It was an outrage, a sacrilege.
"He's already written to Simpson Hall," wailed Mildred. "And I have to
go, Monday."
"Monday? Not Monday? Why, to-day's Friday!" Chester's face became
resolute; he felt in his inside pocket where his envelope was.
"You _sha'n't_ go," he declared. "You and I will elope to-morrow
morning."
§3
Chester met Mildred aboard the 8:48 train for New York City the next
morning.
Mildred, clasping a small straw suit-case, had misgivings. But Chester
reassured her.
"Don't worry, Mildred, please don't worry," he pleaded. "My cousin, Phil
Snyder, who is at Princeton and knows all about such things, says it's a
cinch to get married in New York. All you do is walk up to a window, pay
a dollar, and you're married. And if we can't get married there, we can
go to Hoboken. Anybody, anybody at all, can get married in Hoboken, Phil
told me so."
She smiled at him.
"Our wedding day," she said, softly.
"Why are you so pensive?" he asked, after a while.
"I haven't had my breakfast," she said. "I always feel sort of weak and
funny till I've had my breakfast."
Chester bought several large slabs of nut-studded chocolate from the
train boy. When they passed Harmon, at Mildred's suggestion he bought a
package of butter-scotch. Her flagging spirits were revived by these
repasts. "I could just DIE eating butter-scotch," she said, dimpling.
"We'll always keep some in the house, little woman," Chester promised
her, mentally adding butter-scotch to the menu of watercress salad, tea,
ice-cream and an occasional lady-finger.
The human torrent in the Grand Central station whirled the elopers with
it along the ramp and out under the zodiac dome of the great, busy hall.
They stood there, wide-eyed. "New York," said Mildred.
"Our New York," said Chester.
He steered a roundabout course for the subway, for he wanted to reach
the Municipal Building as soon as possible. He had fears, the worldly
Phil Snyder to the contrary notwithstanding, that he might encounter
difficulties in getting a marriage license there. And he and Mildred
would then have to go to Hoboken. He had only a sketchy idea of where
Hoboken was. And it was then nearly eleven.
But Mildred was not to be hurried.
"Couldn't we have just one little fudge sundae first?" she asked. "I
haven't had my regular breakfast, you know. And I do feel so sort of
weak and funny when I haven't had my regular breakfast."
To Schuyler's they went, and consumed precious minutes and two fudge
sundaes. On the way out, Mildred stopped short.
"Oh, look," she exclaimed, "real New Orleans pralines. I just adore
them. And you can't get them in Clintonia."
Chester looked at her a little nervously.
"It's getting sort of late," he suggested.
"All right, Mr. Hurry," Mildred pouted, "just you go on to the horrid
old City Hall by your lonesome. I'm going to stop and have a praline."
Chester capitulated, contritely, so Mildred had two.
They started for the subway which was to take them far down-town to the
Municipal Building. On Forty-second Street they passed a shiny, white
edifice in the window of which an artist in immaculate white duck was
deftly tossing griddle cakes into the air so that they described a
graceful parabola and flopped on a soapstone griddle where they sizzled
brownly and crisply. A faint but provoking aroma floated through the
open door. Mildred's footsteps slackened, then she paused, then she came
to a dead stop.
"Ummm-mmm! What a heavenly smell!" she said. "Don't you just adore
griddle cakes?"
"Yes, yes," said Chester, a little desperately. "Let's have some for
lunch. It's twenty-five minutes to twelve. Let's hurry."
"Why, Chester Jessup, you know I haven't had my regular breakfast yet. I
just couldn't go away down to that old City Hall and get married and
everything without having had some nourishment. It won't take a minute
to have a little breakfast."
"Oh, all right," said Chester.
The griddle cakes tasted like rubber to Chester. Mildred ate hers with
great relish and insisted on having them decorated with country sausage.
"It's so nourishing," she explained. "I could just die eating sausage."
Chester paid the check and forgot to take the change from a two-dollar
bill.
"I could just die eating sausage. I could just die eating sausage." The
wheels of the subway train seemed to click to this refrain as it sped
down-town.
It was nearly one o'clock when the elopers at last reached the Municipal
Building. They found a sign which read, "MARRIAGE LICENSES. KEEP TO THE
RIGHT."
With his heart just under his collar button and his dollar grasped
tightly in his hand, Chester knocked timidly. The door was opened by a
stout minor politician with a cap on the back of his head.
"I want a marriage license, please," said Chester. He dropped his voice
a full octave below his normal speaking-tone.
The minor politician blinked at Chester and Mildred. Then he guffawed,
hoarsely.
"Say," he said, "in the foist place, you'll have to get a little more
age on yuh, and in the second place, this is Satiddy and this joint
closes at noon. Come back Thoisday between ten and four about eight
years from now." He closed the door.
Chester turned miserably to Mildred.
"That means Hoboken," he said.
"I don't care," she said, "as long as I'm with you."
They went out into the canyons of lower Manhattan, in search of the way
to Hoboken. Their wanderings took them past a restaurant whose windows
were adorned with vicious-looking, green, live lobsters, scrambling
about pugnaciously on cakes of ice.
"Oh, LOBSTERS," cried Mildred, her eye brightening. "I've only had
lobster once in my life. Couldn't you just DIE eating lobster?"
"I suppose so," said Chester, gloomily.
"Couldn't we stop in and have a teeny, weeny bit of lunch?" she asked,
eyeing the lobsters wistfully. "It makes me feel sort of queer to go on
long trips without food."
"I'm not hungry," said Chester.
"But I am," said Mildred. They went in.
A superior waiter handed Mildred a large menu card. "May I order just
anything I want?" she asked eagerly.
"Wouldn't you like some nice watercress salad and some tea and
lady-fingers?" Chester asked, hopefully.
"Pooh! Why, there's no nourishment in that at all!" Mildred was studying
the menu card. "I want a great big lobster, and some asparagus. And then
I want some nice chicken salad with mayonnaise. And then some pistache
ice-cream. And, oh, yes, a piece of huckleberry pie."
To Chester that lunch seemed the longest experience of his life. It
seemed to him that no lobster ever looked redder, no mayonnaise
yellower, no pistache ice-cream greener and no huckleberry pie purpler.
Mildred ate steadily. Now and then she made little joyful noises of
approbation.
When lunch was over at last, they started for Hoboken.
"It's a nice pleasant trip by ferry-boat," a policeman told them.
"I don't think I'd care for a boat trip," said Mildred.
"But we have to go to Hoboken," Chester expostulated.
"Couldn't we walk?" she asked.
"No, no, of course we couldn't. It's across the river."
"I feel sort of queer, somehow," said Mildred, faintly.
The North River was choppy from darting tugs and gliding barges as the
ferry-boat bore the elopers toward the Jersey side. Leaning on the rail,
Chester gazed morosely at the retreating metropolitan sky-line. Mildred
plucked at his coat sleeve. He turned and looked at her. Her face was
pale. "Oh, Chester, I want to go back. I want to go home," she said,
tearfully.
"Why, Mildred," exclaimed Chester, and for the first time there was
impatience in his voice, "what's the matter?"
"I'm going to be sick," she said.
She was.
§4
"I hate you, Chester Jessup. I hate, hate, HATE you. And I'm going to go
back," she said, tearfully.
The elopers had never reached Hoboken. Mildred refused to leave the
ferry-boat and Chester did not urge her. It bore them back to the New
York side. Their flight to Gretna Green was a failure.
"You take me right home, do you hear?" cried Mildred.
"We can get the 3:59 from the Grand Central," said Chester in an icy
voice. "That will get you home in time for supper."
"Chester Jessup, you're a nasty, heartless boy to mention supper to me
when I'm in this condition," said Mildred.
They made the trip from New York back to Clintonia in silence. Chester,
watching the scenery flow by, was thinking deeply. He was wondering at
what age young men are admitted to monasteries. He left Mildred at her
house.
"Good night, Mr. Jessup," she said, coolly.
"Good night, Miss Wrigley," said Chester, and stalked home.
"Where have you been all day?" demanded his mother.
"Oh, just around," said Chester.
"Why weren't you home for lunch?"
"I wasn't hungry," said Chester.
"And we had the best things, too. Just what you like--chicken salad with
mayonnaise, and deep-dish huckleberry pie."
Chester shivered. "I don't think I'll take any supper to-night," he
said.
"Why, what ails you, anyhow?" asked his mother, solicitously. "We're
going to have such a nice supper. Your father brought home a couple of
lobsters. And afterward we're going to have pistache ice-cream, and
lady-fingers."
"Good Heavens, Mother, I guess I know when I'm not hungry. There are
other things in life besides food, aren't there?"
"Like being in love, for example?" suggested his sister Hilda.
"I'm not in love," declared Chester, vehemently.
"How would you like to have me tell Mildred Wrigley you said that?"
asked Hilda.
"I just wish you would," said Chester, "I just wish you would."
"By the way," remarked Mr. Jessup, "I met Tom Wrigley to-day and he said
he was sending that girl of his off to boarding school at Simpson Hall."
"Oh, is he?" said Mrs. Jessup. "Chester, did you hear what your father
said?"
"Yes, I did," said Chester, "and all I can say is that I hope she gets
enough to eat."
X: _Terrible Epps_
§1
The blue prints and specifications in the case of Tidbury Epps follow:
Age: the early thirties.
Status: bachelor.
Habitat: Mrs. Kelty's Refined Boarding House, Brooklyn.
Occupation: a lesser clerk in the wholesale selling department of
Spingle & Blatter, Nifty Straw Hattings. See Advts.
Appearance: that of a lesser clerk. Weight: feather. Nose: stub. Eyes:
apologetic. Teeth: obvious. Figure: brief. Manner: diffident. Nature:
kind. Disposition: amiable but subdued.
Conspicuous vices: none.
Conspicuous virtues: none.
Distinguishing marks: none.
Tidbury was no Napoleon. He was aware of this, and so was everybody in
the hat company, including, unfortunately, Titus Spingle, the president,
who felt that he knew a thing or two about Bonapartes because he had
once been referred to in a straw-hat trade paper as the Napoleon of
Hatdom.
Mildly, as he did everything else in life, Tidbury admired, indeed
almost envied Mr. Spingle's silk shirts, which customarily suggested an
explosion in a paint factory. But such sartorial grandeur, Tidbury
felt, was not for him. He stuck to plain white shirts, dark blue ties
and pepper-and-salt suits. The pepper-and-salt suit was invented for
Tidbury Epps.
Tidbury worked diligently and even cheerfully on a high stool and a low
salary, copying neat little black figures into big black books. The
salary and the stool were the same Tidbury had been given when he first
came to New York from Calais, Maine, ten years before.
It probably never entered his head, as he bent over his columns of
digits that crisp fall morning, that in their sanctum of real mahogany
and Spanish leather his employers were discussing him.
"Whitaker has quit," announced Mr. Blatter, who acted as sales manager.
Mr. Spingle's acre of face, pink and dimpled from much good living,
showed concern.
"How come you can't keep an assistant, Otto?" he inquired.
"After they've been with me for six months," explained Mr. Blatter
modestly, "they get so good that they simply have to get better jobs."
"Well, got any candidates for the place?" queried the president.
"Burdette?" suggested Mr. Blatter.
Mr. Spingle eliminated Burdette with a flick of his finger.
"Too young," he said.
"Wetsel?"
"Too old."
"Fitch?"
"Too careless."
"Hydeman?"
"Too inexperienced."
"Well," ventured Mr. Blatter, "what about Tidbury Epps?"
Mr. Spingle's shrug included his shoulders, face and entire body.
"He's neither too old, too young, too careless nor too inexperienced,"
advanced Mr. Blatter.
"You're not serious, Otto?"
"Sure I am. Epps has been with us ten years and he's worked hard. I
believe in giving our old employees a chance."
"So do I," rejoined the Napoleon of Hatdom; "but you know perfectly
well, Otto, that Tidbury Epps is a dud."
"He's as conscientious as a Pilgrim father," remarked Mr. Blatter.
"That's the trouble with him," snorted Mr. Spingle.
"He spends so much time being conscientious that he hasn't time to be
anything else. Not that I object to a man having a conscience,
y'understand. But Epps hasn't anything else. You know how it is in the
hat trade, Otto; you've got to be a good fellow."
Mr. Spingle paused to pat his silken bosom, in hue reminiscent of sunset
in the Grand Cañon. That he was a good fellow, a _bon vivant_, even, was
generally admitted in the hat trade.
"You see," went on the Napoleon of Hatdom, "your assistant has to be
nice to the trade. That's almost his chief job. Remember the motto of
our house is, 'Our business friends are our personal friends.' That's
meant a lot to us, Otto. Now and then you've simply got to take a big
buyer out and show him a good time--buy him a meal and take him to the
Winter Garden. You and I are mostly too busy to do it, but your
assistant isn't. Whitaker made us a lot of good friends, and good
customers, too, because he was a regular fella and knew the ropes. But
can you imagine old Epps giving a party?"
Mr. Blatter was forced to admit that he couldn't.
"But he's so willing," he argued.
"Oh, sure," agreed Mr. Spingle; "and sober and industrious and stands
without hitching and all that. But he's too much of a hermit. No more
personality than a parsnip. No spirit. No nerve. No fire. No zip. Sorry
I can't jump him up; he may be a good man, but he's not a good fellow."
"I suppose it will have to be Hydeman, then," remarked Mr. Blatter,
rising. "He's a little too slick and flip to suit me, and we don't know
much about him, but I suppose he'd know how to show a buyer Broadway."
"I'll bet he would," said Mr. Spingle. "Try him out. But watch his
expense account, Otto."
So Tidbury Epps continued to enjoy his high stool and his low salary and
to copy endless little figures into big black books. His shoulders
drooped a little when he heard of Hydeman's quick promotion, but he said
nothing.
Messrs. Spingle and Blatter, being interested solely in what went on
outside men's heads, did not attempt to find out what was wrong with
Tidbury Epps. But had a psychoanalyst peered darkly into the interior of
Tidbury's small round cranium he would have instantly noted that Mr.
Epps was suffering from a bad case of inferiority complex, complicated
by an acute attack of Puritanical complex.
