The Project Gutenberg eBook of Apes and Angels, by Richard Edward Connell

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Title: Apes and Angels

Author: Richard Edward Connell

Release Date: April 30, 2021 [eBook #65201]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APES AND ANGELS ***





                          [Cover Illustration]




                          =APES  AND  ANGELS=


                                  =BY=
                        =RICHARD EDWARD CONNELL=




                  =_Short Story Index Reprint Series_=



                      =BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS=
                          =FREEPORT, NEW YORK=




                          First Published 1924
                             Reprinted 1970




                              _DEDICATION_

_To Apes playing Angels, and remembering their Halos while forgetting
their Tails—_

_To the Earnest and Purposeful Men and Women, of the world, who have
made it what it is today—_

_To Kings, Generals, Ecclesiastics, Statesmen—_

_To Dignitaries generally, not forgetting Wearers of Regalia and Phi
Beta Kappa keys—_

_To All who, taking life heavily and solemnly, thank God they have a
sense of Humor—_

_To Leaders of Movements, Champions of Causes and all Minor Messiahs—_

_To Those who have found Absolute Truth and know no Doubt—_

_To Prudent, Thrifty Souls who save up their pleasure in this world so
they may enjoy it, with interest, in the next—_

_To Men who feel refreshed in the presence of Thoroughbred Horses—_

_To Patronizers of Humor—_

_To Artists who think an Important Manner makes Matter Important—_

_To New-laid Æsthetes who bamboozle other New-laid Æsthetes by saying
Nothing in a New Way—_

_To Revilers of Public Taste who forget that clarity begins at home—_

_To Critics whose most lethal epithet is “light,” who deem tears more
civilized than laughter, and the causing of pain a higher art than the
giving of pleasure—_

_To Weepers in Playtime and Dieters at the Banquet of Life—_

_To all Mental Masochists—_

_To the Serious Minded—_

_This book of light tragedies is dedicated in warm gratitude for the joy
they have given me._

                                                       _RICHARD CONNELL_

_Green’s Farms, Conn._
_February 11, 1924._




                                CONTENTS

                                                        PAGE
              A Friend of Napoleon.  .  .  .  .  .  .      1
              A Reputation.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .    35
              Son of a Sloganeer.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .    63
              The Wronging of Edwin Dell.  .  .  .  .     98
              The Unfamiliar.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .    138
              A House in the Country.  .  .  .  .  .     163
              Shoes.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .    184
              The Prince Has the Mumps.  .  .  .  .  .   199
              The Battle of Washington Square.  .  .     224
              The Last of the Flatfeet.  .  .  .  .  .   256
              The Man Who Could Imitate a Bee.  .  .     291




                           APES  AND  ANGELS




                          A FRIEND OF NAPOLEON


ALL Paris held no happier man than Papa Chibou. He loved his work—that
was why. Other men might say—did say, in fact—that for no amount of
money would they take his job; no, not for ten thousand francs for a
single night. It would turn their hair white and give them permanent
goose flesh, they averred. On such men Papa Chibou smiled with pity.
What stomach had such zestless ones for adventure? What did they know of
romance? Every night of his life Papa Chibou walked with adventure and
held the hand of romance.

Every night he conversed intimately with Napoleon; with Marat and his
fellow revolutionists; with Carpentier and Cæsar; with Victor Hugo and
Lloyd George; with Foch and with Bigarre, the Apache murderer whose
unfortunate penchant for making ladies into curry led him to the
guillotine; with Louis XVI and with Madame Lablanche, who poisoned
eleven husbands and was working to make it an even dozen when the police
deterred her; with Marie Antoinette and with sundry early Christian
martyrs who lived in sweet resignation in electric-lighted catacombs
under the sidewalk of the Boulevard des Capucines in the very heart of
Paris. They were all his friends and he had a word and a joke for each
of them as, on his nightly rounds, he washed their faces and dusted out
their ears, for Papa Chibou was night watchman at the Museum
Pratoucy—“The World in Wax. Admission, one franc. Children and
soldiers, half price. Nervous ladies enter the Chamber of Horrors at
their own risk. One is prayed not to touch the wax figures or to permit
dogs to circulate in the establishment.”

He had been at the Museum Pratoucy so long that he looked like a wax
figure himself. Visitors not infrequently mistook him for one and poked
him with inquisitive fingers or canes. He did not undeceive them; he did
not budge; Spartanlike he stood stiff under the pokes; he was rather
proud of being taken for a citizen of the world of wax, which was,
indeed, a much more real world to him than the world of flesh and blood.
He had cheeks like the small red wax pippins used in table decorations,
round eyes, slightly poppy, and smooth white hair, like a wig. He was a
diminutive man and, with his horseshoe mustache of surprizing
luxuriance, looked like a gnome going to a fancy-dress ball as a small
walrus. Children who saw him flitting about the dim passages that led to
the catacombs were sure he was a brownie.

His title “Papa” was a purely honorary one, given him because he had
worked some twenty-five years at the museum. He was unwed, and slept at
the museum in a niche of a room just off the Roman arena where
papìer-mâché lions and tigers breakfasted on assorted martyrs. At night,
as he dusted off the lions and tigers, he rebuked them sternly for their
lack of delicacy.

“Ah,” he would say, cuffing the ear of the largest lion, which was
earnestly trying to devour a grandfather and an infant simultaneously,
“sort of a pig that you are! I am ashamed of you, eater of babies. You
will go to hell for this, Monsieur Lion, you may depend upon it.
Monsieur Satan will poach you like an egg, I promise you. Ah, you bad
one, you species of a camel, you Apache, you profiteer——”

Then Papa Chibou would bend over and very tenderly address the elderly
martyr who was lying beneath the lion’s paws and exhibiting signs of
distress, and say, “Patience, my brave one. It does not take long to be
eaten, and then, consider: The good Lord will take you up to heaven, and
there, if you wish, you yourself can eat a lion every day. You are a man
of holiness, Phillibert. You will be Saint Phillibert, beyond doubt, and
then won’t you laugh at lions!”

Phillibert was the name Papa Chibou had given to the venerable martyr;
he had bestowed names on all of them. Having consoled Phillibert, he
would softly dust the fat wax infant whom the lion was in the act of
bolting.

“Courage, my poor little Jacob,” Papa Chibou would say. “It is not every
baby that can be eaten by a lion; and in such a good cause too. Don’t
cry, little Jacob. And remember: When you get inside Monsieur Lion, kick
and kick and kick! That will give him a great sickness of the stomach.
Won’t that be fun, little Jacob?”

So he went about his work, chatting with them all, for he was fond of
them all, even of Bigarre the Apache and the other grisly inmates of the
Chamber of Horrors. He did chide the criminals for their regrettable
proclivities in the past and warn them that he would tolerate no such
conduct in his museum. It was not his museum of course. Its owner was
Monsieur Pratoucy, a long-necked, melancholy marabou of a man who sat at
the ticket window and took in the francs. But, though the legal title to
the place might be vested in Monsieur Pratoucy, at night Papa Chibou was
the undisputed monarch of his little wax kingdom. When the last patron
had left and the doors were closed Papa Chibou began to pay calls on his
subjects; across the silent halls he called greetings to them:

“Ah, Bigarre, you old rascal, how goes the world? And you, Madame Marie
Antoinette, did you enjoy a good day? Good evening, Monsieur Cæsar;
aren’t you chilly in that costume of yours? Ah, Monsieur Charlemagne, I
trust your health continues to be of the best.”

His closest friend of them all was Napoleon. The others he liked; to
Napoleon he was devoted. It was a friendship cemented by the years, for
Napoleon had been in the museum as long as Papa Chibou. Other figures
might come and go at the behest of a fickle public, but Napoleon held
his place, albeit he had been relegated to a dim corner.

He was not much of a Napoleon. He was smaller even than the original
Napoleon, and one of his ears had come in contact with a steam radiator
and as a result it was gnarled into a lump the size of a hickory nut; it
was a perfect example of that phenomenon of the prize ring, the
cauliflower ear. He was supposed to be at St. Helena and he stood on a
papier-mâché rock, gazing out wistfully over a nonexistent sea. One hand
was thrust into the bosom of his long-tailed coat, the other hung at his
side. Skin-tight breeches, once white but white no longer, fitted snugly
over his plump bump of waxen abdomen. A Napoleonic hat, frayed by years
of conscientious brushing by Papa Chibou, was perched above a pensive
waxen brow.

Papa Chibou had been attracted to Napoleon from the first. There was
something so forlorn about him. Papa Chibou had been forlorn, too, in
his first days at the museum. He had come from Bouloire, in the south of
France, to seek his fortune as a grower of asparagus in Paris. He was a
simple man of scant schooling and he had fancied that there were
asparagus beds along the Paris Boulevards. There were none. So necessity
and chance brought him to the Museum Pratoucy to earn his bread and
wine, and romance and his friendship for Napoleon kept him there.

The first day Papa Chibou worked at the museum Monsieur Pratoucy took
him round to tell him about the figures.

“This,” said the proprietor, “is Toulon, the strangler. This is
Mademoiselle Merle, who shot the Russian duke. This is Charlotte Corday,
who stabbed Marat in the bathtub; that gory gentleman is Marat.” Then
they had come to Napoleon. Monsieur Pratoucy, was passing him by.

“And who is this sad-looking gentleman?” asked Papa Chibou.

“Name of a name! Do you not know?”

“But no, monsieur.”

“But that is Napoleon himself.”

That night, his first in the museum, Papa Chibou went round and said to
Napoleon, “Monsieur, I do not know with what crimes you are charged, but
I, for one, refuse to think you are guilty of them.”

So began their friendship. Thereafter he dusted Napoleon with especial
care and made him his confidant. One night in his twenty-fifth year at
the museum Papa Chibou said to Napoleon, “You observed those two lovers
who were in here tonight, did you not, my good Napoleon? They thought it
was too dark in this corner for us to see, didn’t they? But we saw him
take her hand and whisper to her. Did she blush? You were near enough to
see. She is pretty, isn’t she, with her bright dark eyes? She is not a
French girl; she is an American; one can tell that by the way she
doesn’t roll her _r_’s. The young man, he is French; and a fine young
fellow he is, or I’m no judge. He is so slender and erect, and he has
courage, for he wears the war cross; you noticed that, didn’t you? He is
very much in love, that is sure. This is not the first time I have seen
them. They have met here before, and they are wise, for is this not a
spot most romantic for the meetings of lovers?”

Papa Chibou flicked a speck of dust from Napoleon’s good ear.

“Ah,” he exclaimed, “it must be a thing most delicious to be young and
in love. Were you ever in love, Napoleon? No? Ah, what a pity! I know,
for I, too, have had no luck in love. Ladies prefer the big, strong men,
don’t they? Well, we must help these two young people, Napoleon. We must
see that they have the joy we missed. So do not let them know you are
watching them if they come here tomorrow night. I will pretend I do not
see.”

Each night after the museum had closed, Papa Chibou gossiped with
Napoleon about the progress of the love affair between the American girl
with the bright dark eyes and the slender, erect young Frenchman.

“All is not going well,” Papa Chibou reported one night, shaking his
head. “There are obstacles to their happiness. He has little money, for
he is just beginning his career. I heard him tell her so tonight. And
she has an aunt who has other plans for her. What a pity if fate should
part them! But you know how unfair fate can be, don’t you, Napoleon? If
we only had some money we might be able to help him, but I, myself, have
no money, and I suppose you, too, were poor, since you look so sad. But
attend; tomorrow is a day most important for them. He had asked her if
she will marry him, and she has said that she will tell him tomorrow
night at nine in this very place. I heard them arrange it all. If she
does not come it will mean no. I think we shall see two very happy ones
here tomorrow night, eh, Napoleon?”

The next night when the last patron had gone and Papa Chibou had locked
the outer door, he came to Napoleon, and tears were in his eyes.

“You saw, my friend?” broke out Papa Chibou. “You observed? You saw his
face and how pale it grew? You saw his eyes and how they held a thousand
agonies? He waited until I had to tell him three times that the museum
was closing. I felt like an executioner, I assure you; and he looked up
at me as only a man condemned can look. He went out with heavy feet; he
was no longer erect. For she did not come, Napoleon; that girl with the
bright dark eyes did not come. Our little comedy of love has become a
tragedy, monsieur. She has refused him, that poor, that unhappy young
man.”

On the following night at closing time Papa Chibou came hurrying to
Napoleon; he was a-quiver with excitement.

“She was here!” he cried. “Did you see her? She was here and she kept
watching and watching; but, of course, he did not come. I could tell
from his stricken face last night that he had no hope. At last I dared
to speak to her. I said to her, ‘Mademoiselle, a thousand pardons for
the very great liberty I am taking, but it is my duty to tell you—he
was here last night and he waited till closing time. He was all of a
paleness, mademoiselle, and he chewed his fingers in his despair. He
loves you, mademoiselle; a cow could see that. He is devoted to you; and
he is a fine young fellow, you can take an old man’s word for it. Do not
break his heart, mademoiselle.’ She grasped my sleeve. ‘You know him,
then?’ she asked. ‘You know where I can find him?’ ‘Alas, no,’ I said.
‘I have only seen him here with you.’ ‘Poor boy!’ she kept saying. ‘Poor
boy! Oh, what shall I do? I am in dire trouble. I love him, monsieur.’
‘But you did not come,’ I said. ‘I could not,’ she replied, and she was
weeping. ‘I live with an aunt; a rich tiger she is, monsieur, and she
wants me to marry a count, a fat leering fellow who smells of attar of
roses and garlic. My aunt locked me in my room. And now I have lost the
one I love, for he will think I have refused him, and he is so proud he
will never ask me again.’ ‘But surely you could let him know?’ I
suggested. ‘But I do not know where he lives,’ she said. ‘And in a few
days my aunt is taking me off to Rome, where the count is, and oh, dear,
oh, dear, oh, dear——’ And she wept on my shoulder, Napoleon, that poor
little American girl with the bright dark eyes.”

Papa Chibou began to brush the Napoleonic hat.

“I tried to comfort her,” he said. “I told her that the young man would
surely find her, that he would come back and haunt the spot where they
had been happy, but I was telling her what I did not believe. ‘He may
come tonight,’ I said, ‘or tomorrow.’ She waited until it was time to
close the museum. You saw her face as she left; did it not touch you in
the heart?”

Papa Chibou was downcast when he approached Napoleon the next night.

“She waited again till closing time,” he said, “but he did not come. It
made me suffer to see her as the hours went by and her hope ebbed away.
At last she had to leave, and at the door she said to me, ‘If you see
him here again, please give him this.’ She handed me this card,
Napoleon. See, it says, ‘I am at the Villa Rosina, Rome. I love you.
Nina.’ Ah, the poor, poor young man. We must keep a sharp watch for him,
you and I.”

Papa Chibou and Napoleon did watch at the Museum Pratoucy night after
night. One, two, three, four, five nights they watched for him. A week,
a month, more months passed, and he did not come. There came instead one
day news of so terrible a nature that it left Papa Chibou ill and
trembling. The Museum Pratoucy was going to have to close its doors.

“It is no use,” said Monsieur Pratoucy, when he dealt this blow to Papa
Chibou. “I cannot go on. Already I owe much, and my creditors are
clamoring. People will no longer pay a franc to see a few old dummies
when they can see an army of red Indians, Arabs, brigands and dukes in
the moving pictures. Monday the Museum Pratoucy closes its doors
forever.”

“But, Monsieur Pratoucy,” exclaimed Papa Chibou, aghast, “what about the
people here? What will become of Marie Antoinette, and the martyrs and
Napoleon?”

“Oh,” said the proprietor, “I’ll be able to realize a little on them
perhaps. On Tuesday they will be sold at auction. Someone may buy them
to melt up.”

“To melt up, monsieur?” Papa Chibou faltered.

“But certainly. What else are they good for?”

“But surely monsieur will want to keep them; a few of them anyhow?”

“Keep them? Aunt of the devil, but that is a droll idea! Why should
anyone want to keep shabby old wax dummies?”

“I thought,” murmured Papa Chibou, “that you might keep just
one—Napoleon, for example—as a remembrance——”

“Uncle of Satan, but you have odd notions! To keep a souvenir of one’s
bankruptcy!”

Papa Chibou went away to his little hole in the wall. He sat on his cot
and fingered his mustache for an hour; the news had left him dizzy, had
made a cold vacuum under his belt buckle. From under his cot, at last,
he took a wooden box, unlocked three separate locks and extracted a
sock. From the sock he took his fortune, his hoard of big copper
ten-centime pieces, tips he had saved for years. He counted them over
five times most carefully; but no matter how he counted them he could
not make the total come to more than two hundred and twenty-one francs.

That night he did not tell Napoleon the news. He did not tell any of
them. Indeed he acted even more cheerful than usual as he went from one
figure to another. He complimented Madame Lablanche, the lady of the
poisoned spouses, on how well she was looking. He even had a kindly word
to say to the lion that was eating the two martyrs.

“After all, Monsieur Lion,” he said, “I suppose it is as proper for you
to eat martyrs as it is for me to eat bananas. Probably bananas do not
enjoy being eaten any more than martyrs do. In the past I have said
harsh things to you, Monsieur Lion; I am sorry I said them, now. After
all, it is hardly your fault that you eat people. You were born with an
appetite for martyrs, just as I was born poor.” And he gently tweaked
the lion’s papier-mâché ear.

When he came to Napoleon, Papa Chibou brushed him with unusual care and
thoroughness. With a moistened cloth he polished the imperial nose, and
he took pains to be gentle with the cauliflower ear. He told Napoleon
the latest joke he had heard at the cabmen’s café where he ate his
breakfast of onion soup, and, as the joke was mildly improper, nudged
Napoleon in the ribs, and winked at him.

“We are men of the world, eh, old friend?” said Papa Chibou. “We are
philosophers, is that not so?” Then he added, “We take what life sends
us, and sometimes it sends hardnesses.”

He wanted to talk more with Napoleon, but somehow he couldn’t; abruptly,
in the midst of a joke, Papa Chibou broke off and hurried down into the
depths of the Chamber of Horrors and stood there for a very long time
staring at an unfortunate native of Siam being trodden on by an
elephant.

It was not until the morning of the auction sale that Papa Chibou told
Napoleon. Then, while the crowd was gathering, he slipped up to Napoleon
in his corner and laid his hand on Napoleon’s arm.

“One of the hardnesses of life has come to us, old friend,” he said.
“They are going to try to take you away. But, courage! Papa Chibou does
not desert his friends. Listen!” And Papa Chibou patted his pocket,
which gave forth a jingling sound.

The bidding began. Close to the auctioneer’s desk stood a man, a
wizened, rodent-eyed man with a diamond ring and dirty fingers. Papa
Chibou’s heart went down like an express elevator when he saw him, for
he knew that the rodent-eyed man was Mogen, the junk king of Paris. The
auctioneer, in a voice slightly encumbered by adenoids, began to sell
the various items in a hurried, perfunctory manner.

“Item 3 is Julius Cæsar, toga and sandals thrown in. How much am I
offered? One hundred and fifty francs? Dirt cheap for a Roman emperor,
that is. Who’ll make it two hundred? Thank you, Monsieur Mogen. The
noblest Roman of them all is going at two hundred francs. Are you all
through at two hundred? Going, going, gone! Julius Cæsar is sold to
Monsieur Mogen.”

Papa Chibou patted Cæsar’s back sympathetically.

“You are worth more, my good Julius,” he said in a whisper. “Goodby.”

He was encouraged. If a comparatively new Cæsar brought only two
hundred, surely an old Napoleon would bring no more.

The sale progressed rapidly. Monsieur Mogen bought the entire Chamber of
Horrors. He bought Marie Antoinette, and the martyrs and lions. Papa
Chibou, standing near Napoleon, withstood the strain of waiting by
chewing his mustache.

The sale was very nearly over and Monsieur Mogen had bought every item,
when, with a yawn, the auctioneer droned: “Now, ladies and gentlemen, we
come to Item 573, a collection of odds and ends, mostly damaged goods,
to be sold in one lot. The lot includes one stuffed owl that seems to
have molted a bit; one Spanish shawl, torn; the head of an Apache who
has been guillotined, body missing; a small wax camel, no humps; and an
old wax figure of Napoleon, with one ear damaged. What am I offered for
the lot?”

Papa Chibou’s heart stood still. He laid a reassuring hand on Napoleon’s
shoulder.

“The fool,” he whispered in Napoleon’s good ear, “to put you in the same
class as a camel, no humps, and an owl. But never mind. It is lucky for
us, perhaps.”

“How much for this assortment?” asked the auctioneer.

“One hundred francs,” said Mogen, the junk king.

“One hundred and fifty,” said Papa Chibou, trying to be calm. He had
never spent so vast a sum all at once in his life.

Mogen fingered the material in Napoleon’s coat.

“Two hundred,” said the junk king.

“Are you all through at two hundred?” queried the auctioneer.

“Two hundred and twenty-one,” called Papa Chibou. His voice was a husky
squeak.

Mogen from his rodent eyes glared at Papa Chibou with annoyance and
contempt. He raised his dirtiest finger—the one with the diamond ring
on it—toward the auctioneer.

“Monsieur Mogen bids two hundred and twenty-five,” droned the
auctioneer. “Do I hear two hundred and fifty?”

Papa Chibou hated the world. The auctioneer cast a look in his
direction.

“Two hundred and twenty-five is bid,” the auctioneer repeated. “Are you
all through at two hundred and twenty-five? Going, going—sold to
Monsieur Mogen for two hundred and twenty-five francs.”

Stunned, Papa Chibou heard Mogen say casually, “I’ll send round my carts
for this stuff in the morning.”

This stuff!

Dully and with an aching breast Papa Chibou went to his room down by the
Roman arena. He packed his few clothes into a box. Last of all he slowly
took from his cap the brass badge he had worn for so many years; it bore
the words “Chief Watchman.” He had been proud of that title, even if it
was slightly inaccurate; he had been not only the chief but the only
watchman. Now he was nothing. It was hours before he summoned up the
energy to take his box round to the room he had rented high up under the
roof of a tenement in a near-by alley. He knew he should start to look
for another job at once, but he could not force himself to do so that
day. Instead, he stole back to the deserted museum and sat down on a
bench by the side of Napoleon. Silently he sat there all night; but he
did not sleep; he was thinking, and the thought that kept pecking at his
brain was to him a shocking one. At last, as day began to edge its pale
way through the dusty windows of the museum, Papa Chibou stood up with
the air of a man who has been through a mental struggle and has made up
his mind.

“Napoleon,” he said, “we have been friends for a quarter of a century
and now we are to be separated because a stranger had four francs more
than I had. That may be lawful, my old friend, but it is not justice.
You and I, we are not going to be parted.”

Paris was not yet awake when Papa Chibou stole with infinite caution
into the narrow street beside the museum. Along this street toward the
tenement where he had taken a room crept Papa Chibou. Sometimes he had
to pause for breath, for in his arms he was carrying Napoleon.

Two policemen came to arrest Papa Chibou that very afternoon. Mogen had
missed Napoleon, and he was a shrewd man. There was not the slightest
doubt of Papa Chibou’s guilt. There stood Napoleon in the corner of his
room, gazing pensively out over the housetops. The police bundled the
overwhelmed and confused Papa Chibou into the police patrol, and with
him, as damning evidence, Napoleon.

In his cell in the city prison Papa Chibou sat with his spirit caved in.
To him jails and judges and justice were terrible and mysterious
affairs. He wondered if he would be guillotined; perhaps not, since his
long life had been one of blameless conduct; but the least he could
expect, he reasoned, was a long sentence to hard labor on Devil’s
Island, and guillotining had certain advantages over that. Perhaps it
would be better to be guillotined, he told himself, now that Napoleon
was sure to be melted up.

The keeper who brought him his meal of stew was a pessimist of jocular
tendencies.

“A pretty pickle,” said the keeper; “and at your age too. You must be a
very wicked old man to go about stealing dummies. What will be safe now?
One may expect to find the Eiffel Tower missing any morning. Dummy
stealing! What a career! We have had a man in here who stole a trolley
car, and one who made off with the anchor of a steamship, and even one
who pilfered a hippopotamus from a zoo, but never one who stole a
dummy—and an old one-eared dummy, at that! It is an affair
extraordinary!”

“And what did they do to the gentleman who stole the hippopotamus?”
inquired Papa Chibou tremulously.

The keeper scratched his head to indicate thought.

“I think,” he said, “that they boiled him alive. Either that or they
transported him for life to Morocco; I don’t recall exactly.”

Papa Chibou’s brow grew damp.

“It was a trial most comical, I can assure you,” went on the keeper.
“The judges were Messieurs Bertouf, Goblin and Perouse—very amusing
fellows, all three of them. They had fun with the prisoner; how I
laughed. Judge Bertouf said, in sentencing him, ‘We must be severe with
you, pilferer of hippopotamuses. We must make of you an example. This
business of hippopotamus pilfering is getting all too common in Paris.’
They are witty fellows, those judges.”

Papa Chibou grew a shade paler.

“The Terrible Trio?” he asked.

“The Terrible Trio,” replied the keeper cheerfully.

“Will they be my judges?” asked Papa Chibou.

“Most assuredly,” promised the keeper and strolled away humming happily
and rattling his big keys.

Papa Chibou knew then that there was no hope for him. Even into the
Museum Pratoucy the reputation of those three judges had penetrated, and
it was a sinister reputation indeed. They were three ancient, grim men
who had fairly earned their title, The Terrible Trio, by the severity of
their sentences; evildoers blanched at their names, and this was a
matter of pride to them.

Shortly the keeper came back; he was grinning.

“You have the devil’s own luck, old-timer,” he said to Papa Chibou.
“First you have to be tried by The Terrible Trio, and then you get
assigned to you as lawyer none other than Monsieur Georges Dufayel.”

“And this Monsieur Dufayel, is he then not a good lawyer?” questioned
Papa Chibou miserably.

The keeper snickered.

“He has not won a case for months,” he answered, as if it were the most
amusing thing imaginable. “It is really better than a circus to hear him
muddling up his client’s affairs in court. His mind is not on the case
at all. Heaven knows where it is. When he rises to plead before the
judges he has no fire, no passion. He mumbles and stutters. It is a
saying about the courts that one is as good as convicted who has the ill
luck to draw Monsieur Georges Dufayel as his advocate. Still, if one is
too poor to pay for a lawyer, one must take what he can get. That’s
philosophy, eh, old-timer?”

Papa Chibou groaned.

“Oh, wait till tomorrow,” said the keeper gaily. “Then you’ll have a
real reason to groan.”

“But surely I can see this Monsieur Dufayel.”

“Oh, what’s the use? You stole the dummy, didn’t you? It will be there
in court to appear against you. How entertaining! Witness for the
prosecution: Monsieur Napoleon. You are plainly as guilty as Cain,
old-timer, and the judges will boil your cabbage for you very quickly
and neatly, I can promise you that. Well, see you tomorrow. Sleep well.”

Papa Chibou did not sleep well. He did not sleep at all, in fact, and
when they marched him into the inclosure where sat the other nondescript
offenders against the law he was shaken and utterly wretched. He was
overawed by the great court room and the thick atmosphere of seriousness
that hung over it.

He did pluck up enough courage to ask a guard, “Where is my lawyer,
Monsieur Dufayel?”

“Oh, he’s late, as usual,” replied the guard. And then, for he was a
waggish fellow, he added, “If you’re lucky he won’t come at all.”

Papa Chibou sank down on the prisoner’s bench and raised his eyes to the
tribunal opposite. His very marrow was chilled by the sight of The
Terrible Trio. The chief judge, Bertouf, was a vast puff of a man, who
swelled out of his judicial chair like a poisonous fungus. His black
robe was familiar with spilled brandy, and his dirty judicial bib was
askew. His face was bibulous and brutal, and he had the wattles of a
turkey gobbler. Judge Goblin, on his right, looked to have mummified; he
was at least a hundred years old and had wrinkled parchment skin and
red-rimmed eyes that glittered like the eyes of a cobra. Judge Perouse
was one vast jungle of tangled grizzled whisker, from the midst of which
projected a cockatoo’s beak of a nose; he looked at Papa Chibou and
licked his lips with a long pink tongue. Papa Chibou all but fainted; he
felt no bigger than a bean, and less important; as for his judges, they
seemed enormous monsters.

The first case was called, a young swaggering fellow who had stolen an
orange from a push-cart.

“Ah, Monsieur Thief,” rumbled Judge Bertouf with a scowl, “you are
jaunty now. Will you be so jaunty a year from today when you are
released from prison? I rather think not. Next case.”

Papa Chibou’s heart pumped with difficulty. A year for an orange—and he
had stolen a man! His eyes roved round the room and he saw two guards
carrying in something which they stood before the judges. It was
Napoleon.

A guard tapped Papa Chibou on the shoulder. “You’re next,” he said.

“But my lawyer, Monsieur Dufayel——” began Papa Chibou.

“You’re in hard luck,” said the guard, “for here he comes.”