If anybody was to blame for this it was not Tidbury himself but his Aunt
Elvira, who, with the aid of a patented cat-o'-nine-tails she had sent
all the way to Chicago for, willow switches from her own back yard, and
an edged tongue that cut worse than either, had confined his juvenile
steps to a very straight and exceedingly narrow path by the simple
process of lambasting him roundly whenever he so much as glanced to the
right or to the left.
Aunt Elvira was a lean woman with no digestion to speak of, and the
chief tenet of her philosophy was that whatever is enjoyable is sinful.
She impressed this creed on young Tidbury with her thin but sinewy arm,
until one day while castigating him violently for laughing at a comic
supplement that the groceries had come in she succumbed to an excess of
virtue and a broken blood vessel.
Tidbury promptly came to New York with two suits of flannel underwear
and many suppressed desires, and went soberly to work in the hat
company. His subsequent life was as empty of adventure, variety, sin or
success as the life of a Hubbard squash. His job wholly absorbed him.
The little figures in the big books became his only world. He had never
learned to play.
Yet people liked Tidbury, even while they thought him kin to the snail.
He had a quiet twinkle in his eye and he took over mean jobs and night
work without a peep of protest. It was his willingness to take on
overtime work, and his quiet competence that first attracted the
approving eye of Mr. Blatter. But Mr. Blatter had to admit that Mr.
Spingle had diagnosed the case of Tidbury Epps all too accurately;
Tidbury was indubitably, incurably a dud; and that is worse than being a
dub. If any latent fire lurked beneath that pepper-and-salt bosom no one
had ever glimpsed so much as a spark of it. Tidbury never lived up to
that twinkle in his eye.
One would have said that Tidbury was as inconspicuous as an oyster in a
fifteen-cent stew, and yet love, mysterious, ubiquitous love, found him
out and laid him violently by the heels.
It was the round black eyes of Martha Ritter, the new girl at the
information desk, and the way she cocked her head on one side when she
smiled, that first brought to Tidbury the alarming realization that his
heart was something more than a pump.
She was an alert little thing who would have been teaching school in her
native Ohio village of Granville had not the glittering metropolitan
magnet drawn her to it as every year it draws ten thousand Martha
Ritters from ten thousand Granvilles.
She smiled at Tidbury one day as he registered his punctual arrival on
the time clock, and a sudden strange warmth was kindled under his
pepper-and-salt coat. Tidbury knew that it was wicked to feel so good,
but he couldn't help it. Love laughs at complexes.
He saw her home; he called on her; he brought her salted peanuts; he
took her to a concert in Central Park; he kept her picture on his
washstand. But, characteristically, Tidbury as a lover was no volcano of
imperious emotion. He was no aggressive bark, battling fiercely against
wind and wave; he was a chip, floating with the tide. Matrimony, with
Martha, was a desirable but distant shore; he would drift there in time.
But Martha Ritter, who had more than a dash of romance in her, did not
think much of this sort of courting.
The last time he had been with her--they had gone to the Aquarium to
view the fishes--pent-up protest had burst from her, and she had
exclaimed, "Oh, Tidbury, you are so--so quiet!"
The words had jolted him; he had said them over to himself uncounted
times, and had pondered over them; indeed he was trying to keep from
thinking of them as he bent over his task the day they made Hydeman
assistant to the sales manager. Tidbury had noticed lately that Martha
talked about Mr. Hydeman a great deal; she had mentioned his polished
finger-nails; she had suggested that Tidbury would do well to get one of
those high-lapeled, snug-waisted suits that Mr. Hydeman affected; she
had quoted some of Mr. Hydeman's witticisms, and had retailed some
incidents from his highly colored life. In short, she appeared to have
taken a sudden acute interest in Mr. Hydeman.
Tidbury Epps could not drive from his mind the disquieting thought that
Mr. Hydeman as a rival would be dangerous. In the washroom Mr. Hydeman
made no secret of his finesse as a Don Juan. He was everything that
Tidbury was not--dashing, worldly, confident. There was something about
his smooth black hair, held in place by a shiny gummy substance,
something about the angle at which he tilted his short-brimmed hat,
something about the way his tight little knot of brilliant tie fitted
into his modishly low collar, something about the way he filliped the
ash from his cigarette so that one could see the diamond twinkle on his
finger--that carried a subtle suggestion of sophistication and an
adventurous nature.
That morning they had entered together--Tidbury and Mr. Hydeman--and
Tidbury, with icy fingers gripping his heart, had noted that Martha
bestowed on Mr. Hydeman a smile with a lingering personal note in it,
while her greeting to Tidbury was a curt formal nod. His bitter cup was
full, and for the first time in his life he gave way to the pangs of
jealousy when, at noontime, he saw Mr. Hydeman take her to lunch.
Tidbury came upon them, talking and laughing together, and Martha made
not the slightest attempt to conceal her interest in the suave new
assistant to the sales manager; she was open, even brazen about it.
Tidbury was moodily copying figures and trying not to heed the fact that
the green-eyed monster was clutching him with torturing talons when Mr.
Hydeman came up to his desk and prodded him playfully in the ribs.
"Well, old Tid," remarked Mr. Hydeman, "I'll bet you wish you were going
to be in my shoes to-night."
Tidbury looked up from his work.
"Why?" he asked.
For answer Mr. Hydeman thrust two tickets beneath Tidbury's stub of
nose. With only a vague comprehension Tidbury glanced at what was
printed on them.
ADMIT ONE
THE PAGAN ROUT
ALL GREENWICH VILLAGE WILL BE THERE
WEBBER HALL
ONLY PERSONS IN COSTUME ADMITTED. DON'T MISS
THE DARING GARDEN OF EDEN BALLET AND
MASQUE AT FOUR A.M.
"Are you a Greenwich Villager?" asked Tidbury.
Mr. Hydeman smiled at the note of horror in Tidbury's voice.
"Oh, I hang out down there," he admitted airily.
"And you're going to the Pagan Rout?"
Even into the seclusion of Calais, Maine, and Mrs. Kelty's, rumors of
that revel had filtered.
"I never miss one," replied Mr. Hydeman grandly. "And say, I've a
costume this year that's a knockout."
"You have?"
"Yes. I've got a preacher's outfit. Can you imagine me a parson?"
Weakly Tidbury said he couldn't.
"And say," went on Mr. Hydeman, lowering his voice to a confidential
whisper, "I'll have a flask of hip oil on me."
"Hip oil?"
"Sure. Diamond juice."
"Diamond juice?"
"Aw, hooch. For me and the gal."
"The girl?" quavered Tidbury.
"Say," demanded Mr. Hydeman, "did you think I was going to take a
hippopotamus with me?"
Tidbury's small face was pathetic.
"You don't know what you're missing, Tid," Mr. Hydeman rattled on. "It's
a real naughty party. Those costumes! Oh, bebe." Mr. Hydeman rolled his
eyes toward the roof and blew thither a kiss. "Last year there was a
Cleopatra there and she didn't have a thing on her but a pair of----"
"The cashier's waiting for these figures," mumbled Mr. Epps. "I've got
to go to him."
He heard Hydeman's sniggle of laughter behind him.
That evening the desperate Tidbury met Martha Ritter as she was leaving
the hat company's building.
"May I come to see you to-night?" he asked, trying not to stammer, and
hoping his ears were not as red as they felt. "There's a nice band
concert in Prospect Park and I thought----"
Martha Ritter cocked her head to one side and smiled mysteriously.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Epps," she said coolly, "but I have an engagement."
"You--have--an--engagement?" He repeated the words as if they were a
prison sentence.
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Oh, it's a masquerade." She smiled, her head on one side.
"Whom are you going with?" he blurted; he was trembling.
"That would be telling," she laughed. "Well, good night, Mr. Epps. I
must hurry home and get my costume on. I'm going as a gypsy."
And she disappeared into the maw of the Subway.
A masquerade! In gypsy costume! Tidbury was struck by the lightning of
complete realization; he understood Hydeman's leer now. Feebly he leaned
against a lamp-post until his numbed brain could recover from the
impact. Then he committed a sin. Deliberately he kicked the lamp-post a
vicious kick.
"Darn it all," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Yes, gosh darn it
all!"
Then he went wearily to his boarding house. Morosely he ate of Mrs.
Kelty's boiled beef and bread pudding; morosely he sat in his lonely
stall of a bedroom and glowered at a hole in the red carpet.
"I'm too quiet. Too darn quiet," he kept saying to himself in a sort of
litany. "Yes, too gosh darn quiet."
And when he thought of Martha, sweet simple Martha, and so short a time
ago his Martha, at the Pagan Rout with Hydeman, surrounded by indecorous
and no doubt inebriate denizens of Greenwich Village, his head all but
burst. That she was lost, and, most poignant thought of all, lost to
him, kept beating in upon his brain. He moaned.
Suddenly his spine straightened with a terrible resolve. His small
guileless face was set in lines of stern decision. He leaped from his
chair, dived under his brass bed, rummaged in his trunk and fished up
twenty-five hard-saved dollars in a sock.
Clapping his hat on his head in emulation of the tilt of Mr. Hydeman's
hat Tidbury issued forth. In the hall he passed Mrs. Kelty, who regarded
him with some surprise.
"You're not going out, Mr. Epps?" she asked. "Why, it's after nine!"
"I am going out, Mrs. Kelty," announced Tidbury Epps.
"Back soon?"
"I may never come back," he answered hollowly.
"Sakes alive! Where are you going?"
"I am going," said Tidbury Epps firmly, "to the devil."
And he strode into the night.
§2
Never having gone to the devil before, Mr. Epps was somewhat perplexed
in mind as to the direction he should take. But a moment's reflection
convinced him that Greenwich Village was the most promising place for
such a pilgrimage. He had never been there before; he had been afraid to
go there. Startling stories of the gay profligacy rampant in that angle
of old New York had reached his ears. He believed firmly that if the
devil has any headquarters in New York they are somewhere below
Fourteenth Street and west of Washington Square.
Mr. Epps debouched from a bus in Washington Square and started westward
along West Fourth Street with the cautious but determined tread of an
explorer penetrating a trackless and cannibal-infested jungle. He
glanced apprehensively to right and left, his eyes wide for the sight of
painted sirens, his ears agape for gusts of ribald merriment. At each
corner he paused expectantly, anticipating that he might come upon a
delirious party of art students gamboling about a model. He traversed
two blocks without seeing so much as a smock; what he did see was an
ancient man of Italian derivation carrying a bag of charcoal on his
head, and a stout woman wheeling twins stuffed uncomfortably into a
single-seater gocart, and a number of nondescript humans who from their
sedate air might well have been Brooklyn funeral directors. He owned,
after a bit, to a certain sense of disappointment. Going to the devil
was more of a chore than he had fancied.
As he trekked ever westward a sound at length smote his dilated ears and
made him catch his breath. It was issuing from a dim-lit basement, and
was filtering through batik curtains stenciled with strange, smeary
beasts. He had heard the wild, dissipated notes of a mechanical piano. A
lurid but somewhat inexpertly lettered sign above the basement door
read,
YE AMIABLE OYSTER
REFRESHMINTS AT ALL HRS.
With a newborn boldness Tidbury Epps thrust open the door and entered.
No shower of confetti, no popping of corks, no rousing stein song
greeted him. Save for the industrious piano the place seemed empty.
However, by the feeble beams that came from the lights, bandaged in
batik like so many sore thumbs, he discerned a mountainous matron behind
a cash register, engaged in tatting.
"Where's everybody?" he asked of her.
"Oh, things will liven up after a bit," she yawned.
Tidbury sat at a small bright blue table and scanned a card affixed to
the wall.
Angel's Ambrosia ........ $0.50
Horse's Neck ............ .60
Devil's Delight ......... .70
Dry Martini ............. .50
Very dry Martini ........ .60
Very, very dry Martini .. .90
Champagne Sizzle ........ .75
A sleepy waiter with a soup-stained vest came from the inner room
presently.
"Gimme a Devil's Delight," ordered Tidbury Epps recklessly.
He had heard that Greenwich Village, the untrammeled, laughs openly in
the teeth of the Eighteenth Amendment. He had never in his life tasted
an alcoholic drink, but to-night he was stopping at nothing. The Devil's
Delight came, and Tidbury as he sipped its pink saccharinity found
himself feeling that the devil is rather easily delighted. He had
expected the potion to make his head buzz; but it did not. Instead it
distinctly suggested rather weak and not very superior strawberry sirup
and carbonated water. He crooked a summoning finger at the waiter.
"Horse's Neck," he commanded.
The Horse's Neck made its appearance, an insipid-looking amber fluid
with a wan piece of lemon peel floating shamefacedly on its surface.
"Tastes just like ginger ale to me," remarked Mr. Epps. "Wadjuh expeck
in a Horse's Neck?" queried the waiter bellicosely. "Chloride of lime?"
"I can't feel it at all," complained Mr. Epps.
"Feel it?" The waiter raised his brows. "Say, what do you think this
joint is? A dump? We ain't bootleggers, mister."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Epps.
He was about to go elsewhere, when a babel of excited voices outside the
door made him sink back into his chair; evidently the promise of the
tatting matron was to be made good, and Ye Amiable Oyster was about to
liven up.
The first thing that entered the door was an animal--a full-size, shaggy
anthropoid ape, big as a man. Mr. Epps was too alarmed to bolt. But as
the creature careened into the light Mr. Epps observed that his face was
human and slightly Hibernian. Behind him came a girl, rather sketchily
dressed for autumn in a pair of bead portieres, a girdle or two, and a
gilt plaster bird, which was bound firmly to her head. Mr. Epps had seen
things like her on cigarette boxes. A second couple followed, hilarious.
The man wore a tight velvet suit, a sombrero several yards around, black
mustaches of prodigious length and bristle that did not match the red of
his hair, and earrings the size of cantaloupes; it was not clear whether
he was intended to be a pirate or an organ grinder or a compromise
between the two; but it was clear that he was in a state where it did
not matter, to him, in the least. His companion wore a precarious
garment of dry grass, and her arms were stained brown; at intervals she
conveyed the information to the general atmosphere that she was a bimbo
from a bamboo isle.
The four, after an impromptu ring-around-a-rosie, collapsed into chairs
near the wide-eyed Epps. Fascinated he stared at them--the first
authentic natives of Greenwich Village on whom his cloistered eye had
ever rested.
"Ginger ale," bawled the ape.
It was brought. The ape dipping into a fold in his anatomy brought to
light a capacious flask, kissed it solemnly, and poured its contents
into the glasses of the others.
"Jake, that sure is the real old stuff," said the girl in the grass
dress.
"Made it m'sef," said the ape proudly. "Y'see, I took dozen apricots,
and ten pounds sugar, and some yeast and some raisins, and mixed 'em in
a jug, and added water and----"
"That's nine times we heard all about that," interrupted the pirate or
organ grinder. "Better be careful, anyhow. Mebbe that guy is a revnoo
officer."
They all turned to stare at Mr. Epps.
"Of course he ain't 'nofficer, Ed," protested the ape, surveying Tidbury
with care. "He's got too kind a face. You ain't 'nofficer, are you?"
"No," said Tidbury.
"What did I tell yuh?" cried the ape, triumphantly, to his companions.
"Shove up your chair, old sport, and have a drink with us. You look like
a live one. I like your face."
Thus bidden, Tidbury, with an air of abandon, joined the group. The ape
named Jake tilted his flask over Tidbury's spiritless Horse's Neck with
such vehement good-fellowship that a gush of pungent brown fluid spurted
from the container. Tidbury downed the mixture at a gulp; it made tears
start to his eyes and a conflagration flame up in his brain.
"Howzit?" demanded Jake the ape.
"'Sgoo'," answered Tidbury warmly.
"Have 'nuther. Got plenty," said Jake, producing a second flask from
another recess in his shaggy skin. "I like your face."
"Don't care if I do," said Tidbury nonchalantly.
The lights in the near-café were very bright, the voices very high, the
conversation exquisitely witty, the mechanical piano a symphonic
rhapsody, and the heart of Tidbury Epps was pumping with wild, unwonted
pumps; he smiled to himself. He was going to the devil at a great rate.
He waxed loquacious. He told them anecdotes; he even sang a little.
He beamed upon Jake, and playfully plucked a tuft of hair from his
costume.
"Nice li'l' monkey," he said affably.
"Not a monkey!" denied Jake indignantly.
"Wad are you? S-s-schimpaz-z-ze-e-e?"
"Nope. Not a S-s-schimpaz-z-ze-e-e."
"Ran-tan?"
"Nope. Not a ran-tan."
"Bamboo?"
"Nope. Not a bamboo."
"Well, wad are you?"
Jake thumped his hairy chest proudly.
"I'm a griller," he explained.
"Oh," said Mr. Epps, satisfied. "A griller. Of course! Is it hard work?"
"Work?" cried Jake. "Say, this ain't my real skin. It's a 'sguise."
"Oh," said Mr. Epps. "So you're 'sguised? Wad did you do?"
"Careful, Jake," the organ grinder or pirate warned. "He may be a revnoo
officer."
The gorilla turned on him angrily.
"Lookahere, Ed Peterson, how dare you pass remarks like that about my
ole friend, Mr. ---- What is your name, anyhow? Of course he ain't no
revnofficer? Are you?"
"I'll fight anybody who says I am," declared Tidbury Epps, glaring
fiercely around at the empty chairs and tables.
"You a fighter?" inquired the gorilla, in a voice in which awe,
admiration and alcohol mingled.
Mr. Epps contracted his brow and narrowed his eyes.
"Yep," he said impressively. "I'm Terrible Battling Epps. I'd rather
fight than eat." He turned sternly to the gorilla. "Why are you
'sguised? Wad did you do?"
"Why, you poor nut," put in the girl in the beads, "we're going to the
Pagan Rout."
"Sure, that's it," chimed in Jake. "Goin' to the Pagan Row. Come on
along, Terrible."
"Aw, I'm tired of Pagan Routs," said Mr. Epps loftily. But the
suggestion speeded up the pumpings of his heart.
"Oh, do come!" urged the girl in the beads.
"Ain't got no 'sguise," said Mr. Epps. He was wavering.
"Aw, come on!" cried the gorilla, clapping him on the shoulder till his
teeth rattled. "Proud to have you with us, Terrible. I know a live one
when I see one. Come on along. You'll see a lot of your friends there."
His friends? Tidbury thought of Martha.
"If I only had a 'sguise----" he began.
"You can get one round at Steinbock's, on Seventh Avenue," promptly
informed the organ grinder-pirate. "That is," he added with sudden
suspicion, "if you ain't one of these here revnofficers."
"S-s-s-s-sh, Ed," cautioned Jake, the gorilla. "Do you want Terrible
Battling Epps to take a poke at you?"
Tidbury had made up his mind.
"I'll go," he announced.
"Good!" exclaimed the gorilla delightedly. "Atta boy! Glad to have a
real N'Yawk sport with us. Meet you at Webber Hall, Terrible."
"Webber Hall? Wherezat?" inquired Tidbury as he sought to negotiate the
door.
"Well," confessed the gorilla, "I dunno 'zactly m'sef. Y'see, I'm from
Kansas City m'sef. In the lid game, I am. Biggest firm west of the
Mizzizippi. Last year we sold----"
"Aw, stop selling and tell Terrible how to get to Webber Hall," put in
the girl in the beads; she appeared to be the gorilla's wife.
"Well," said Jake, thoughtfully rubbing his fuzzy head, "far as I
remember, you go out to the square and you go straight along till you
get to the L and you turn to the right----"
"Left!" interjected the organ grinder-pirate.
"Right," repeated the gorilla firmly. "And then you turn down another
street--no, you don't--you go straight on till you see a dentist's sign,
a big gold tooth, with 'Gee, it didn't hurt a bit at Dr. B. Schmuck's
Parlors,' painted on it, and you turn to your right----"
"Left," corrected the pirate-organ grinder sternly.
"Waz difference?" went on the gorilla blandly. "Well, as I was saying,
you turn to the right or left and then you go along three or four
blocks, and then you turn to your left----"
"Right, I tell you!" roared the man in velvet.
"Oh, well, you go along until you come to a corner and you turn it and
go down a little bit, and there you are!"
"Where am I?" Mr. Epps, posing against the door, asked.
"Webber Hall," said Jake. "Pagan Row."
"Oh," said Mr. Epps.
"Didn't you follow me?"
"Of course I followed you."
"Good. See you at the party, Terrible. You're hot stuff."
"I'll be there. G'night."
"G'night, Terrible, old scout."
§3
Mr. Epps emerged from Ye Amiable Oyster, walking with elaborate but
difficult dignity. He had only a remote idea where he was, but he knew
where he wanted to go--Steinbock's on Seventh Avenue. So with a temerity
quite foreign to him he stepped up briskly to the first passing
pedestrian and asked, "Say, frien', where's Sebble Abloo?"
The man accosted puckered a puzzled brow.
"I don't get you, frien'," he said.
"Sebble Abloo!" repeated Mr. Epps loudly, thinking the stranger's
hearing might be defective.
"What?"
"Sebble Abloo!" roared Mr. Epps.
The man shook his head as one giving up a conundrum.
"Sebble Abloo," repeated Mr. Epps at the top of his voice "Look." He
held up his fingers and counted them off. "One, two, sree, four, fi',
sizz, sebble. Sebble Abloo!"
"Oh, Seventh Avenue. Why didn't you say so in the first place?"
"I did."
"I'm going that way. I'll show you."
The stranger steered Tidbury through a rabbit warren of streets--the
Greenwich Village streets never have made up their minds where they are
going--and started him, with a gentle push, up Seventh Avenue.
Presently by some miracle Tidbury stumbled upon Steinbock's, and pushed
his way into a jumble of masks, wigs, helmets and assorted junk, till he
approached a patriarch in a skullcap, hidden behind a Niagara of white
beard.
"'Lo, ole fel'," said Mr. Epps affably. "What are you 'sguised as? Sandy
Claws or a cough drop?"
"Did you wish something?" inquired the patriarch coldly.
"Sure," said Tidbury. "Gimme 'sguise for Pagon Row."
"Cash in advance," said the patriarch. "What sort of costume?"
Tidbury considered.
"Wadjuh got?"
The venerable Steinbock enumerated rapidly, "Bear, bandit, policeman,
Turk, golliwog, ballet girl, kewpie, pantaloon, Uncle Sam, tramp, diver,
Lord Fauntleroy, devil----"
The ears of Mr. Epps twitched at the last word.
"Devil?"
"Yes," said Mr. Steinbock; "a swell rig; nice red suit; hasn't been worn
a dozen times." He leaned forward toward Tidbury and whispered, "And
I'll throw in a brand-new pair of horns and a tail!"
"I'll take it!" cried Tidbury. "Where can I hang my pants?"
After an interval there emerged from the depths of the Steinbock
establishment a small uncertain figure muffled in an old raincoat. The
coat was short and from beneath it protruded bright red legs and a
generous length of red tail, with a spike on the end of it that gave
forth sharp metallic sounds as it bumped along the pavement. A derby hat
concealed one horn, but the other was visible; the face was
Mephistophelian in its general character, but softened and rounded--the
countenance of a rather amiable minor devil.
Tidbury Epps paused on a street corner to get his bearings. He had read
somewhere that woodsmen, lost in the forest, can find the points of the
compass because moss always grows on the north side of trees. He was
carefully investigating a lamp-post for a trace of moss when a
beady-eyed urchin approached him with outthrust hand.
"Give us one, mister?"
"One what?"
"A sample."
"Sample of what?"
"Ain't you advertising something?"
Tidbury drew himself up.
"No," he said with dignity. "How do I get to Wazzington Square?"
"Aw, chee," the urchin said in disgust, "you're one of them artist guys!
Washington Square is two blocks south and three blocks west."
With every corpuscle in his small frame aglow with an excitement he had
never before experienced Tidbury Epps started in determined search of
the Pagan Rout. A grim purpose had been forming in his brain. So Martha
Ritter thought he was quiet, eh? Hydeman had sniggered at him, had he?
Just wait till Terrible Battling Epps reached the ball and discovered
the well-fed person of Mr. Hydeman in clerical garb. There would be
fireworks, he promised himself. No one was going to steal the girl of
Terrible Epps and get away with it.
These, and thoughts of a similar trend, reeled through the brain of
Tidbury as he hurried with a series of skips and now and then a short
sprint along the curbstone.
So busy did he become planning a dramatic descent on Hydeman that he
forgot the directions of the urchin, and soon found himself hopelessly
astray in an eel tangle of streets, as he repeated, "Two blocks wes' and
three blocks souse. Or was it three blocks souse and two blocks wes'?"
Gripping his tail firmly in his hand he tried both plans. Passers-by
eyed him with the blasé curiosity of New Yorkers, as he passed at a dog
trot.
Sometimes they nudged each other and remarked, "Artist. Goin' to this
here Pagan Rout. Pretty snootful, too. Lucky stiff."
No one ventured to impede his slightly erratic progress; after half an
hour of wandering he stopped, mopped his brow and observed, "Ought to be
there by now."
As he said this he saw two figures across the street, two ladies of
mature mold, picking their way along. It was their garb which made him
give a shout of triumph and follow them. For one, who was fat, was
dressed as a colonial dame with powdered hair, and the other, who was
fatter, was a forty-year-old edition of Little Red Riding Hood; her hair
was in pigtails, but she was discreetly skirted to the ankle bones. He
followed these masqueraders with the wary steps of an Indian stalking a
moose, until they turned into the basement of a towering building of
brick, from which issued the melodic scraping of fiddles and the
pleasing bleating of horns. His heart skipped a beat. The Pagan Rout!
The devil's doorway.
Tidbury Epps shucked off his raincoat and derby hat, tossed them at a
fire hydrant, put on his mask, dropped his tail, squared his red
shoulders, knotted up his small fists, drew in a deep breath and plunged
into the hall. So engrossed was he in these preparations that he failed
to note a home-made poster nailed outside the door. It read:
COME ONE, COME ALL
THE LADIES' AID SOCIETY WILL GIVE A
COSTUME PARTY
IN THE
CHURCH BASEMENT TO-NIGHT
With a rolling gait Tidbury Epps entered the hall. Figures eddied about
him in a dance, and, somewhat surprised, Tidbury noted that it was very
like the old-fashioned waltzes he had seen in Calais, Maine. The
waltzers evidently regarded dancing as a business of the utmost
seriousness; their lips, beneath their dominoes, were rigid and severe,
save when they counted softly but audibly, "One, two, three, turn. One,
two, three, turn." In vain Tidbury searched the room for Jake the
gorilla, the beaded lady, the organ-grinding pirate and the bimbo from
the bamboo isle. He concluded that Jake's flasks had been too much for
them. And he saw no gypsy or Hydeman. Indeed, as he watched the
restrained and sober waltzers he could not escape the conviction that
the Pagan Rout, for an institution so widely known for impropriety, was
singularly decent in the matter of costume. There were Priscillas in
ample skirts, farmerettes in baggy overalls, milkmaids in Mother
Hubbards, Pilgrim fathers, sailors, and Chinese in voluminous kimonos.
Tidbury, a little dazed in a corner, began to think that he had
overestimated the glamour of sin.
He perceived that the obese Red Riding Hood was standing at his elbow,
gazing at him with some curiosity.
He lurched toward her, and administered a slap of good-fellowship on her
plump shoulder.
"'Lo, cutie," he remarked in accents slightly blurred. "Where's
Cleopotter?"
The lady gave vent to a squeal of surprise.
"Sir," she said, "I do not know Miss Potter."
She sniffed the atmosphere in the vicinity of Mr. Epps, gave a little
cluck of horror, and scurried away like a duck from a hawk.
The eyes of Mr. Epps followed her flight and he saw that she headed
straight for a man who sat in a distant corner of the hall; the man was
masked, but Tidbury felt every muscle in his five feet three inches of
body stiffen as he saw that the man in the corner wore the garb of the
clergy. Hydeman!
Red Riding Hood whispered in his ear and pointed an accusing finger
toward Tidbury; the man in the corner gazed earnestly at the diminutive
red devil teetering on red hoofs. By now Tidbury had spied another
figure, sitting next to the masked preacher. She was a gypsy. And as she
gazed at her companion she cocked her head to one side.
With tail bouncing along the floor after him Tidbury started briskly in
their direction at a lope. Within a yard of them he reined himself down,
and stood, with a hand on either hip, glaring at the cleric and the
gypsy.
Hydeman stood up. He seemed larger, rounder than the assistant to the
sales manager known to Tidbury in business hours, but the fierce fire of
jealousy burned within Mr. Epps--and he was not to be daunted by size.