Papa Chibou in a daze found himself in the prisoner’s dock. He saw
coming toward him a pale young man. Papa Chibou recognized him at once.
It was the slender, erect young man of the museum. He was not very erect
now; he was listless. He did not recognize Papa Chibou; he barely
glanced at him.

“You stole something,” said the young lawyer, and his voice was
toneless. “The stolen goods were found in your room. I think we might
better plead guilty and get it over with.”

“Yes, monsieur,” said Papa Chibou, for he had let go all his hold on
hope. “But attend a moment. I have something—a message for you.”

Papa Chibou fumbled through his pockets and at last found the card of
the American girl with the bright dark eyes. He handed it to Georges
Dufayel.

“She left it with me to give to you,” said Papa Chibou. “I was chief
watchman at the Museum Pratoucy, you know. She came there night after
night, to wait for you.”

The young man gripped the sides of the card with both hands; his face,
his eyes, everything about him seemed suddenly charged with new life.

“Ten thousand million devils!” he cried. “And I doubted her! I owe you
much, monsieur. I owe you everything.” He wrung Papa Chibou’s hand.

Judge Bertouf gave an impatient judicial grunt.

“We are ready to hear your case, Advocate Dufayel,” said the judge, “if
you have one.”

The court attendants sniggered.

“A little moment, monsieur the judge,” said the lawyer. He turned to
Papa Chibou. “Quick,” he shot out, “tell me about the crime you are
charged with. What did you steal?”

“Him,” replied Papa Chibou, pointing.

“That dummy of Napoleon?”

Papa Chibou nodded.

“But why?”

Papa Chibou shrugged his shoulders.

“Monsieur could not understand.”

“But you must tell me!” said the lawyer urgently. “I must make a plea
for you. These savages will be severe enough, in any event; but I may be
able to do something. Quick; why did you steal this Napoleon?”

“I was his friend,” said Papa Chibou. “The museum failed. They were
going to sell Napoleon for junk, Monsieur Dufayel. He was my friend. I
could not desert him.”

The eyes of the young advocate had caught fire; they were lit with a
flash. He brought his fist down on the table.

“Enough!” he cried.

Then he rose in his place and addressed the court. His voice was low,
vibrant and passionate; the judges, in spite of themselves, leaned
forward to listen to him.

“May it please the honorable judges of this court of France,” he began,
“my client is guilty. Yes, I repeat in a voice of thunder, for all
France to hear, for the enemies of France to hear, for the whole wide
world to hear, he is guilty. He did steal this figure of Napoleon, the
lawful property of another. I do not deny it. This old man, Jerome
Chibou, is guilty, and I for one am proud of his guilt.”

Judge Bertouf grunted.

“If your client is guilty, Advocate Dufayel,” he said, “that settles it.
Despite your pride in his guilt, which is a peculiar notion, I confess,
I am going to sentence him to——”

“But wait, your honor!” Dufayel’s voice was compelling. “You must, you
shall hear me! Before you pass sentence on this old man, let me ask you
a question.”

“Well?”

“Are you a Frenchman, Judge Bertouf?”

“But certainly.”

“And you love France?”

“Monsieur has not the effrontery to suggest otherwise?”

“No. I was sure of it. That is why you will listen to me.”

“I listen.”

“I repeat then: Jerome Chibou is guilty. In the law’s eyes he is a
criminal. But in the eyes of France and those who love her his guilt is
a glorious guilt; his guilt is more honorable than innocence itself.”

The three judges looked at one another blankly; Papa Chibou regarded his
lawyer with wide eyes; Georges Dufayel spoke on.

“These are times of turmoil and change in our country, messieurs the
judges. Proud traditions which were once the birthright of every
Frenchman have been allowed to decay. Enemies beset us within and
without. Youth grows careless of that honor which is the soul of a
nation. Youth forgets the priceless heritage of the ages, the great
names that once brought glory to France in the past, when Frenchmen were
Frenchmen. There are some in France who may have forgotten the respect
due a nation’s great”—here Advocate Dufayel looked very hard at the
judges—“but there are a few patriots left who have not forgotten. And
there sits one of them.

“This poor old man has deep within him a glowing devotion to France. You
may say that he is a simple unlettered peasant. You may say that he is a
thief. But I say, and true Frenchmen will say with me, that he is a
patriot, messieurs the judges. He loves Napoleon. He loves him for what
he did for France. He loves him because in Napoleon burned that spirit
which has made France great. There was a time, messieurs the judges,
when your fathers and mine dared share that love for a great leader.
Need I remind you of the career of Napoleon? I know I need not. Need I
tell you of his victories? I know I need not.”

Nevertheless Advocate Dufayel did tell them of the career of Napoleon.
With a wealth of detail and many gestures he traced the rise of
Napoleon; he lingered over his battles; for an hour and ten minutes he
spoke eloquently of Napoleon and his part in the history of France.

“You may have forgotten,” he concluded, “and others may have forgotten,
but this old man sitting here a prisoner—he did not forget. When
mercenary scoundrels wanted to throw on the junk heap this effigy of one
of France’s greatest sons, who was it that saved him? Was it you,
messieurs the judges? Was it I? Alas, no. It was a poor old man who
loved Napoleon more than he loved himself. Consider, messieurs the
judges; they were going to throw on the junk heap Napoleon—France’s
Napoleon—our Napoleon. Who would save him? Then up rose this man, this
Jerome Chibou, whom you would brand as a thief, and he cried aloud for
France and for the whole world to hear, ‘Stop! Desecraters of Napoleon,
stop! There still lives one Frenchman who loves the memories of his
native land; there is still one patriot left. I, I, Jerome Chibou, will
save Napoleon!’ And he did save him, messieurs the judges.”

Advocate Dufayel mopped his brow, and leveling an accusing finger at The
Terrible Trio he said, “You may send Jerome Chibou to jail. But when you
do, remember this: You are sending to jail the spirit of France. You may
find Jerome Chibou guilty. But when you do, remember this: You are
condemning a man for love of country, for love of France. Wherever true
hearts beat in French bosoms, messieurs the judges, there will the crime
of Jerome Chibou be understood, and there will the name of Jerome Chibou
be honored. Put him in prison, messieurs the judges. Load his poor,
feeble, old body with chains. And a nation will tear down the prison
walls, break his chains, and pay homage to the man who loved Napoleon
and France so much that he was willing to sacrifice himself on the altar
of patriotism.”

Advocate Dufayel sat down; Papa Chibou raised his eyes to the judges’
bench. Judge Perouse was ostentatiously blowing his beak of a nose.
Judge Goblin, who wore a Sedan ribbon in his buttonhole, was sniffling
into his inkwell. And Chief Judge Bertouf was openly blubbering.

“Jerome Chibou, stand up.” It was Chief Judge Bertouf who spoke, and his
voice was thick with emotion.

Papa Chibou, quaking, stood up. A hand like a hand of pink bananas was
thrust down at him.

“Jerome Chibou,” said Chief Judge Bertouf, “I find you guilty. Your
crime is patriotism in the first degree. I sentence you to freedom. Let
me have the honor of shaking the hand of a true Frenchman.”

“And I,” said Judge Goblin, thrusting out a hand as dry as autumn
leaves.

“And I also,” said Judge Perouse, reaching out a hairy hand.

“And, furthermore,” said Chief Judge Bertouf, “you shall continue to
protect the Napoleon you saved. I subscribe a hundred francs to buy him
for you.”

“And I,” said Judge Goblin.

“And I also,” said Judge Perouse.

As they left the court room, Advocate Dufayel, Papa Chibou and Napoleon,
Papa Chibou turned to his lawyer.

“I can never repay monsieur,” he began.

“Nonsense!” said the lawyer.

“And would Monsieur Dufayel mind telling me again the last name of
Napoleon?”

“Why, Bonaparte, of course. Surely you knew——”

“Alas, no, Monsieur Dufayel. I am a man the most ignorant. I did not
know that my friend had done such great things.”

“You didn’t? Then what in the name of heaven did you think Napoleon
was?”

“A sort of murderer,” said Papa Chibou humbly.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Out beyond the walls of Paris in a garden stands the villa of Georges
Dufayel, who has become, everyone says, the most eloquent and successful
young lawyer in the Paris courts. He lives there with his wife, who has
bright dark eyes. To get to his house one must pass a tiny gatehouse,
where lives a small old man with a prodigious walrus mustache. Visitors
who peer into the gatehouse as they pass sometimes get a shock, for
standing in one corner of its only room they see another small man, in
uniform and a big hat. He never moves, but stands there by the window
all day, one hand in the bosom of his coat, the other at his side, while
his eyes look out over the garden. He is waiting for Papa Chibou to come
home after his work among the asparagus beds to tell him the jokes and
the news of the day.




                              A REPUTATION


SMOKE and talk filled the dining-room of the Heterogeneous Club, one of
those small, intimate clubs of reasonably liberal professional men and
women one finds here and there in New York City. Alone, in his
accustomed corner, Saunders Rook alternately sipped black coffee and
fingered a wan mustache. He was on the fringe of an animated group, in
it without being of it, and on this, as on other evenings, was taking an
inconspicuous, nodding part in the conversation, sometimes going so far
as to say “Not really?” to which the speaker would reply perfunctorily,
“Yes, really,” and go on as before.

Nobody knew much about Saunders Rook, and he aroused little, if any,
curiosity. It was assumed by the other members, on what grounds no one
could say, that he was an artist of some kind; perhaps he wrote music
criticism for one of the more pallid of the weeklies; maybe he
contributed notes on birds to an ornithological review; again, it might
be that he was an architect, specializing in designing ornamental
drinking-fountains; perhaps he gave lessons on the flute. His
pepper-and-salt suits, his silent neckties, his manner gave no hint. Yet
he was not an enigma; he’d gladly have told all about himself had anyone
cared to ask him.

The members must have seen Saunders Rook scores of times before that
fateful evening, but had you asked any of them to describe him, the
reply doubtless would have been:

“Oh, yes, Saunders Rook. I believe there is such a fellow around the
club. Let me see. No, I don’t think he’s very tall or very short or very
dark or very light. In fact, I don’t believe he’s very anything.”

How and when he had become a member of the club no one knew, and
presumably no one had ever been concerned about knowing. Perhaps he was
a friend of a friend of a member now deceased. He dined at the club four
or five times a week and paid his bills. No one remembered having seen
his face anywhere else. The Heterogeneous Club is proud of the range and
brilliance of its talk but until this night it had never discussed
Saunders Rook. After this night it could talk of little else.

Saunders Rook was not a glum, sullen, aloof soul; he was not unnoticed
by choice; evening after evening he was on the edge of the circle of
talk, listening, as politely attentive as a well-trained collie. He may
even have ventured on one or two occasions to come out with something
positive; but if he ever did so, it made no impression on the members of
the club, and they were a not unimpressionable lot.

On this night, as he sat over his coffee, Saunders Rook from time to
time moistened his lips with his tongue and cleared his throat as if he
were making ready to say something important, and then compressed his
lips as if he had decided that it was not worth saying.

The truth was that Saunders Rook was afflicted with “cab-wit,” that he
was one of those unfortunates who think of the bright things they might
have said only while on their way home in a taxicab. He was oppressed by
the knowledge that if he did say anything, it would probably be as
colorless and unoriginal as he suspected himself to be. He was oppressed
mildly, for he was mild in all things, by the certainty that he could
not compete with the witty Max Skye or the sparkling Lucile Davega, who
could always quote something arresting from Krafft-Ebing. He did not
enjoy being ignored any more than any other man does, and he had his
full share of man’s natural desire for a beam of the limelight. A
craving for attention had of late been growing more insistent within
him. His mind began to play with ideas, which, he reasoned, if uttered
in a loud enough voice, might bring his hearers to their, and his, feet.
He wanted just for once to cause a stir. Just once, he told himself,
would appease him.

Then came the lull that always comes from time to time when groups are
talking, and Saunders Rook found himself saying distinctly:

“On the Fourth of July I shall commit suicide.”

Just why he said that he did not know. It must have been sheer
inspiration. As a matter of fact, he had never contemplated doing
anything of the kind. He had never demanded much of life; his existence
was not rigorous, but placid. He was a sub-editor on a woman’s
magazine—he conducted the etiquette page—and this brought him twelve
hundred dollars a year. He had inherited an income of twelve hundred
more. He was able to live in modest comfort, for he was an orphan and a
bachelor; he had a season ticket to the opera; his health was good. If
he had a cross, it was a light one: minor editors of minor magazines
usually rejected his minor essays, imitations of Charles Lamb, hymning
the joys of pipe-smoking and pork-chops. So it startled him not a little
to hear himself announcing his imminent self-destruction.

But it produced the desired effect with an electrical suddenness. The
lull became a hush; not only the group at his own long table, but other
groups had heard, and the eyes of the entire room were directed to the
man with the wan mustache.

“But, my dear fellow,” cried Max Skye, “you don’t really mean that.”

Saunders Rook curbed an exigent impulse to recant on the spot, and
replied firmly:

“But I do mean it.”

A woman member in a far corner called:

“Would you mind repeating what you said? I’m not sure I heard you
correctly.”

Saunders Rook cleared his throat and said again,

“On the Fourth of July I shall commit suicide.”

The members began to shift their chairs so that they could more plainly
see and hear him.

“But why?” asked Lucile Davega.

“Yes, why?” came from other members. Some were a little excited.

Saunders Rook had not thought that far ahead, and the question confused
him. He wanted very much to say, “Of course, I was only jesting.” No, he
couldn’t do that. What a dolt they’d think him! Hastily, he ransacked
his brain, cleared his throat to gain time, and declared:

“As a protest against the state of civilization in America.”

Again sheer inspiration. The state of civilization, up to that moment,
had never worried him. He heard an interested ripple run round the room.

“But what do you consider the state of civilization to be?” asked Max
Skye, bending toward him.

“Rotten,” said Saunders Rook, emphatically. Now that he was in for it,
there was no sense in half-way expressions. “Rotten,” if not elegant,
was strong, he decided.

He heard someone in a corner whisper:

“I say, who is that fellow?”

“Why, his name is Book or Cook or something,” was the whispered answer.

He smiled. He hoped they would think it the quiet, resolute smile of
martyrdom.

“But Mr.—er—Rook,” said Lucile Davega, “have you made all your plans?”

Here was another contingency for which he had not prepared. He slowly
cleared his throat.

“I have,” he said gravely. Then, with a touch of mystery, added, “And I
haven’t.” He hoped they would probe no further. But the Heterogeneous
Club is composed of inveterate probers.

“Oh, won’t you tell us all about them?” As Lucile Davega said this she
clasped her hands. Mr. Rook frowned ever so slightly. They acted as if
he were planning a trip to Bermuda. He’d have to show them how deadly in
earnest he was.

“If you insist,” he said, his mind groping wildly for plans.
Unanimously, they insisted.

“Mind you it must go no further than this room,” he said. They all said
that of course it wouldn’t.

“Well,” said Saunders Rook, speaking very deliberately, “of course, you
see, since it is to be a protest, it must have a certain amount of
publicity.”

Everyone nodded approvingly.

“So I thought,” he felt his way along, “that I should do it in some
rather public place.”

“Central Park?” suggested Max Skye.

“Exactly,” replied Saunders Rook, grasping at the idea. “The very place
I had in mind.”

There were murmurs of “Splendid!” “A big thought!” “There’s a lot more
to these quiet chaps than meets the eye.”

Saunders Rook, hearing, glowed.

Just then Oscar Findlater made one of his infrequent appearances at the
club. The members were proud of belonging to the same club as Oscar
Findlater, who was editor of “The Liberal Voice,” most advanced and
oracular of weeklies. He was a vastly serious person of Jovian demeanor.
Usually the members flocked about him to catch the pronouncements that
dropped from his lips, but on this evening they only nodded toward him
and continued to gaze expectantly at Saunders Rook. To Saunders Rook,
Oscar Findlater had always seemed a god, despite the fact that “The
Liberal Voice” had rejected numerous choice essays on pipe-smoking by
the fireplace and kindred topics over which Saunders Rook had toiled. He
had mildly envied the attention paid to the editorial Olympian. Now he,
Saunders Rook, was actually stealing the spotlight from the great man.
It was most pleasant.

“Good evening, Findlater,” said Max Skye. “You know Saunders Rook, don’t
you?”

The editor murmured something about never having had that pleasure.

“Rook,” announced Max Skye, impressively, “is going to commit suicide.”

“On the Fourth of July,” added Judy Atwater.

“As a protest,” contributed Rogers Joyce.

“Against the rotten condition of civilization in America,” finished
Lucile Davega.

Oscar Findlater gazed at the wan mustache with sharpened interest.

“Not really?” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Saunders Rook, in the voice of a man whose mind is
irrevocably made up, “really.”

“By Jove!” cried Oscar Findlater, and sat down. He was plainly stirred.
“Do you mind talking to me about it?”

“Not at all,” said Saunders Rook, trying to inject casualness into his
tone, “if you think it at all interesting.”

“Interesting?” Oscar Findlater excitedly stroked the black ribbon that
streamed from his nose-glasses. “Why, man alive, it’s overpowering.
Biggest idea I’ve struck this year.”

He studied Saunders Rook.

“Your mind is made up?” the great man asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Nothing can change it?”

“Nothing.”

“Well,” said Findlater, with a sigh, “then I suppose we must make the
best of it.”

He sank his head on his bosom, the usual attitude by which his disciples
knew he was submerged in thought. Then he said:

“Rook, would you consider doing a series of essays for ‘The Liberal
Voice’?”

Would he? What a question! Saunders Rook could only nod.

“Let’s say six essays tracing the genesis of the idea, you know, and
arraigning civilization.”

But Saunders Rook merely nodded.

“Of course,” went on Oscar Findlater, “there are only three weeks
between now—” he paused embarrassed—“and then.”

Saunders Rook murmured:

“Of course.”

“Still,” exclaimed Oscar Findlater, struck by a happy thought, “we could
bring out the last three posthumously.”

“Posthumously,” echoed Saunders Rook, sepulchrally. At that second came
again the impulse to say, “But, of course, this is all in fun.” He
stifled it. After all, it was something to have essays in “The Liberal
Voice,” even posthumously. “How long should they be?” Saunders Rook
found himself asking carelessly.

“Oh, about three thousand words; more if necessary. Not too heavy in
tone, of course, or morbid. Readable, you know, almost chatty; but with
an underlying strain of philosophy.”

“Precisely,” said Saunders Rook.

“We’ll want the first one immediately,” said the editor.

“You shall have it,” promised Saunders Rook.

He could not but note the admiration, almost awe, in the circle of eyes.
He was wise enough to depart before the spell was broken.

“Well,” he said, rising, “I think I’ll run along to bed now. Can’t be
too careful of my health, you know.” He tossed this last sentence off
with a grim smile. He was full of inspiration tonight.

The members crowded around him.

“Will you come to my studio for tea tomorrow?” asked Lucile Davega.

“And dine with me afterward at the Authors’ Club,” insisted Max Skye.
“Some fellows I want you to meet.”

“We’d love to have you come up to Croton for a week-end,” said Rogers
Joyce. “The crowd up there would like to know you. Jolly lot. Keen on
new ideas like yours.”

For the first time in his thirty-three years Saunders Rook had the
gratifying sensation of being inundated with invitations, of being
sought after. He consulted a date-book, appeared surprised to find that
it so happened that he was not booked up to any extent in the near
future, and accepted sundry invitations.

As he strolled to his snug two rooms and bath in Grove Street, Saunders
Rook could not but congratulate himself on being a singularly fortunate
fellow.

At the tea given by Lucile Davega Saunders Rook experienced a new and
not unwelcome sensation: he was lionized. He found it extremely pleasant
to play the lion to a studio of pretty women. He noted how the tea went
cold and the toast untasted as they flocked around him. Also, each one
found an opportunity to take him aside and say:

“Of course you don’t really mean it.”

“But I do,” he would reply almost severely.

“But what have you against civilization?”

“It’s rotten,” he would growl. He was getting better and better in the
rôle.

“O Mr. Rook!”

He enjoyed the sensation he was creating.

One girl, Margery Storey, who was young and had red hair, a combination
that sometimes appeared in Saunders Rook’s dreams and private yearnings,
whispered to him that she was sure he was disappointed in love; but, she
added archly, there were plenty of uncaught fish in the sea.

He said sternly that love or lack of it did not enter into his plan at
all. The act he was to perform was to be a perfectly calm, philosophic
protest against the state of civilization in America.

“You will remember,” he told her, “how the early Christians walked naked
into the arenas as a protest against the brutality of the gladiatorial
combats. My motive, I hope, is equally untinged by any selfish emotion.”

His heart was accelerated by her glance, so full of compassion. She said
a little diffidently that she was a painter, and would he sit for his
portrait? She’d love to do it; her studio was Number 148——

No, he interrupted, he could not. Actually he wanted to very much. He
was busy, he explained, on a series of essays for “The Liberal Voice.”

“After that, then?” she suggested.

“For me,” said Saunders Rook, “there will be no ‘after that.’”

Her blue eyes were full of sympathy.

“It seems too bad,” she said. “You are still so young.”

He smiled a smile of practised cynicism.

“In years, perhaps,” he said.

He saw that he had moved her.

Decidedly, this new rôle of his was worth playing, said Saunders Rook to
himself as he donned his dinner-jacket that night in preparation for his
dinner with Max Skye at the Authors’ Club. He was pleased with himself.
In retrospect were the sympathetic blue eyes of Margery Storey; in
prospect, a dinner among the celebrities of the Authors’ Club, into
which sacred premises he had never gone physically, but solely in his
most roseate imaginings.

Max Skye, who was a poet of no mean repute, introduced Saunders Rook to
a group of notable men.

“This,” said Max Skye, with the air of a showman, “is Mr. Saunders Rook,
who is going to commit suicide on the Fourth of July.”

Saunders Rook bowed to them; gravely they bowed back and stared at him,
fascinated.

“In Central Park,” continued Max Skye.

Saunders Rook bowed deeply.

“As a protest against the rotten state of our civilization,” added Max
Skye.

Saunders Rook again bowed.

They returned his bows with marked deference, he noted delightedly. He
managed, however, to maintain an air of great world-weariness as he
said:

“When one feels as I do about it, what else can one do?”

He had rehearsed this coming up in the taxicab.

“Mr. Rook is writing a series of six essays for ‘The Liberal Voice,’”
announced Max Skye, plainly proud to be the discoverer and friend of so
remarkable a man.

“But,” objected Deline, the novelist, a man Saunders Rook had long
admired from afar, “how can you publish six essays? It’s June now. When
could the last three be published?”

“Posthumously,” said Saunders Rook, with a touch of pride.

“Posthumously?”

They all repeated the word as if there was magic in it.

“But why do you feel that the state of civilization requires so drastic
a protest?”

Deline asked this question as Saunders Rook was enjoying the third
course, tender roast young guinea-fowl with mushrooms; Rook loved good
food.

“Because,” said Saunders Rook, with fork poised, “it’s rotten.”

Around the table went murmurs of approbation and interest.

“But, my dear fellow,” exclaimed Deline, warmly laying his hand on
Saunders Rook’s arm, “we need men like you.”

“Yes, yes,” cried others about the table. “America needs men with the
courage of their convictions.”

“You see,” said Deline, with a wave of his hand. “You’re needed.”

No one had ever before intimated to Saunders Rook that he was in the
least needed. The happy thought occurred to him to rise and say, “In
that case, gentlemen, I shall stay with you.” But he didn’t say that.
Going home in the taxicab, he wished that he had. What he actually did
was to sit with folded arms, a picture of determination, and say:

“When one feels as I do about it, what else can one do?”

Perhaps, after all, he mused, it was just as well that he had not
recanted. It was something to be told by a great novelist that you are
needed. Perhaps, if he recanted, they might discover that they did not
need him so very much, after all.

A few days later as he sat at his desk among the other
sub-editors—beauty editors, household editors, baby-care and feeding
editors, kiddie page editors, cooking editors—he was summoned, just as
he’d finished writing a letter to a lady in Waterloo, Iowa, to tell her
that engraved invitations are not required for a straw-ride, into the
sanctum and presence of the publisher and owner of the magazine, Keable
Gowler, a man of terrifying importance in Saunders Rook’s eyes. Until
that moment it had not occurred to Saunders Rook that he was anything
more to Mr. Gowler than a name on the pay-roll, and rather far down on
the pay-roll at that. Yet Mr. Gowler greeted him with a fatherly
affability, and offered him a chair.

“Well, Rook, tell me all about it,” said Mr. Gowler, with heavy
geniality.

“About what, Mr. Gowler?”

“This story I’ve been hearing about you and the Fourth of July.”

“Really now——” began Saunders Rook.

“Is it true, or is it not true that you are going to commit suicide in
Madison Square?” demanded Mr. Gowler.

“Central Park,” corrected Saunders Rook, mildly.

“It is true, then?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Gowler made tutting noises with his lips.

“Oh, come now, Rook,” he said, “you’re not serious.”

“I am,” said Saunders Rook. He was pleased to know that he was more than
a mere name to his employer, and he wished to remain a personage.

“But, my dear young man,” cried Mr. Gowler, distressed, “I ask you,
would that be fair to the magazine? People might hold us responsible,
you know.”

“No, they won’t.”

“How can we be sure?”

“I have made it plain,” said Saunders Rook, “that no petty, personal
motives are behind my act. It is to be purely a protest against the
state of civilization in America.”

“America seems pretty civilized to me,” observed Mr. Gowler. “What’s
wrong with it?”

“It’s rotten,” said Saunders Rook.

Mr. Gowler looked horrified, but he surveyed Mr. Rook with a strong, new
interest.

“Come, now,” said Mr. Gowler, soothingly. “Let’s see if we can’t settle
this thing. We’d miss you, Rook. The interior decoration page would miss
you.”

“I do the etiquette page, Mr. Gowler,” said Saunders Rook, gently.

“Yes, yes. I meant that; why, of course,” said Mr. Gowler, hastily. He
decapitated a cigar and faced Saunders Rook. “Look here, Rook,” he said,
“I’m afraid we’ve been hiding your light under a bushel around here. To
be frank with you, I didn’t realize the stuff you were made of—until a
few days ago.” Mr. Gowler paused significantly.

“Now, what this magazine needs,” he went on, “is a live young man of
forceful character, who has modern ideas and isn’t afraid to back them
up. Roscoe Quimper is getting old; been an editor too long; we need a
man with spirit for his position. Will you take it?”

Saunders Rook moistened dry lips; speech failed him; it was a post he
had long coveted. He affected to consider.

“It pays fifteen thousand,” said Mr. Gowler. His tone was actually
persuasive.

Saunders Rook thought swiftly.

“I’ll take charge, Mr. Gowler.”

“Good!” cried Mr. Gowler. “Good!”

“Until the Fourth of July,” added Saunders Rook.

Mr. Gowler evinced his concern by a sharp elevation of his shrubbery of
eyebrows.

“Then you are in earnest?”

“Absolutely.”

“Of course”—this was said almost cajolingly—“if fifteen thousand seems
too little, I might be willing to——”

Saunders Rook held up his hand.

“Thanks,” he said; “but it’s not a question of money.”

Mr. Gowler shook his head dejectedly.

“Then I guess there’s nothing I can say. Still”—he brightened—“even if
your mind is made up, you could take charge until the Fourth of July and
outline a policy and get things started, couldn’t you?”

“If you wish,” said Saunders Rook, handsomely.

“Good!” ejaculated Mr. Gowler. “Good!”

Saunders Rook, somewhat in a daze, started for the door.

“Oh, by the way, Rook,” said Mr. Gowler, “couldn’t you take dinner with
us next Thursday? The governor of the State, two United States senators,
a few congressmen, and a professor will be there. They’d like to know
you.”

Saunders Rook riffled through his date-book and said he might be late,
as he had two teas and a talk before a Brooklyn club scheduled for that
day, but that he would try to get to the dinner in time for the dessert.
Mr. Gowler was greatly obliged to him.

At the dinner at Keable Gowler’s Fifth Avenue house the attention paid
to Saunders Rook by the governor, the senators, the assorted
congressmen, the professor, and their wives would have flattered a
person even less susceptible than he. In trumpet tones Mr. Gowler
announced him:

“This is Mr. Saunders Rook, one of my most valued associates. On the
Fourth of July, as a protest against our civilization, he will commit
suicide in Washington Square.”

“Central Park,” said Saunders Rook, bowing modestly.

“Not really?” they all said in breathless chorus.

“Yes, really,” said Saunders Rook.

He talked, and they listened. He had been expanding the idea, and had
worked up an indictment or two against civilization.

Over his after-dinner liqueur the governor declared that, if necessary,
he would do the only thing he could think of to prevent Saunders Rook
from robbing the State of so valued a citizen, and that was call out the
militia. He was not prepared to say, he remarked darkly, how he should
employ it, for he was fresh in the gubernatorial chair. However, he knew
that a governor has the power to call out the militia, and he was
interested to learn what would happen if he did call it out. Surely the
case of Saunders Rook, he maintained, warranted the step.