"So it's you, is it?" he remarked with biting emphasis.
"Naturally," said the man. "Whom did you expect it to be?"
His voice had a soft sweet note in it, not at all like the sharp
staccato of Hydeman's crisp business New Yorkese.
"He's making fun of me," said Tidbury, and the spirit of Terrible
Battling Epps wholly possessed him.
"You thought I was a dead one, eh?" remarked Mr. Epps. "Well, I'm going
to show you that sometimes the quiet ones come to life and----"
The other eyed him sternly.
"Young man," he said, "I fear that you are er--a bit--er--under the
weather. I fear you are not one of us."
"Not one of you?" roared Tidbury with passion mounting. "You're darn
right I'm not one of you--you low, immoral Greenwich Villagers, leading
innocent girls astray." He waved a thin red arm toward the gypsy.
The music had stopped in the midst of a bar; the masqueraders were
crowding about. The accused ecclesiastic glared down at the small devil
before him.
"How dare you say such a thing of me?" he demanded. "Who are you?"
"You know well enough who I am, Milt Hydeman," cried Tidbury, breathing
jerkily. "I'm Terrible Battling Epps, and----"
"Leave our hall at once!" the other returned. "You are plainly under the
influence of----"
He stretched out a hand to grasp Tidbury Epps by the shoulder, and as he
did so Tidbury brought a small but angry fist into swift contact with
the clerical waist-line.
"Oof!" grunted the man.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" screamed the Red Riding Hood. "The devil has
struck the Reverend Doctor Bewley. Help! Help!"
But Tidbury, deaf to all things but battle, had buried his other fist so
violently in his opponent's soft center that the mask popped from the
man's face. It was the round, pink, frightened face of a total stranger.
With a yelp of dismay Tidbury turned to flee, but the outraged
parishioners had pounced on him, torn off his mask, and were proving, at
his expense, that there is still such a thing as militant, muscular
Christianity in the world. As they bore him, kicking and struggling, to
the door, he saw in all the blur of excited faces one face with staring,
unbelieving eyes. The gypsy had removed her mask, and she was Martha
Ritter. In all the babble of voices hers was the only one he heard.
"Oh, Mr. Epps! Oh, Mr. Epps!" she was sobbing. "I didn't think it of
you! I didn't think it of you!"
From the gutter in front of the church Tidbury after a while picked
himself, felt tenderly of his red-clad limbs, found them whole but
painful, applied a bit of cold paving brick to his swelling eye, and
started slowly and thoughtfully down the street, his tail, broken in the
fracas, hanging limply between his legs. Despite all, the potent
stimulus of Jake's concoction lingered with him, and there was a
comforting buzzing in his head which all but offset the feeling of dank
despair that was crowding in upon him. He had lost Martha. That was
sure. He--he was a failure. He couldn't even go to the devil.
How he got back to his own room in Mrs. Kelty's boarding house he never
knew, but that was where the brazen voice of the alarm clock summoned
him sharply from deep slumber. His head felt like a bass drum full of
bumblebees. But it was his heart, as he buttoned his pepper-and-salt
vest over it, that hurt him most. He tried to drive from him the aching
thoughts of the lost Martha, but the only thought he could substitute
was the scarcely more cheerful one that he'd probably be cast
incontinently from the hat company when news of his brawl reached the
alert ears of Messrs. Spingle and Blatter.
Spurning breakfast he hurried to his office, and before Martha or the
rest arrived he had climbed wearily to the pinnacle of his high stool,
and had hunched himself over his figures. He was struggling to
distinguish between the dancing nines and sixes when he heard a
voice--an oddly familiar voice--booming out from the doorway that led to
the presidential sanctum.
"Well," said the voice, "it looks to me just now, Spingle, as if we
could use about ten thousand dozen of your Number 1A hats out in Kansas
City this year. Of course I'll have to shop around a bit to see what
the others can offer----"
"Of course, Jake, of course," replied Mr. Spingle, in the satin voice
Tidbury knew he reserved for the very largest buyers. "But say, Jake,
wouldn't you and your wife like to be our guests at a little party
to-night? Dinner and then the Winter Garden? Our Mr. Hydeman will be
delighted to take you out."
The person addressed as Jake lowered his voice, but not so low that the
avid ears of Tidbury Epps missed a syllable.
"Between you and me, Spingle," said Jake, "I wouldn't care to at all."
"Why, Jake," expostulated Mr. Spingle, "I thought you and the wife
always liked to whoop it up a bit when you came to the big town."
"So we do," admitted Jake, "but not with him."
"What's wrong with Hydeman?" demanded the Napoleon of Hatdom, and
Tidbury read anxiety in his tone.
"Everything," replied Jake succinctly.
"You know him, then?"
"Yep, ran into him last night at the Pagan Rout," said Jake. "He didn't
make much of a hit with me or the missus. Too fresh. Treated us as if we
were rubes. Out in Kansas City we know a good fellow when we see
one----Why, what the devil----"
Jake had chopped his sentence off short, and with a whoop of joy had
bounded across the room.
"Well, if it isn't Terrible Epps!" he bellowed heartily. "How's the
head, old sport? Say, Terrible, why didn't you join us at the Pagan
Rout?"
"I--I couldn't find you there," said Tidbury, trembling.
"Oh, yes," remarked Jake thoughtfully. "You must have got there after
they put us out."
"They put me out too," said Tidbury.
Jake's roar of laughter made the straw hats quiver on the heads of the
dummies in the show cases. He turned a beaming face to Mr. Spingle.
"Say, Spingle," he cried, "what do you mean by trying to palm off a
tin-horn like Hydeman on me when you've got the best little fellow, the
warmest little entertainer east of the Mississippi, right here?"
To this Mr. Spingle was totally unable to make any reply. But after a
minute his brain functioned sufficiently for him to say, "About that
order of yours, Jake----"
"Oh," said Jake reassuringly. "I'll talk to Terrible Epps about it at
dinner to-night."
* * * * *
"And to think," repeated Mr. Spingle for the third or fourth time to Mr.
Blatter, "that Tidbury is a man-about-town who goes to Pagan Routs and
everything! You'll give him Hydeman's job, won't you, Otto?"
"I already have," said Mr. Blatter.
"Good!" exclaimed the Napoleon of Hatdom. "Didn't I always say that
Tidbury Epps was a live one, underneath?"
* * * * *
The round cheek of Martha Ritter was in immediate contact with the
pepper-and-salt shoulder of Tidbury Epps.
"And you tried to make me think," he repeated in a tone of wonder, "that
you liked Hydeman and were going to the Pagan Rout with him? Oh, Martha
dear, why did you do it?"
She hid her eyes from his.
"I did it," she murmured, "because I wanted to make you jealous."
The clock ticked many ticks.
"But, Tidbury, if I marry you," she said anxiously, "you'll reform,
won't you? You'll promise me you'll give up Greenwich Village and
drinking, won't you, Tidbury?"
"If you'll help me, dearest," promised Tidbury Epps, "I'll try."
XI: _Honor Among Sportsmen_
Each with his favorite hunting pig on a stout string, a band of the
leading citizens of Montpont moved in dignified procession down the Rue
Victor Hugo in the direction of the hunting preserve.
It was a mild, delicious Sunday, cool and tranquil as a pool in a
woodland glade. To Perigord alone come such days. Peace was in the air,
and the murmur of voices of men intent on a mission of moment. The men
of Montpont were going forth to hunt truffles.
As Brillat-Savarin points out in his "Physiology of Taste"--"All France
is inordinately truffliferous, and the province of Perigord particularly
so." On week-days the hunting of that succulent subterranean fungus was
a business, indeed, a vast commercial enterprise, for were there not
thousands of Perigord pies to be made, and uncounted tins of _pâté de
foie gras_ to be given the last exquisite touch by the addition of a bit
of truffle?
But on Sunday it became a sport, the chief, the only sport of the
citizens of Montpont. A preserve, rich in beech, oak and chestnut trees
in whose shade the shy truffle thrives, had been set apart and here the
truffle was never hunted for mercenary motives but for sport and sport
alone. On week-days truffle hunting was confined to professionals; on
Sunday, after church, all Montpont hunted truffles. Even the sub-prefect
maintained a stable of notable pigs for the purpose. For the pig is as
necessary to truffle-hunting as the beagle is to beagling.
A pig, by dint of patient training, can be taught to scent the buried
truffle with his sensitive snout, and to point to its hiding place, as
immobile as a cast-iron setter on a profiteer's lawn, until its proud
owner exhumes the prize. An experienced pointing pig, with a creditable
record, brings an enormous price in the markets of Montpont.
At the head of the procession that kindly Sunday marched Monsieur
Bonticu and Monsieur Pantan, with the decisive but leisurely tread of
men of affairs. They spoke to each other with an elaborate, ceremonial
politeness, for on this day, at least, they were rivals. On other days
they were bosom friends. To-day was the last of the fall hunting season,
and they were tied, with a score of some two hundred truffles each, for
the championship of Montpont, an honor beside which winning the Derby is
nothing and the _Grand Prix de Rome_ a mere bauble in the eyes of all
Perigord. To-day was to tell whether the laurels would rest on the round
pink brow of Monsieur Bonticu or the oval olive brow of Monsieur Pantan.
Monsieur Bonticu was the leading undertaker of Montpont, and in his
stately appearance he satisfied the traditions of his calling. He was a
large man of forty or so, and in his special hunting suit of jade-hued
cloth he looked, from a distance, to be an enormous green pepper. His
face was vast and many chinned and his eyes had been set at the bottom
of wells sunk deep in his pink face; it was said that even on a bright
noon he could see the stars, as ordinary folk can by peering up from
the bottom of a mine-shaft. They were small and cunning, his eyes, and a
little diffident. In Montpont, he was popular. Even had his heart not
been as large as it undoubtedly was, his prowess as a hunter of truffles
and his complete devotion to that art--he insisted it was an art--would
have endeared him to all right-thinking Montpontians. He was a bachelor,
and said, more than once, as he sipped his old Anjou in the Café de
l'Univers, "I marry? Bonticu marry? That is a cause of laughter, my
friends. I have my little house, a good cook, and my Anastasie. What
more could mortal ask? Certainly not an Eve in his paradise. I marry? I
be dad to a collection of squealing, wiggling cabbages? I laugh at the
idea."
Anastasie was his pig, a prodigy at detecting truffles, and his most
priceless treasure. He once said, at a truffle-hunters' dinner, "I have
but two passions, my comrades. The pursuit of the truffle and the flight
from the female."
Monsieur Pantan had applauded this sentiment heartily. He, too, was a
bachelor. He combined, lucratively, the offices of town veterinarian and
apothecary, and had written an authoritative book, "The Science of
Truffle Hunting." To him it was a science, the first of sciences. He was
a fierce-looking little man, with bellicose eyes and bristling
moustachio, and quick, nervous hands that always seemed to be rolling
endless thousands of pills. He was given to fits of temper, but that is
rather expected of a man in the south of France. His devotion to his
pig, Clotilde, atoned, in the eyes of Montpont, for a slightly irascible
nature.
The party, by now, had reached the hunting preserve, and with eager,
serious faces, they lengthened the leashes on their pigs, and urged them
to their task. By the laws of the chase, the choicest area had been left
for Monsieur Bonticu and Monsieur Pantan, and excited galleries followed
each of the two leading contestants. Bets were freely made.
* * * * *
In a scant nine minutes by the watch, Anastasie was seen to freeze and
point. Monsieur Bonticu plunged to his plump knees, whipped out his
trowel, dug like a badger, and in another minute brought to light a
handsome truffle, the size of a small potato, blackish-gray as the best
truffles are, and studded with warts. With a gesture of triumph, he
exhibited it to the umpire, and popped it into his bag. He rewarded
Anastasie with a bit of cheese, and urged her to new conquests. But a
few seconds later, Monsieur Pantan gave a short hop, skip and jump, and
all eyes were fastened on Clotilde, who had grown motionless, save for
the tip of her snout which quivered gently. Monsieur Pantan dug
feverishly and soon brandished aloft a well-developed truffle. So the
battle waged.
At one time, by a series of successes, Monsieur Bonticu was three up on
his rival, but Clotilde, by a bit of brilliant work beneath a chestnut
tree, brought to light a nest of four truffles and sent the Pantan
colors to the van.
The sun was setting; time was nearly up. The other hunters had long
since stopped and were clustered about the two chief contestants, who,
pale but collected, bent all their skill to the hunt. Practically every
square inch of ground had been covered. But one propitious spot
remained, the shadow of a giant oak, and, moved by a common impulse, the
stout Bonticu and the slender Pantan simultaneously directed their pigs
toward it. But a little minute of time now remained. The gallery held
its breath. Then a great shout made the leaves shake and rustle. Like
two perfectly synchronized machines, Anastasie and Clotilde had frozen
and were pointing. They were pointing to the same spot.
Monsieur Pantan, more active than his rival, had darted to his knees,
his trowel poised for action. But a large hand was laid on his shoulder,
politely, and the silky voice of Monsieur Bonticu said, "If Monsieur
will pardon me, may I have the honor of informing him that this is my
find?"
Monsieur Pantan, trowel in mid-air, bowed as best a kneeling man can.
"I trust," he said, coolly, "that Monsieur will not consider it an
impertinence if I continue to dig up what my Clotilde has, beyond
peradventure, discovered, and I hope Monsieur will not take it amiss if
I suggest that he step out of the light as his shadow is not exactly
that of a sapling."
Monsieur Bonticu was trembling, but controlled.
"With profoundest respect," he said from deep in his chest, "I beg to be
allowed to inform Monsieur that he is, if I may say so, in error. I must
ask Monsieur, as a sportsman, to step back and permit me to take what is
justly mine."
Monsieur Pantan's face was terrible to see, but his voice was icily
formal.
"I regret," he said, "that I cannot admit Monsieur's contention. In the
name of sport, and his own honor, I call upon Monsieur to retire from
his position."
"That," said Monsieur Bonticu, "I will never do."
They both turned faces of appeal to the umpire. That official was
bewildered.
"It is not in the rules, Messieurs," he got out, confusedly. "In my
forty years as an umpire, such a thing has not happened. It is a matter
to be settled between you, personally."
As he said the words, Monsieur Pantan commenced to dig furiously.
Monsieur Bonticu dropped to his knees and also dug, like some great,
green, panic-stricken beaver. Mounds of dirt flew up. At the same second
they spied the truffle, a monster of its tribe. At the same second the
plump fingers of Monsieur Bonticu and the thin fingers of Monsieur
Pantan closed on it. Cries of dismay rose from the gallery.
"It is the largest of truffles," called voices. "Don't break it. Broken
ones don't count." But it was too late. Monsieur Bonticu tugged
violently; as violently tugged Monsieur Pantan. The truffle, indeed a
giant of its species, burst asunder. The two men stood, each with his
half, each glaring.
"I trust," said Monsieur Bonticu, in his hollowest death-room voice,
"that Monsieur is satisfied. I have my opinion of Monsieur as a
sportsman, a gentleman and a Frenchman."
"For my part," returned Monsieur Pantan, with rising passion, "it is
impossible for me to consider Monsieur as any of the three."
"What's that you say?" cried Monsieur Bonticu, his big face suddenly
flamingly red.
"Monsieur, in addition to the defects in his sense of honor is not also
deficient in his sense of hearing," returned the smoldering Pantan.
"Monsieur is insulting."
"That is his hope."
Monsieur Bonticu was aflame with a great, seething wrath, but he had
sufficient control of his sense of insult to jerk at the leash of
Anastasie and say, in a tone all Montpont could hear:
"Come, Anastasie. I once did Monsieur Pantan the honor of considering
him your equal. I must revise my estimate. He is not your sort of pig at
all."
Monsieur Pantan's eyes were blazing dangerously, but he retained a
slipping grip on his emotions long enough to say:
"Come, Clotilde. Do not demean yourself by breathing the same air as
Monsieur and Madame Bonticu."
The eyes of Monsieur Bonticu, ordinarily so peaceful, now shot forth
sparks. Turning a livid face to his antagonist, he cried aloud:
"Monsieur Pantan, in my opinion you are a puff-ball!"
This was too much. For to call a truffle-hunter a puff-ball is to call
him a thing unspeakably vile. In the eyes of a true lover of truffles a
puff-ball is a noisome, obscene thing; it is a false truffle. In
truffledom it is a fighting word. With a scream of rage Monsieur Pantan
advanced on the bulky Bonticu.
"By the thumbs of St. Front," he cried, "you shall pay for that,
Monsieur Aristide Gontran Louis Bonticu. Here and now, before all
Montpont, before all Perigord, before all France, I challenge you to a
duel to the death."
Words rattled and jostled in his throat, so great was his anger.
Monsieur Bonticu stood motionless; his full-moon face had gone white;
the half of truffle slipped from his fingers. For he knew, as they all
knew, that the dueling code of Perigord is inexorable. It is seldom
nowadays that the Perigordians, even in their hottest moments, say the
fighting word, for once a challenge has passed, retirement is
impossible, and a duel is a most serious matter. By rigid rule, the
challenger and challenged must meet at daybreak in mortal combat. At
twenty paces they must each discharge two horse-pistols; then they must
close on each other with sabers; should these fail to settle the issue,
each man is provided with a poniard for the most intimate stages of the
combat. Such duels are seldom bloodless. Monsieur Bonticu's lips formed
some syllables. They were:
"You are aware of the consequences of your words, Monsieur Pantan?"
"Perfectly."
"You do not wish to withdraw them?" Monsieur Bonticu despite himself
injected a hopeful note into his query.
"I withdraw? Never in this life. On the contrary, not only do I not
withdraw, I reiterate," bridled Monsieur Pantan.
In a _requiescat in pace_ voice, Monsieur Bonticu said:
"So be it. You have sealed your own doom, Monsieur. I shall prepare to
attend you first in the capacity of an opponent, and shortly thereafter
in my professional capacity."
Monsieur Pantan sneered openly.
"Monsieur the undertaker had better consider in his remaining hours
whether it is feasible to embalm himself or have a stranger do it."
With this thunderbolt of defiance, the little man turned on his heel,
and stumped from the field.
Monsieur Bonticu followed at last. But he walked as one whose knees have
turned to _meringue glace_. He went slowly to his little shop and sat
down among the coffins. For the first time in his life their presence
made him uneasy. A big new one had just come from the factory. For a
long time he gazed at it; then he surveyed his own full-blown physique
with a measuring eye. He shuddered. The light fell on the silver plate
on the lid, and his eyes seemed to see engraved there:
MONSIEUR ARISTIDE GONTRAN LOUIS BONTICU
Died in the forty-first year of his life on the field of honor.
"_He was without peer as a hunter of truffles_."
MAY HE REST IN PEACE.
With almost a smile, he reflected that this inscription would make
Monsieur Pantan very angry; yes, he would insist on it. He looked down
at his fat fists and sighed profoundly, and shook his big head. They had
never pulled a trigger or gripped a sword-hilt; the knife, the peaceful
table knife, the fork, and the leash of Anastasie--those had occupied
them. Anastasie! A globular tear rose slowly from the wells in which his
eyes were set, and unchecked, wandered gently down the folds of his
face. Who would care for Anastasie? With another sigh that seemed to
start in the caverns of his soul, he reached out and took a dusty book
from a case, and bent over it. It contained the time-honored dueling
code of ancient Perigord. Suddenly, as he read, his eyes brightened, and
he ceased to sigh. He snapped the book shut, took from a peg his best
hat, dusted it with his elbow, and stepped out into the starry Perigord
night.
* * * * *
At high noon, three days later, as duly decreed by the dueling code,
Monsieur Pantan, in full evening dress, appeared at the shop of
Monsieur Bonticu, accompanied by two solemn-visaged seconds, to make
final arrangements for the affair of honor. They found Monsieur Bonticu
sitting comfortably among his coffins. He greeted them with a serene
smile. Monsieur Pantan frowned portentously.
"We have come," announced the chief second, Monsieur Duffon, the town
butcher, "as the representatives of this grossly insulted gentleman to
demand satisfaction. The weapons and conditions are, of course, fixed by
the code. It remains only to set the date. Would Friday at dawn in the
truffle preserve be entirely convenient for Monsieur?"
Monsieur Bonticu's shrug contained more regret than a hundred words
could convey.
"Alas, it will be impossible, Messieurs," he said, with a deep bow.
"Impossible?"
"But yes. I assure Messieurs that nothing would give me more exquisite
pleasure than to grant this gentleman"--he stressed this word--"the
satisfaction that his honor"--he also stressed this word--"appears to
demand. However, it is impossible."
The seconds and Monsieur Pantan looked at Monsieur Bonticu and at each
other.
"But this is monstrous," exclaimed the chief second. "Is it that
Monsieur refuses to fight?"
Monsieur Bonticu's slowly shaken head indicated most poignant regret.
"But no, Messieurs," he said. "I do not refuse. Is it not a question of
honor? Am I not a sportsman? But, alas, I am forbidden to fight."
"Forbidden."
"Alas, yes."
"But why?"
"Because," said Monsieur Bonticu, "I am a married man."
The eyes of the three men widened; they appeared stunned by surprise.
Monsieur Pantan spoke first.
"You married?" he demanded.
"But certainly."
"When?"
"Only yesterday."
"To whom? I demand proof."
"To Madame Aubison of Barbaste."
"The widow of Sergeant Aubison?"
"The same."
"I do not believe it," declared Monsieur Pantan.
Monsieur Bonticu smiled, raised his voice and called.
"Angelique! Angelique, my dove. Will you come here a little moment?"
"What? And leave the lentil soup to burn?" came an undoubtedly feminine
voice from the depths of the house.
"Yes, my treasure."
"What a pest you are, Aristide," said the voice, and its owner, an ample
woman of perhaps thirty, appeared in the doorway. Monsieur Bonticu waved
a fat hand toward her.
"My wife, Messieurs," he said.
She bowed stiffly. The three men bowed. They said nothing. They gaped at
her. She spoke to her husband.
"Is it that you take me for a Punch and Judy show, Aristide?"
"Ah, never, my rosebud," cried Monsieur Bonticu, with a placating smile.
"You see, my own, these gentlemen wished----"
"There!" she interrupted. "The lentil soup! It burns." She hurried back
to the kitchen.
The three men--Monsieur Pantan and his seconds--consulted together.
"Beyond question," said Monsieur Duffon, "Monsieur Bonticu cannot accept
the challenge. He is married; you are not. The code says plainly:
'Opponents must be on terms of absolute equality in family
responsibility.' Thus, a single man cannot fight a married one, and so
forth. See. Here it is in black and white."
Monsieur Pantan was boiling as he faced the calm Bonticu.
"To think," stormed the little man, "that truffles may be hunted--yes,
even eaten, by such a man! I see through you, Monsieur. But think not
that a Pantan can be flouted. I have my opinion of you, Monsieur the
undertaker."
Monsieur Bonticu shrugged.
"Your opinions do not interest me," he said, "and only my devotion to
the cause of free speech makes me concede that you are entitled to an
opinion at all. Good morning, Messieurs, good morning." He bowed them
down a lane of caskets and out into the afternoon sunshine. The face of
Monsieur Pantan was black.
Time went by in Perigord. Other truffle-hunting seasons came and went,
but Messieurs Bonticu and Pantan entered no more competitions. They
hunted, of course, the one with Anastasie, the other with Clotilde, but
they hunted in solitary state, and studiously avoided each other. Then
one day Monsieur Pantan's hairy countenance, stern and determined,
appeared like a genie at the door of Monsieur Bonticu's shop. The rivals
exchanged profound bows.
"I have the honor," said Monsieur Pantan, in his most formal manner, "to
announce to Monsieur that the impediment to our meeting on the field of
honor has been at last removed, and that I am now in a position to send
my seconds to him to arrange that meeting. May they call to-morrow at
high noon?"
"I do not understand," said Monsieur Bonticu, arching his eyebrows. "I
am still married."
"I too," said Monsieur Pantan, with a grim smile, "am married."
"You? Pantan? Monsieur jests."
"If Monsieur will look in the newspaper of to-day," said Monsieur
Pantan, dryly, "he will see an announcement of my marriage yesterday to
Madame Marselet of Pergieux."
There was astonishment and alarm in the face of the undertaker. Then
reverie seemed to wrap him round. The scurrying of footsteps, the bumble
of voices, in the rooms over the shop aroused him. His face was tranquil
again as he spoke.
"Will Monsieur and his seconds do me the honor of calling on me day
after to-morrow?" he asked.
"As you wish," replied Monsieur Pantan, a gleam of satisfaction in his
eye.
Punctual to the second, Monsieur Pantan and his friends presented
themselves at the shop of Monsieur Bonticu. His face, they observed, was
first worried, then smiling, then worried again.
"Will to-morrow at dawn be convenient for Monsieur?" inquired the
butcher, Duffon.
Monsieur Bonticu gestured regret with his shoulders, and said:
"I am desolated with chagrin, Messieurs, believe me, but it is
impossible."
"Impossible. It cannot be," cried Monsieur Pantan. "Monsieur has one
wife. I have one wife. Our responsibilities are equal. Is it that
Monsieur is prepared to swallow his word of insult?"
"Never," declared Monsieur Bonticu. "I yearn to encounter Monsieur in
mortal combat. But, alas, it is not I, but Nature that intervenes. I
have, only this morning, become a father, Messieurs."
As if in confirmation there came from the room above the treble wail of
a new infant.
"Behold!" exclaimed Monsieur Bonticu, with a wave of his hand.
Monsieur Pantan's face was purple.
"This is too much," he raged. "But wait, Monsieur. But wait." He clapped
his high hat on his head and stamped out of the shop.
Truffles were hunted and the days flowed by and Monsieur Pantan and his
seconds one high noon again called upon Monsieur Bonticu, who greeted
them urbanely, albeit he appeared to have lost weight and tiny
worry-wrinkles were visible in his face.
"Monsieur," began the chief second, "may I have the honor----"
"I'll speak for myself," interrupted Monsieur Pantan. "With my own voice
I wish to inform Monsieur that nothing can now prevent our meeting, at
dawn to-morrow. To-day, Monsieur the undertaker, I, too, became a
father!"
The news seemed to interest but not to stagger Monsieur Bonticu. His
smile was sad as he said:
"You are too late, Monsieur the apothecary and veterinarian. Two days
ago I, also, became a father again."
Monsieur Pantan appeared to be about to burst, so terrible was his rage.
"But wait," he screamed, "but wait." And he rushed out.
Next day Monsieur Pantan and his seconds returned. The moustachios of
the little man were on end with excitement and his eye was triumphant.
"We meet to-morrow at daybreak," he announced.
"Ah, that it were possible," sighed Monsieur Bonticu. "But the code
forbids. As I said yesterday, Monsieur has a wife and a child, while I
have a wife and children. I regret our inequality, but I cannot deny
it."
"Spare your regrets, Monsieur," rejoined the small man. "I, too, have
two children now."
"You?" Monsieur Bonticu stared, puzzled. "Yesterday you had but one. It
cannot be, Monsieur."
"It can be," cried Monsieur Pantan. "Yesterday I adopted one!"
The peony face of Monsieur Bonticu did not blanch at this intelligence.
Again he smiled with an infinite sadness.
"I appreciate," he said, "Monsieur Pantan's courtesy in affording me
this opportunity, but, alas, he has not been in possession of the facts.
By an almost unpardonable oversight I neglected to inform Monsieur that
I had become the father not of one child, but of two. Twins, Messieurs.
Would you care to inspect them?"
Monsieur Pantan's face was contorted with a wrath shocking to witness.
He bit his lip; he clenched his fist.
"The end is not yet," he shouted. "No, no, Monsieur. By the thumbs of
St. Front, I shall adopt another child."
At high noon next day three men in grave parade went down the Rue Victor
Hugo and entered the shop of Monsieur Bonticu. Monsieur Pantan spoke.
"The adoption has been made," he announced. "Here are the papers. I,
too, have a wife and three children. Shall we meet at dawn to-morrow?"
Monsieur Bonticu looked up from his account books with a rueful smile.
"Ah, if it could be," he said. "But it cannot be."
"It cannot be?" echoed Monsieur Pantan.
"No," said Monsieur Bonticu, sadly. "Last night my aged father-in-law
came to live with me. He is a new, and weighty responsibility,
Monsieur."
Monsieur Pantan appeared numbed for a moment; then, with a glare of
concentrated fury, he rasped.