The senator from Alabama promised that he would see the President at
once, and volunteered to get the cooperation of Federal troops to help
the governor’s militia. Saunders Rook listened, sphinx-like, outwardly
impassive, inwardly agog. The senator from North Dakota said that it had
not before been called to his attention that the state of civilization
in these United States was sufficiently rotten to cause a man of his
good friend Rook’s high type to plan so violent a protest, but now that
it had been called to his attention, something should be done about it
by the Senate. Political considerations, he said, prevented him from
committing himself to any definite program, but this he would do: he
would rush back to Washington on the morrow and start a senatorial
investigation into civilization at which Saunders Rook would be the
chief witness.

One of the congressmen present said that for his part he was prepared to
introduce a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for the
immediate appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars for the
establishing of a congressional commission of seven on civilization, and
that, obviously, the only person for the chairmanship was Mr. Rook.
Another congressman said he was in hearty agreement with his honorable
colleague in principle, but would like to amend the bill, so that it
would call for eight hundred thousand dollars and a commission of
twenty-one. While they were debating this point, Saunders Rook forced
himself to depart. He had to look over the proofs of his article in “The
Liberal Voice,” he said. Keable Gowler himself helped Saunders Rook on
with his coat and urged him to come again.

The appearance of the first Rook article brought him a tidal wave of
letters. Scores of persons in all parts of the globe begged him for
various reasons not to do it; two elderly ladies offered to adopt him
and leave him their not inconsiderable estates; a group of young Russian
radicals by cable offered to jump into the Volga on the Fourth of July
to show they were in sympathy with him; eleven clergymen asked
permission to call; a publishing house offered him a handsome figure for
his diary, novel, or what had he? Fourteen ladies of different ages
offered to marry him, and of these seven sent photographs, of which two
were quite personable; three motion-picture companies asked him to name
his own price for the exclusive rights; a vaudeville syndicate offered
him two thousand a week for a ten-minute monolog twice daily until the
Fourth of July; the police commissioner wrote to warn him that suicide
is an offense amounting to disorderly conduct, and is punishable by fine
or imprisonment, or both. A procession of reporters, photographers,
feature-story writers, and interviewers invaded his apartment. In
newspapers and magazines his wan features began to appear, accompanied
by stories of varying degrees of accuracy. He began to be pointed out on
the street; ribs were nudged as he passed. He loved it.

Crowded days passed, days full of pleasurable excitement and intense
living for Saunders Rook. So swiftly did they speed by that it was a
distinct shock for him, one morning, to be awakened by a boy with a tall
stack of telegrams. The messages were from many people and many places;
some urged, begged, and a few even conjured him not to do it today; many
said simply, “Farewell.” Today? Saunders Rook glanced at the date on the
telegrams—“July Fourth.”

He dressed himself with care in his new gray suit and lavender tie, took
his bamboo stick, and sauntered up Fifth Avenue. It was a delicious,
sun-lit day; the avenue was bright with flags; somewhere a parade was
forming, and he heard the gay sounds of distant bands. Life had never
seemed quite so fair to Saunders Rook, but, and he stopped abruptly,
what of tomorrow?

Today, the Fourth of July, the eyes of the nation were on him. He bought
a morning paper. Yes, there he was on the front page, a picture,
smudged, but resolute-looking, and a two-column headline, “Saunders,
Self-Slain Today for Civilization’s Sake.”

He wiped his brow with his silk handkerchief. It was impossible for him
not to think of himself on July fifth; also July sixth, seventh, eighth.

“What a lot of dynamite there is in one little word!” he muttered to
himself. “What a difference there is between, ‘Saunders Rook, the man
who is going to commit suicide on the Fourth of July,’ and ‘Saunders
Rook, the man who _was_ going to commit suicide on the Fourth of July!’
One is romantic, promising, glorious; the other,—ugh!—the other is the
epitaph of a weakling, a turncoat, a failure.”

He stopped before a picture-store and moodily gazed at a seascape in the
window. He recalled that some sage has said, “Any man can make a
reputation; it takes a real man to keep one.” He had a reputation, he
reflected. He derived pleasure from that fact even now. It was more than
he had dared hope for. Three weeks before it had seemed that he had been
cast for a minor rôle in life, the voice of the mob offstage; almost
overnight he had attained stardom. He, who had never expected to have a
line to speak, had strutted and postured and declaimed in the center of
the stage and heard the sweet music of applause. Today he was a hero;
tomorrow he would be a joke. The day was warm, but he shuddered.

A holiday crowd in summer colors was passing. There was laughter in the
air. How intelligent the people looked, he mused, and how civilized! A
graceful, powerful motor car purred by.

He paused before a window full of books, and saw many that interested
him. He glanced up at the spired heights of a church, and his gaze
traveled onward to a new building, towering, shapely, beautiful; men, he
reflected, had made it, had shaped the steel and stone to their will.
The paper dropped from his fingers, and a passing stranger courteously
picked it up, and handed it to Saunders Rook with a friendly smile.
Saunders Rook felt an impulse to cry aloud, “This land, these times
aren’t so rotten, after all.” The words died still-born. Down
Fifty-second Street he heard the shrill cry of a newsboy, “All about
Saunders Rook, the martyr.”

He hurried on toward Central Park. The governor had kept his word; he
had called out the militia; alert soldiers with fixed bayonets patrolled
the paths and scrutinized the picnickers from under their hat-brims. The
green lawns were dotted with blue policemen. They, too, were watchful.
Indeed, as Saunders Rook slipped into the park, unrecognized, he saw a
burly officer collar a mild, blond little man, and heard the man
protesting loudly that he was not Saunders Rook, but only Ole Svenson, a
pastry-cook, and that the thing he had just eaten was not poison, but a
banana. As he left the man struggling in the hands of the law, Saunders
Rook shrugged his shoulders, smiled a pale smile, and penetrated deeper
into the park.

“They’ve gone to a lot of trouble on my account,” he said to himself,
almost proudly. “It wasn’t always like that. Funny how little interest
people took in me when I only wanted to live.”

He picked a flower and stuck it in his buttonhole.

“It’s great to have a reputation,” he remarked. Then, as he paced along,
added, “But it’s tough to have to live up to it.”

He had reached the sequestered end of the reservoir, and, glancing
about, saw neither soldier nor policeman in sight.

“Stupid, incompetent fools!” he muttered.

He stood looking down into the cool, clear water. Then he raised his
head and drew the fresh air into his lungs, and expelled it with a sigh.
How well he felt! Slowly from an inside pocket he took his little red
date-book, and with his fountain-pen wrote in his round, precise hand:

“I do this as a protest against the rotten state of civilization.
Saunders Rook.” He blotted it neatly with a pocket blotter. He looked up
at the smiling sky and sighed deeply.

“Still, after all, a reputation is a reputation,” he said.

Then he jumped.




                           SON OF A SLOGANEER


MR. BOWSER thumbed a buzzer. His secretary popped into his office. All
his staff popped when Mr. Bowser buzzed. “Minktakmemo,” commanded that
high-powered executive. Translated this meant, “Mink, take memo.” Mr.
Bowser avoided the use of useless words such as “a” and “the”; he had
calculated that they waste from twenty-one to twenty-seven minutes of a
busy man’s time per month. To get into the habit of eliminating these
words might have proved difficult for an ordinary man, but not for J.
Sanford Bowser. He was not ordinary, and he was, distinctly, a doer.
There was a doing air about him from hair tonic to rubber heels.

“Get-There Men have the Get-Things-Done Habit,” he liked to say. As
president of The Bowsers, Inc., publicity engineers, “Let The Bowsers
Put You on the Map!”—slogans leaped from his lips as naturally as
rabbits have children, and with even less effort. He was passionately
devoted to the science of slogan making; to coin a striking trade name
for a new can opener, and couple with it some pregnant selling
epigram—that, to Mr. Bowser, was almost the apex of human achievement.
His mind, by long training, plucked from the air pithy punch
phrases—his own expression—as swiftly and subconsciously as a man
tottering on the brink of a sneeze reaches for his handkerchief.

“Minktakmemo.”

Miss Mink poised her silver-plated pencil—it was a Bowser-advertised
product—a Rite-Riter, “The Pencil That Does Everything But Think”—over
her book. Mr. Bowser cleared his throat.

    “Memo to Mrs. Bowser,” he dictated staccatoly, “_in re_ teething
    ring for baby. I have personally tried all advertised brands of
    teething rings. My tests show most scientific ring to be Cohnco
    Ring, Toy Efficient for Teething Tots. (N. B. Pretty good
    slogan). Cohnco Rings are (a) less rubbery in taste, (b) more
    durable, and (c) fit well in the mouth. If you check with me on
    Cohnco Rings I’ll order one gross sent to our house at once.

                         “(Signed) J. Sanford Bowser, _President_.”

Mr. Bowser lit a Marlborough-Somerset, “Each Puff Has a Pedigree,”
smoothed his straw colored hair, and swooped down on a pile of mail.

“Minktakletter.”

Miss Mink prepared to take a letter.

“Woonsocket Kumfee-Fit Undervest Co., Woonsocket, R. I. Attention Mr.
Snedecker——”

And, thus launched, Mr. Bowser whizzed through his correspondence like a
buzz saw through a ladyfinger, ejecting punch-laden sentences even as a
machine gun ejects used cartridges.

A person unfamiliar with the principles of high-speed efficiency on
which Mr. Bowser conducted his life, business and domestic, might have
thought that Mrs. Bowser was in Fiji or Lapland or some equally remote
spot. As a matter of fact the surveyed distance between Mr. Bowser and
Mrs. Bowser at that precise moment was twelve feet, for she occupied the
office next to his, and, as his partner and associate publicity
engineer, herself daily coined Slogans That Sell and mothered Phrases
That Put Products on the Map.

She would have been the first to reject with scorn the suggestion that
he should stick his head through the doorway that connected their
offices, and tell her, verbally, about the teething rings.

“The Secret of our Success,” she would have said—for she, too, talked
like a twenty-four-sheet poster—“is Organization. Nothing is Too Small
to be Organized. In our country home, Caslon Farm, we have a model
kitchen and by motion study we have cut down the motions our cook uses
in making rice pudding from forty-three to seven, or, with raisins,
eight. Organization! It used to take our nurse twenty-six minutes by
stop watch to bathe our baby; now she does it in fourteen; we saved
seven minutes just by using blotters instead of towels. Yes, Henry T.
Organization is first vice-president of Success, Progress & Co.”

Mr. Bowser’s memo _in re_ teething rings reached Mrs. Bowser’s desk
within an hour. Mrs. Bowser—she had been Pandora Irene Kunkle, of
Dingman, Tinney & Kunkle, “Advertising in All Its Arteries,” until a
mutual devotion to slogans had brought her and Mr. Bowser into
partnership, commercial and matrimonial—was a well-developed,
copper-haired woman, hovering around thirty-five. She had a sharp chin
and wore a stiff linen collar.

“Gussing, take a memo,” she directed.

Miss Gussing also wore a stiff collar and had a light blond mustache,
but at heart she was a woman. The Bowsers always called the women of
their company by their last names; Mrs. Bowser was an ardent feminist
and felt that to call the female slogan makers Ruth or Hattie or Olivia
was too feminine, and to call them Miss not in keeping with the spirit
of camaraderie which prevailed about the Bowser office except during one
short painful period each year when increases in salaries were being
discussed. Mrs. Bowser stared thoughtfully from the window of the lofty
Bowser Building—“Built—like the Himalayas—for the Ages,” and her
gray-green eyes roved over the kaleidoscope of New York’s roofs—red,
green, brown, purple.

    “Memo to Mr. Bowser,” she said, “_in re_ teething ring for baby.
    Cohnco Rings may be O. K. scientifically, but our Mr. Hencastle
    reports that he is soliciting the account of the Ess-Bee-Dee
    people who make Kiddie-Kutter Rings. I therefore think it wise
    to choose Kiddie-Kutter Rings for our son because of the effect
    on the trade. I do not check with your suggestion that we get a
    gross. One ring will be enough. This proves my contention that
    no man understands children or the Feminine Appeal in
    Advertising Copy.

                    “(Signed) P. I. Bowser, _Associate President_.”

Having discharged this wood-pulp arrow at her spouse, Mrs. Bowser tapped
her front teeth with her pencil for three seconds; then, briskly:
“Gussing, take another memo.”

“Yes, Bowser,” said Miss Gussing, who had a bass voice. Mrs. Bowser
herself insisted on this method of address; it gave her a hearty
man-to-man feeling with Miss Gussing. With Mr. Bowser the case was
somewhat different; his male hired help with salaries of more than five
thousand dollars a year called him J. S. B. as more intimate than Mister
and not so presumptuous as Sanford. Lesser employees called him Chief,
and still lesser ones Mistered him.

“Memo,” dictated Mrs. Bowser, “to Mr. Bowser.”

“Shall I incorporate it with the first one?” asked Miss Gussing.

Mrs. Bowser gave her a look fraught more with pain than anger.

“Gussing,” she said, the sweetness of patience struggling with the
vinegar of reproof, “must I remind you that the rule of The Bowsers,
Inc., is: One subject to one memo? Simplicity, Gussing, is one of the
First Flowers in the Garden of Organization. M-m-m-m-m—not bad, that.
Take that down, Gussing. I may be able to use that phrase in the
Bedfello—the Hot Water Bottle Beautiful—campaign. Now take a memo—a
separate one if you please, to Mr. Bowser.”

The chastened Gussing suspended her pencil over a virgin sheet.

    “_In re_ name for new cleaning powder,” said Mrs. Bowser. “I
    have noted with care list of names for new cleaning powder
    suggested by you. I do not check with any of them.

    “‘GARFINKLE’S Pride of the Bathroom’ has a high-class appeal but
    is too long.

    “‘KLASSIC-KLEENER—Out, darned spot’—is good and would permit a
    tie-up with Shakespere in the ads, but the profanity might
    offend some possible buyers.

    “‘TUB-PUP—Just Sic it on the Dirt’—is snappy but hardly
    serious enough for a product that retails at one dollar a can.
    Humor has no place in business.

    “‘ROSE-DUST—The Powder That Perfumes as it Cleans’—is the best
    on your list because it suggests quality and also Hammers Home”
    (caps, Gussing) “the one distinctive point about the new
    powder—i.e., the fact that it has a pleasant smell. It is
    rather more like fresh pine shavings than roses, I think. In the
    name and slogan we must put across the punch idea that this
    good-smelling powder is also a cleaning agent with a kick. I
    attach list of names I have developed.

    “Please let me have your reactions to these names very soon as
    Peabody Garfinkle called up today to ask when he can go ahead
    and order cans and labels for the new powder. He wants to get it
    on the dealers’ shelves in time for spring house cleaning.
    Action please.

                    “(Signed) P. I. Bowser, _Associate President_.”

Mrs. Bowser skimmed with agile eye her list headed “Things To Get Done
This Day,” then dictated:

    “Memo to Mr. Bowser. _In re_ christening baby. Please note that
    baby will be one year old tomorrow. He should be christened
    then. It is not intelligent to continue to call him Baby and
    Junior indefinitely. I suggest that you send me without delay
    list of names you consider suitable for him. I will give them my
    careful attention and I hope we can reach an agreement today on
    this subject.

                    “(Signed) P. I. Bowser, _Associate President_.”

Mrs. Bowser tapped her teeth for two seconds, glanced at her watch—a
Krafty-Kronometer, “The Personality Timepiece with the Different Tick”
(her own slogan)—and then became all animation.

“Gussing,” she shot out, “get the Chicago and Salt Lake City offices on
the long distance, send Meldrum, O’Grady and Kitchell to me at once, and
order a taxi to be here in fifteen minutes to take me to a conference
with Miss Switzer of the I-Say-Ma-Ma Mechanical Doll Company at the Jill
Club.”

Miss Gussing bustled out and Mrs. Bowser tore into her work like a
tornado through a picnic of paper dolls.

When Mrs. Bowser returned from her luncheon conference glowing with
triumph over the fact that she had sold Miss Switzer the idea of making
some of the dolls say “Pa-pa,” she found on her broad,
plate-glassed-topped, thoroughly organized desk two memos on the bright
orange paper Mr. Bowser used so that memos emanating from the
presidential office might not be confused with the pallid blue and
punchless pink of lesser memoranda. She read them.

“_In re_ slogan for new cleaning powder. I do not like any names you
have suggested.

“‘LILY-LAVA—Makes Your Bathroom a Conservatory’ has possibilities, but
my opinion is that many housewives do not know what a conservatory is.”

Mrs. Bowser, as a fighting feminist, frowned at this slight on the
vocabulary of her sex, and read on:

    “‘GARFINKO NOSTINKO—Easy on the Nostrils but Hard on the
    Dirt’—is the best, but it just misses hitting me hard enough.
    Somehow it lacks dignity; I FEEL this lack. I shall concentrate
    on this problem tonight after dinner and see if I can evolve a
    Clarion Phrase That Will Shout Its Message from the Shelves. I
    will let you know my final choice tomorrow.

                         “(Signed) J. Sanford Bowser, _President_.”

Mrs. Bowser emitted a sound resembling “Humph.”

“His final choice!” she remarked, frowning at the buzzer buttons on her
desk, of which there were enough to make a vest. “His final choice! As
if I personally did not sell Peabody Garfinkle the Bowsers’ Big
Idea—Words That Hit Buyers in the Pocketbook! As if I myself didn’t get
his signature on a three-hundred-thousand-dollar contract. Now Bowser
acts as if it were his product. Humph! Just like a man. Garfinko
Nostinko does not lack dignity. Printed in orange-red on a deep purple
background it would Hit Any Housewife in the Buying Eye. I’m going to
fight for it. He is getting too bossy lately, anyhow.”

She was in a decidedly truculent frame of mind as she picked up the
second orange memo from her spouse:

    “To Mrs. Bowser. _In re_ christening baby. Have given this
    matter much thought. Have decided that the following points must
    be considered in choosing name:

    “_A._ Our baby is no ordinary baby. An Unusual Child should have
    an Unusual Name.

    “_B._ Obviously, ordinary names, such as Robert, Henry and
    Thomas, will not do; they are for ordinary infants.

    “_C._ Our baby will be much in the public eye. As the son of The
    Bowsers, Inc., he will receive much publicity. Later when he is
    head of the company his name will be a household word. His name
    must be one that leaps out of a printed page and has strong
    memory value.

    “_D._ To get a really distinctive name for him we must COIN ONE!
    We must use just as much scientific care in coining it as if it
    were the name of a product for which we were trying to create a
    National Market.

    “_E._ Therefore, in considering names for baby, ask yourself
    these questions:

        “1. Does it express baby’s personality?

        “2. Is it distinctively individual?

        “3. Is it easy to spell?

        “4. Is it easy to say?

        “5. Is it easy to get over the telephone?

        “6. Does it look well in type? (N. B. Have all names set
        up in 12-point Caslon, new style.)

        “7. Has it a flowing, harmonious sound?

        “8. Does it begin with some incisive, unusual,
        INTEREST-GRABBING letter, like K, U, Y, V or Z?

        “9. Has it that Can’t-Be-Forgotten PUNCH that makes it
        Bite into a Man’s Memory and STICK there?

    “_F._ I attach list of names that answer these requirements.
    These names have been selected from more than six hundred coined
    by myself and the staff of the Product-Naming Department. To
    which one do you react most strongly? Action, please!

                         “(Signed) J. Sanford Bowser, _President_.”

Mrs. Bowser, with frosty eye scrutinized the list, then tossed it on her
desk with unmistakable petulance. She had read:

                            “Names for Baby:

    “Ugobono Bowser
    “Veekar Bowser
    “Zail Bowser
    “Zazzar Bowser
    “Zerric Bowser
    “Yondo Bowser
    “Vindo Bowser
    “Yubar Bowser
    “Kinzo Bowser.”

If it is possible for a lady, a sloganeer and a college graduate, to
snort, Mrs. Bowser, at that moment, snorted. She pronged at one of the
buzzer buttons with an outraged finger. Miss Gussing shot in as if from
a pneumatic tube.

    “Gussing, take a memo. To Mr. Bowser. _In re_ christening baby.
    I have noted with care your lists of names (baby). I
    emphatically do not check with you on any of them. There is only
    one name I want to have baby christened. It is not on your list.

                     “(Signed) P. I. Bowser, _Associate President_.

“Gussing,” snapped Mrs. Bowser, “please deliver this memo to Mr. Bowser
personally.”

Miss Gussing vanished as if she had seen a boojum, but reappeared again
after a brief interval, in her hand one of the sacred orange memos. Mrs.
Bowser examined it.

    “Memo to Mrs. Bowser. _In re_ christening baby. I am always open
    to GOOD suggestions. What is yours?

                         “(Signed) J. Sanford Bowser, _President_.”

Mrs. Bowser’s eyes sparkled with determination.

“Gussing, take a memo,” she said in a crossing-the-Rubicon voice. “Memo
to Mr. Bowser. _In re_ christening baby.

“JOHN.

“(Signed) P. I. Bowser, _Associate President_.”

Miss Gussing regarded her chief blankly.

“John?” queried Miss Gussing. “John what?”

“Nothing. Just ‘JOHN.’ All caps, Gussing,” said Mrs. Bowser, and her
protruded chin symbolized a made-up mind.

She signed the memo so fiercely that she broke her pen—a Bowser-sold
Product—“The Last-a-Lifetime Pen—Shakspere Would Have Used One.”

“Now,” ordered Mrs. Bowser, “take this to Mr. Bowser at once and see
that it is called to his attention.”

Miss Gussing bounded from the room on her rubber heels—they were
“Spine-Pals—Your Backbone’s Best Buddy.” Soon she bounded back. She
carried reverently an orange memo which she placed on the desk. Mrs.
Bowser plucked it up, read it, scowled.

    “Memo to Mrs. Bowser. _In re_ christening baby. I cannot permit
    my son to be named John. Suggest conference on this subject in
    Quiet Room at 4:40. Do you check?

                         “(Signed) J. Sanford Bowser, _President_.”

    “Memo, Gussing.” Mrs. Bowser was almost feverish. “To Mr.
    Bowser. _In re_ christening baby. Must remind you baby is my son
    as well as yours. I insist on John. I will have conference with
    you in Quiet Room at 4:40.

                    “(Signed) P. I. Bowser, _Associate President_.”

The Quiet Room was a Bowser institution. It was his idea, and he was
proud of it.

“It’s Psychological!” he exclaimed. “I Believe in Psychology. Do you
know”—here he lowered his voice as one imparting a
confidence—“Psychology Plays a Big Part in Modern Business?”

He contrived to give the impression to some of his clients that he, Mr.
Bowser, had discovered psychology. At no small expense he had installed
a laboratory as part of the Bowser establishment, and to it he brought
all prospective clients that they might observe his two hired
psychologists, grave men, peering darkly into microscopes or chevying
guinea pigs through mazes.

“We are endeavoring to determine,” Mr. Bowser would explain, “the basic
psychological reason why New York ladies prefer pink underthings while
Boston ladies prefer them white. Ultimately, through psychology, we will
be able to Condition the Buying Habits of the Consumer.”

“This Bowser is a deep fellow,” the clients would say to one another.
“He’s scientific. He gets right down to the bottom of things.” And they
would hasten to inscribe their names on the dotted line.

The Quiet Room had been planned by the psychologists, after a series of
experiments that cost the lives of uncounted guinea pigs.

“This,” said Mr. Bowser, in introducing the Quiet Room to his staff, “is
a Thinking Chamber. Here you can bring your Big Problems and in the
Thought-Compelling Silence Think Through to a Sane Solution. When your
Thinker is Fagged, come in here. Just put up a sign outside the door,
‘Someone is Now Thinking in this Room. Quiet, please,’ and no one, not
even the president, will dare disturb you.

“Of course,” added Mr. Bowser, with a smile at once playful and yet with
its serious side, “I hope that this will not be construed as a
suggestion that you come in here to take a nap. That,” he concluded,
“would be beneath contempt.”

The Quiet Room idea had worked out well; three pairs of copy
writers—one male and one female to the pair—had announced their
engagements since its introduction.

The Quiet Room was done in mouse gray—walls, carpets, furniture, even
the lights were all of that inaudible hue.

There were no pictures to distract attention; just a simple sign in gray
letters, “Quiet, please. This is a Room for Thought.”

To this room Mrs. Bowser repaired at 4:40 precisely. Mr. Bowser, himself
the epitome of punctuality, was just opening the door as she reached it.

“Good afternoon, Bowser,” he said pleasantly.

“Good afternoon, Bowser,” she returned. They had agreed that in business
hours they would be strictly businesslike.

“No Sentiment Between Nine and Five,” he had proposed as, on their
honeymoon, they motored through New England looking for billboard sites.
And she had agreed heartily.

They hung up the “Quiet, please” sign outside and sat in mouse-toned
chairs at a mouse-toned table. Mr. Bowser spread out a sheaf of memos.

“I brought the correspondence in this matter,” he explained.

“Bowser,” said his wife, “I want to say right here and now that I won’t
stand for one of your coined names for my baby. I want to christen him
John.” She glanced at a list. “Yubar,” she said disdainfully. “Sounds
like a varnish.”

“It strikes me,” said Mr. Bowser with dignity, “that Yubar is an
especially distinctive name.”

“Yes, for a varnish,” flashed Mrs. Bowser. “But our son is not a
varnish.”

The masculine Bowser frowned, then spoke in a low-pitched voice:

“You are getting excited, Bowser. You are raising your voice. Permit me
to remind you that this is the Quiet Room, not the smoking room at the
Jill Club.”

“Don’t use that tone to me, Bowser. I’ll raise my voice if I please.”

“But think of the employees!”

“I’m thinking of my son.”

“My son, if I may say so.”

“Your son!” Mrs. Bowser exclaimed. “You talk as if you’d bought him from
a jobber.”

“Bowser! In the Quiet Room too.”

“Quiet Room be hanged!”

“You amaze me. Frankly, this conference cannot proceed while you are in
this mood. We are here to confer, not to shout.”

“Very well. You agree to John?”

“No. Emphatically no. I will not agree to John, I tell you.”

“Who’s shouting now?”

“I’ll shout if I please. I veto John.”

“Oh, you do, do you! What am I—a rubber stamp?” Mrs. Bowser’s eyes were
snapping. “Don’t try that he-man business on me, Bowser. First you try
to legislate through your own slogan for the cleaning powder, and now
you are trying to give my son a name like a patented stove polish. I say
John. John! John!”

Her voice was shrill and his was not exactly suppressed.

“Do you realize,” he said, “that we are having our first quarrel?”

“I guess I have good reason to quarrel. I want to name the baby John. My
mind’s made up.”

“No. Never. Not John.”

“Well, what do you want to call him?”

Mr. Bowser compressed his lips masterfully.

“Kinzo,” he said loudly.

“Kinzo?” she protested.

“Kinzo Bowser,” he repeated. “An almost perfect name! Look,” he went on
in his selling voice. “Just say it over. Just roll the syllables over on
your tongue. Kinzo Bowser! Hasn’t that a smooth, lyric quality? Kin-zo
Bow-ser! Get it?”

He whipped from his pocket a large card on which he had printed KINZO
BOWSER.

“Look!” he cried triumphantly. “Hasn’t that name Eye-Stabbing Power? See
how that ‘K’ sticks out. Notice how that final ‘O’ ends the word with a
snap. Why, that name fairly sings out loud. Kinzo Bowser! I tell you it
would stand out on a dealer’s shelf like a wart on a bald head!”

“Who wants our baby’s name to stand out on a shelf?” Mrs. Bowser
demanded.

“Oh!” said Mr. Bowser with some slight confusion. “I meant in case he
ever manufactured canned goods. He might, you know. We owe it to him to
pick a name that would be useful under any and all circumstances, don’t
we?”

“John!” was all Mrs. Bowser said.

“John?” Mr. Bowser’s voice had many elements of a roar in it. “John?
Plebeian! Common! One instantly associates John with mediocrity, with
nincompoopity. Why, when I hear the name John it always suggests a man
who sleeps in his underwear and thinks grapefruit is poisonous.”

“Your name is John,” his wife reminded him.

Mr. Bowser flushed.

“Am I to blame for that?” he inquired warmly. “You notice I call myself
J. Sanford. Besides, my father was a farmer, not a publicity engineer.
He knew about alfalfa but not about the Psychology of A Name With A
Punch. I tell you I won’t even consider John. I want Kinzo.”

“Bah! Sounds like a Japanese acrobat or a cure for flat feet.”

He fastened upon her an eye impatient and stern.

“Apparently you haven’t grasped the first principles of Names that Mean
Something. Well, I won’t argue with you while you’re in this state.
Let’s discuss something else.”

“John,” said Mrs. Bowser with set jaw.

“Let’s postpone that subject, please,” he said. “Peabody Garfinkle just
phoned me that he must start printing labels for his cans tomorrow. He
wants the design and name by one o’clock. He’ll use any one our
organization works out. That’s Client Confidence, eh?”

“I hope it is not misplaced,” said Mrs. Bowser, her voice scented with a
faint perfume of irony.

Mr. Bowser ignored this observation.