"I, too, have an aged father-in-law."
He slammed the shop door after him.
* * * * *
That night when Monsieur Bonticu went to the immaculate little stye back
of his shop to see if the pride of his heart, Anastasie, was
comfortable, to chat with her a moment, and to present her with a morsel
of truffle to keep up her interest in the chase, he found her lying on
her side moaning faintly. Between moans she breathed with a labored
wheeze, and in her gentle blue eyes stood the tears of suffering. She
looked up feebly, piteously, at Monsieur Bonticu. With a cry of horror
and alarm he bent over her.
"Anastasie! My Anastasie! What is it? What ails my brave one?" She
grunted softly, short, stifled grunts of anguish. He made a swift
examination. Expert in all matters pertaining to the pig, he perceived
that she had contracted an acute case of that rare and terrible disease,
known locally as Perigord pip, and he knew, only too well, that her
demise was but a question of hours. His Anastasie would never track down
another truffle unless---- He leaned weakly against the wall and clasped
his warm brow. There was but one man in all the world who could cure
her. And that man was Pantan, the veterinarian. His "Elixir Pantan," a
secret specific, was the only known cure for the dread malady.
Pride and love wrestled within the torn soul of the stricken Bonticu. To
humble himself before his rival--it was unthinkable. He could see the
sneer on Monsieur Pantan's olive face; he could hear his cutting words
of refusal. The dew of conflicting emotions dampened the brow of
Monsieur Bonticu. Anastasie whimpered in pain. He could not stand it. He
struck his chest a resounding blow of decision. He reached for his hat.
Monsieur Bonticu knocked timidly at the door of the
apothecary-veterinarian's house. A head appeared at a window.
"Who is it?" demanded a shrill, cross, female voice.
"It is I. Bonticu. I wish to speak with Monsieur Pantan."
"Nice time to come," complained the lady. She shouted into the darkness
of the room: "Pantan! Pantan, you sleepy lout. Wake up. There's a great
oaf of a man outside wanting to speak to you."
"Patience, my dear Rosalie, patience," came the voice of Monsieur
Pantan; it was strangely meek. Presently the head of Monsieur Pantan,
all nightcap and moustachios, was protruded from the window.
"You have come to fight?" he asked.
"But no."
"Bah! Then why wake me up this cold night?"
"It is a family matter, Monsieur," said the shivering Bonticu. "A matter
the most pressing."
"Is it that Monsieur has adopted an orphanage," inquired Pantan. "Or
brought nine old aunts to live with him?"
"No, no, Monsieur. It is most serious. It is Anastasie. She--is--dying."
"A thousand regrets, but I cannot act as pall-bearer," returned Monsieur
Pantan, preparing to shut the window. "Good-night."
"I beg Monsieur to attend a little second," cried Monsieur Bonticu. "You
can save her."
"I save her?" Monsieur Pantan's tone suggested that the idea was
deliciously absurd.
"Yes, yes, yes," cried Bonticu, catching at a straw. "You alone. She has
the Perigord pip, Monsieur."
"Ah, indeed."
"Yes, one cannot doubt it."
"Most amusing."
"You are cruel, Monsieur," cried Bonticu. "She suffers, ah, how she
suffers."
"She will not suffer long," said Pantan, coldly.
There was a sob in Bonticu's voice as he said:
"I entreat Monsieur to save her. I entreat him as a sportsman."
In the window Monsieur Pantan seemed to be thinking deeply.
"I entreat him as a doctor. The ethics of his profession demand----"
"You have used me abominably, Monsieur," came the voice of Pantan, "but
when you appeal to me as a sportsman and a doctor I cannot refuse.
Wait."
The window banged down and in a second or so Monsieur Pantan, in
hastily donned attire, joined his rival and silently they walked through
the night to the bedside of the dying Anastasie. Once there, Monsieur
Pantan's manner became professional, intense, impersonal.
"Warm water. Buckets of it," he ordered.
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Olive oil and cotton."
"Yes, Monsieur."
With trembling hands Monsieur Bonticu brought the things desired, and
hovered about, speaking gently to Anastasie, calling her pet names,
soothing her. The apothecary-veterinarian was busy. He forced the
contents of a huge black bottle down her throat. He anointed her with
oil, water and unknown substances. He ordered his rival about briskly.
"Rub her belly."
Bonticu rubbed violently.
"Pull her tail."
Bonticu pulled.
"Massage her limbs."
Bonticu massaged till he was gasping for breath.
The light began to come back to the eyes of Anastasie, the rose hue to
her pale snout; she stopped whimpering. Monsieur Pantan rose with a
smile.
"The crisis is passed," he announced. "She will live. What in the name
of all the devils----"
This last ejaculation was blurred and smothered, for the overjoyed
Bonticu, with the impulsiveness of his warm Southern nature, had thrown
his arms about the little man and planted loud kisses on both hairy
cheeks. They stood facing each other, oddly shy.
"If Monsieur would do me the honor," began Monsieur Bonticu, a little
thickly, "I have some ancient port. A glass or two after that walk in
the cold would be good for Monsieur, perhaps."
"If Monsieur insists," murmured Pantan.
Monsieur Bonticu vanished and reappeared with a cob-webbed bottle. They
drank. Pantan smacked his lips. Timidly, Monsieur Bonticu said:
"I can never sufficiently repay Monsieur for his kindness."
He glanced at Anastasie who slept tranquilly. "She is very dear to me."
"Do I not know?" replied Monsieur Pantan. "Have I not Clotilde?"
"I trust she is in excellent health, Monsieur."
"She was never better," replied Monsieur Pantan. He finished his glass,
and it was promptly refilled. Only the sound of Anastasie's regular
breathing could be heard. Monsieur Pantan put down his glass. In a
manner that tried to be casual he remarked,
"I will not attempt to conceal from Monsieur that his devotion to his
Anastasie has touched me. Believe me, Monsieur Bonticu, I am not unaware
of the sacrifice you made in coming to me for her sake."
Monsieur Bonticu, deeply moved, bowed.
"Monsieur would have done the same for his Clotilde," he said. "Monsieur
has demonstrated himself to be a thorough sportsman. I am grateful to
him. I'd have missed Anastasie."
"But naturally."
"Ah, yes," went on Monsieur Bonticu. "When my wife scolds and the
children scream, it is to her I go for a little talk. She never argues."
Monsieur Pantan looked up from a long draught.
"Does your wife scold and your children scream?" he asked.
"Alas, but too often," answered Monsieur Bonticu.
"You should hear my Rosalie," sighed Monsieur Pantan. "I too seek
consolation as you do. I talk with my Clotilde."
Monsieur Bonticu nodded, sympathetically.
"My wife is always nagging me for more money," he said with a sudden
burst of confidence. "And the undertaking business, my dear Pantan, is
not what it was."
"Do I not know?" said Pantan. "When folks are well we both suffer."
"I stagger beneath my load," sighed Bonticu.
"My load is no less light," remarked Pantan.
"If my family responsibilities should increase," observed Bonticu, "it
would be little short of a calamity."
"If mine did," said Pantan, "it would be a tragedy."
"And yet," mused Bonticu, "our responsibilities seem to go on
increasing."
"Alas, it is but too true."
"The statesmen are talking of limiting armaments," remarked Bonticu.
"An excellent idea," said Pantan, warmly.
"Can it be that they are more astute than two veteran truffle-hunters?"
"They could not possibly be, my dear Bonticu."
There was a pregnant pause. Monsieur Bonticu broke the silence.
"In the heat of the chase," he said, "one does things and says things
one afterwards regrets."
"Yes. That is true."
"In his excitement one might even so far forget himself as to call a
fellow sportsman--a really excellent fellow--a puff-ball."
"That is true. One might."
Suddenly Monsieur Bonticu thrust his fat hand toward Monsieur Pantan.
"You are not a puff-ball, Armand," he said. "You never were a
puff-ball!"
Tears leaped to the little man's eyes. He seized the extended hand in
both of his and pressed it.
"Aristide!" was all he could say. "Aristide!"
"We shall drink," cried Bonticu, "to the art of truffle-hunting."
"The science--" corrected Pantan, gently.
"To the art-science of truffle-hunting," cried Bonticu, raising his
glass.
The moon smiled down on Perigord. On the ancient, twisted streets of
Montpont it smiled with particular brightness. Down the Rue Victor Hugo,
in the middle of the street, went two men, a very stout big man and a
very thin little man, arm in arm, and singing, for all Montpont, and all
the world, to hear, a snatch of an old song from some forgotten revue.
"_Oh, Gaby, darling Gaby.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Why don't you come to me?
Bam! Bam! Bam!
And jump in the arms of your own true love,
While the wind blows chilly and cold?
Bam! Bam! Bam!_"
XII: _The $25,000 Jaw_
"Rather thirsty this morning, eh, Mr. Addicks?" inquired Cowdin, the
chief purchasing agent. The "Mister" was said with a long, hissing "s"
and was distinctly not meant as a title of respect.
Cowdin, as he spoke, rested his two square hairy hands on Croly Addicks'
desk, and this enabled him to lean forward and thrust his well-razored
knob of blue-black jaw within a few inches of Croly Addicks' face.
"Too bad, Mr. Addicks, too bad," said Cowdin in a high, sharp voice. "Do
you realize, Mr. Addicks, that every time you go up to the water cooler
you waste fifteen seconds of the firm's time? I might use a stronger
word than 'waste,' but I'll spare your delicate feelings. Do you think
you can control your thirst until you take your lunch at the
Waldorf-Astoria, or shall I have your desk piped with ice water, Mr.
Addicks?"
Croly Addicks drew his convex face as far away as he could from the
concave features of the chief purchasing agent and muttered, "Had
kippered herring for breakfast."
A couple of the stenographers tittered. Croly's ears reddened and his
hands played nervously with his blue-and-white polka-dot necktie. Cowdin
eyed him for a contemptuous half second, then rotated on his rubber heel
and prowled back to his big desk in the corner of the room.
Croly Addicks, inwardly full of red revolution, outwardly merely
flustered and intimidated, rustled among the piles of invoices and forms
on his desk, and tried desperately to concentrate on his task as
assistant to the assistant purchasing agent of the Pierian Piano
Company, a vast far-flung enterprise that boasted, with only slight
exaggeration, "We bring melody to a million homes." He hated Cowdin at
all times, and particularly when he called him "Mr. Addicks." That
"Mister" hurt worse than a slap on a sunburned shoulder. What made the
hate almost beyond bearing was the realization on Croly's part that it
was impotent.
"Gawsh," murmured the blond stenographer from the corner of her mouth,
after the manner of convicts, "Old Grizzly's pickin' on the chinless
wonder again. I don't see how Croly stands it. I wouldn't if I was him."
"Aw, wadda yuh expeck of Chinless?" returned the brunette stenographer
disdainfully as she crackled paper to conceal her breach of the office
rules against conversation. "Feller with ingrown jaws was made to pick
on."
At noon Croly went out to his lunch, not to the big hotel, as Cowdin had
suggested, but to a crowded basement full of the jangle and clatter of
cutlery and crockery, and the smell and sputter of frying liver. The
name of this cave was the Help Yourself Buffet. Its habitués, mostly
clerks like Croly, pronounced "buffet" to rhyme with "rough it," which
was incorrect but apt.
The place was, as its patrons never tired of reminding one another as
they tried with practiced eye and hand to capture the largest
sandwiches, a conscience beanery. As a matter of fact, one's conscience
had a string tied to it by a cynical management.
The system is simple. There are piles of food everywhere, with prominent
price tags. The hungry patron seizes and devours what he wishes. He then
passes down a runway and reports, to the best of his mathematical and
ethical ability, the amount his meal has cost--usually, for reasons
unknown, forty-five cents. The report is made to a small automaton of a
boy, with a blasé eye and a brassy voice. He hands the patron a ticket
marked 45 and at the same instant screams in a sirenic and incredulous
voice, "Fawty-fi'." Then the patron passes on down the alley and pays
the cashier at the exit. The purpose of the boy's violent outcry is to
signal the spotter, who roves among the foods, a derby hat cocked over
one eye and an untasted sandwich in his hand, so that persons deficient
in conscience may not basely report their total as forty-five when
actually they have eaten ninety cents' worth.
On this day, when Croly Addicks had finished his modest lunch, the
spotter was lurking near the exit. Several husky-looking young men
passed him, and brazenly reported totals of twenty cents, when it was
obvious that persons of their brawn would not be content with a lunch
costing less than seventy-five; but the spotter noting their bull necks
and bellicose air let them pass. But when Croly approached the desk and
reported forty-five the spotter pounced on him. Experience had taught
the spotter the type of man one may pounce on without fear of sharp
words or resentful blows.
"Pahdun me a minute, frien'," said the spotter. "Ain't you made a little
mistake?"
"Me?" quavered Croly. He was startled and he looked guilty, as only the
innocent can look.
"Yes, you," said the spotter, scowling at the weak outlines of Croly's
countenance.
"No," jerked out Croly. "Forty-five's correct." He tried to move along
toward the cashier, but the spotter's bulk blocked the exit alley.
"Ain't you the guy I seen layin' away a double portion of strawb'ry
shortcake wit' cream?" asked the spotter sternly.
Croly hoped that it was not apparent that his upper lip was trembling;
his hands went up to his polka-dot tie and fidgeted with it. He had
paused yearningly over the strawberry shortcake; but he had decided he
couldn't afford it.
"Didn't have shortcake," he said huskily.
"Oh, no!" rejoined the spotter sarcastically, appealing to the ring of
interested faces that had now crowded about. "I s'pose that white stuff
on your upper lip ain't whipped cream?"
"It's milk," mumbled Croly. "All I had was milk and oatmeal crackers and
apple pie. Honest."
The spotter snorted dubiously.
"Some guy," he declared loudly, "tucked away a double order of strawb'ry
shortcake and a hamboiger steak, and it wasn't me. So come awn, young
feller, you owe the house ninety cents, so cut out the arggament."
"I--I----" began Croly, incoherently rebellious; but it was clear that
the crowd believed him guilty of the conscienceless swindle; so he
quailed before the spotter's accusing eye, and said, "Oh, well, have it
your own way. You got me wrong, but I guess you have to pick on little
fellows to keep your job." He handed over ninety cents to the cashier.
"You'll never see my face in this dump again," muttered Croly savagely
over his shoulder.
"That won't make me bust out cryin', Chinless," called the spotter
derisively.
Croly stumbled up the steps, his eyes moist, his heart pumping fast.
Chinless! The old epithet. The old curse. It blistered his soul.
Moodily he sought out a bench in Madison Square, hunched himself down
and considered his case. To-day, he felt, was the critical day of his
life; it was his thirtieth birthday.
His mind flashed back, as you've seen it done in the movies, to a scene
the night before, in which he had had a leading rôle.
"Emily," he had said to the loveliest girl in the world, "will you marry
me?"
Plainly Emily Mackie had expected something of the sort, and after the
fashion of the modern business girl had given the question calm and
clear-visioned consideration.
"Croly," she said softly, "I like you. You are a true friend. You are
kind and honest and you work hard. But oh, Croly dear, we couldn't live
on twenty-two dollars and fifty cents a week; now could we?"
That was Croly's present salary after eleven years with the Pierian
Piano Company, and he had to admit that Emily was right; they could not
live on it.
"But, dearest Emily," he argued, "to-morrow they appoint a new assistant
purchasing agent, and I'm in line for the job. It pays fifty a week."
"But are you sure you'll get it?"
His face fell.
"N-no," he admitted, "but I deserve it. I know the job about ten times
better than any of the others, and I've been there longest."
"You thought they'd promote you last year, you know," she reminded him.
"And so they should have," he replied, flushing. "If it hadn't been for
old Grizzly Cowdin! He thinks I couldn't make good because I haven't one
of those underslung jaws like his."
"He's a brute!" cried Emily. "You know more about the piano business
than he does."
"I think I do," said Croly, "but he doesn't. And he's the boss."
"Oh, Croly, if you'd only assert yourself----"
"I guess I never learned how," said Croly sadly.
As he sat there on the park bench, plagued by the demon of
introspection, he had to admit that he was not the pugnacious type, the
go-getter sort that Cowdin spoke of often and admiringly. He knew his
job; he could say that of himself in all fairness, for he had spent many
a night studying it; some day, he told himself, they'd be surprised, the
big chiefs and all of them, to find out how much he did know about the
piano business. But would they ever find out?
Nobody, reflected Croly, ever listened when he talked. There was nothing
about him that carried conviction. It had always been like that since
his very first day in school when the boys had jeeringly noted his
rather marked resemblance to a haddock, and had called out, "Chinless,
Chinless, stop tryin' to swallow your face."
Around his chinlessness his character had developed; no one had ever
taken him seriously, so quite naturally he found it hard to take himself
seriously. It was inevitable that his character should become as
chinless as his face.
His apprenticeship under the thumb and chin of the domineering Cowdin
had not tended to decrease his youthful timidity. Cowdin, with a jut of
jaw like a paving block, had bullied Croly for years. More than once
Croly had yearned burningly to plant his fist squarely on that
blue-black prong of chin, and he had even practiced up on a secondhand
punching bag with this end in view. But always he weakened at the
crucial instant. He let his resentment escape through the safety valve
of intense application to the business of his firm. It comforted him
somewhat to think that even the big-jawed president, Mr. Flagstead,
probably didn't have a better grasp of the business as a whole than he,
chinless Croly Addicks, assistant to the assistant purchasing agent.
But--and he groaned aloud at the thought--his light was hidden under a
bushel of chinlessness.
Someone had left a crumpled morning edition of an evening paper on the
bench, and Croly glanced idly at it. From out the pages stared the
determined incisive features of a young man very liberally endowed with
jaw. Enviously Croly read the caption beneath the picture, "The fighting
face of Kid McNulty, the Chelsea Bearcat, who boxes Leonard." With a
sigh Croly tossed the paper away.
He glanced up at the Metropolitan Tower clock and decided that he had
just time enough for a cooling beaker of soda. He reached the soda
fountain just ahead of three other thirsty men. By every right he should
have been served first. But the clerk, a lofty youth with the air of a
grand duke, after one swift appraising glance at the place where Croly's
chin should have been, disregarded the murmured "Pineapple phosphate,
please," and turned to serve the others. Of them he inquired
solicitously enough, "What's yourn?" But when he came to Croly he shot
him an impatient look and asked sharply, "Well, speak up, can't yuh?"
The cool drink turned to galling acid as Croly drank it.
He sprinted for his office, trying to cling to a glimmering hope that
Cowdin, despite his waspishness of the morning, had given him the
promotion. He reached his desk a minute late.
Cowdin prowled past and remarked with a cutting geniality, harder to
bear than a curse, "Well, Mr. Addicks, you dallied too long over your
lobster and quail, didn't you?"
Under his desk Croly's fists knotted tightly. He made no reply.
To-morrow, probably, he'd have an office of his own, and be almost free
from Cowdin's ill-natured raillery. At this thought he bent almost
cheerfully over his stack of work.
A girl rustled by and thumb-tacked a small notice on the bulletin board.
Croly's heart ascended to a point immediately below his Adam's apple and
stuck there, for the girl was Cowdin's secretary, and Croly knew what
announcement that notice contained. He knew it was against the Spartan
code of office etiquette to consult the board during working hours, but
he thought of Emily, and what the announcement meant to him, and he rose
and with quick steps crossed the room and read the notice.
Ellis G. Baldwin has this day been promoted to assistant
purchasing agent.
(Signed) SAMUEL COWDIN C. P. A.
Croly Addicks had to steady himself against the board; the black letters
on the white card jigged before his eyes; his stomach felt cold and
empty. Baldwin promoted over his head! Blatant Baldwin, who was never
sure of his facts, but was always sure of himself. Cocksure incompetent
Baldwin! But--but--he had a bulldog jaw.
Croly Addicks, feeling old and broken, turned around slowly, to find
Cowdin standing behind him, a wry smile on his lips, his pin-point eyes
fastened on Croly's stricken face.
"Well, Mr. Addicks," purred the chief purchasing agent, "are you
thinking of going out for a spin in your limousine or do you intend to
favor us with a little work to-day?" He tilted his jaw toward Croly.
"I--I thought I was to get that job," began Croly Addicks, fingering his
necktie.
Cowdin produced a rasping sound by rubbing his chin with his finger.
"Oh, did you, indeed?" he asked. "And what made you think that, Mr.
Addicks?"
"I've been here longest," faltered Croly, "and I want to get married,
and I know the job best, and I've been doing the work ever since Sebring
quit, Mr. Cowdin."
For a long time Cowdin did not reply, but stood rubbing his chin and
smiling pityingly at Croly Addicks, until Croly, his nerves tense,
wanted to scream. Then Cowdin measuring his words spoke loud enough for
the others in the room to hear.
"Mr. Addicks," he said, "that job needs a man with a punch. And you
haven't a punch, Mr. Addicks. Mr. Addicks, that job requires a fighter.
And you're not a fighter, Mr. Addicks. Mr. Addicks, that job requires a
man with a jaw on him. And you haven't any jaw on you, Mr. Addicks. Get
me?" He thrust out his own peninsula of chin.
It was then that Croly Addicks erupted like a long suppressed volcano.
All the hate of eleven bullied years was concentrated in his knotted
hand as he swung it swishingly from his hip and landed it flush on the
outpointing chin.
An ox might have withstood that punch, but Cowdin was no ox. He rolled
among the waste-paper baskets. Snorting furiously he scrambled to his
feet and made a bull-like rush at Croly. Trembling in every nerve Croly
Addicks swung at the blue-black mark again, and Cowdin reeled against a
desk. As he fell his thick fingers closed on a cast-iron paperweight
that lay on the desk.
Croly Addicks had a blurred split-second vision of something black
shooting straight at his face; then he felt a sharp brain-jarring shock;
then utter darkness.
When the light came back to him again it was in Bellevue Hospital. His
face felt queer, numb and enormous; he raised his hand feebly to it; it
appeared to be covered with concrete bandages.
"Don't touch it," cautioned the nurse. "It's in a cast, and is setting."
* * * * *
It took long weeks for it to set; they were black weeks for Croly,
brightened only by a visit or two from Emily Mackie. At last the nurse
removed the final bandage and he was discharged from the hospital.
Outside the hospital gate Croly paused in the sunlight. Not many blocks
away he saw the shimmer of the East River, and he faced toward it. He
could bury his catastrophe there, and forget his smashed-up life, his
lost job and his shattered chances of ever marrying. Who would have him
now? At best it meant the long weary climb up from the very bottom, and
he was past thirty. He took a half step in the direction of the river.
He stopped; he felt a hand plucking timidly at his coat sleeve.
The person who plucked at his sleeve was a limp youth with a limp
cigarette and vociferous checked clothes and cap. There was no mistaking
the awe in his tone as he spoke.
"Say," said the limp youth, "ain't you Kid McNulty, de Chelsea Bearcat?"
He? Croly Addicks? Taken for Kid McNulty, the prize fighter? A wave of
pleasure swept over the despondent Croly. Life seemed suddenly worth
living. He had been mistaken for a prize fighter!
He hardened his voice.
"That's me," he said.
"Gee," said the limp youth, "I seen yuh box Leonard. Gee, that was a
battle! Say, next time yuh meet him you'll knock him for a row of circus
tents, won't yuh?"
"I'll knock him for a row of aquariums," promised Croly. And he jauntily
faced about and strolled away from the river and toward Madison Square,
followed by the admiring glances of the limp youth.
He felt the need of refreshment and pushed into a familiar soda shop.
The same lofty grand duke was on duty behind the marble counter, and was
taking advantage of a lull by imparting a high polish to his finger
nails, and consequently he did not observe the unobtrusive entrance of
Croly Addicks.
Croly tapped timidly with his dime on the counter; the grand duke looked
up.
"Pineapple phosphate, please," said Croly in a voice still weak from his
hospital days.
The grand duke shot from his reclining position as if attached to a
spring.
"Yessir, yessir, right away," he smiled, and hustled about his task.
Shortly he placed the beverage before the surprised Croly.
"Is it all right? Want a little more sirup?" inquired the grand duke
anxiously.
Croly, almost bewildered by this change of demeanor, raised the glass to
his lips. As he did so he saw the reflection of a face in the glistening
mirror opposite. He winced, and set down the glass, untasted.
He stared, fascinated, overwhelmed; it must surely be his face, since
his body was attached to it, but how could it be? The eyes were the mild
blue eyes of Croly Addicks, but the face was the face of a stranger--and
a startling-looking stranger, at that!
Croly knew of course that it had been necessary to rebuild his face,
shattered by the missile hurled by Cowdin, but in the hospital they had
kept mirrors from him, and he had discovered, but only by sense of
touch, that his countenance had been considerably altered. But he had
never dreamed that the transformation would be so radical.
In the clear light he contemplated himself, and understood why he had
been mistaken for the Chelsea Bearcat. Kid McNulty had a large amount of
jaw, but he never had a jaw like the stranger with Croly Addicks' eyes
who stared back, horrified, at Croly from the soda-fountain mirror. The
plastic surgeons had done their work well; there was scarcely any scar.
But they had built from Croly's crushed bones a chin that protruded like
the prow of a battleship.
The mariners of mythology whom the sorceress changed into pigs could
hardly have been more perplexed and alarmed than Croly Addicks. He had,
in his thirty years, grown accustomed to his meek apologetic face. The
face that looked back at him was not meek or apologetic. It was
distinctly a hard face; it was a determined, forbidding face; it was
almost sinister.
Croly had the uncanny sensation of having had his soul slipped into the
body of another man, an utter stranger. Inside he was the same timorous
young assistant to the assistant purchasing agent--out of work; outside
he was a fearsome being, a dangerous-looking man, who made autocratic
soda dispensers jump.
To him came a sinking, lost feeling; a cold emptiness; the feeling of a
gentle Doctor Jekyll who wakes to find himself in the shell of a fierce
Mr. Hyde. For a second or two Croly Addicks regretted that he had not
gone on to the river.
The voice of the soda clerk brought him back to the world.
"If your drink isn't the way you like it, sir," said the grand duke
amiably, "just say the word and I'll mix you up another."
Croly started up.
"'Sall right," he murmured, and fumbled his way out to Madison Square.
He decided to live a while longer, face and all. It was something to be
deferred to by soda clerks.
He sank down on a bench and considered what he should do. At the twitter
of familiar voices he looked up and saw the blond stenographer and the
brunette stenographer from his former company passing on the way to
lunch.
He rose, advanced a step toward them, tipped his hat and said, "Hello."
The blond stenographer drew herself up regally, as she had seen some one
do in the movies, and chilled Croly with an icy stare.
"Don't get so fresh!" she said coldly. "To whom do you think you're
speaking to?"
"You gotta crust," observed the brunette, outdoing her companion in
crushing hauteur. "Just take yourself and your baby scarer away, Mister
Masher, and get yourself a job posing for animal crackers."
They swept on as majestically as tight skirts and French heels would
permit, and Croly, confused, subsided back on his bench again. Into his
brain, buzzing now from the impact of so many new sensations, came a
still stronger impression that he was not Croly Addicks at all, but an
entirely different and fresh-born being, unrecognized by his old
associates. He pondered on the trick fate had played on him until hunger
beckoned him to the Help Yourself Buffet. He was inside before he
realized what he was doing, and before he recalled his vow never to
enter there again. The same spotter was moving in and out among the
patrons, the same derby cocked over one eye, and an untasted sandwich,
doubtless the same one, in his hand. He paid no special heed to the
renovated Croly Addicks.
Croly was hungry and under the spotter's very nose he helped himself to
hamburger steak and a double order of strawberry shortcake with thick
cream. Satisfied, he started toward the blasé check boy with the brassy
voice; as he went his hand felt casually in his change pocket, and he
stopped short, gripped by horror. The coins he counted there amounted to
exactly forty-five cents and his meal totaled a dollar at least.
Furthermore, that was his last cent in the world. He cast a quick
frightened glance around him. The spotter was lounging against the check
desk, and his beady eye seemed focused on Croly Addicks. Croly knew that
his only chance lay in bluffing; he drew in a deep breath, thrust
forward his new chin, and said to the boy, "Forty-five." "Fawty-fi',"
screamed the boy. The spotter pricked up his ears.
"Pahdun me a minute, frien'," said the spotter. "Ain't you made a little
mistake?"
Summoning every ounce of nerve he could Croly looked straight back into
the spotter's eyes.
"No," said Croly loudly.