“Sorry I couldn’t check on any of your slogans for the cleaning powder,”
he remarked with a great show of amiability. “One of yours—Garfinko
Nostinko—almost made the grade, but not quite. Just didn’t pull the
trigger with me, somehow. Your slogan is excellent—‘Easy on the
Nostrils But Hard on the Dirt!’ Very pretty, very pretty. Pithy too.
But—a little long, don’t you think?”

“No.”

“But, Bowser, don’t you recall that our Doctor Butterfield worked out in
the laboratory that the Human Eye Can Only Rivet on Seven Words at Once?
Your slogan has nine. If you could somehow boil it down——”

“I’ll boil nothing down. I like it as it is.”

Mr. Bowser shrugged his well-tailored shoulders.

“And fly in the face of psychology?” he asked gently, but as one who is
hurt.

Mrs. Bowser bridled.

“Don’t look at me as if I were a naughty child, Bowser!” she ejaculated.
“I’m not a green copy writer that you’ve caught wearing an unadvertised
brand of rubber heels. I was a Successful Slogan Builder before I ever
met you, please remember.”

“Come now, control yourself. At least let me tell you about the Big
Thought I just had before I came in here.”

Mrs. Bowser tapped her teeth with her pencil. Mr. Bowser jumped to his
feet and when he spoke his voice held chords of rapture and his eyes
were alight with the joy of creation.

“Listen,” he began. Then in his special slogan voice he declaimed:
“Smelly-Welly—dirt-devourer!”

Mrs. Bowser regarded him without enthusiasm.

“Not bad,” she admitted.

“Not bad?” he cried. “Great Scott, woman, it’s perfect! Smelly-Welly!
Why, it’s an inspiration. Came to me like a flash from the sky.
Smelly-Welly! Easy to say, easy to spell and chock-full of punch. Look
here, Bowser, just look here!” From an inside pocket he took a strip of
cardboard on which he had hastily lettered in large black print:

                              SMELLY-WELLY

                             Dirt-devourer

He held it aloft, eyes beaming.

“Just picture that in orange on a dark blue background! Smelly-Welly! A
child can say it. Ah, an idea! ‘A child can use it just as easily as a
child can say it.’ We’ll print that on every can. Why, it would be a sin
to retail Smelly-Welly at a dollar a can. I bet we could get a dollar
and a half easy for a product with a name like that. Smelly-Welly!
There’s magic in it, I tell you. Isn’t it a peach, Bowser?”

“I like Garfinko Nostinko better,” she answered doggedly.

He bit his lip.

“Oh, do you?” he said stiffly.

“Yes; Smelly-Welly lacks dignity.”

“Is that so? Well, I tried it on Mink, Pffeffer, Boley, Deyo, Hendricks
and Shinners, and they were all most enthusiastic about it.”

“They would be, the jellyfish,” said Mrs. Bowser dryly. “If you suggest
Cupid’s Caress as the name for a tire pump they’d applaud.”

Mr. Bowser was outraged by this suggestion.

“You’re just in a stubborn streak, Bowser,” he declared. “No use
reasoning with you. I shall use Smelly-Welly.”

“It lacks dignity,” she retorted.

“Smelly-Welly,” said Mr. Bowser with concentrated gravity, “is my
choice, and I intend that it shall be used.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Mrs. Bowser grimly.

A light and timorous tap sounded on the door; the frightened face of
Miss Mink peeped through the crack.

“Sorry, Mr. Bowser,” she said, “but your reducing class at the Billboard
A. C. starts at 5:30 and it’s now 5:25. You told me to be sure you
didn’t miss it again. Your car is waiting.”

“I’ll come directly, Mink,” said Mr. Bowser. He turned to his wife. “I
shall stay at the club tonight,” he informed her, then stalked out.

She said nothing; ominously she tapped her teeth. There was a buzzer in
the Quiet Room—a pale gray buzzer with a wan buzz; this she pressed.
Miss Gussing flitted into the room.

    “Gussing, take a memo. To cook. _In re_ dinner tonight. Mr.
    Bowser will not be present. Tomato soup, roast chicken, little
    green beans, guava jelly, raspberry mousse, eight sharp.

                    “(Signed) P. I. Bowser, _Associate President_.”

Morn came to the office of J. Sanford Bowser. Up and down, up and down
paced Mr. Bowser, heedless of the fact that he might wear a path in the
genuine Cabistan rug. That he, most careful of men, should thus imperil
so costly a piece of his own property was a sure sign to his employees
that he was in no mood to be trifled with. His brow, generally bland,
was creased with care and perplexity. He lit Marlborough-Somerset after
Marlborough-Somerset, then tossed them, half-smoked, into the copper ash
tray. J. Sanford Bowser was in conference with himself.

Heads of departments tiptoed about with ashen faces and tight-shut lips;
now and then they paused in the corridors to exchange a few tense,
whispered words. Copy writers in their coops wrote furiously but
silently with soft black pencils; now and then they glanced
apprehensively over their shoulders as if they momentarily expected the
grim reaper himself to enter. Little girls down in the checking
department curbed their giggles and masticated their gum with nervous
molars; even the space salesmen on the benches in the reception room
sensed the fact that the atmosphere was electric with suspense; in muted
voices they muttered their selling talk over to themselves.

“J. S. B. is making some big decision,” whispered the head of the copy
department to the head of the media department.

“The Chief is making some big decision,” whispered Copy Writer Deyo to
Copy Writer Shinners as they held hands in the Quiet Room.

“Mr. Bowser is makin’ some big decision,” whispered Mickey the messenger
to Sallie the checker.

And Mrs. Bowser, where was she? Alone and aloof in her own private
concentrating room on the roof of the building, she did not know of the
spiritual wrestling match that went on in Mr. Bowser’s soul. She was
busy; her chin jutted out resolutely; with pieces of colored paper and
with paint she frantically designed car cards, posters, cartons, on
which she lettered vigorously “Garfinko Nostinko.”

“Hit them in the Eye with Something Tangible,” she explained to the
faithful Gussing who stood guard outside the door to prevent
interruption. “Once Bowser sees these, he’ll forget Smelly-Welly.
Smelly-Welly lacks dignity, don’t you think, Gussing?”

“Yes, Bowser.”

From the theater of war, where Mr. Bowser battled with himself, came a
news bulletin which leaped from mouth to mouth:

“J. S. B. is going into the Quiet Room.”

“The Chief is going into the Quiet Room.”

“Mr. Bowser is going into the Quiet Room.”

They saw him, hands clasped behind him, chin resting on necktie, eyes
oblivious to things mundane, stride down the corridor and into the Quiet
Room. As noiselessly as if it were the cobweb door to ghostland the gray
door purred shut behind him. From basement to roof in the vast Bowser
Building breaths were held.

In the Quiet Room Mr. Bowser set up on racks four cards, in groups of
two. The first card bore the words:

                              SMELLY-WELLY

                             Dirt-devourer

The second card had inscribed on it:

                           GARFINKO-NOSTINKO

               Easy on the Nostrils, But Hard on the Dirt

The other two cards were smaller. One bore the words:

                              KINZO BOWSER

The other had written on it:

                              JOHN BOWSER

J. Sanford Bowser leaned back in a gray easy-chair, stretched out his
long legs and studied for many minutes the cards.

Abruptly he stood erect; dynamically his teeth clicked. With quick hands
he seized the Garfinko Nostinko card and the John Bowser card and tore
them into small bits.

“Thinking out loud,” he said—a favorite expression of his—“I intend to
be master in my own office and in my own home.”

He jabbed a buzzer button. Two thousand employees of The Bowsers, Inc.,
breathed again. They knew that the big decision had been made.

In spurted Miss Mink.

“Minktakmemo.”

She looked at him in some alarm; he appeared ruffled, almost agitated.
It was contagious; her hand trembled.

    “Memo to Hencastle,” he jerked out. “_In re_ name. My final
    decision is SMELLY-WELLY—Dirt-devourer! This name must be used
    no matter what objections are raised; it will be up to you to
    see that this is done. Please note that appointment is for one
    sharp, as per verbal instructions given this morning.

                         “(Signed) J. Sanford Bowser, _President_.”

He signed it as if he were signing the Declaration of Independence.

“Minktaknuthermemo.”

Miss Mink snapped to attention.

    “To Hendricks. _In re_ matter discussed this morning. My final
    choice is Kinzo. Please carry out my instructions to the letter.
    Use my limousine.

                         “(Signed) J. Sanford Bowser, _President_.”

“Now,” he directed, “when Hencastle and Hendricks have left the office
please find Mrs. Bowser and ask her to be so good as to come to the
Quiet Room as soon as she can for a very important conference.”

Miss Mink scurried forth, and he picked up a large pad of paper and
began to sketch out posters for the forthcoming Smelly-Welly campaign.

So engrossed was he in this work that he did not notice that it was
fully two hours before Mrs. Bowser entered. She was slightly disheveled,
slightly smeared with purple ink, slightly flushed, and in her hand were
many papers.

“Well, Bowser?” she inquired.

“Sit down, please,” he said most affably.

She did so.

“Bowser,” he began levelly, “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m
going to tell you straight out.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Two heads,” stated Mr. Bowser, “may be better than one in thinking, but
one is better than two in doing. So I determined today that I would go
ahead and name the new cleaning powder and attend to the christening of
the baby myself.”

“Oh, have you really?” said Mrs. Bowser in a voice ten degrees below
freezing. “Important, if true.”

“It is true,” he rejoined calmly. “The things have been done.”

“Done? Done!” The first “done” she uttered was a whisper; the second
“done” a scream.

“Precisely. Both jobs I put through according to a careful plan,” he
continued with serenity. “By my order Hencastle went to Peabody
Garfinkle and told him he could order one million cans bearing the label
Smelly-Welly.”

Mrs. Bowser, incapable of speech, sucked in her breath sharply.

“And,” finished Mr. Bowser, “also by my order, Hendricks called at the
house today, took the baby to the church in the limousine, and had him
christened.”

“What?” asked Mrs. Bowser faintly. “John?”

“No,” said Mr. Bowser; “Kinzo.”

For a brief second Mrs. Bowser appeared to be about to swoon, but she
didn’t; she spoke, but with an effort.

“There are times,” she said slowly, “when mere words cannot express
thoughts. And this is one of them.” Then, with mounting ire: “Do you
mean to sit there and tell me, J. Sanford Bowser, that you had the
unmitigated nerve to name my baby without——”

“Hush, for heaven’s sake! There’s somebody at the door,” he said. There
was indeed somebody at the door; the Bowsers heard a crackling noise.

“Look! What’s that?” exclaimed Mr. Bowser.

“It’s a newspaper; someone is poking it under the door,” she said,
mystified.

He stooped and picked up the paper.

“Early edition of the Evening Clarion,” he said. “Look—it’s
marked—right here.”

For a moment they bent their heads over the sheet.

Then Mrs. Bowser gave forth a heartrending scream that made the gray
walls of the Quiet Room tremble; then Mr. Bowser cried aloud “Great
Cæsar’s ghost!” and collapsed into a chair. Staring out in cold black
type they saw:

                               Late News
                        Bowser Scion Christened

    The infant son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Sanford Bowser, well-known
    publicity engineers, of Park Avenue, and Great Neck, L. I., was
    christened at noon today in the Church of Saint Jude the
    Obscure, by the Rev. James Russell Swiggette. The name given the
    infant was Smelly-Welly Dirt-devourer Bowser.

Mr. Bowser recovered just enough to moan, “Great Cæsar’s ghost—they got
the memos mixed! They got the memos mixed!”

“Smelly-Welly Bowser,” repeated Mrs. Bowser over and over, as if under
some horrible spell. “Smelly-Welly Bowser. My baby! Smelly-Welly
Bowser.”

“They got the memos mixed, Pandora,” he said abjectly. “I tell you they
got the memos mixed.”

“Smelly-Welly Bowser,” she moaned. “You wanted an unusual name! You
wanted a name no one will forget! You wanted a name easy to say! Well,
you’ve got it! Oh, dear; oh, dear—Smelly-Welly Bowser! My son.
Smelly-Welly——”

“Oh, Pandora,” he cried, taking her hand, “how can you—or he—ever
forgive me?”

She looked up and the beginning of a smile twitched her lips.

“Now we’ll just have to call him John,” she said.




                       THE WRONGING OF EDWIN DELL


“ONE, two, three, four,” counted Aunt Charity as she put the hard-boiled
eggs into the shoebox beside the bananas, and twisted a little
cornucopia from the sheep-dip advertisement in the Crosby Corners’ News
to hold the pepper and salt. “Do you think four will be enough, Edwin?”

“Four what, Aunt Charity?” asked Edwin Dell, looking up from his book;
it was Jeremy Taylor’s “Holy Living and Holy Dying.”

“These,” she said, pointing a long, pale forefinger. She never mentioned
the word egg. To her there was a suggestion of the improper about an
egg.

Edwin Dell looked at them, blushed, turned his head away.

“I think so, Aunt Charity,” he murmured.

She cut slices of bread from the home-made loaf and swaddled each slice
in tissue paper.

“You’ll be careful what victuals you eat in New York, Edwin,” she said;
it was half question, half command.

“Oh, yes, Aunt Charity,” promised the young man. “I’m always most
particular about my victuals.”

“Sit up straight, Edwin. And be sure to allow plenty of time to get to
the station. The New York train leaves at three-twenty-four. What is it
Emerson says about punctuality?”

“Punctuality,” Edwin quoted, “is one of the legs of the table of
Success.” He knew his Emerson.

“And Edwin——”

“Yes, Aunt Charity?”

“Don’t forget what I said about women.”

“Indeed I shan’t, aunt,” he said, earnestly. “I shall eschew them.
Indeed I shall eschew them, Aunt Charity.”

“You’d better,” said his aunt, grimly. She was a geometric woman, all
angles, corners, tangents and plane surfaces. The one man who might have
loved her was Euclid. She had come to Crosby Corners, Connecticut, from
Louisburg Square, Boston, to bring up her infant nephew, Edwin Dell, an
orphan whose parents had been called away when lightning struck the
village church during Wednesday prayer meeting. After Edwin was one year
old she always called the gardener in to give Edwin his bath. She had
conducted an exclusive school for girls in Boston, and so was able to
bring the child up carefully and well. He had not been permitted to go
to school; that would have brought him in contact with gauche persons.
Any young man would have envied him his ability to read Latin at sight
and his considerable knowledge of ecclesiastical history. The malady of
the time—ingrown worldliness—had never tainted him. At twenty-one he
had conversed with practically no one but his aunt, and the Rev. Vernon
Stickney Entwistle, who came to tea on alternate Tuesdays, and Palumbo,
the Italian gardener, whose remarks, by Aunt Charity’s strict orders
were confined to agricultural subjects, such as “Theesa punk” and
“Theesa cab.” It took Edwin some years to discover that Palumbo was
saying “This is a pumpkin” and “This is a cabbage.”

Aunt Charity’s library consisted of the following books: The Book of
Common Prayer, Young’s Night Thoughts, Fox’s Book of Martyrs, Holy
Living and Holy Dying, the Sermons of Bishop Amos Pratt, the Sermons of
the Rev. Hosea Ballou (in eleven volumes), the Sermons of John Wesley
Tweedy, D.D., the Collected Prayers of the Rev. Nathaniel Beasley, the
Sermons (one volume each) of the Revs. Snellgrove, Tetter, Peabody,
Kinsolving, Struthers, Kipp, Manning, Pinkney, and Dodd, and The
Genealogical History of the Tillotson Family. Aunt Charity was a Boston
Tillotson. Young Edwin had free access to this library, and, being by
nature bookish, he read all the volumes so assiduously that his aunt had
to renew the chintz slip-covers three distinct times.

And now Edwin Dell was going to New York to seek his fortune. It was his
first visit to that great city. In its libraries he planned to find
material to finish the work on which he was engaged, a scholarly and
exhaustive treatise on The History of the Dogma of Infant Damnation in
New England between 1800 and 1830. It was to fill six large volumes,
possibly ten. It would make something of a stir in the more thoughtful
literary circles, he expected, in all modesty. He was a modest young
man; he could not tolerate mirrors in his bathroom.

His heart beat fast as he took his seat in the train to New York. There
he sat, waiting for the train to start, his ticket and the address of
his boarding house clutched in one hand, his lunch box, with the four
hard-boiled blanks, clutched in the other. His first week’s allowance
was pinned to his union suit by two safety pins.

Passengers, even hardened traveling salesmen, turned to look twice at
Edwin Dell; he was so young, so fresh. His light blue eyes were large,
round, wondering; they looked at the world so candidly, so trustingly.
He had the tall, well-proportioned body of the Tillotsons and the frank,
boyish features of the Dells. Not a million mud-baths could have given
him those cheeks, to which the color came easily; they were Nature’s
reward for clean living, early retiring, and waking with the lark.
Electricity had had nothing to do with that wave in his blond hair;
that, too, was Nature’s gift. He was quietly dressed in a pepper and
salt suit; his necktie was blue with white polka dots.

“Edwin,” his aunt called through the window, “are you sure you
packed”—she looked about to be sure no one overheard her—“your
woolens?”

“Yes, Aunt Charity.”

“And the goose-grease?”

“Yes, Aunt Charity.”

“When you feel a cold coming on,” she said, “be sure to rub the
goose-grease on your——self.”

He knew she meant “chest”. He was glad she didn’t say the word in front
of all those strangers, but, of course, he reflected, there was not the
slightest danger of Aunt Charity committing an indelicacy; she tacitly
admitted the existence of Edwin from chin to ankles, but never mentioned
it.

“Edwin?”

“Yes, aunt.”

“Remember what I said.”

“About what, aunt?”

“About women.”

“Have no apprehension,” he said. “I shall eschew them.”

The engine tooted, the train creaked, and he was off to New York.

                 *        *        *        *        *

General Grant, it is likely, never stayed at the boarding house of Miss
Hetty Venable in West 13th street. But the mark of his régime was on it,
particularly in its interior decorations. In Edwin Dell’s room on the
second floor, rear, hung heavy velvet portières that still smelled
faintly, from the campaign cigar some roomer had smoked there during the
Hayes-Tilden election. The furniture was massive and glum; the marble
mantel was covered with a cloth with yellow tassels; in the bathtub were
painted purple and green tulips of decalcomaniac tendencies; the gas
jets suffered from chronic asthma and halitosis. The view from the
window embraced four back-yards as similar as pocket-dictionaries, with
frescoes of clothes-lines, and a liberal sprinkling of ash-barrels,
elderly shoes and used cats. Edwin rubbed his hands with satisfaction;
it seemed to him an ideal place to write his kind of book.

Four days after Edwin Dell came to New York and to West 13th Street,
Miss Venable’s cook left to accept a position in the moving pictures,
and Edwin, who had had his meals in his rooms till then, was now forced
to seek his nourishment outside. Was it he who impersonated a serpent in
a garden some eons ago who led Edwin Dell to select for his meals the
Scarlet Hyena Tea Room, dinner eighty five cents, with soup or salad,
one dollar; chicken Sundays? He thought he chose it because it lay on
his route to the Greenwich Village branch of the public library.

It was during his second dinner there that Edwin Dell, looking up from
page 512 of Bishop Groody’s masterly defense of the theory of infant
damnation, saw the girl. He had been aware that there were many girls in
New York, but he had ignored them. This girl was hard to ignore. She was
looking at him, looking directly and smiling a slight, shameless smile.
Edwin frowned, dropped his eyes to his book, and felt uncomfortable. In
his confusion he salted his cocoa, and, on tasting it, sputtered. He
heard her only partly suppressed titter. He knew that he was flushing.
He tried to look up without meeting her eye but he ran straight into her
gaze; she was smiling most provocatively. He gulped down his cocoa, salt
and all, and fled from the restaurant.

How fresh and pure seemed the air of Seventh Avenue as he crossed it!
How reassuring the presence of the traffic policeman! Edwin picked his
way along through the crisp December evening. The sound of steps on the
sidewalk behind him made him glance over his shoulder. His heart
fluttered. Somebody was following him.

Under the arc light he could see her unmistakable dress, an unrestrained
maroon batik affair besprint with ochre fish pursuing mauve worms. It
was she, the one who had smiled. Edwin Dell’s backward glance was hasty,
but hasty as it was, it saw her smile, and her wink. Something close
akin to panic gripped him and he lengthened his strides; from the _lap,
lap, lap_ of her sandals he knew she too had increased her pace. With
anxious eyes he glanced at the numbers; he had forty houses to go before
he reached Miss Venable’s. His breath began to come jerkily. Thirty
numbers more. She was gaining on him, and was clearing her throat with a
loud “Ahem” that even to his inexperienced ears sounded manufactured.
Twenty more numbers; and the girl drew nearer, nearer. Edwin broke into
a species of canter; _lap, lap, lap, lap_—she was cantering, too. Just
in time he reached the brown stone steps of Miss Venable’s house; with
two leaps he reached the door and miraculously hit the key-hole the
first stab. He slammed the door shut behind him, and sank down, almost
fainting on the derby hats of the other roomers on the hall hat-rack.

Next day before Edwin Dell went forth, he stood for a long time looking
at a steel engraving he had brought with him from his home in the
country and had tacked to the rose-dappled wall-paper. It was a picture
of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New courage rushed into his system like air into
a tire as he gazed into the wise, kind, understanding eyes. He ate a
push-cart apple for breakfast and another for lunch, and entrenched
himself in the library behind the bulwark of Bishop Groody’s ponderous
tome. It was past seven that evening when Edwin Dell had intimations
that he had a grosser side and must appease it with food. He set forth
to do so.

Edwin Dell’s acquaintance with Freud was as limited as Freud’s
acquaintance with Edwin Dell. Edwin Dell knew no more of the theory of
the subconscious than a trout does of trigonometry. Little did the
country lad realize that he was an iceberg with one-third of him
projecting above the surface of consciousness, and the other two-thirds
plunged deep down in the murky realms of the subconscious. So, with the
utmost innocence of intention (ah, little did he reck of the tricks of
the subconscious!) he found himself well into the fried atmosphere of
the Scarlet Hyena before he remembered that he had resolved never to set
foot in that place again. He wheeled about to leave, but a vigilant
waiter herded him into a seat in a corner and affixed him there with a
napkin, a glass of water and butter. Edwin peered round, and saw no
cause for alarm. The girl was not there. Her bobbed red head was nowhere
visible in the forest of black, brown, yellow and brindle bobbed heads.
With a relieved sigh he ordered chicken liver omelet and weak tea.

He was seeking for vestiges of chicken liver with one eye and reading
Groody’s epoch-making chapter, “Have Babies Adult-sized Souls?” with the
other, when he became aware that someone had taken the vacant seat
across the table from him. Of course he did not look up; he hadn’t the
slightest interest in knowing who it was. But the person addressed him.

“I beg your pardon, but will you give me a light,” the voice said. He
had to look up then. It was she.

He wished to leave at once, but he was too well-bred, so he said, with
impersonal politeness:

“I’m sorry, but I have no matches.”

“Ah,” she laughed, “I’ll bet your aunt won’t let you carry them.”

Surprise made him exclaim:

“My aunt? How do you know I have an aunt?”

The girl laughed again.

“You would,” was all she said. “Have a cigaret?”

“Thank you, I never smoke.”

“I do,” she said, and taking a box of matches from her hand-bag she lit
a long Russian cigaret.

“Then you did have matches all the time!” cried Edwin.

She looked at the box in her hand, and said, as if she were the most
astonished person in the world:

“Why, so I did.” Then she added, “My name is Valerie Keat.”

Edwin had it drawn forcibly to his attention that this woman was
outrageously pretty in a bold, obvious way. She had adventurous green
eyes and an insinuating mouth; her lips were a vivid carmine. Red,
thought Edwin, the sign of danger; a person to be eschewed.

With a brief prayer that his tapioca pudding would be brought soon, he
took up his book and sought safety in the prose of Bishop Groody. But
the book had changed to some foreign tongue; its pages seemed blurred
and its words hieroglyphics; had the Bishop lapsed into Czech? His table
companion laughed.

“Do you always read upside down?” she inquired.

He turned his book right side up and looked at her with what for Edwin
was a glare.

“No,” said he, stiffly.

“You’re from the country?”

He nodded. Why didn’t that wretch of a waiter hurry with the pudding?

“You’ve just come to New York?”

Again Edwin nodded.

“Ever been kissed?”

He straightened up in his chair as if a pin had been abruptly inserted
in him.

“Really, now——” he began.

“Call me Val,” she said. “What shall I call you?”

His mind was too beside itself to be on the defensive.

“My name,” he said, “is Edwin Tillotson Dell.”

“I’ll call you ‘Ned!’” she said. “I’m an artist. How do you cheat the
wolf, Ned?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What field of endeavor do you decorate?”

“Me? Oh, I’m an—author.”

“How interesting your work must be!” Was she sincere, or was she putting
it all on? “What do you author?”

It occurred to him as an inspiration that he might be able to swamp and
daze her with technical theological terms till his pudding came, so he
began to quote his book, beginning on page one. He did not, however, get
far.

“You can tell me all that when you come to see me,” the girl
interrupted.

“When I come to see you?”

“Certainly. You’ll come, won’t you? Or shall I come to see you?”

He thought of the eyes of Emerson—wise, kind, understanding. His
resolute teeth closed on a bit of chicken liver.

“Neither,” he said.

This, he thought, should abash her, but it did nothing of the sort.
Instead, she gave him a playful wink.

“Ned,” she said, “I used to belong to the Northwestern Mounted Police
and you know their motto.”

“I do not.”

“Get your man,” said Miss Keat.

He buried embarrassed eyes in the tapioca pudding which that moment
providentially arrived.

“I hope,” he said, his eyes still on his plate, “that nothing in my
manner has encouraged you to venture on such familiarity.”

It was impossible to rebuff this woman with the adventurous eyes and the
carmine lips. Rebuffs rebounded from her.

“What are you doing this evening, Ned?” she asked.

Intuitively he sensed his peril.

“I am going to my room,” he said, “to think.”

He picked up book, coat, hat.

“You’re not mad, Ned?” she called after him.

“No, not mad,” he said, simply. “Only hurt, terribly hurt.”

He did go to his room as swiftly as if he had been tapped for Skull and
Bones. He locked the door. He tried not to think of her, of those eyes,
those lips. He looked hard at the picture of Emerson, and tried to think
of him.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Valerie Keat lived in a reformed haymow over a converted stable in a
redeemed alley in Greenwich Village. She had nineteen pairs of jade
earrings, black, georgette underwear, and the following books: the Droll
Tales, Jurgen, Mlle. de Maupin, The Rainbow, the collected writings of
Havelock Ellis, the Decameron, the works of Rabelais, Ulysses, The
Genius, Many Marriages, The Memoirs of Casanova, Sappho, Leaves of
Grass, and an array of books in French, beginning with Volupte by
Sainte-Beuve and Fleurs de Mal by Baudelaire and ending with La Garconne
by Victor Margueritte. She had divorced one husband, had been divorced
by a second, and kept a little red leather note-book full of names and
telephone numbers. She was not a good girl.

Her haymow studio was large, with several square yards of north-light
sky-light and a balcony from which were draped bright Spanish shawls. On
the walls hung a dozen of her own paintings, most of them guilty of
grand or petty nudity. Her gold bed stood on a platform reached by four
purple steps and it was snowed under by twenty-four fat, odd-shaped
cushions, each a different color, vermilion, heliotrope, claret, taupe,
wisteria, tan, orchid, bisque, chrome yellow, bice, russet, carnation,
cream, periwinkle, cherry, azure, citrine, jet, bister, salmon, maize,
cinnabar, flame and flesh. She had invested some of her alimony in
Chinese screens, Japanese prints, Russian brasses, Czecho-Slovakian
china, East Indian hand-printed curtains, French futuristic furniture, a
brocaded Bengal howdah to house her telephone, tall, white, wicked-eyed
Copenhagen porcelain cats, Viennese statuettes, Florentine
candle-sticks, carved ivory cigarette boxes from Egypt, and a profusion
of thick, soft, Oriental rugs—Cabistans, Hamadan Mosouls,
Namazis-Kanepas, Zaronims, Dozar-Namazis, Noborans, Ispahans, and a
priceless Anatolian prayer-rug. But this last she never used; Valerie
Keat was the sort of woman who never prays. Soft lights with strange
shades by Bakst, Urban and Alice O’Neill filled the room with a sensuous
glow. In one corner a green bronze cobra made by Javanese natives
emitted subtle chypre incense from its eyes. At the end of the room
stood the model stand, covered with black velvet. Beside it was a
crimson baize screen behind which the models undressed. Before the
fireplace lay a tiger-skin rug. Such was the place to which Valerie Keat
had sought to lure Edwin Dell.

At the very moment that night when Valerie Keat in écru satin pajamas,
sank down on her twenty-four cushions, lit a Persian narghil, and opened
a French novel by Gyp, Edwin Dell, in his unpretentious white muslin
nightshirt, was lying on his plain iron cot; was rereading a sentence
from a letter he had just received from his aunt. Half aloud he read the
words in Aunt Charity’s precise, virginal script:

    “Some people New York ennobles; others, it drags straight down
    to H——.”