For the briefest part of a second the spotter wavered between duty and
discretion. Then the beady eyes dropped and he murmured, "Oh, I beg
pahdun. I thought you was the guy that just got outside of a raft of
strawb'ry shortcake and hamboiger. Guess I made a little mistake
myself."
With the brisk firm step of a conqueror Croly Addicks strode into the
air, away from the scene he had once left so humiliated.
Again, for many reflective minutes he occupied one of those chairs of
philosophy, a park bench, and revolved in his mind the problem, "Where
do I go from here?" The vacuum in his pockets warned him that his need
of a job was imperative. Suddenly he released his thoughtful clutch on
his new jaw, and his eyes brightened and his spine straightened with a
startling idea that at once fascinated and frightened him. He would try
to get his old job back again.
Inside him the old shrinking Croly fought it out with the new Croly.
"Don't be foolish!" bleated the old Croly. "You haven't the nerve to
face Cowdin again."
"Buck up!" argued back the new Croly. "You made that soda clerk hop, and
that spotter quail. The worst Cowdin can say is 'No!'"
"You haven't a chance in the piano company, anyhow," demurred the old
Croly. "They know you too well; your old reputation is against you. The
spineless jellyfish class at twenty-two-fifty per is your limit there."
"Nonsense," declared the new Croly masterfully. "It's the one job you
know. Ten to one they need you this minute. You've invested eleven years
of training in it. Make that experience count."
"But--but Cowdin may take a wallop at me," protested the old Croly.
"Not while you have a face like Kid McNulty, the Chelsea Bearcat,"
flashed back the new Croly. The new Croly won.
Ten minutes later Samuel Cowdin swiveled round in his chair to face a
young man with a pale, grim face and an oversized jaw.
"Well?" demanded Cowdin.
"Mr. Cowdin," said Croly Addicks, holding his tremors in check by a
great effort of will, "I understand you need a man in the purchasing
department. I want the job."
Cowdin shot him a puzzled look. The chief purchasing agent's countenance
wore the expression of one who says "Where have I seen that face
before?"
"We do need a man," Cowdin admitted, staring hard at Croly, "though I
don't know how you knew it. Who are you?"
"I'm Addicks," said Croly, thrusting out his new chin.
Cowdin started. His brow wrinkled in perplexity; he stared even more
intently at the firm-visaged man, and then shook his head as if giving
up a problem.
"That's odd," he muttered, reminiscently stroking his chin. "There was a
young fellow by that name here. Croly was his first name. You're not
related to him, I suppose?"
Croly, the unrecognized, straightened up in his chair as if he had sat
on a hornet. With difficulty he gained control over his breathing, and
managed to growl, "No, I'm not related to him."
Cowdin obviously was relieved.
"Didn't think you were," he remarked, almost amiably. "You're not the
same type of man at all."
"Do I get that job?" asked Croly. In his own ears his voice sounded
hard.
"What experience have you had?" questioned Cowdin briskly.
"Eleven years," replied Croly.
"With what company?"
"With this company," answered Croly evenly.
"With this company?" Cowdin's voice jumped a full octave higher to an
incredulous treble.
"Yes," said Croly. "You asked me if I was related to Croly Addicks. I
said 'No.' That's true. I'm not related to him--because I am Croly
Addicks."
With a gasp of alarm Cowdin jumped to his feet and prepared to defend
himself from instant onslaught.
"The devil you are!" he cried.
"Sit down, please," said Croly, quietly.
Cowdin in a daze sank back into his chair and sat staring, hypnotized,
at the man opposite him as one might stare who found a young pink
elephant in his bed.
"I'll forget what happened if you will," said Croly. "Let's talk about
the future. Do I get the job?"
"Eh? What's that?" Cowdin began to realize that he was not dreaming.
"Do I get the job?" Croly repeated.
A measure of his accustomed self-possession had returned to the chief
purchasing agent and he answered with as much of his old manner as he
could muster, "I'll give you another chance if you think you can behave
yourself."
"Thanks," said Croly, and inside his new self sniggered at his old self.
The chief purchasing agent was master of himself by now, and he rapped
out in the voice that Croly knew only too well, "Get right to work. Same
desk. Same salary. And remember, no more monkey business, Mr. Addicks,
because if----"
He stopped short. There was something in the face of Croly Addicks that
told him to stop. The big new jaw was pointing straight at him as if it
were a pistol.
"You said, just now," said Croly, and his voice was hoarse, "that I
wasn't the same type of man as the Croly Addicks who worked here before.
I'm not. I'm no longer the sort of man it's safe to ride. Please don't
call me Mister unless you mean it."
Cowdin's eyes strayed from the snapping eyes of Croly Addicks to the
taut jaw; he shrugged his shoulders.
"Report to Baldwin," was all he said.
As Croly turned away, his back hid from Cowdin the smile that had come
to his new face.
The reincarnated Croly had been back at his old job for ten days, or,
more accurately, ten days and nights, for it had taken that long to
straighten out the snarl in which Baldwin, not quite so sure of himself
now, had been immersed to the eyebrows. Baldwin was watching, a species
of awe in his eye, while Croly swiftly and expertly checked off a
complicated price list. Croly looked up.
"Baldwin," he said, laying down the work, "I'm going to make a
suggestion to you. It's for your own good."
"Shoot!" said the assistant purchasing agent warily.
"You're not cut out for this game," said Croly Addicks.
"Wha-a-at?" sputtered Baldwin.
Croly leveled his chin at him. Baldwin listened as the new Addicks
continued: "You're not the buying type, Baldwin. You're the selling
type. Take my advice and get transferred to the selling end. You'll be
happier--and you'll get farther."
"Say," began Baldwin truculently, "you've got a nerve. I've a good
notion to----"
Abruptly he stopped. Croly's chin was set at an ominous angle.
"Better think it over," said Croly Addicks, taking up the price list
again.
Baldwin gazed for a full minute or more at the remade jaw of his
assistant. Then he conceded, "Maybe I will."
A week later Baldwin announced that he had taken Croly's advice. The old
Addicks would have waited, with anxious nerves on edge, for the
announcement of Baldwin's successor; the new Addicks went straight to
the chief purchasing agent.
"Mr. Cowdin," said Croly, as calmly as a bumping heart would permit,
"shall I take over Baldwin's work?"
The chief purchasing agent crinkled his brow petulantly.
"I had Heaton in mind for the job," he said shortly without looking up.
"I want it," said Croly Addicks, and his jaw snapped. His tone made
Cowdin look up. "Heaton isn't ripe for the work," said Croly. "I am."
Cowdin could not see that inside Croly was quivering; he could not see
that the new Croly was struggling with the old and was exerting every
ounce of will power he possessed to wring out the words. All Cowdin
could see was the big jaw, bulging and threatening.
He cautiously poked back his office chair so that it rolled on its
casters out of range of the man with the dangerous face.
"I told you once before, Addicks," began the chief purchasing agent----
"You told me once before," interrupted Croly Addicks sternly, "that the
job required a man with a jaw. What do you call this?"
He tapped his own remodeled prow. Cowdin found it impossible not to rest
his gaze on the spot indicated by Croly's forefinger. Unconsciously,
perhaps, his beads of eyes roved over his desk in search of a convenient
paperweight or other weapon. Finding none the chief purchasing agent
affected to consider the merits of Croly's demand.
"Well," he said with a judicial air, "I've a notion to give you a
month's trial at the job."
"Good," said Croly; and inside he buzzed and tingled warmly.
Cowdin wheeled his office chair back within range again.
A month after Croly Addicks had taken up his duties as assistant
purchasing agent he was sitting late one afternoon in serious conference
with the chief purchasing agent. The day was an anxious one for all the
employees of the great piano company. It was the day when the directors
met in solemn and awful conclave, and the ancient and acidulous chairman
of the board, Cephas Langdon, who owned most of the stock, emerged,
woodchucklike, from his hole, to conduct his annual much-dreaded
inquisition into the corporation's affairs, and to demand, with many
searching queries, why in blue thunder the company was not making more
money. On this day dignified and confident executives wriggled and
wilted like tardy schoolboys under his grilling, and official heads were
lopped off with a few sharp words.
As frightened secretaries slipped in and out of the mahogany-doored
board room information seeped out, and breaths were held and tiptoes
walked on as the reports flashed about from office to office.
"Old Langdon's on a rampage."
"He's raking the sales manager over the coals."
"He's fired Sherman, the advertising manager."
"He's fired the whole advertising department too."
"He's asking what in blue thunder is the matter with the purchasing
department."
When this last ringside bulletin reached Cowdin he scowled, muttered,
and reached for his hat.
"If anybody should come looking for me," he said to Croly, "tell 'em I
went home sick."
"But," protested Croly, who knew well the habits of the exigent chairman
of the board, "Mr. Langdon may send down here any minute for an
explanation of the purchasing department's report."
Cowdin smiled sardonically.
"So he may, so he may," he said, clapping his hat firmly on his head.
"Perhaps you'd be so good as to tell him what he wants to know."
And still smiling the chief purchasing agent hurried to the freight
elevator and made his timely and prudent exit.
"Gawsh," said the blond stenographer, "Grizzly Cowdin's ducked again
this year."
"Gee," said the brunette stenographer, "here's where poor Mr. Addicks
gets it where Nellie wore the beads."
Croly knew what they were saying; he knew that he had been left to be a
scapegoat. He looked around for his own hat. But as he did so he caught
the reflection of his new face in the plate-glass top of his desk. The
image of his big impressive jaw heartened him. He smiled grimly and
waited.
He did not have long to wait. The door was thrust open and President
Flagstead's head was thrust in.
"Where's Cowdin?" he demanded nervously. Tiny worried pearls of dew on
the presidential brow bore evidence that even he had not escaped the
grill.
"Home," said Croly. "Sick."
Mr. Flagstead frowned. The furrows of worry in his face deepened.
"Mr. Langdon is furious at the purchasing department," he said. "He
wants some things in the report explained, and he won't wait. Confound
Cowdin!"
Croly's eyes rested for a moment on the reflection of his chin in the
glass on his desk; then he raised them to the president's.
"Mr. Cowdin left me in charge," he said, hoping that his voice wouldn't
break. "I'll see if I can answer Mr. Langdon's questions."
The president fired a swift look at Croly; at first it was dubious;
then, as it appraised Croly's set face, it grew relieved.
"Who are you?" asked the president.
"Addicks, assistant purchasing agent," said Croly.
"Oh, the new man. I've noticed you around," said the president. "Meant
to introduce myself. How long have you been here?"
"Eleven years," said Croly.
"Eleven years?" The president was unbelieving. "You couldn't have been.
I certainly would have noticed your face." He paused a bit awkwardly.
Just then they reached the mahogany door of the board room.
Croly Addicks, outwardly a picture of determination, inwardly quaking,
followed the president. Old Cephas Langdon was squatting in his chair,
his face red from his efforts, his eyes, beneath their tufts of brow,
irate. When he spoke, his words exploded in bunches like packs of
firecrackers.
"Well, well?" he snapped. "Where's Cowdin? Why didn't Cowdin come? I
sent for Cowdin, didn't I? I wanted to see the chief purchasing agent.
Where's Cowdin anyhow? Who are you?"
"Cowdin's sick. I'm Addicks," said Croly.
His voice trembled, and his hands went up to play with his necktie. They
came in contact with the point of his new chin, and fresh courage came
back to him. He plunged his hands into his coat pockets, pushed the chin
forward.
He felt the eyes under the bushy brows surveying his chin.
"Cowdin sick, eh?" inquired Cephas Langdon acidly. "Seems to me he's
always sick when I want to find out what in blue thunder ails his
department." He held up a report. "I installed a purchasing system in
1913," he said, slapping the report angrily, "and look here how it has
been foozled." He slammed the report down on the table. "What I want to
know, young man," he exploded, "is why material in the Syracuse
factories cost 29 per cent more for the past three months than for the
same period last year. Why? Why? Why?"
He glared at Croly Addicks as if he held him personally responsible.
Croly did not drop his eyes before the glare; instead he stuck his chin
out another notch. His jaw muscles knotted. His breathing was difficult.
The chance he'd been working for, praying for, had come.
"Your purchasing system is all wrong, Mr. Langdon," he said, in a voice
so loud that it made them all jump.
For a second it seemed as if Cephas Langdon would uncoil and leap at the
presumptuous underling with the big chin. But he didn't. Instead, with a
smile in which there was a lot of irony, and some interest, he asked,
"Oh, indeed? Perhaps, young man, you'll be so good as to tell me what's
wrong with it? You appear to think you know a thing or two."
Croly told him. Eleven years of work and study were behind what he said,
and he emphasized each point with a thrust of his jaw that would have
carried conviction even had his analysis of the system been less logical
and concise than it was. Old Cephas Langdon leaning on the directors'
table turned up his ear trumpet so that he wouldn't miss a word.
"Well? Well? And what would you suggest instead of the old way?" he
interjected frequently.
Croly had the answer ready every time. Darkness and dinnertime had come
before Croly had finished.
"Flagstead," said Old Cephas Langdon, turning to the president, "haven't
I always told you that what we needed in the purchasing department was a
man with a chin on him? Just drop a note to Cowdin to-morrow, will you,
and tell him he needn't come back?"
He turned toward Croly and twisted his leathery old face into what
passed for a smile.
"Young man," he said, "don't let anything happen to that jaw of yours.
One of these bright days it's going to be worth twenty-five thousand
dollars a year to you."
That night a young man with a prodigious jaw sat very near a young woman
named Emily Mackie, who from time to time looked from his face to the
ring finger of her left hand.
"Oh, Croly dear," she said softly, "how did you do it?"
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Guess I just tried to live up to my jaw."
THE END
Transcriber's Notes:
Punctuation and formatting markup have been normalized.
Apparent printer's errors have been retained, unless stated below.
Page 134, "this" changed to "his". (Horace tried to do his work, but he
couldn't remember when he had had such a poor day)
Page 195, "gaging" changed to "gauging". (Chester paused at the Greek
Candy Kitchen on Main Street to buy a box of candy, richly bedight with
purple silk, and by carefully gauging his saunter, contrived to arrive
at the Wrigley residence at fourteen minutes after eight.)
Page 247, "much" changed to "must". (At twenty paces they must each
discharge two horse-pistols;)
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon - and other humorous tales" ***
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