With his eyes resting on the picture of Emerson, Edwin Dell said the
word “Fortitude.” He repeated the word—“Fortitude, fortitude,
fortitude, fortitude, fortitude,” until the gentle, dreamless sleep of
innocence wrapped him in its platonic embrace. Valerie Keat dreamed of
wild horses, rushing water, satyrs. . . .

For his frugal dinner next evening Edwin Dell avoided the Scarlet Hyena
and went instead to the Esoteric Pussy-Cat, in a damp, artistic basement
on Washington Square, South. It was so full of young men and older women
eating the dollar dinner and discussing intimate problems that only one
seat was left and that was in the window, where Edwin, perforce, had to
eat his dinner in the most distressingly public fashion, while rude
passers-by stopped to stare at him, presumably under the impression that
he was advertising a dyspepsia cure. One passerby stopped much longer
than the rest and pressed a retroussé nose against the window-pane.
Edwin Dell’s heart began to knock like a poor motor taking a high hill.

Valerie Keat, for she it was, came bounding into the restaurant and
greeted him like an old friend. She conjured up a chair and drew it to
his table, uninvited. He looked appealingly at the other diners, seeking
in all that throng one wise, kind, understanding face. He sought in
vain. The faces of New Yorkers are hard, hard.

“Still damnationing the infants?” asked Valerie Keat, breezily.

“Levity on that subject is most unbecoming,” he said.

Unexpectedly her face grew sober under its film of cosmetics.

“You are right, Edwin,” said Valerie Keat. “I am too facetious. Perhaps
you think I take nothing in life seriously. But I do, I assure you I
do.”

“Ah, do you?” he said, hoping to convey the idea that it didn’t in the
least matter to him. Then, to his surprise, he found himself adding the
word “What?”

Her green eyes bored into his light blue eyes.

“Love,” she said, in a low, poignant voice.

Edwin beckoned the Japanese waiter.

“My bill, please, at once,” he directed.

“Vellygoo,” said the waiter, and brought it, discreetly folded, as all
restaurant bills are, as if they were illicit billet doux. Edwin put his
hand inside his coat pocket. Alarm and dismay congealed him. He had no
money. Caring naught, as he did, for worldly goods, he had entirely
forgotten that he had given away his allowance to the poor, and Aunt
Charity had forgotten to send him a fresh supply of money. Doubtless she
had sent it to the missionaries; so much of her income went there. He
looked up, and there stood the waiter, suspicion in his oblique
Nipponese eyes. Valerie Keat was quick to sense the situation.

“Broke?” she asked.

He nodded.

She bent over and from somewhere took a five dollar bill, which she
tossed to the waiter. He came back with four dollars in change.
Nonchalantly, Valerie Keat waved the money away.

“Keep the change, Ito,” she said. The waiter bowed himself back to the
kitchen and fainted.

“I seldom tip more than two dollars,” the woman explained, “but Ito has
a wife and nine kiddies. Don’t you just love kiddies, Ned?”

Had he misjudged the woman, Edwin Dell wondered?

“Besides,” went on Valerie Keat, and her voice broke a little, “he
reminds me of my father.”

Clouds seemed to lift from Edwin Dell. Surely it was not possible to
suspect the honorableness of the intentions of a woman who spoke like
that about her father.

“Will you stop at my studio?” he heard Valerie Keat saying. “I want to
give you a book I think you should read.”

“I only read books on ecclesiastical and theological subjects,” he said.

“That’s just what this book is,” she assured him.

But when they reached the door of her studio, something (was it his
guardian angel?) made Edwin hesitate.

“Come on up,” she said, urgently.

“It’s rather late,” objected Edwin.

“Nonsense! It’s only nine. Come on.”

Mystery was in her smile; or was it mystery?

For one second, two seconds, possibly three seconds he wavered. Then on
the wall of the building opposite he seemed to see written in fiery
letters the warning words of his aunt.

    SOME PEOPLE NEW YORK ENNOBLES; OTHERS IT DRAGS STRAIGHT DOWN TO
    H——.

His soul was a battle-field of conflicting emotions. What, he asked
himself, would Emerson have done in a case like this? That thought
steadied him.

“No,” he said. “A thousand nevers. I’ll wait here.”

Pain showed in the green eyes of Valerie Keat.

“Don’t you trust me?” she asked.

“I trust everyone,” said Edwin Dell, gently. “But then I am so very
young.”

“It was your youth that attracted me,” she said; then added hastily,
“Don’t misunderstand me. I am speaking purely in a professional sense. I
am an artist, you know. I want you for a model.”

Edwin Dell shrank from her.

“Me?” he said. “A model?”

“Yes, why not?” Her manner was most reassuring. “I want to paint a
Galahad or maybe a Parsifal. You’d be perfect. I suppose you know”—here
she lowered her voice and her eyes were full of meaning—“that you are
very handsome.”

“You must not say such things to me,” said Edwin Dell.

“Forgive me,” she murmured, “but I forgot myself.” Then, very
businesslike, “But you will pose for me, won’t you?”

Edwin Dell drew back.

“You’ve been kind to me, Miss Keat,” he said, “but please don’t ask this
thing of me. Ask anything, but not that.”

Her tone was hurt as she said:

“I only want to help you. I know you’re hard up. I pay some of my models
ten dollars an hour.”

Remembering how she had spoken of her father, Edwin felt that he had
been a brute, and he said:

“I’m very sorry. I don’t wish to seem ungrateful. Perhaps it is foolish
of me to care about . . . some things; but I do. I think you’d better
not stand out here any longer; it’s beginning to snow; you’ll catch your
death of cold.”

Her eyes lingered on his.

“Would you care?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “After all, you are a human being.”

He thought there was hardness in her laugh.

“Thanks,” she said. “Then you won’t come?”

“I cannot,” he said.

“Very well. Another time, perhaps. I’ll get that book.”

She brought down to him a thick, much-thumbed volume.

“Are you sure it is theological?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, indeed,” she said. “It’s by the Rev. Mr. Rabelais. Well, bring
it back when you’re finished and I’ll lend you Leaves of Grass. Good
night, Ned.”

She held out a small hand; he found it warm.

“Remember,” she said, pressing his hand, “about my offer. Ten dollars an
hour. I usually paint at night.”

Her eyes were like emeralds held before lighted candles.

Miss Venable met Edwin in the hall of his house. She was a lady whose
face appeared to have been pickled, and she was pessimistic by nature
and experience. Her faith in human nature had been erased by a life of
running a rooming house; her roomers were always using her gas to
terminate their lives. Briefly she informed Edwin that his rent was
overdue. She would trouble him, etc. Always the soul of frankness, Edwin
told her he had no money, but that he would be in funds in a day or two.
He even tried to laugh a little to show her how unwarranted her fears
about his solvency were. Under her freezing eyes and skeptic nose the
laugh was hollow on both ends and cracked in the middle.

“I want ten dollars,” she said, “not promises. I must have my money by
midnight or . . .”

“Or?”

In pantomime she indicated an exit.

“But, Miss Venable, you can’t mean . . .”

“What can’t I mean, young man?”

Edwin blanched.

“The streets,” he said.

One look at her stony countenance told him that the streets were
precisely what she did mean.

He stumbled up to his room, dropped into a chair, and tried to collect
his thoughts. In the rural calm of his sheltered life he had never felt
the raw edge of existence before. This was stark life. He would read a
bit to compose his mind, he decided. He opened the book Valerie Keat had
given him.

Some words he knew, some he did not know, some he suspected. A hot flush
of shame began to mantle his brow. At Chapter Four, he threw the book
from him. He dare not lift his eyes to Emerson’s. Hardly knowing what he
was doing, he marched down-stairs, holding the book at arm’s length
before him. One idea was uppermost in his mind: he must take back the
book to its owner.

                 *        *        *        *        *

He knocked with the gargoyle knocker, and Valerie Keat came to her
studio door in a Chinese mandarin coat, thrown hurriedly about her.

“Ah,” she said, “it’s Infant Damnation himself! So you have come.”

“Yes,” he said, “I have come.”

“Well, step in. Don’t stand in the hall and wake the neighbors.”

He found himself inside the studio; the incense, the mellow lights, the
warmth, the magnificence of it all left him incapable of speech. Then he
remembered why he had come and thrust the book out at her.

“I could not sleep in the same house with this thing,” he said. She
shrugged her shoulders and carelessly dropped the book on the tiger-skin
rug. A Swiss cuckoo clock proclaimed that it was ten. Edwin shuddered;
two hours to midnight . . . and the streets.

“Well, let’s begin,” said Valerie Keat, picking up a palette.

“Begin to what?” he asked, tremulously.

“I to paint,” she answered; “you to pose.”

“But, merciful Heavens, Miss Keat, you don’t think I came here for . . .
that?”

“Then what did you come for?” Her eyes narrowed.

“To bring back that dreadful book.”

Her sardonic laugh jarred on his ear-drums.

“A man doesn’t come to a woman’s studio late at night to bring back a
book,” she said.

“I must go, really I must,” declared Edwin, wondering, as he spoke,
where to.

He put his hand on the door-knob; the door seemed to be locked.

“Please reconsider your decision,” said Valerie Keat. She turned on her
most pathetic look. “If I could paint you it would mean everything to
me; everything, do you understand? You have my artistic career at your
mercy. Won’t you help me?”

He hesitated. To one so good at heart as he, such an appeal could not go
unanswered.

“I’d like to,” he began, “but Emerson says——”

“Besides,” she broke in, “think of the ten dollars.”

Had she read his inmost thoughts?

“What possible harm could it do?” she argued. “Can’t you see I respect
you? Won’t you trust me?”

“Let me think,” begged Edwin Dell. “Give me five minutes for quiet
thought.”

Valerie Keat went to the buhlwork cabinet and took out a square bottle
and a glass.

“Here,” she said. “This will help you think.”

“I never drink.”

“This is only juniper-berry juice and water. It’s a soft drink,” she
told him.

Her eyes were so friendly, and he remembered how she had spoken of her
father, so he poured half a glass of the pellucid drink down his dry
throat. An agreeable sensation of warmth and well-being filled him. He
emptied the glass. How bright the lights were!

He stood up and said:

“I have arrived at a decision.”

“Yes? What?” she asked, eagerly.

“I will be your model,” said Edwin Dell.

He sank back into his chair; there was a singing in his ears, a dancing
before his eyes.

“Go ahead, paint me,” he said, almost with _sang froid_.

She came close to him and fastened on him intense eyes.

“You say you’ll be my model?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You know what that means.”

“I think so.”

“You’ll pose for the head?”

He nodded.

“You’ll pose for the shoulders?”

He gulped, but nodded. He felt his breath coming in short, cold pants;
his brow was icy damp. He heard her low voice say:

“You’ll pose for . . . the figure?”

The room swam before his eyes; his cheeks were conflagrations; he drew
in his breath with an effort, and gulped again.

“I’ll do . . . whatever models do,” he said.

Her eyes ran over him like flies over a cake; beneath them he trembled.
How his heart throbbed! In a nightmare, he heard her say.

“Good! Go behind that screen.”

To Edwin Dell the lights were blurred now; the singing in his ears was
frenzied. His pallid face was set. Walking like an automaton, he went
behind the crimson screen. Slowly his quivering fingers fumbled with his
polka-dot tie; his shoe lace seared his finger-tips. . . .

“Come, get a wiggle on. Don’t take all night. I’m waiting,” he heard the
woman say. Her voice sounded, somehow, tense.

His teeth bit his bloodless lips; his nails dug into the palms of his
hands.

“Fortitude,” whispered Edwin Dell.

Then he stepped out on the tiger-skin rug.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Came morn to the bedroom of Edwin Dell. Dully he opened his eyes. Had it
all been a terrible dream?

He went to the window and scooped up a handful of snow and held it to
his fevered brow. No, it had not all been a terrible dream. He dressed
with leaden fingers. A letter had been slipped under his door and he
opened it without interest. What could letters mean to him . . . now?

It was a note from his aunt. She told him to come home for Christmas,
and enclosed a ticket to Crosby Corners, and a check. The check
fluttered to the floor; the crooked smile of irony twisted his lips.

“Too late,” he said “too late.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

More like a machine than a man, he began to pack his straw suit-case.
The last thing he did before leaving the room was to take down the
picture of Emerson; Edwin did not look into those wise, kind,
understanding eyes; he tore the picture into small pieces. Then, with
bowed head, a wan, worn caricature of what had been Edwin Dell went
slowly out into the snow-garbed metropolis.

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was Christmas eve in Crosby Corners. Thick snow was falling heavily
and the wind whistled like a drunken demon; it was cold, bitter cold.
Edwin Dell rapped with mittened hand on the door of the cozy farm-house
and Aunt Charity opened it.

“Well, aunt,” he said, “I’ve come back.”

“For pity’s sake, close the door,” she said. “Hang up your coat and put
your goloshes in the golosh-box.”

He did so. He sat there, silent, ashen.

“Why, Edwin Dell, what ails you? What is the matter?” she asked,
sharply.

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” he faltered.

“Then why do you sigh?”

“It was the wind,” he replied. “Only the wind in the pines.”

“Fiddlesticks! I know a sigh. Stop moping, Edwin. This is Christmas
eve.”

“It’s Christmas eve for some folks,” he said; “but just night for me.”

“What do you mean?” his aunt asked, fixing on him needle-pointed eyes.

He poked the glowing logs and made no reply.

“Edwin!”

“Yes, aunt.”

“Has anything happened?”

He poked the logs.

“Speak to me, Edwin. Tell me all.”

He poked the logs.

Aunt Charity put down her knitting, strode to him, placed her hands on
his shoulders and bent a face lined with foreboding toward his.

“Edwin Dell,” she questioned, hoarsely; “what has New York done to you?”

He tried to avoid her alarmed eyes.

“Edwin Dell,” she cried, “I conjure you to answer me one question.”

“What?” His parched lips framed the word.

“Tell me, Edwin Dell, are you a . . . good boy?”

He made no answer.

“It can’t be,” cried his aunt. “Look me in the eye and I’ll know it
isn’t so. Can you look me in the eye, Edwin Dell?”

He couldn’t.

She pushed him fiercely from her.

“My God,” she screamed. “Not that, not that?”

“Yes, Aunt Charity,” he groaned, “that.”

“Heaven give me strength in this dark hour,” she prayed. “That this
thing should happen—and you a Tillotson. Tell me everything, I command
you.”

“I was young,” was all he could say. “Nobody told me; I didn’t know.”

“Faugh,” she sneered, towering above him, her face working with wrath.
“You might have guessed.”

“But she spoke so respectfully of her father,” sobbed Edwin Dell. “It
was . . . that . . . or . . . the streets.”

His aunt scorched him with her outraged eyes.

“Which would Emerson have chosen?” she demanded.

“I was drugged,” he wept.

“Faugh! A likely story! Edwin Dell, put on your goloshes and leave this
house.”

He cowered in his chair.

“Tonight? In this blizzard?” he quavered. “Where could I go?”

“Go to her,” said his aunt, and held the front door open.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Edwin Dell reached the studio of Valerie Keat late Christmas night.
Inside he could hear the sounds of revelry—unrestrained laughter,
bursts of song, a jazzing phonograph, the bursting of toy balloons, the
popping of corks. Valerie Keat was holding high carnival. His heart was
no bigger than a pea as he knocked. The door opened and a wave of hot
air laden with confetti, tobacco smoke, incense and the fumes of alcohol
rushed out and engulfed him. Inside he saw a mad whirlpool of
gala-dressed dancers. Valerie Keat herself had opened the door; she
stood there in an artful evening gown of shimmering silver, with no back
whatsoever.

“Well?” she snapped.

“It is I. Edwin. Ned,” he said.

“So I see. What of it.” Her voice was icy.

“Where shall I put my goloshes?” he asked.

She pointed down the stairs behind him.

“That way. One after another,” she said.

He staggered as if from a blow.

“But you don’t mean . . . you can’t mean . . . Auntie has turned me
out.”

“So do I. That makes it unanimous,” she said, puffing mockingly her
cigaret.

“But it was because of . . . you,” he stammered. “Have you forgotten
. . . so soon.”

“I’ve a poor memory,” she said unconcernedly.

“But you don’t mean . . . you can’t mean . . . Oh, think of your
promises. . . .”

“Bah,” said Valerie Keat.

“Have you no compassion?”

“Not a bit.”

“No honor?”

“Nope.”

“Valerie Keat, think of your father!”

She flushed beneath her painted mask.

“You keep his name out of this,” she flashed. “Run along now to your
damnation infants.”

“You say this to me?” His voice was wild. “To me? After my sacrifice?”

“Your sacrifice?” she jeered. “Do you tell all the others that?”

He reeled.

“The others?” he exclaimed aghast, “it’s a lie, a shameful lie, I tell
you.”

“They all pull that one,” she gibed.

“All? All? Then there have been others, Valerie Keat? Then I was naught
but the plaything of an idle hour?”

“Naught,” she replied.

“And you would fling me aside like a discarded glove?”

“That is just what I would fling you aside like,” she answered, unmoved.

“I see it all now,” said Edwin Dell, his voice the voice of one utterly
crushed. “The veil lifts from my eyes. I’m just a man girls forget. You
have drained the cup of pleasure, but it is I . . . I . . . who must pay
. . . and pay.”

“Fair enough,” said Valerie Keat, in a voice like a file rasping steel.
“Pay away. Good night.”

“Then you would have me go . . . out of your life . . . forever?”

“Or longer,” she said. “Shut the outside door after you.”

He did. The wind screamed down the alley; whirling snow dervishes danced
round him. Ten thousand bright-lit windows bespoke the Christmas cheer
within. Some people were happy. But on the once boyish face of Edwin
Dell tiny hard pellets of ice formed; they were frozen tears. On he
wandered through the night, he knew not whither. In time he reached a
large building, and tottered in; it was a railroad station, a place
where one bought tickets to go away. To go away? His brain caught at the
idea.

He would go away. He went to the ticket window, and put down all his
money, twenty-four dollars and seventy cents.

“Give me a ticket,” he said.

“Where to?” the ticket seller asked.

“I don’t care,” said Edwin Dell. “Anywhere. I want to go away . . . away
from it all . . . away from this City of Broken Vows.”

The man sold him a ticket to Granville, Ohio.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“Oh, Pa! Oh, Pa!”

“What is it, Mary?”

“There’s a man lying in our wood-shed.”

“Fetch him in, daughter, fetch him in,” said Peter Wood, known in
Granville and for miles around as “Big-hearted Peter.”

Presently Mary Wood returned carrying the unconscious form of Edwin Dell
in her big strong arms. She was a Greek goddess of a girl, with the brow
of Diana, the nose of Minerva, the chin of Venus and the shoulders of
Juno. Tenderly she laid Edwin down beside the kitchen stove.

“He’ll be all right when he thaws out,” said the farmer.

“What lovely eyelashes he has,” said Mary Wood.

She was bending over him with a steaming cup of coffee when Edwin Dell
slowly opened his eyes.

“Am I in Heaven?” he asked, faintly.

“Gracious sakes, no,” said Mary in her kind, contralto voice. “What
makes you think so?”

“Because you look like an angel,” he answered.

Love was born in that minute.

Came spring to the world, and to Granville, and it brought back the
color to the cheeks of Edwin Dell. He was strong enough to help Mary
with the spring cleaning. They talked.

One evening, as the sun was sinking to rest in a cloudy bed of
strawberries and oranges, Mary said:

“Edwin, let’s take a little walk.”

They walked together through the spring-scented eventide; on the peach
trees blossoms were burgeoning; the vesper songs of mating birds could
be heard.

“Let’s sit down with our backs to the silo,” suggested Mary. They sat.
She turned her great, gray, honest eyes to him.

“Edwin,” she said, “folks are beginning to talk about us.”

“About us, Mary? What are they saying?”

She took a sudden interest in the toe of her shoe.

“Can’t you guess?” she said, softly.

“Yes,” he said, “I can guess. But, oh, Mary, I’m afraid that there are
some dreams that can never come true.”

“I don’t understand, Edwin.”

“Mary, I must go away from here.”

“From Granville? From . . . from me?”

He nodded. She searched his face with her ardent eyes.

“Then,” she said, “you do not . . . care?”

“Do you, Mary?”

She laid her hand on his.

“Tremendously,” she said.

“Ah, if it could only be,” he sighed.

“Would June 14th at half past two be convenient for you?” asked Mary.
“They’ll have finished painting the church by then.”

He turned grief-struck eyes to hers.

“Mary,” he said, “it cannot be.”

“Oh, Edwin, what do you mean?”

He spoke as if each word he muttered were a stab.

“There’s a reason,” he said, “why we can never be more than”—emotion
nearly strangled him, but he finished—“friends.”

“Reason? What reason? Speak, Edwin, speak.”

“Simply this, Mary,” he answered, gravely. “I am unworthy of your love.”

“You unworthy, Edwin? No, no. You jest.”

“I never jest,” said Edwin Dell.

“Edwin,” she cried, “I cannot endure this suspense. Tell me, is there
another?”

He hung his head.

“There was,” he said, “another.”

“You don’t mean . . . ?” she said in an anguished whisper.

“Yes,” he said, “I mean . . .”

Her grip on his hand tightened.

“Poor boy,” said Mary Wood, “poor boy.”

“I was young,” he said, brokenly, “and I was alone . . . alone in New
York. Ah, New York, New York!”

He picked up his hat.

“Well,” he said, “I guess I’d better be running along now.”

“Stop!” cried Mary Wood.

He did not know how it happened but they found themselves in each
other’s arms.

“The past,” he heard Mary Wood saying, close to his ear, “is past. The
future lies ahead. I care not what you have been, Edwin Dell. It is what
you are that I love.”

“Oh, Mary,” was all he could say. “Oh, Mary.”

“True love,” she whispered, “conquers all.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

And so, together, hand in hand, like little children, Edwin Dell and
Mary Wood set out upon the shining road toward the bright promise of a
new world.




                             THE UNFAMILIAR


WHO he was and what he was and where he came from no one knew. How he
came to be in Crosby Corners was a mystery, and at harvesttime
Connecticut farmers are too busy to peer into mysteries. He could not
speak much English beyond “Yes,” “No,” “Hungry,” and “Go Hell.” He could
gesture, however. He could gesture with his hands, his elbows, his eyes,
his feet. He appeared to be trying by pantomime to convey the idea that
he had been forcibly seized in his native land, which was remote, had
been pressed into service aboard a ship, had been very ill at sea, had
escaped at a port, had fled on a train, and had dropped, or been
dropped, at Crosby Corners. The farmers, however, had no time to
interpret pantomime. Farm-hands were scarce, and if a man had two hands
and at least one good eye, they did not delve into his past or his
pedigree; they put him to work. It was thus that the small, scared man
in the velvet trousers entered the employ of Ben Crosby, richest farmer
in that region.

“I found the little rascal,” Ben Crosby told his wife, “squealing like a
pig in a hornet’s nest, and frightened almost out of his wits, with
Constable Pettit marching him along by the ear. ‘Constable,’ I says,
‘what is that and where did you get it?’ He says to me: ‘I dunno what it
is, Ben, but it looks foreign. I found it down by the railroad tracks
trying to eat a raw potato. When I asked it what its name was, it said:
“See.”’ I says to the constable, ‘He may be a Gipsy or he may be a
Hindu, and he looks as if he suspected you of being a cannibal. But,’ I
says, ‘he seems wiry and he didn’t get that lovely tobacco-brown finish
of his at a pink tea or from working in an office. Now I need hands
worse than ducks need ponds. So turn him over to me ’stead of sticking
him in the calaboose, and I’ll give him a job.’ Pettit didn’t want to be
bothered with him, so he turned him over to me, and there he is out at
the pump washing the dirtiest pair of hands I ever did see, and now and
then rubbing his belly to show how hungry he is. I’ll send him to the
back door, Hannah; you give him a lining of ham and eggs and pie, and
then send him down to me. I’ll be in the twenty-acre lot.”

Presently there came a knock on the back door of the Crosby house. It
was not at all a robust knock; it was a tap as faint and timid as a
butterfly’s kick. Mrs. Crosby opened the door, and saw a small man
standing there; his face was a rich brown, his eyes were black and
apprehensive; he appeared to be ready to flee if the occasion demanded
it. When he saw Mrs. Crosby, however, he bowed deeply. Such a bow had
never before been executed in Crosby Corners except in the moving
pictures. It was a sweeping, courtly thing, that bow, in which the small
man swept off his wide felt hat and dusted the steps with it. Then he
smiled; it was a humble, ingratiating smile. He looked toward the stove,
where the sizzling ham was sending its aroma heavenward, and sighed.
Mrs. Crosby pointed to a chair at the kitchen table, and he, with
another bow, took it, and presently he was eating hungrily and freely.
Mrs. Crosby now and then lifted an eye from her canning to regard the
exotic stranger; she had a doubt or two at first whether it was quite
safe for her to stay there. You never can tell what the foreigners may
do, even if you are past forty and the mother of a grown daughter. She
glanced into the dining-room, where, above the mantel, hung Grandpa
Crosby’s Civil-War sword, a long, heavy weapon, and its presence
reassured her. As she studied the man, she decided that any fear of him
was quite groundless; if anything, he was afraid of her. His hair, she
observed, was blue-black and long, but arranged in a way that suggested
that he was a bit of a dandy. The stranger’s trousers surprised her
greatly; they were of black velvet, really painfully tight, except at
the bottom of each leg, where they flared out like bells. He had no
belt, but instead a scarlet sash. His shirt, when new and clean, must
have been a remarkable garment; it had been plaid silk, but it was now
neither new nor clean. His boots were of patent leather and excessively
pointed.

When he had eaten a very great deal he arose, bowed, smiled
beatifically, and made gestures of gratitude. Mrs. Crosby pointed in the
direction of the twenty-acre lot, and he understood. She saw him picking
his way down the path; he was the first man she had ever seen whose gait
at one and the same time included a mince and a swagger.

When Ben Crosby came in to his late supper that evening he announced:

“I was wrong about that new little fellow. He doesn’t seem to have done
farm work. He’s willing enough, but he handles a hay-fork as dainty as
if it was a toothpick. And, say, he certainly is the most scary human
being I ever set eyes on. You should have seen him when the tractor came
into the field with the mowing-machine. He gave a yelp and jumped on the
stone wall, and if there’d been a tree handy, I guess he’d have climbed
it. He looked as if he was afraid the machine would eat him. Pete High,
who was driving it, said, ‘I guess it ain’t only his skin that’s
yellow.’ I hope Pete isn’t right. I hate a coward.”

“Don’t you let Pete High pick on him,” admonished Mrs. Crosby. “Perhaps
the man never saw a mowing-machine before. I remember how scared I was
when I saw the first automobile come roaring and snorting along the
road. And so were you, Ben Crosby.”

“Well, I didn’t let on I was,” replied her husband, harpooning a potato.

“No, you old hypocrite, maybe you didn’t; but I saw you looking around
for a tree.”

He laughed, and was on the point of sending a potato to its final
resting-place, when they both heard a cry—a high, terrified cry that
came through the dusk. He started up.

“That’s not Janey?” he asked.

“No; she’s still in town taking her music lesson.”

“Who is it, then?” he asked quickly.

They heard the patter of running feet on the path outside; they heard
the sound of feet landing after a leap to the porch; they heard someone
banging frantically on the front door. Ben Crosby called out:

“What’s the matter?”

A flood of words in a strange tongue answered him.

“It’s Velvet Pants,” he exclaimed, and flung open the door. The small
man, breathless, tumbled in.

“What in the name of thunderation?” demanded Ben Crosby. The small man
pointed through the open door with quivering fingers.

“I don’t see anything out there but the evening,” said Ben Crosby.

“Ice!” cried the man, very agitated. “Ice!”

“What do you want ice for?” asked Ben Crosby.

The man made eloquent gestures; first he pointed at his own face, then
he pointed outside; his index finger stabbed at the gloom once, twice, a
dozen quick times.

“Ice! ice! ice! ice! ice! ice!” he said.

“Why, Ben, he means ‘eyes,’” exclaimed Mrs. Crosby.

“Eyes? What eyes, Hannah? I don’t see any eyes. There’s nothing out
there but lightning-bugs.”

One of the circling fireflies flew quite near the open door. The small
man saw it coming, and made an earnest, but only partly successful,
attempt to climb into the grandfather’s clock that stood in the corner
of the hall.

Ben Crosby threw back his head and laughed.

“Why, dog my cats! if the little cuss ain’t afraid of lightning-bugs!”
he said. “Hey, Velvet Pants, look here.”

He plucked the man out of the clock with one big hand, and with the
other captured the firefly, and held it near the stranger’s wide eyes.

“Look,” said Ben Crosby in the loud tone that is supposed to make the
American language intelligible to those who do not understand it when it
is spoken in an ordinary tone of voice. “Bug! Bug! No hurt!
Lightning-bug. LIGHTNING-BUG!”

The small man pulled away from the insect.

“Not know lightning-boogs,” he said.

Ben released his hold on the small man, and pointed up-stairs; then Ben
gave a highly realistic imitation of a snore. The man comprehended, and
his velvet-clad legs twinkled up-stairs toward his bedroom. Ben Crosby
returned to his supper, shaking his head.

“It beats me,” he remarked to his wife. “He’s afraid of mowing-machines
and he’s afraid of lightning-bugs. I wonder if he’s afraid of the dark.
I need farm-hands, but may I be fried like a smelt if I’ll tell ’em
bedtime stories or sing ’em to sleep. What’s the world coming to,
anyhow? Can you imagine a real, honest-to-goodness farm-hand like Pete
High being afraid of lightning-bugs?”

“Boneheads are seldom afraid of anything,” remarked Mrs. Crosby, pouring
buttermilk.

They heard the front door open.

“There’s Janey,” said Mrs. Crosby. “Hello, dear. Come right to the
table. I’ve made ice-cream—coffee, the kind you like.”

Janey, daughter of the household, came in, bearing her guitar. She
kissed both her parents. Janey was nearly eighteen, a pretty, elf-like
girl. All the masculine hearts in Crosby Corners beat a little faster
when she went down the village street; her blue eyes had been the cause
of many black eyes. Her father told her of the new man, of his
extraordinary velvet trousers, and of his still more extraordinary
fears.

“Poor little fellow!” she said.

As the harvest days hurried along, Velvet Pants atoned somewhat for his
lack of expertness as a farmer by his unfailing good nature. He even
learned to speak a little English of a certain hesitant species, but he
had little opportunity to talk with his fellow-workers. Mostly they
ignored him, or, if they addressed him at all, did so loftily and with
contempt; a man who paled at the sight of mowing-machines and
lightning-bugs was not of their stout-hearted kind.

The incident at the swimming-hole added little to Velvet Pants’
reputation for bravery. The swimming-hole was Sandy Bottom, where all
the workers, hot from their day in the fields, went for a cool plunge
after work. They noticed that Velvet Pants never went with them.

“How does he keep so neat and clean?” they asked. It was Pete High who
solved this mystery.

“Yesterday morning,” said Pete, “I woke up earlier than usual, and what
do you suppose I see? Well, I hear a tap, tap, tap, like somebody was
stealing down-stairs on his tiptoes. I peek out o’ the door, and it’s
Velvet Pants. Just for fun, I follow him. He goes down to the creek, not
to Sandy Bottom, but a couple of rods down-stream, where the water ain’t
more than ankle-deep. He strips, and takes a stick about the size of a
cane and goes like this, ‘Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,’ and pokes at the
bushes each time he says ‘ah.’ Then he gives one big loud ‘Ahhhhhhh,’
and lunges with his stick at the bushes; then he bows low, like he was
an actor in a show. He takes a bath, then, dabbing a little water on
himself like a cat does; but he doesn’t go in above his ankles. I guess
he’s afraid of the water.”

“Mebbe he ain’t much on swimming,” said one of the other hands, “but he
sure can twang a mean guitar. He’s giving Janey Crosby lessons.”

Pete High scowled.

“He is, is he? First I heard about it. Well, the first thing he knows he
won’t know nothing. I’m not going to have any wop——”

“She likes him,” teased the other man. “Says he’s got such lovely
manners; just like what you ain’t, Pete.”

“She don’t know how yella he is,” Pete High growled, “but she will.”

On Saturday afternoons most of Crosby Corners, men, women, and children,
comes to Sandy Bottom, bringing bathing-suits. It is not a very big
pool; at its deepest part it is not much over six feet deep.

How it happened that the small man with the velvet trousers should be
passing Sandy Bottom that Saturday noon at the precise moment when
freckled Johnny Nelson was floundering in the water and calling loudly
for help does not matter. Why Johnny Nelson should be drowning at all is
something of a puzzle, for he was the best swimmer in the county. It
also happened that just as Johnny was going down for the ninth or tenth
time and was calling piteously for Velvet Pants to dive in and save him,
Janey Crosby and a party of girl friends came down to the pool.

They saw Velvet Pants, his dark face ivory colored, trying to reach
Johnny with a young tree wrenched from the bank. The small man was a
picture of frantic helplessness.

“Save me, Velvet Pants! Save me!” bawled Johnny, submerging, and coming
up for the fourteenth time.

“Not know how,” screamed Velvet Pants in agony. “Not know how.”

Janey Crosby and her companions grew mildly hysterical; Johnny Nelson
went down for the seventeenth and eighteenth time, respectively. Velvet
Pants, finding that he could not reach Johnny with the tree, had fallen
on his knees, and with clasped hands was praying aloud in his own
tongue. Then, it also happened, that Pete High came racing through the
bushes.

“I’ll save you, Johnny,” he cried dramatically. Overalls and all, he
plunged in and brought the dripping Johnny to the bank. The prayers of
Velvet Pants became prayers of thanksgiving. Pete High stood regarding
him with disgust.

“Oh, Velvet Pants,” said Janey Crosby, “why didn’t you jump in and save
him?”

Slowly, sadly the small man shrugged his shoulders.

“Not know water,” he said; “not know sweem.”

He did not seem nearly so abashed as he said this as he might very well
have been in the circumstances; he said it very much as if he were
stating a fact, a lamentable fact the truth of which he regretted, but a
fact, nevertheless. He looked dismayed and surprised when Janey Crosby
and the others turned away from him.

After that Velvet Pants was an outcast. The men spoke to him only when
it was necessary to do so, and then briefly and even harshly. He did not
seem to understand; he would try to tell them things, making many
gestures; but he had not the words to make himself clear, nor had they
the inclination to listen to him.

In the evening, when the men were sitting about the porch, competing for
Janey Crosby’s smiles, there was no place for him there. He had tried to
join in their talk and play, to be friendly, to be one of them; they
froze him out, and still he did not seem to understand that they did it
because he was so flagrant a coward. At last he seemed to accept his
status as a pariah without really understanding it, for he would take
his guitar, which he had constructed from the ruin of an old one, and go
alone into the woods. It was said that he sang there to himself, sad
songs in his native tongue.

Janey Crosby’s birthday came toward the end of the harvest season, and
it was the most important social event of the year in Crosby Corners.
All the village was invited, and all the village came, the girls in
their fresh dimities, the men, soaped and collared and uncomfortable,
but happy. They brought presents, as if they were bringing tribute to a
queen, and Janey, as graciously as a reigning sovereign, took them all,
and smiled.

The party was held in the masonic hall, and it was an affair of
considerable tone, with dancing, two helpings of ice-cream all around,
and a three-piece orchestra.

The dancing was half over. Janey and Pete High, her current partner, had
gone out on the porch; a harvest moon silvered the village streets.

“Look,” exclaimed Pete, “what’s that sitting down there on the
horseblock?”

“It’s a man,” said Janey, her eyes following his pointing finger.

“But who can it be?”

The girl looked again, and made out a small, bent figure sitting there,
chin on hands, eyes turned toward the lighted hall, ears toward the
music and the buzz and laughter of the guests.

“Why, it’s Velvet Pants!” she exclaimed.

“Shall I chase him away?” asked Pete, swelling out his chest and looking
belligerent. Janey laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“No; don’t chase him, Pete. Let him stay. The poor fellow’s probably
lonesome. Everybody is here but him.”

“He deserves to be lonesome,” said Pete; “he’s yella.”

“Would you jump in to save a person from drowning if you didn’t know how
to swim?” asked Janey.

“Of course I would,” replied Pete, promptly. “Now, see here, Janey
Crosby, don’t you go sticking up for that wop. He’s not fit to associate
with white men.”

She sat gazing at the small, miserable figure; then she made a sudden
resolution.

“I’m going to ask him to come up to the party,” she said.

“No, you ain’t.”

“Whose birthday is this, Pete High? I guess it won’t do any harm to give
him a dish of ice-cream. You don’t have to associate with him. Run down
and tell him I’d like to see him, Pete.”

Pete mumbled protests, but he went. Very diffidently, as if he
momentarily expected to be kicked, Velvet Pants approached the porch.
Janey Crosby saw that he was wearing a new, clean shirt, that his black
locks had been parted and buttered, and that his shoes had been
rigorously shined. Over his shoulder was slung his wreck of a guitar.

“This is my birthday, Velvet Pants,” said the girl. “I want you to help
me celebrate it. Pete, will you get another plate of ice-cream?”

The small man seemed overcome; he bowed twice very low. Then he spoke.
He spoke mechanically, as if the words had been often rehearsed.

“I haf no gif’ for you on your birthday, Mees Crosby, but I haf learn a
song American to seeng for you. I hear heem on funnygraf. I hope you
like.”

He said it humbly, but not without a certain pride that attends the
accomplishment of a difficult feat.

Janey laughed delightedly.

“So you learned an American song just for my birthday? Well, now, wasn’t
that a sweet idea! Wait! I’ll call the others; no, better still, you
come in the hall and sing, so they can all hear.”

Velvet Pants looked horrified at this suggestion.

“But, no,” he protested. “I do not seeng good.”

“That’s all right. They won’t know the difference,” said Janey,
laughingly. “Come along.”

She pushed him through the open doorway. The guests looked up; what
would Janey Crosby do next?

“Folks,” announced Janey Crosby, “Mr. Velvet Pants is going to sing for
us. He learned a little American song just for my birthday. Wasn’t that
nice of him?”

It was evident from the face of Pete High, who stood in the doorway,
that he did not think it was particularly nice.

The small brown man glanced uncertainly about the hall; then he began to
play chords on his guitar. Some of the girls tittered. In a round, clear
tenor Velvet Pants began to sing:

                  “Kees me hagain, kees me hagain,
                  Kees me hagain, and hagain.”

His memory seemed to go back on him at this point; he groped for a
moment for the words, then plunged on:

                  “Kees me hagain, kees me hagain,
                  Kees me hagain, and hagain.
                  Kees me hagain, kees me hagain,
                  Kees me hagain and hagain,
                  Kees me hagain, kees me hagain,
                  Kees me, kees me, hagain!”

When he had finished, Velvet Pants bowed deeply first to Janey, then to
the rest. There was a slight, dubious ripple of applause that was
checked suddenly. Pete High had strode up to Velvet Pants and was facing
him.

“Just a minute there,” said Pete. “You and me has got a little bone to
pick. Wadda you mean by singing a song like that to Miss Crosby?”

The small man looked puzzled.

“It ees only song American I know,” he said.

“Yeah? Well, I’m goin’ to teach you to sing it out of the other side of
your mouth. Come outside with me.”

“Pete High,” broke in Janey, “don’t you go fighting with him. He didn’t
mean any harm; he probably doesn’t know what the words mean.”

“I told him never to say anything to you whether he understood it or
not,” stormed Pete. “Come on, you.”

Velvet Pants made an attempt to steal away, but Pete blocked his path.

“You’re going out on the lawn with me,” said Pete.

“And seeng?” asked the little man, who seemed somewhat dazed by what was
happening.

“No; fight.”

“Fight?”

“Yes; fight.”

“But I do not hate you, Meester Pete.”

“Well, I hate you. Come on.”

“But how we fight?” inquired the small man; he was pale beneath his tan,
and trembling. For answer Pete thrust a clenched fist under the man’s
nose. The man drew his head back and shivered.

“No!” he said, shaking his head; “no! no! no! no! no!”

“You won’t fight?”

“No.”

“You’re a coward,” declared Pete.

Velvet Pants shrugged his shoulders.

“Not know hand-fights,” he said.

Pete slapped him across the face with his open hand.

“Now will you fight?”

“Not know hand-fights,” said the man, drawing away. Pete, contempt on
his face, gave him a push into the night. They heard the sound of feet
on the path; Velvet Pants was running.

“Not know hand-fights,” Pete mimicked. “Did you ever in your life see
such a rat?”

Next day excitement swept Crosby Corners. Defender Monarch had gone
crazy, and when that news spread, they forgot all about the conduct of
Velvet Pants on the night before. As for him, he went about his work
with a puzzled and hurt look on his brown face; he seemed still
uncertain why the others did not respond to his smiles and attempts at
friendliness.

Defender Monarch was the pride, and the terror, of the county. His
owner, Ben Crosby, had raised him from a gawky calf, wobbly on his legs,
into a massive ton-and-a-half bull, with a chest like a haystack, a
voice of thunder, and the temper of a gouty demon. Ben Crosby had not
dehorned him, because in cattle shows a good pair of horns is considered
a point of merit in judging bulls, and the giant bull had won many blue
ribbons. On this day Ben Crosby wished most earnestly that he had
foregone the blue ribbons and taken off those horns. A savage bull
without horns is bad enough, but a savage bull with a pair of sharp,
wicked horns is just about the most dangerous animal that walks.

Perhaps on that morning Defender Monarch had realized that he had
reached the end of his usefulness, and that before very long he was
doomed to end a proud career, ingloriously, as steak, roast, and stew.
He stood in his pasture, roaring a challenge to the world that he would
die fighting. By blind luck Ben Crosby was able to trick him into
entering the big pen, but in the process Defender Monarch had given a
sample of his viciousness by ripping Johnny Nelson’s arm from elbow to
shoulder and had failed by a hair’s-breadth in a sincere attempt to
crush the life out of Ben Crosby himself. Once confined in the pen,
Defender Monarch’s rage knew no bounds. He hurled himself against the
thick board sides so furiously that they creaked and trembled, and the
crowd that had gathered to see him darted back to places of greater
safety.

Luckily, the pen was a stoutly built affair; it was not really a pen at
all, but a small corral, perhaps fifty feet square. About it moved
Defender Monarch, his small eyes blazing, alert. And, perched on boxes
and ladders, Crosby Corners, fascinated as all men are by dangerous
things, watched the mad king of the herd.

“Isn’t he just too terrible,” said Janey Crosby to Pete High.

“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Pete, airily. “I’ve worked round him
often.”

“But not since he went crazy, Pete.”

“No,” admitted Pete, “mebbe not. I’m used to cattle of all kinds, but I
never saw one that acted this way. Just plain bulls I’m none too fond of
fooling with, but a crazy one! Excuse me.”

“See how he’s looking right at us with those mean little eyes of his,”
said Janey. “It’s just as if he were saying, ‘If I only had you down
here for a minute!’ I’m scared, Pete.”

“I’m here,” said Pete High, reassuringly. “Look, Janey, he’s getting
another fit; he’s going to try to buck that opposite wall.”

Janey Crosby, to get a better view, climbed to the very top of the
stepladder that leaned against the wall of the corral. There was a sharp
crack as the top rail gave way, then horrified cries. She had fallen
into the pen, and lay unconscious almost at the feet of the mad bull.

The women screamed, the men ran about aimlessly, wildly, shouting orders
at one another.

“Help! Janey’s fallen into the pen!”

“Oh, he’ll kill her! he’ll kill her! he’ll kill her!”

“Get pitchforks!”

“Get a gun!”

“No use; we’ve only got bird-shot. It would just make him madder to hit
him with that.”

“Someone will have to jump in.”

“Where are you running to, Pete High?”

“To get a rope or something.”

“You’ll be too late.”

Defender Monarch looked down at the girl, and his eyes were evil. Then
he looked at the ring of white faces that lined the top of the corral.
He seemed to understand the situation; he seemed to know that he had
plenty of time, and he gloated. He turned away from Janey, trotted to
the farther end of the corral, wheeled about, and surveyed the distance
between himself and the girl’s body; then he lowered his head with his
gleaming prongs, and gathered his body for a charge.

The aghast onlookers became aware that something was in the corral
besides the girl and the bull. A figure had come through the gate of the
inclosure, silently and swiftly. It was a small man in velvet trousers
and he was strolling toward Defender Monarch as casually and placidly as
if the bull were a rose-bush. On the brown face of Velvet Pants there
was not the slightest trace of fear; indeed, he was smiling, a slight,
amused smile. Otherwise he was as matter of fact as if he were about to
sit down to his breakfast. A brown-paper cigaret hung limp from one
corner of his lips; with the mincing strut they had noticed and made fun
of, he walked slowly quite near to Defender Monarch. The animal,
distracted, stood blinking at the little man. Within a few feet of the
bull, Velvet Pants halted; with magnificent nonchalance he blew a cloud
of smoke into the bull’s face, and then they saw a flash of something
red. It was Ben Crosby’s red flannel undershirt that a few moments
before had been drying on the line. The small man had flicked it across
the bull’s face. Defender Monarch forgot for the moment his plan for
smashing Janey Crosby; he saw the red, and he plunged toward it. The
women turned their heads away, the men clenched their teeth. They saw
Velvet Pants slip aside with the quickness of a jungle cat, and the
bull, unable to check himself, jolt his head against one of the sides of
the corral. Velvet Pants turned round, smiled pleasantly, and bowed very
low to the spectators. They saw that he had in his right hand something
long and bright that caught the rays of the sun; they realized that it
was Grandpa Crosby’s old Civil-War sword that had hung in the
dining-room. He was holding it as lightly and as easily as if it were a
butter-knife.

Defender Monarch, recovering from his fruitless charge against the wall,
spun about; once more the red shirt was deftly flapped before his
bright, mad eyes. Once more, with a roar of wrath, he launched his bulk
straight at Velvet Pants. Then something happened to Defender Monarch.
It happened with such speed that all the onlookers saw was a flash; then
they saw the huge frame of the bull totter, crumple, and sink down.
Sticking from the left shoulder of the bull they saw the hilt of Grandpa
Crosby’s sword; they saw the hilt only, for Velvet Pants had driven the
point into Defender Monarch’s heart.

The people of Crosby Corners allege that Ben Crosby kissed the little
tanned man on both cheeks, but this he denies; he admits, however, that
he hugged him and patted him, and said many husky words of gratitude and
admiration to Velvet Pants, who seemed abashed and quite unable to
understand why everyone was making so much of a fuss about him.

“And I called you a coward,” Ben Crosby kept saying. “I called you a
coward, and you went in and faced a mad bull without batting an
eyelash.”

“It was nuzzing,” murmured the small brown man.

“Nothing to face a mad bull?”

Velvet Pants shrugged his shoulders.

“But I am a toreador,” he said. “In my country, Andalusia, I keel one,
two, t’ree bull every Sunday for fun. Why should I fear bulls? I know
bulls.”




                         A HOUSE IN THE COUNTRY


I MET him again in this way: The revolving door of the excessively
fashionable St. Erdman Hotel was spinning around furiously—and yet no
one came forth. My eye spied this phenomenon; and, ever curious, I
paused on Fifth Avenue and watched. Round and round sped the door like
the Ferris Wheel in a squirrel cage propelled by an athletic squirrel
gone mad. So fast did the door revolve that with difficulty I made out a
small figure in a brown suit in one of the compartments. It was he who
was making a whirligig of the door. Then I saw another figure, very
bulky and cholerically red in the face and wearing the purple-and-gold
livery of the hotel, stop the buzzing door and with outraged thumb and
forefinger pick up the little man in brown by the collar, pop him out of
the door like a tiddleywink and send him bouncing across the sidewalk in
my direction. The little man picked himself up, apparently not in the
least angry, cast not a single malediction at the broad purple back of
the doorman, but began to brush himself off thoughtfully. Then I saw
that he was Hosmer Appleby, with whom I had had a casual acquaintance in
college some five years before.

“Why hello, Appleby,” I greeted him. “Are you hurt?”

“I shall not have one,” was his reply. “I do not like them.”

I stared at Appleby, uncertain whether he was dazed by his recent
experience, or was perhaps psychopathic, or had been drinking.

“You do not like what?” I queried.

“Revolving doors,” he said. “I’ve tried them in seven buildings now, and
I don’t like any of them. No; I shan’t have one. That’s settled.”

He addressed me as if I were trying to compel him to have a revolving
door, willy-nilly.

“There, there,” I said soothingly, convinced now that his mind was
affected. “You need not have revolving doors if you don’t want them.”

“But what kind shall I have?” he demanded, looking at me anxiously.
“What kind would you have?”

“Have? For what?”

“Why, for your house, of course,” he said.

“But I have no house, Appleby.”

I fancied that he looked at me pityingly.

“Neither have I,” he said; “but I am going to have one.”

“Are you? Where?”

“In the country.”

“Whereabouts in the country?”

“I don’t know yet.” Then, in a tone that was rapt, if not actually
reverent, he said, “Yes, some day I’ll have a house in the country.”

“When?”

“I wish I knew,” Appleby said. “As soon as I save enough to build the
house and to provide a small income for myself.”

“You’re married then?”

“Oh, no; no, indeed. Nothing like that,” he assured me hastily.

“Then what the dickens do you want with a house in the country?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Appleby. “Where can we go and talk?”

I suggested a certain coffee house, hidden away in a side street.

“The coffee,” I said, as we started there, “is the best Java in New
York. It is raised for the exclusive use of a royal family in Europe;
but now and then the royal steward sells a bag to this coffee house. It
has to be smuggled in, bean by bean; the man said so.”

“Smuggled in, bean by bean,” repeated Appleby. “Do you think I could get
a bag?”

“A whole bag? What for?”

“For my house, of course,” he said. “I could serve it at the
housewarming.”

“Well,” I said, “it strikes me that a fellow who plans what sort of
coffee he’ll serve at the housewarming of a house that isn’t even
started yet must like to peer into the future.”

“I do,” said Appleby seriously.

As we neared the coffee house he suddenly darted from my side. With some
apprehension I saw him, by a somewhat hazardous display of gymnastic
ability, mount a window ledge that he might examine closely one of the
old ship lanterns that served to light the sign of the coffee house.

He climbed down, shaking his head.

“It won’t do,” he said.

“It won’t do what?” I asked.

“It won’t do for my house,” he replied.

As we entered the vestibule he dropped to his knees and ran an
appraising hand over the doormat.

“Too prickly,” he announced. “For me, at any rate.”

We took a table in the little back room, and while Appleby inquisitively
fingered the curtain material and searched the bottom of the sugar bowl
for the maker’s mark, I examined him. Save for the addition of a blond
snippet of mustache, he was much the same as he had been in college. He
wore the same sort of assiduously brushed brown suit, the same careful
necktie, the same intent, intense air.

“Did you see the Yale game this year?” I asked.

“No; but let me tell you about my house,” he answered. “Just now it’s to
be a rather simple affair of, say, ten rooms; a low, rambling house of
the English type, with plaster walls showing the trowel marks; or I may
have it of field stone, with a beamed ceiling in the living room
and——”

“But why are you going to build it, Appleby?”

He looked solemn.

“Because of my philosophy of life,” he said.

“I don’t see——”

“This is what I mean,” he explained: “I came out of college about as
well prepared for life as a snake is prepared to ride a bicycle. I’d no
idea what I wanted to do. First, I thought I’d like to be a painter; I
lived on art and sausages for five months; then I ran out of paint and
sausages. So I went to work in an advertising agency. I’m not just sure
now why I did. I think I ran into some fellow who said advertising was a
young giant still in its infancy and advised me to get in on the ground
floor; I remember the metaphor, if not the fellow. I did get in on the
ground floor and I stayed there for four months. Then I lost interest in
the superlative merits of the hair restorer my company advertised, and
left the young giant still in its infancy.”

The coffee came; he absent-mindedly, drank some.

“I entered finance,” he went on. “That is to say, I trekked all over
town trying to find someone feeble-minded enough to buy a bond from me.
Not finding anyone, I entered foreign trade; meaning, I sat at a desk
and tried to sell dolls in gross lots to Peruvian importers. I did this
for some endless months. One day I found myself looking out of my
ninth-story window and wondering why I didn’t jump. ‘Why,’ I found
myself asking myself, ‘do I continue to live? Do I care a snap about
dolls in gross lots? I do not! Do I like Peruvians? Not at all! In fact,
they both bore me. Life,’ I said to myself, ‘is as empty as a used
cantaloupe.’ What had I to live for?”

Appleby sipped his coffee, and I said I didn’t know.

“Nothing,” he said; “nothing. What was my life? Same routine. Get up in
the morning; miserable business, getting up. Shave myself; always
painful; tender skin, you know. Breakfast; same old coffee, same old
cereal, same old eggs. Jostle down to the office. Same dolls; same
Peruvians. Lunch with earnest young exporters; same oatmeal crackers and
milk; same talk about profits and markets. Back to the office; ‘Miss
Gurry, take a letter: “Yours of the fourteenth received, and in reply
would say in re shipment of 325 gross of best India-rubber dolls, style
7BB—squeaking—am shipping same f.o.b., Wappingers Falls, N. Y., at
once.”’ Oh, you know the line. Home to my apartment, the size of a
police patrol. Read the papers. Same old bunk. ‘Strike Situation
Serious.’ ‘International Situation Serious.’ ‘Pugilistic Situation
Serious.’ Everything serious, everybody serious. Dinner; that’s serious
too. Same old question: What shall I do to kill the evening? Read a
book? The usual bunk; either romance about people who are too happy, or
realism about people who are not happy enough. Go to a show? The old
plots, the old lines, the old girls. Same banalities; same strutting
hams spouting moss-covered buckets of bunk. Call on a girl? Ghastly
bore. Same old ‘Have you seen this or have you read that? Isn’t it
shocking about the Warps getting a divorce, or nice about the Woofs
getting married? Do you believe a man and a girl can really be friends
in the strictest sense of the word, and how is your golf game getting
on?’ Home to bed, wind the alarm clock; same old dreams, and
then—br-r-ring—7:30 same thing all over again. I was slaving at work I
hated, and what was I getting out of it? What was it all leading to?”

Again he sipped coffee; again I said I didn’t know; again he launched
himself.

“Nothing,” he said; “nothing. There I was at twenty-four doing work I
loathed in order to lead a life that bored me. The whole business seemed
as pointless as an aquarium without fish. What could I do to make life
worth living?”

“Well, what did you do?” I asked.

“First, I analyzed the situation. I always was analytic, you know. Then
I decided what I must do. I must have some definite object to work for.
I must set some goal for myself.”

He tossed off his coffee with a triumphant air; his eyes sparkled. I
signaled for more coffee and looked at him interrogatorily.

“And the goal?” I questioned.

His voice was alive with excitement as he said, “To have a house in the
country; to retire and live there and raise roses.”

“You’re pretty young to retire,” I remarked.

“Oh, I won’t be able to do that for years and years,” Appleby said.
“I’ll not only have to earn enough for a house but enough to bring me in
a modest income.”

“Well, you have your definite object.”

“I have,” said Appleby. “And you’ve no idea how it has bucked me up.
I’ve gained ten pounds since I thought of it. And my whole outlook has
changed; I’m as happy as a cat in a fish store these days. You see, I’m
going to build a perfect house. I take all the building magazines. Every
Sunday I go walking in the country looking for sites. And as for my
job——”

“You like it now?”

“I do not. I’m still distinctly bored by dolls in gross lots, and
Peruvians; but I take them seriously now. They’re pawns in my game, you
see. Now, every time I sell a gross of dolls I say to myself, ‘Ah, 144
dolls means a commission to me of $4.77, or enough to pay for one
electric outlet in my house.’ Or, if I sell ten gross I say to myself,
‘Good work, old boy! The commission will buy andirons, or bricks for the
chimney, or so many gallons of paint.’ I’m three times as good a
business man as I was. Indeed, I should be at my office this minute, but
I got thinking about revolving doors and could not be easy in my mind
till I tried some. I don’t think they’d be appropriate for a country
house, do you?”

“Decidedly not.”

He looked relieved.

“Good! Glad you agree. I’ll cross them off.”

He took out a fat memorandum book and crossed words off a list.

“When do you expect to make this dream a reality?” I asked.

A wistful look came to his face.

“If I do it by the time I’m fifty I’ll be lucky,” he said. “There isn’t
much money in dolls. It will take years. But”—and he brightened—“I
have already set aside enough money to pay for one window with leaded
glass, one foot scraper, three electric outlets and part of the coal
bin. Have you any ideas about coal bins?”

Before I could give him the benefit of my thought on this subject he
vanished from my sight. I perceived that he had dived under the table
and was subjecting the floor to a microscopic scrutiny. Presently he
looked up.

“Wanted to be sure whether the floor is painted or stained,” he
explained. “I think I’ll have my floors painted.” There was pride in his
voice as he accented the word “my.” He got to his feet.

“Well, I must rush along. Hope I can sell a few gross of dolls before
the market closes. Glad I ran into you. By the way, if you hear of
anybody who wants to buy dolls——”

He did not finish his sentence, for his attention was caught by the
door-knob of the front door and he bent over to see how it worked.

Then he went out. I did not see Hosmer Appleby again for six years.

New York eats men. It ate Appleby. At least I did not encounter him. He
may have ridden in the same cars or lived in the same block; but our
paths did not cross until one afternoon at the art museum. It was, as I
recall it, just six years after we drank coffee together and he told me
about his aim in life. I was in one gallery of the museum looking at a
new exhibition of etchings, when I heard a commotion in the next
gallery. A bass voice was in somewhat violent controversy with a tenor
voice.

“But you can’t lie in that there bed,” the bass voice protested loudly.

“Why can’t I?”

“That there bed,” declared the bass voice, “was slep’ in by Napoleon.
It’s worth twenty thousand dollars. We can’t have people layin’ in it,
now can we?”

“But I’m only trying it.”

“It’s against the rules of the museum,” stated the bass voice.

I entered the gallery at this moment and saw a fat and agitated museum
attendant, owner of the bass voice, expostulating with a small man in a
brown suit, the tenor, who was reclining on an enormous gilt, canopied,
four-poster bed of florid design.

“Oh, very well,” said the man on the bed. “I don’t think much of it as a
bed, anyhow. I wouldn’t have it in my house.”

Saying this, he rose from the bed and I saw that he was Hosmer Appleby.

“Oh, you wouldn’t, wouldn’t you?” said the attendant, loyal to his
charge. “Well, it was good enough for Napoleon, that there bed was.”

“Steel beds are more sanitary,” said Appleby. Then turning to me, “Don’t
you think so?”

He spoke as if I’d been with him all the time. He had the same absorbed
expression, the same intent, intense look.

“How’s the house?” I asked. “Are you enjoying living in it?”

“Living in it? Why, I haven’t started to build it yet!” he told me as we
strolled through the collection of Sheraton furniture, which he now and
then stopped to poke.

“No,” he continued, “I haven’t found a site. Haven’t the money, anyhow.
But I’m looking. I suppose I’ve looked at five hundred sites since I saw
you, and have got forty earaches listening to real-estate agents. I’m in
no great hurry. The perfect house on the perfect site—that’s my plan.”

He said it as if he were annunciating a religious principle.

“And the dolls?” I asked.

He made a wry face.

“Oh, I still sell the little beasts,” he replied. “I’m assistant sales
manager now, you know.”

“Good work!”

“Beastly grind,” he said. “I detest dolls. But they’re going to build me
a house in the country.”

“A doll house?” I suggested.

He did not smile; his look said that his house was too sacred a matter
for facetiousness.

“How are you, anyhow? Married, or anything like that?” I inquired.

“The living room is going to be thirty-five by twenty,” he said.

I stopped to admire a Fuller landscape.

“Aren’t those shadows lovely?” I said.

“My living room is going to be very bright,” said Hosmer Appleby.
“Splotches of brilliant color everywhere. Old Spanish.” He said this in
a confidential whisper, as if he were imparting a secret. “And, do you
know,” he concluded, “I’ve earned almost enough to furnish the living
room.”

I congratulated him. He shook a rather woeful head.

“It’s fearfully slow work,” he said. “Sometimes I think I’ll never make
it. Sometimes I fear that the house is a mirage that can never be
reached. But I conquer these fits of despair; I put on full steam and
sell dolls like a fiend incarnate.” He made a face. “Little bores,” he
added. We had reached the front door of the museum.

“Well, good-by,” Appleby said. “Glad I saw you. Let’s have lunch
sometime. Have to go back downtown and cable Peru. Just dropped in here
to try that Napoleonic bed. Now I can cross canopied beds off my list.”
He did so.

Then I saw him make a hasty exit, and I saw his brown-suited back
disappear in pursuit of a bus.

We never did have that lunch; he disappeared from my life and it was
some years before I saw him again. It was at an auction. I heard an
excited tenor voice bidding on a dragon-sprinkled Chinese rug.

Appleby shook hands with me vigorously, without taking his eyes off the
auctioneer. He seemed in excellent health and spirits; he had color in
his cheeks and a spark in his eyes. He bought the rug.

“This makes the seventh rug I’ve bought,” he whispered to me
breathlessly.

“How’s the house?” I asked.

“Still in the blue-print stage,” he said, a little sadly. “But I’ve
earned nearly enough to pay for the first floor. And I’ve got my eye on
a wonderful site in Connecticut. You should see the hanging lamp I
picked up at a sale last week! Very French and cubistic.” His eyes
glowed.

“For your old-Spanish room?” I asked with a smile.

“Oh, now it’s going to be a modern French room,” he said.

“Still selling dolls, Appleby?”

“Yes, worse luck. I mean I still get no thrill out of the work. But I’m
to be made sales manager the first of the year. That means more money,
and every dollar I make brings me nearer my house in the country, and
freedom.”

I left him bidding feverishly on a plum-colored Cabistan.

I had almost forgotten Hosmer Appleby and his house. A good many years
had passed since our last meeting—seventeen years, I think; or maybe
eighteen. Then one day last spring I received a note inviting me to the
housewarming of Briar Farm, near Noroton, Connecticut; it was a very
cordial little note, and it was signed “Hosmer Appleby.” Then I knew
that he had attained his goal at last.

I went out to Briar Farm to the housewarming. The site was, indeed,
perfect; five acres or so of rolling land, with a view across Long
Island Sound; and the house itself was a gem. Hosmer Appleby,
white-haired now, but as bright-eyed and interested as ever, greeted me
warmly. He skipped from guest to guest, rubbing his hands, bowing
acknowledgments of the compliments they offered him on the perfection of
his house. Now and then he pointed out some perfections that might have
escaped our attention—that chair was from a sixteenth-century monastery
near Seville; that fireplace was his own design; the beams in that
ceiling he had discovered in an old manor house in Somersetshire; he
invented that especially efficient shower bath; and didn’t we think that
Matisse in his library rather good?

He took me to the library window, showed me gleefully how the patent
casement windows worked, and said: “You see that garden out there? It’s
to be a rose garden. There I’m going to spend the rest of my days; at
night I’ll read in this room. It’s been a long pull, I can tell you; but
here I am.”

“You’ve deserted the dolls?” I asked.

He made the face of one who has just taken unpleasant medicine.

“Don’t remind me of them,” he said. “I hope I’ll never see one of the
little brutes again. When I think of the years I spent worrying and
sweating over them—still they helped me attain my objective. I was
president of the company, you know, when I resigned.”

When I was leaving his house he said to me, “You must come up when the
roses are blooming. They ought to be beauties; I’ve been studying books
on rose growing for the last ten years.”

Three months later I was driving near Briar Farm, and I stopped in to
see Appleby and his house and the roses. I saw a figure in old clothes
pottering about in the garden. It seemed to me as I watched him that his
walk sagged. He would pick a rose bug from a leaf, look at it for a
whole minute or more, put it into a can, and then pick off another rose
bug. He saw me standing there and came slowly toward me. I thought he
seemed pale. He shook hands with me limply.

“How well the roses are getting on!” I said.

“Do you think so?” he said without enthusiasm.

We went into his living room—he had done it in old-Spanish style, after
all. I admired a venerable refectory table. Appleby shrugged his
shoulders. There were long silences in the course of our conversation,
during which Appleby would sit with head on chest, staring at a rug; and
yet I felt somehow that he did not see the rug.

“What a stunning lamp!” I said.

“Oh, it’ll do,” said Appleby; his tone seemed dull.

“Don’t you feel well, Appleby?” I asked.

“Not particularly,” he said in that same blunted voice.

A week later I heard through a mutual friend that Hosmer Appleby had
taken to his bed, and that his doctors were shaking their heads and
looking grave. I had it in mind to go out to see him, but business
called me suddenly to England for a flying trip. I was gone a month. I
came back to New York on the newest and largest of liners, the Steamship
_Gigantic_. We tied up at a New York pier, and while waiting for the
customs inspectors to delve into our baggage I decided to take a last
stroll about the vast ship.

I had penetrated into its depths and had come to the place where one
could peer down and see the mighty engines, great polished and black
giants crouching in their cave. As I stood there I became aware that a
man, at no small peril to his safety, was hanging out over the rail and
studying the engines with fascinated eyes. He was shaking his head and
muttering to himself as if he were in the midst of calculation or inner
debate. He heard my step and swung around. It was Appleby. He bounded
toward me and shook hands with me with a hearty violence. His face was
full of color, and I have never seen brighter eyes.

“Well, well, well!” he cried. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks. And you?”

“Bully!” he said. “Bully!”

“But what are you doing here, Appleby?”

“I got a pass and came aboard just as soon as the boat docked,” he
explained. His manner was alert, almost jaunty, one would say. “You see,
I know the president of the line. I use his boats to export some of my
dolls.”

“Your dolls?” I exclaimed.

“Certainly. I’m back in the doll business. And I’ll bet you a good cigar
we’ll sell half a million dollars’ worth of dolls this year.”

His voice was brisk, his air determined.

“But your house in the country, Appleby.”

“Oh, I sold that. Tell me, how did these new oil-burning engines work on
the trip coming over? You see, I’m going to build myself a yacht. I’m
working like a beaver to earn the money. It’s going to be the finest
yacht that was ever built—the newest oil-burning engine, mahogany
decks, cabins for twenty or more, elevators——”




                                 SHOES


“YOUR name?”

“William Felton.”

“Speak louder, can’t you?”

“William Felton.”

“Your age?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Say ‘Your Honour,’ when you answer a judge. Don’t pretend you haven’t
been arrested before.”

“I haven’t been, your honor.”

“How old did you say you are?”

“Twenty-two, your honor.”

“You look older. What is your occupation?

“Clerk in a shoe store, your honor.”

“Officer Greavy, Officer Greavy.”

“Here y’ronor.”

“What is this man Felton charged with?”

“Well, y’ronor, I was on m’post on Simpson street las’ night an’ at
twenty-three minutes past eight, I hear a commotion in front of the Idle
Hour Movie Theater, at 1833 Simpson Street, Saul Bloch, proprietor. I
seen the prisoner here bein’ thrown outa the theater by some men. They
was kickin’ and punchin’ him. A woman was screamin’ ‘He kissed me! He
kissed me!’ I ast her did she want to make a complaint against him and
she said yes, she did. So I arrested him.”

“Is that woman over there the one that got kissed?”

“Yes, y’ronor. That’s her.”

“Thank you, officer. You may go. Will you take the stand, Madam? What is
your name?”

“Elsa Keck.”

“Mrs?”

“Miss, your honor, Miss.”

“Your age, Miss Keck.”

“Must I?”

“Yes.”

“Well—forty-one.”

“Are you employed?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I’m a waitress in the White Tile Restaurant, corner of Third Avenue and
149th Street.”

“Been there long?”

“Twenty-two years, your honor.”

“Where do you live?”

“At No. 1989 Second Avenue.”

“With your family?”

“I ain’t got any family.”

“With friends, then?”

“No; furnished room.”

“Tell me exactly what happened last night.”

“Well, your honor, I was on the early shift, bein’ I been workin’ there
at the White Tile longer than any of the other girls, so I got off about
seven and I says to myself I can’t go home to that hot room of mine this
early so I guess I’ll go take in a movie show, so I goes into the Idle
Hour. It’s cool in there and I can rest my feet, I says; if you ever
done any waitin,’ your honor, you know how hard it is on the feet. Well,
I goes in and they’re showin’ a lovely picture all about an Arab prince
that fell in love with a white girl and carried her off to his tent
and——”

“Please be as brief as possible, Miss Keck.”

“Well, your honor, this man was sittin’ next to me, and I paid no
attention to him except to notice that his face was sort of sickly and
his eyes sort of wild. I didn’t give him no encouragement, your honor;
I’m a decent girl. I just watched the film. Well, I slipped my pumps off
my feet and leaned back to take it easy when all of a sudden he reaches
out and kisses me right on the face. I screamed. I got all sort of
hysterical. Then some men began punchin’ him and the ushers dragged him
up the aisle and I was that upset—nothin’ of the kind ever having
happened to me before—that I screamed some more; and when the cop come
and asked did I want to have him run in, I said I did. I was afraid the
men would kill him; they was beatin’ him something fierce and he wasn’t
very strong lookin’——”

“Don’t you want to press the case?”

“I—I dunno, your honor.”

“Well, I do. I’m not going to let you withdraw your complaint, Miss
Keck. I happen to be the father of nine children, six of them growing
girls. For their sake and the sake of the rest of the womanhood of the
city, I’m going to see if something can’t be done about men like this.
Is that man over there the one who kissed you?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes, your honor; I couldn’t forget.”

“You say you haven’t been kissed before——?”

“No, your honor.”

“I mean by a stranger in a moving-picture theater.”

“Oh, no, your honor.”

“Ever been followed on the street by men, or annoyed by mashers?”

“Never, your honor.”

“Very well. You may stand aside, Miss Keck.”

“Your honor——”

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to be hard on this—this boy. I guess he didn’t mean no
harm; mebbe he’d been drinkin’ or wasn’t right in the head or sumpin.’ I
guess I was sort of hysterical when I said I wanted him run in. I don’t
want to get him in trouble and make him lose his job. Jobs is hard to
get and——”

“That will do, Miss Keck. It’s too late now to drop the case. You
tender-hearted women, with your misplaced sympathy, are to blame for
mashers. I represent the public, and the public can’t have young
ruffians going around kissing women old enough to be their mothers. I’ve
got daughters to think of, and the daughters of other men, too.”

“But, your honor——”

“That will do, Miss Keck. Prisoner, stand up. Well, Felton, you’ve heard
the officer and you’ve heard Miss Keck. What have you to say?”

“Nothing, your honor.”

“Speak up, can’t you? Don’t mumble. Are you guilty or not guilty?”

“Guilty, your honor.”

“Have you anything you’d like to say? I’d really like to know why a
quiet-looking young fellow like you goes around acting like a beast; I
really would.”

“I—I—would like to say something, if you don’t mind.”

“Well? Don’t mumble.”

“I—I’m not a beast, your honor.”

“Well, why do you act like one then?”

“It wasn’t me, your honor. It was somethin’ in me. I don’t know how to
tell you. It ain’t decent to talk about such things. The minister said
so. I never done anything like this before. Honest. It just come over
me—all of a sudden. I wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t taken off her
shoe; it was the first time I ever seen a foot—like that, you
know—outside of a store; I guess I got a devil in me or sumpin.’
Anyhow, before I knew it I’d done it and she was screamin’ and the men
was punchin’ me and kickin’ me and I didn’t know just where I was. I
didn’t mean to do it, your honor; honest, I didn’t; it just
happened—just happened——”

“Nonsense. Things like that don’t just happen, Felton. Tell the truth.
You went in there to annoy a woman, didn’t you?”

“No, your honor, no. I swear on the Good Book I didn’t. I went in there
so I wouldn’t annoy no woman.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I—I—don’t like to talk about it, your honor. It ain’t decent. But I
can’t help it—— I got sumpin’ wrong with me, I guess. Always did have,
ever since I was a kid. I ain’t a bad one, your honor. I go to church
regular and I know my Bible and I ain’t never been in no kind of trouble
before. You can ask Mr. Wirtz if I ain’t honest and sober and hard
workin’——”

“Who’s he?”

“I work for him—down at the Elite Shoe Store on Third Avenue—Jacob
Wirtz—‘Fancy Feminine Footwear.’ He’ll tell you—Oh, I wish to God I
never did go to work there. That was what done it, your honor. If I’d a
been able to get a job as a chauffeur or a salesman in the gents’
haberdashery or anything, it wouldn’t have happened to me. But I didn’t
know nothin’ but shoes—nothin’ but shoes, your honor. And they got me;
I knew they’d get me; I did try to fight ’em, your honor; night and day
I tried. I prayed every night, ‘Dear Jesus, don’t let the shoes get
me——’”

“Come, come, Felton. I haven’t time to listen to you all day. If you
have anything to say that bears on your case, out with it.”

“I’m tryin’ to tell you, your honor. It—makes me all ashamed. I don’t
know how to tell things; I ain’t talked much to people, except about
shoes.”

“Shoes? What have they to do with your conduct?”

“They got everything to do with it, I guess, your honor. It was them
that made me do it—the shoes—— You see, when I was a kid I wasn’t
like the other kids—I dunno why. Things made me excited—little things
that the other kids didn’t seem to mind. Things made me tremble and
shiver like I was freezin’. I lived up-state in a little town with my
uncle and aunt. The other kids played with girls but I never did; it
made me all sort of nervous just to see ’em. Once I went on a straw-ride
when I was in the seventh grade, and I sat next to a girl and I got so
nervous I threw up. Other boys wasn’t like that; but I was——

“My uncle took me outa high school to go to work in his store. He kept a
shoe store. I didn’t want to; I wanted to be a sailor. But he made me. I
didn’t want to work in a shoe store, your honor. I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Yes—well, you see—your honor—he made me wait on women. They had
little feet, your honor, such little feet. And some of them wore silk
stockings——”

“Go on, Felton.”

“Uncle Ralph made me wait on them. He made me. He used to crack me
across the face because I got sizes wrong; somehow I couldn’t think
straight; with men it was different; I didn’t get their sizes wrong. But
those little feet in the silk stockin’s——”

“Look at me, Felton. Anything more?”

“I was nervous and sick and I felt queer all over and I used to think
wicked things, your honor. I couldn’t stop it; no matter how hard I
prayed; I’d just think and think—and I had to sit there and touch those
little feet in the silk stockin’s. It got worse and worse—— Guess I
got some kind of a disease, your honor; I was always funny that way; and
I didn’t want to be, honest I didn’t.

“Well, your honor, I clerked along in Uncle Ralph’s store for five
years; I thought mebbe it would get easier; worse, that’s what it got.
Uncle give me five dollars a week and my keep; but I couldn’t save much.
He made me give money to the missionaries and when I made mistakes about
women’s shoes, he fined me. I wanted to save enough to take a course to
be an engineer on a steamship. I wanted to get away—get away from the
shoes. I was afraid I’d go crazy or sumpin’, your honor. I was afraid
I’d do, I don’t know what. Uncle Ralph didn’t know; I didn’t tell him; I
knew he wouldn’t understand; he was a good man and men’s shoes and
women’s shoes was all the same to him. But me, I was different.

“Well, your honor, one night in spring there was a bargain sale and
there was lots of women and girls in the store, tryin’ on shoes. I began
to feel very queer and awful; it was wicked; I drunk ice water and I
prayed, but it done no good. I knew if I stayed there I’d go clean crazy
and perhaps do, I don’t know what; a girl come in and she had red hair
and silk stockin’s and I had to try on her a pair of 2AA pumps—she had
the littlest feet you ever see, your honor—and I took to tremblin’ and
I kept sayin’ under my breath, ‘Dear God, don’t make me want to kiss
her; please don’t make me want to kiss her.’ An’ I guess He didn’t hear
or sumpin’, or perhaps He was punishin’ me, because, anyhow, I did want
to; I wanted to sumpin’ fierce. But I knew it would be wrong and I
didn’t want to disgrace Uncle Ralph who was a good man and a deacon in
the church. So I ran right outa the store just as I was, without a hat
or nothin’ and I left her sittin’ there. I was so nervous I could hardly
see where I was goin’. I ran all the way to the railroad station. I got
on a train, the first that come. It took me to New York.”

“Go on, Felton.”

“When I got to New York I had one dollar left. I looked for a job in a
department store. The man said. ‘Any sellin’ experience?’ And I said
‘Yes.’ He said, ‘What line?’ and before I knew it, like a fool, I said
‘Shoes.’ So they put me in the Misses’ shoes. It paid sixteen a week. I
thought mebbe I could save enough to get married. I guess I oughta have
got married. But the fellas who was married said, ‘Fat time a young
fella has that marries on a clerk’s salary! It ain’t so much the wife
that costs; it’s the kids.’ And I says ‘But have you gotta have kids?’
And they said, ‘Of course y’ have. How you goin’ to stop havin’ ’em?’
And I says ‘But s’pose y’ can’t afford kids?’ They said, ‘Then it’s
tough luck for you,’ they said, ‘and for them.’ There was a girl in the
cotton goods, your honor, that liked me, I guess. She was makin’ twelve.
We could of got married, mebbe, if it wasn’t for havin’ to have kids. If
I only coulda got married, your honor, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Well, you are here, Felton. What else?”

“In the big store it was worse than Uncle Ralph’s. All kinds of girls
come to get shoes. I began to get nervous again; I was scared I’d do
sumpin’ wicked. I tried to get work at the docks; they said I was too
light. I had to stay in the Misses’ shoes. I stayed a year. Then I
couldn’t stand it another minute. One day when I was tryin’ a brogue
oxford on a girl I felt so bad I ran right out the store. I didn’t stop
for my pay or a reference or anything. I just run right out and went
into a movie because it’s cool and quiet in movies.

“Well, your honor, I tramped all over town lookin’ for another job;
everything was full up; I did get a job carryin’ boxes in a lead pipe
factory, but they fired me after the first day; the boss said I didn’t
have the muscle. I didn’t have no money left—I’d used up the money I’d
saved to be married with—and they put me outa the house I roomed in and
I didn’t have no overcoat and winter was here and for three days I
didn’t have nothin’ to eat but coffee. I couldn’t stand it. I asked a
man to give me a quarter and he said, ‘You lazy bum, find a paper and
get a job.’ I did find a paper and it said ‘shoe salesmen wanted.’ It
was beginnin’ to snow and my head felt light and queer and I guess I’m
weak, anyhow, so I went up to the Elite Store and they give me a job at
fifteen per. I been workin’ there nearly a year: next week Mr. Wirtz was
goin’ to raise me to sixteen—and then I got into this trouble——”

“Is that all, Felton?”

“No, no, your honor. There’s a little more. It’s about what happened
last night. I was workin’ away in the Elite and it was gettin’ worse and
worse. The older I got, the worse it got. I prayed, your honor. But I
guess I was made wrong or sumpin’. The other fellas in the store didn’t
mind; they was all married. But I couldn’t get married on fifteen a
week. I used to walk miles every day; but that didn’t help none. It got
worse. Those little feet—your honor, there oughta be a law against
girls wearin’ silk stockin’s and little patent leather pumps with red
heels. Things began to get worse; I was all sorta jumpy; all last week I
couldn’t sleep. Last night I felt sumpin’ comin’ on me like I felt in
Uncle Ralph’s store that night I run away; I was afraid—. It’s not
decent to talk about things like that, your honor——”

“Go on, Felton.”

“A girl come into the store; she was a red-headed girl, your honor, and
she had the littlest feet—and she wanted patent leather pumps with red
heels——”

“Come, Felton. Take hold of yourself. If you’ve anything more to say,
say it.”

“I went to get the pumps—but I was tremblin’—and the box dropped from
my hand; I knew I couldn’t stand it; I ran outa the store; I guess they
thought I was crazy or sumpin’; I went into the first movie show I come
to; I knew it would be cool and quiet and dark—in there——”

“Well, what then, Felton?”

“They was showin’ a film there, your honor, that there oughta be a law
against; the girl wore silk stockin’s and the man kissed her. There was
a woman—that woman there—sittin’ next to me and when the fella in the
picture kissed the girl, this woman makes a little sighin’ noise, and I
looked at her sidewise. She seemed sorta old and tired lookin,’ your
honor, and skinny and plain and her eyes were sorta sad and I said to
myself, ‘I’ll bet she wishes she was bein’ kissed, just like I wished I
was bein’ kissed.’ ‘And,’ I says to myself, ‘fat chance for either of
us.’ ‘And’ I says to myself, ‘I guess, mebbe, she wouldn’t mind if——’
But I knew it was wicked so I turned away and tried to watch the
picture. And then——”

“Well, Felton?”

“And then, your honor, I heard her movin’ and I looked and she’d slipped
off her pumps—and she had little feet—and I’d never seen feet before
outside of the store—and then—I dunno why—but—I—kissed her—and the
next thing I knew they was punchin’ and kickin’ me and the policeman had
me, twistin’ my arm and hurtin’ me sumpin’ fierce. I didn’t mean to do
it, your honor; it just happened—just happened——”

“I’ve listened to enough, Felton. More than enough. I’m heartily ashamed
that there are such men as you in this country; you are unworthy of the
name of American, Felton. It is men like you who can’t control
themselves that worry the soul out of the fathers of growing daughters.
I can’t understand why you don’t exercise a little self-control. Six
months in the city prison on Blackwell’s Island!”




                        THE PRINCE HAS THE MUMPS


YOUNG Prince Ernest was ill. He had, in fact, the mumps. “Beastly
nuisance,” he remarked to his valet. He wanted very much indeed to say
“damned inconvenience”; and, considering the circumstances, even this
would not have been putting the case too strongly; but he did not say
“damned inconvenience,” because a prince must not set a bad example;
and, mumps or no mumps, Ernest Cosmo Adelbert Oscar James never forgot
that he was a prince.

“Every inch a prince,” said the newspapers of his native land in
referring to him, which they did in every edition from the first, or
bulldog, to the last, or five-star extra-special sporting final.

That made sixty-six inches of prince, for Ernest was a rather pretty boy
of medium stature, with a pink, almost waxen complexion, blond hair
impeccably parted, and a brow as unruffled as a pan of skimmed milk. At
the moment the symmetry of his features was somewhat marred by the
presence of two mature mumps; and, noting this in the gold-rimmed mirror
near his bed, Prince Ernest gently groaned.

Physiognomists might have argued from the serenity of his brow that the
prince was not a thinker; but they would have been in error, for in his
twenty-three years he had, not infrequently, thought. Happily his
thoughts had not been disturbing ones. It had taken no soul-struggle to
make him entirely content with his princely lot. Having been born a
prince, nursed as a prince, breeched as a prince, taught as a prince, at
twenty-three and a few days it seemed completely natural to Ernest to be
a prince. It was quite impossible for him to imagine himself anything
else.

Sometimes he thought: “Of course, I don’t say I have a divine right to
be a prince; nowadays that isn’t considered in good taste. But, since
I’m being perfectly frank with myself, I must admit that there is
something—well, if not exactly sacred, at least sacerdotal about
royalty. Being a prince isn’t at all like filling a place in the cabinet
or the civil service or the army, where almost any sort of fellow can
get ahead if he has enough push. A prince has no use for push; he’s a
prince, and that’s all there is to it.”

And at other times he thought: “It’s the fashion in these times to
pretend that a prince is just like any other man in the country, and not
a bit better. That’s rot, of course, and no one knows it better than the
people. If I am like all the rest of them, why do they stand in the rain
for hours to see me whisk by in a limousine? Why do they crowd into some
stuffy hall to hear me tell them I am glad to be there, gazing into
their open, manly countenances?”

Or, on other occasions, he thought: “To hear some of these radical chaps
talk one would think any fellow could be a prince. Really, you know,
that’s nothing more than twaddle. If they tried it they’d soon find that
it takes generations of royal blood behind one to give one that—well,
that authority, that—so to speak—presence. I’d just like to see one of
those long-haired johnnies try to lay a corner stone—with the proper
dignity, I mean. Why, the people would laugh at him! They never laugh at
me.”

By nature a modest and candid young man, Prince Ernest had but one
vanity. He was proud of the appearance he made at public functions. He
loved to lay corner stones, to unveil monuments, to visit hospitals, to
address meetings. On these occasions he invariably made a neat speech,
and he had never, he was glad to say, in any of his speeches given
offense to anybody. He accepted, with becoming graciousness, the
tributes paid him by the crowds. It pleased him exceedingly to hear his
subjects punctuate his speeches with their uncouth but sincere evidences
of approbation. Often he read about it afterward in the press, and
secretly glowed.

“Prince Ernest”—the front page of the _Morning Stiletto_ is
speaking—“was greeted with vociferous enthusiasm when he laid the
corner stone of the new polo field being built by the Coal Mine Workers’
Union for the use of its members. The prince shook hands with a number
of the men and made one of his felicitous and witty speeches. In part
His Highness said:

“‘I am always glad to speak to miners. [Cheers.] I was once a minor
myself. [Laughter.] Now, all joking aside, and speaking seriously, I am
glad to be here and to look into so many open, manly countenances.
[Violent cheering and cries of ‘Every inch a prince!’ and ‘Long live
Bonny Prince Ernie!’] Yours is a very important industry. [Cries of
‘Hear, hear!’] I can’t think what I should do in winter if it weren’t
for coal. [Cheers, and cries of ‘God bless Your Highness,’ and ‘Spoken
like a prince!’] I repeat, therefore, I am glad to be with you——’”

Yes, there was no question about it, his subjects loved him.

But now he had the mumps. He was as puffy as if he had attempted to
swallow a pair of inflated water wings, and when he drank a glass of
water it was like swallowing a string of biggish beads. Moreover, he had
a fever, and his royal knees felt decidedly gelatinous, and the doctor
had said he must stay in bed. To get mumps at a time like this, he
mused, was almost unprincely. His country needed him, and there he lay,
ineffectual and mumpish. Indeed, mumps at a time like this was nothing
short of a calamity, for on the morrow His Very Serene Highness the
Emperor of Zabonia was to pay an official visit to the prince’s country.
Fifty million people held their breath and tremulously awaited the
result. Would there be war? Everybody knew that the answer depended on
the emperor’s visit.

Relations between the prince’s country and Zabonia were
strained—dangerously strained. Why had that bellicose old fire eater,
the Duke of Blennergasset, made that intemperate speech in which he
referred to the Emperor of Zabonia as a “pompous elderly porpoise with
the morals of a tumblebug?” Why had Count Malpizzi, the Zabonian
Secretary for War, in heated rejoinder seen fit to declare that as for
Prince Ernest’s father, the king, he was no lily of the valley himself,
and furthermore, Prince Ernest’s countrymen were three degrees lower in
the scale of existence than the guinea pig? A painful and acute
situation had been created between the two countries; one puff of the
air of animosity on those smoldering embers and the blood-red flame of
war would break forth. This eventuality would be highly inopportune for
Prince Ernest’s country, for Zabonia had just perfected a cannon whose
shell carried a hundred miles and then bounced back to be recharged. War
must be averted. The Emperor of Zabonia must be received with every show
of cordiality, must be accorded every honor, must be given not the
slightest shadow of a pretext for taking umbrage. The emperor must carry
away the impression that Prince Ernest’s country loved Zabonia with a
surpassing love; the emperor must be made to believe that the Duke of
Blennergasset’s reference to him as a pompous elderly porpoise was one
of pure affection and esteem, and that a comparison of the morals of His
Very Serene Highness to those of a tumblebug was an idiomatic
expression, and highly complimentary, inasmuch as tumblebugs are
popularly believed to lead lives of singular probity and chastity.

Prince Ernest’s father, the king, had given orders that his entire royal
family, down to the most remote ducal cousin, must be on hand to greet
the Emperor of Zabonia; and, of course, so the king stated, it was of
the highest importance that the heir apparent, Prince Ernest, should be
there. But how could he be, for he had the mumps? It was an exceedingly
regrettable situation. These Zabonians were a truculent and suspicious
lot, and if the crown prince were not present to greet their emperor
they’d read some subtle insult into it, you could depend upon it. It was
the custom for visiting monarchs to appear on the balcony overlooking
the plaza in front of the royal palace to be cheered by the crowd which
always collected there on such occasions, and it was also the custom, as
the whole world knows, for the king to stand on the right side of the
royal visitor and the crown prince to stand on the left. This was the
etiquette. From it there could be no deviation. If the crown prince did
not stand at the emperor’s left hand tomorrow it would be instantly
apparent to the crowd that a slight was intended, and then no power
could hold back the hungry hounds of war; and war, just now, with
Zabonia would be extremely inconvenient.

The prince frowned at the obese pink cupids that adorned the ceiling of
the royal bedchamber. He was too weak to do much else.

The doctor had just issued an ultimatum. The prince must not be moved;
to do so, the doctor assured him, would be suicide. The king protested,
even pleaded. But the doctor, who, like most savants, was stubborn,
shook his white beard.

“But he must appear before the crowd,” said the king, wringing his own
whiskers, which were plentiful and auburn.

“It would kill him,” said the doctor with finality.

“If I weren’t an only son I’d risk it,” said the prince weakly, from his
bed.

“You can bet you would,” said the king.

His Majesty paced the chamber.

“Mumps!” he ejaculated. “And at such a time! The crowd will never
understand it!” He was patently worried.

Then it was that the Count of Duffus, who was Gentleman in Waiting in
the Royal Bedchamber, had a tremendous idea. He reduced his brain wave
to an excited whisper and poured it into the king’s ear. The king beamed
and nodded, at intervals saying, “Good!” “Yes, yes, yes!” “Excellent!”
“Splendid!” “Ripping!” “By all means!” “Stout fellow!” “Good old
Duffus!” “The very thing.” “Quite so, quite so!” “Admirable!” “Of
course!” “Perfect!” and other expressions of approbation. The Count of
Duffus, damp with the gentle dew of success, made off; and the king
turned to the prince, a twinkle in his eye.

“Invaluable chap, Duffus,” said His Majesty. “Good idea of his. Should
have thought of it myself, tho. The old dummy dodge!”

“The dummy dodge, father?” The young prince raised un-understanding
eyebrows.

“You’ll see,” promised the king, “when Duffus gets back.”

It wasn’t often that the king talked with the prince so familiarly.
Usually there was an atmosphere of formality about their relations; it
was more as if they were a friendly but not intimate king and prince
than a father and son. Sometimes, the prince had noticed, the king was
unusually aloof; there had been days when the king had not spoken to the
prince at all; on other days His Majesty was more expansive; today the
king was positively clubby.

Presently the Count of Duffus did come back, and with him a package so
large that it took two able-bodied footmen to carry it. With an air of
having accomplished something noteworthy, the Count of Duffus stood the
package upright by the prince’s bed and began most carefully to peel off
the wrapping paper. He tore off the last piece of paper with a flourish,
and the prince’s eyes opened so wide that his mumps hurt.

It was the waxen figure of a fair-haired, smiling young man in polo
costume.

“Why, it’s I!” exclaimed the prince, who, mumps or no mumps, surprised
or not, always expressed himself correctly.

“They do make those dummies more perfectly all the time,” remarked the
king, who was admiringly examining the figure. “That nose is exactly
like Ernie’s, now isn’t it?”

The prince lay staring at his effigy.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“I don’t see——” he began as distinctly as the mumps would let him.

“Oh, you will,” said the king. “Duffus, did Madame Hassler make much of
a fuss?”

“Oh, naturally,” replied the count. “She thought I was balmy in the
crumpet, probably. She said it was the prize figure in the waxworks. Big
drawing card and all that. I had to pay her a hundred and seventy
goobecs before she’d part with it.”

“That’s a lot of money,” said the king, a careful soul; “but it will be
worth it tomorrow. I’ll make you a duke for this, Duffus.”

“Thanks awfully. Oh, look here, Your Majesty! You can move its arms!”

“Better and better!” exclaimed the king. “We can make it salute.” The
king turned to his son, who was still more than a little bewildered.
“Ernie,” said the king, “where do you keep your uniform as honorary
colonel of the Royal Purple Bombardiers?”

“Whatever for, father?”

“For your understudy here, of course.”

The king’s expression just then indicated that he did not consider that
his son was a lightning calculator.

“Don’t you get the idea, Ernie?”

“I think I begin to,” said the prince; “and, father, I don’t like it.”

The king shrugged well-nourished shoulders.

“It’s the only way,” he said. “We can’t risk even the appearance of
slighting that touchy old hippopotamus.”

“Hippopotamus, father? I was not aware——”

“Oh, I mean that venerable muffin, the Emperor of Zabonia,” cut in the
king with a trace of impatience.

“But, father,” said the prince, and his eyes showed that he was shocked,
“he is a king!”

The king was contrite.

“Sorry, son,” he said. “I shouldn’t speak like that of royalty, I know.
But I have so much on my mind these days, with this tiresome visit and
your mumps and the shadow of war and heaven knows what.”

“But, father,” said the prince, following up his advantage, “please
don’t ask me to permit this monstrous thing. It’s not honorable. It’s
not princely.”

The king patted his son’s silk pajamaed shoulder.

“Pish-tush, Ernie!” he said playfully. “I wish you wouldn’t always be so
devilishly idealistic. You’re so high-minded one needs to get on a
stepladder to talk to you. Wake up, Ernie. You’re old enough now not to
believe in Santa Claus any longer.”

The king’s tone grew more serious.

“I’ve dreaded this day, Ernie,” he said, “on your account. You’re such a
naïve chap, you know. Still, the day was bound to come. It’s like a
fellow’s first cigar—sickens him at first, but it’s the only way to
learn to smoke.”

“Father,” said the prince, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. All
I know is that it’s not right to try to impersonate a prince in this
way. That grinning dummy there isn’t I. It can’t be I. Nobody will be
fooled. And furthermore, I don’t want to fool my people.”

“Roll over and go to sleep, Ernie,” said the king. “There are times when
you give me a sharp pain in the region of the waistcoat.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

From his bed the prince could see it all, the whole damnable imposition.
First he could see emerge the full outlines of His Serene Highness of
Zabonia. The prince could see plainly the celebrated red nose of that
monarch; rather like an electric-light bulb in the center of a round
cheese, thought the prince, who had a gift for simile. He wondered why
the Zabonian emperor insisted on wearing that ridiculous skin-tight pink
hussar uniform. Then the prince saw his father step on the balcony, to
cheers. His Majesty was in the cream-and-gold uniform of a field marshal
of the King’s Very Own Royal Indefatigables, and he took his place at
the emperor’s side, bowing. Then came the stunning blow to the
mumps-stricken prince. Another figure had appeared on the balcony, a
very erect, dignified figure in the dashing uniform of the Royal Purple
Bombardiers. The prince in the bed perceived that the thing on the
balcony was himself!

As, horrified, he watched, Prince Ernest saw the thing’s hand go up in a
precise military salute. The great throng of people went wild. Their
cheers made the palace tremble.

“Viva our prince!” he heard distinctly. “Long live Prince Ernest!”

A lean man with a hungry face had eluded the police and eeled his way to
the top of a lamp-post in the plaza.

“There he is!” called the man shrilly. “Every inch a prince! Who’s every
inch a prince?”

Their answer filled the air with sound—“Prince Ernest! Prince Ernest!
Prince Ernest!”

Lying there, Prince Ernest saw the dummy back majestically from the
balcony.

“Long life to the prince!” screamed the man on the lamp-post. “He never
turns his back on his people!”

The crowds took up the cry.

“Long life to Prince Ernest! He never turns his back on his people!”

“And jolly good reason,” said the prince, “for they’d see the strings
Duffus is pulling to make the thing salute.”

The brow of the prince was no longer bland, no longer was it free from
lines of disillusionment. He was thinking of what he had seen.

His voice was tragic, as he said, “So this is what it means to be a
prince! A dummy serves just as well! A dummy; the sort of thing they
have in cheap ready-made clothing stores—Very Nobby! Newest and
Niftiest Cut! Take Me Home for Fourteen Goobecs. What a blind ass I’ve
been! But it’s not too late. I’m not going to go on with this miserable
sham. I’m not going to be a stuffed uniform any longer. If a dummy can
be a prince I don’t want to be. Let them have a dummy in my place. I’m
going to be a man.”

He addressed these words to the emptiness of the royal chamber, and his
tone was steeped in the vinegar of bitter realization. Prince Ernest was
working himself up to quite a pinch of resolution, when the chamber door
opened and in came the king. Behind him wabbled the vast bulk and
incandescent nose of the Emperor of Zabonia.

“His Zabonian Serenity,” explained the king, “insisted on coming to see
you. His Serenity understands, of course, why political expediency made
it necessary for you to be represented before the people by
a—er—substitute. Don’t you, Your Zabonian Serenity?”

“Zshur,” rumbled the royal visitor; his voice was thick as if his words
came through a blanket. “I didn’t know,” he added, “it wasn’t the prince
until the king told me.”

Emotions were bubbling and sputtering inside the bosom of Prince Ernest.

“I’m ashamed,” said the prince, “to deceive my people like that.”

His Zabonian Serenity, who had taken a chair, arranged two or three of
his chins and part of his expanse of jowl into a grin.

“Ernie,” cautioned the king, “no nonsense now!”

The bottled-up feeling rushed from the prince in a torrent of passionate
words.

“Father, I’m going to speak out! I’m through with this whole business.”

“What business?” The king looked puzzled.

“This prince business,” said Prince Ernest. “I saw it all while I was
lying here. What am I? Nothing! Nothing, that is, but a—pardon the
colloquialism—stuffed uniform. A prince? Bah, a dummy! That’s all I am!
I step out and bow and smirk and salute while some other chap pulls the
strings. The people don’t care a gingersnap about me. It’s my uniform
they cheer. Stuff it with wax or sawdust or me, it’s all the same to
them. Why, they’d cheer it if it were stuffed with mush! So I’m through,
father! I can’t go on with this hypocrisy. Give the dummy my place. I’m
sorry to shock you, father. You and the emperor probably have never
thought about things in this way. But don’t you see, a prince is really
only a dummy? Forgive me—but it’s true.”

The young prince was almost hysterical. The king did not appear to be in
the least perturbed; he gave the prince a fatherly pat on his shoulder
and winked at the Emperor of Zabonia.

“He’s only twenty-three and a few days,” explained the king, “so
naturally he takes it a bit hard. I did myself—thought of entering a
monastery—yes, really.”

His Zabonian Serenity chuckled deep in his cavern of chest.

“Ernie,” said the king, turning to his son, and speaking in his most
kindly manner, “you’ve discovered what all kings discover sooner or
later. You’ve found yourself out. Now your job will be to keep the
people from finding you out. Isn’t that so, Your Serenity?”

“Zshur,” rumbled the visitor, sucking at a long amber-scented cigaret.

“But I don’t want to keep them from finding me out!” cried the prince.
“I don’t want to go on living this ghastly farce. I am going to work.”

The king laughed jovially.

“Work?” he inquired. “At what, in heaven’s name?”

“Something honest,” replied Prince Ernest.

The king laughed and nudged the emperor in his imperial ribs.

“Ah, youth!” said the king. “Ah, youth! By the way, Ernie, how much did
you spend last year?”

“Oh, I don’t know exactly,” replied the prince, mystified. “The Royal
Bursar of the Most Privy Purse could no doubt tell you. Probably between
three hundred and four hundred thousand goobecs, I fancy.”

“And how many motor cars did you have?” questioned the king.

“Eleven, if you don’t count roadsters.”

“Fair enough,” said the king. “We won’t count roadsters. Now, Ernie,
suppose you were a young lawyer——”

“I wish I were,” said the prince.

“At this precise moment,” pursued the king, “you’d be in your office
hoping some friend would fall down a manhole so you could sue the city
for damages. You could consider yourself jolly lucky if you made eight
hundred goobecs a year. If you were a young doctor you’d be sitting
around with your hands in your empty pockets praying for an epidemic. If
you were a young business man you’d be in a terrible stew about your
overhead or underfoot or whatever it is business men get into a stew
about. Instead of having eleven motor cars, not counting roadsters,
you’d be fortunate to have your bus fare. Now I’m a doting father,
Ernie, but even I can see that you are no intellectual colossus. And yet
you acceptably fill a job that brings you in three or four hundred
thousand goobecs a year, and eleven motor cars, not counting roadsters.
Despite all that, you talk of going on strike. Really, Ernie, that’s
preposterous. Isn’t it, Your Zabonian Serenity?”

The emperor nodded and puffed at his scented cigaret.

“Pre,” he rumbled, “posterous!”

“You’ve a downy nest, my boy,” went on the king benignly. “You’d be a
chump to quit it. Come now. Look at this thing through a microscope
instead of a pair of smoked glasses. Be a prince of the world, not one
of the Red Fairy Book. If the people are dolts enough to let you keep
the job, why put unpleasant ideas into their heads?”

“Oh, father”—the young prince was very pale—“forgive me for saying it,
but I do believe you are a cynic!”

“Of course I am,” answered the king cheerfully. “That’s better than
being the only other thing a king can be.”

“What’s that?”

“A blithering fool,” answered the king. “How can a king with any sense
respect his people? He sees them bawling their beery cheers first about
some rather ordinary human being like yourself, for example, Ernie, and
then he sees them cheering one of your silly uniforms stuffed with wax.
The only way a king who pretends to be civilized can regard his subjects
is as dupes.”

The young prince lay scowling at the cupids. He was thinking deeply. He
said at last:

“I know. You are saying this to try me. You are testing my faith in the
inherent strength of royalty. It was weak of me to doubt. That dummy
business today did hit me hard; but, after all, it was only a desperate
ruse that by chance succeeded. You pretended it is quite the usual
thing; but, of course, it isn’t. I implore you to tell me that it isn’t,
father.”

The king lit a cheroot and replied in an anecdotal tone:

“When I was your age, Ernie, I had a beautiful set of whiskers and a
still more beautiful set of ideals about the sanctity of my position and
all that. I still have the whiskers. My dear old father suggested that I
grow the whiskers. ‘You haven’t much of a chin,’ he said to me. ‘I think
you’d better keep your loyal subjects in the dark about that. A king can
be human, but not too damn human. Also, there’s another reason—whiskery
men all look pretty much alike.’ I did not understand then what he was
talking about; but many years later, after his death, I did. I was
scheduled to go to some dismal provincial town and knight some
pestilential bounder of a mayor. I’d been performing a lot of royal
chores, including the coronation mumbo-jumbo, and I was a bit fed up.
The more I thought of going to that town the more bored I grew. But of
course I had to go. Was I not a king? I took myself and my duties
terribly seriously, even as you do, Ernie.”

The king unashed his cheroot in a gold tray and went on:

“Yes, I felt that only a king full of blue blood could possibly knight a
fellow properly. However, on the night before the ceremony I drank a
magnum of champagne, and then made the strategic error of adding a few
glasses of 1812 brandy. Alcohol is no respecter of royalty. In the
morning I perceived that if I tried to knight the fellow I’d probably
decapitate him. Here was a pretty kettle of whitebait. I was at my wit’s
end when Lord Crockinghorse, my secretary, bobbed up with an idea. He’d
had it on ice for some time, it appeared. He produced a whiskery
blighter who opened oysters in a fried-fish shop; the fellow smelled
most evilly of shellfish, but he looked exactly like me. In my condition
at that time I could hardly tell him from myself. Crockinghorse coolly
proposed that the whiskery oysterman should take my place. I was shocked
inexpressibly. An oysterman substituting for a king! What a devastating
and yet absurd thought! I felt just as you do now, Ernie.”

The king blew a smoke ring and continued:

“Well, Crockinghorse won his point, and we dressed up the whiskery
blighter in my most garish uniform, told him if he said a syllable more
than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ we’d murder him, and taught him a speech which went:

“‘My loyal subjects [pause for cheers] I am overcome by this reception.
[Pause.] I can only say thank you, thank you, thank you.’ We packed him
off in my pea-green uniform and next day the papers all said, ‘His
Majesty performed his part in the ceremony with exceptional grace and
dignity.’”

The prince in his bed moaned; the king, with a shrug, continued:

“Oh, I was all cut up for days! Felt deucedly unnecessary. But at last
light dawned and the more I thought of the whole affair the more it
entertained me. I ended by hiring the whiskery blighter at twenty-five
goobecs a week, gave him a room in the palace near the kitchen and a lot
of oysters to amuse himself with and whenever I got tired of kinging I
trotted to Paris or somewhere incog and left the corner stone laying to
my oyster friend. He became rather better at it than I. Oh, I had to do
it, Ernie! If I hadn’t had a genuine vacation now and then I should have
got squirrels in the cupola, absolutely.”

The prince had aged perceptibly during this recital. His voice quavered
as he asked, “And where is the fellow now?”

“Oh, I still use him,” answered the king. “Only last week I sent him
down to Wizzelborough to lay the corner stone of the new cathedral. You
were there, Ernie. Didn’t you notice anything peculiar?”

The prince’s reply was faint-voiced.

“I did notice that the cathedral smelled uncommonly oystery,” he said.
He drew in his breath; his manner was that of a drowning man making a
last desperate effort to save himself.

“Father,” he said, “I am crushed by what you tell me. I can’t believe
that what you say is true of all royal persons. Something in here”—the
prince laid a manicured hand on the spot on the bosom of his lavender
pajamas where he believed his heart to be—“tells me that there are
still kings who respect the traditions of royalty, who are themselves
and nothing else. I appeal to Your Zabonian Serenity to reassure me
about this, to give me back my faith in myself and my position. They
wouldn’t do a thing like this in Zabonia! Oh, tell me they wouldn’t!”

The Emperor of Zabonia tossed away his scented cigaret.

“You gentlemen,” he said in his slow, thick voice, “have confided in me.
I’m going to return the compliment. I am not the Emperor of Zabonia. I’m
just an old actor from the Imperial Stock Company who happens to look
like the emperor. He is usually too tight to go to public functions or
pay royal visits, so he sends me.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the morning the young prince pulled a velvet bell cord and his valet
entered.

“Thursday,” said the prince, “I’m supposed to ride through the city and
be pelted with flowers. It’s an old tradition or some such rot. Will you
please take that dummy there in the corner, dress him in my uniform as
Honorary Rear Admiral of the Royal Submarine Fleet, seat him in the
royal carriage and drive him around in my place?”

The valet bowed. The prince picked up the morning newspaper and turned
to the sporting page.




                    THE BATTLE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE


HE wore no collar. If he had, it would have been size 13½. He didn’t,
because collars cost twenty cents. Twenty cents paid his overhead
expenses for a day: two meals of stew and coffee at Emil’s Busy Bee
Lunchery—music by the Elevated trains—and enough tobacco to make fifty
cigarets.

His collarlessness did not worry him; he gave it no more thought than he
gave to the art of poetry, the influence of Confucius on China, or his
country’s foreign policy, if any. How to get that daily twenty
cents—that was what concerned him; that done, he let his brain rest,
wrapped in a hazy blanket. Leaning against the wall of Hyde’s Stable in
West Houston Street, outside in summer, inside in winter, he accepted
the universe. Blue smoke, seeping from time to time from his nostrils,
was the only sign that he had not mummified.

His name was Joey Pell. He was nineteen years old. As a baby he had had
rickets, and as a result he was bowlegged and undersized. His complexion
was imperfect. Of the six children born to his parents, he was the last
and the only one to survive the hazards of infancy in a two-room flat on
Hudson Street. His mother sometimes said that this was enough to drive a
person to drink. Her husband, a truckman chronically on strike, would
remark, by way of repartee, that it was quite unnecessary to drive her
to drink. She would reply, in part, that his own record as a teetotaler
was not unimpeachable. At this point in the conflict little Joey knew it
to be an act of prudence to slip out of the room that served as kitchen,
living room and his bedroom. He was a timid, easily frightened child,
and had apparently inherited none of his parents’ bellicose corpuscles.

One day he went out and never came back, and his parents thereafter
quarreled in peace, while he attached himself to the stable as an
unofficial valet and general assistant.

He was afraid of horses, and he never conquered that fear entirely, but
the stable was warm, and the men gave him dimes for helping with the
harness, so he stayed there; his was not a soul for high adventure. They
let him hang about the stable because he tried to be useful. There was
only one sort of job he’d balk at—he would not go near mules. Of mules
he stood in deathly fear, for when he was six he had seen a man trampled
to death by an angry mule, and the look of fright that had come to
Joey’s face on that occasion had never entirely left it. His
haddock-like, watery blue-gray eyes were still slightly apprehensive;
his lips always seemed on the verge of a quiver. When he approached a
person he sidled. He seemed to expect to be kicked, and not infrequently
he was. When someone kicked him Joey Pell did not kick back. He just
melted away from the vicinity of the kicker, with a look, hurt, and yet
resigned, as if a certain amount of kicking were his lot in life.

He harbored no grudges and hated no one.

For one thing, his memory was not good enough for him to be a good
hater; and, besides, it took venom and energy to hate, and he had
neither. His lack of pugnacity barred him from the society of the other
boys of that part of the city, for they all aspired to be pugilists or,
failing that, competent members of the Hudson Dusters, the Whyo Boys,
the Gophers, or other gangs; their evenings were full of fisticuffs.
Joey would have liked to be one of them, but, since they did not appear
to want him, he accepted the fact.

Joey Pell had learned to read much later than the other boys, and
reading was still somewhat of a labor for him. He rarely got beyond the
comic strips in the newspapers; these he pored over with knit and sober
brow.

What went on in the world outside his stable mattered little to him.
Kings might be hurled into the dust, the dogs of war might growl and
gnaw their leashes, black calamity might threaten the land—it was all
one to Joey Pell. His stew, his coffee, his tobacco, his sleep—these
filled his brain; it was not a large one, and he had room for little
else. It may have been that the rumbling of events in the world reached
his ear, but they never penetrated into his head.

The men in the stable had been growing more and more excited about
something—a war of some sort, Joey concluded. It was much too remote an
affair to concern him, anyhow.

Then, one day, something exciting happened to Joey Pell. He received a
letter. It was the first letter he had ever received in his life, and he
stood in front of the stable, fingering it gingerly with dirty hands. He
was a little alarmed. Why should anyone write to him? Probably it was a
mistake. He stared at the address again:

                        Joseph Pell
                          c/o Hyde’s Stable
                            W. Houston St.
                              New York City

Himself beyond question. He wondered what he had done. He tore open the
envelope and pored over the printed letter inside. He wondered why he
should be called upon to present himself at a certain place and time.
The letter confused him. So he took it to Phil Hyde, who owned the
stable. Hyde glanced at it.

“Well, they got you,” Hyde said with a grin.

“Got me?”

“Yeah—you gotta fight.”

“Me fight? Fight who?”

“Say, stupid, don’t you know there’s a war on? This here means you’re
drafted.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Joey liked camp. For the first week he was in a daze; the officers who
examined him seemed blurred and enormous. He was lanced by a fear that
he must immediately shed blood, or have his own shed. It seemed a poor
choice to Joey Pell. When he found that the day he must engage in actual
combat was remote he began to enjoy the military life. Never before had
he been so well fed, had he had such a clean, warm place to sleep, had
he had such trim new clothes. He realized this, and he did what he was
told to do, whole-heartedly; he was afraid that he might be put out of
the Army.

The regular life suited him. It was pleasant to have someone else do all
the thinking. He liked to do things by the numbers—one, two, three,
four. He liked to march along, hep, hep, hep, hep, in step, shoulder to
shoulder with the other soldiers. He belonged with them; they were his
gang; it was a fine new feeling. They accepted him as one of them. He
began to take trouble about his hair and finger nails, to take an
interest in baths. His chest grew an inch, his biceps grew firmer.

Joey Pell learned many things at camp. One of them was bayonet fighting.
At first it made him tremble and turn sick inside; but he got over that.

“Hey, you, with the pasty face!” the sergeant barked. “Put some life
into it. It’ll make a man of you.”

Joey tried to do so. But he found it hard to be enthusiastic about
stabbing even a dummy.

“Get mad!” roared the sergeant. “Hate ’em! Drive it into their guts!
Curse ’em as you thrust. Give it to ’em—one, two, three!”

Joey was a good soldier; he was told to hate; he hated. He learned to
drive the keen point of his bayonet into the straw intestines of the
dummies; as he did so he gritted his teeth and sharply cursed. He came
to hate each of the dummies with a personal hate.

The other soldiers in his squad did not talk much about the war. Mostly
they talked of girls, and baseball, and prize fighting, and the
bartenders they knew, and of what the lieutenant said to them and their
own daring retorts to him. Sometimes, in sentimental moments, they
showed one another pictures of wives, sweethearts or babies. When they
did talk of the war they cursed the men they were to fight against, and
told stories of their savagery.

As Joey listened he felt inside very much as he had felt that day when
he saw the mule trampling the life from a man. His fear bred hate. These
people were devils; it was a virtue to hate them, a good deed to kill
them.

Grim monsters peopled his dreams. They were in gray, and were twice the
size of ordinary men, and fiendish of face. In his dreams he fought
them. As they bore down on him he drove his bayonet into their throats.
The sergeant had no occasion to criticize his bayonet drill now.

Joey Pell was a one-idea man. Once his mind had been filled to capacity
with the problem of keeping alive; now that problem was happily solved
for him; so he had space for another idea. That idea was to be a good
soldier, and, it followed, a sincere hater of the enemy. This became
Joey’s obsession. He won an approving grunt from the sergeant by the
ferocity of his attack in the bayonet drill.

Another fine new feeling came to Joey Pell on his first leave of absence
in New York City. He realized that he was a hero. He saw that he was a
person of importance. His had been a life without color, a humble life.
Back in the stable he was less important than one of the horses; not the
faintest beam of limelight had ever fallen on his small figure in that
manure-scented obscurity. Men had treated him curtly; no woman had ever
smiled at him. He had been unwanted. But now it was different. He was a
soldier.

He had taken the three days’ leave of absence because his turn had come,
not because he wanted it; he’d no idea what use he could make of it.

He was trudging along Fifth Avenue, bound for his stable below
Washington Square, when he heard a voice calling, “Oh, soldier boy! Oh,
soldier boy!”

He looked about; there was no other soldier in sight; so the lady in the
limousine must be calling to him. Her car had come quite close to the
curb; it was a magnificent car, huge and glittering with polished
nickel. Inside, it was heavily upholstered, and so was the richly
dressed lady who sat there, and who had called to Joey. She was smiling.
Joey eyed her suspiciously.

“Can’t I take you where you are going?” she asked.

“Ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he mumbled. He felt suddenly hot, awkward,
conscious of his complexion.

“Ah, then let me take you to the Home Trench,” said the lady. Joey
looked dubious; he wondered what her game was. “Don’t you know about the
Home Trench?” she asked. Her voice partly reassured him. “It’s for
soldier boys like you. It’s in my own house on Fifth Avenue. I’m Mrs. J.
Goodhue Wilmerding, you know. Come, get in.”

She held open the limousine’s door invitingly. Joey stumbled in. He sat,
uncomfortable, bolt upright on the edge of the fat seat. The roses in
the silver vase overawed him; he associated flowers only with funerals.
From the corner of his eye he watched the lady. Perhaps, he thought, she
was a spy who would try by honeyed words to get important military
information from him. He resolved to kick her roundly in the shins and
leap from the car if she tried any funny business on him, Private Joseph
Pell.

“It is just wonderful,” he heard her say, “of you boys to do what you
are doing.”

“Yes’m,” said Joey Pell.

“Ah, if I were only a man”—she expelled a sigh—“but, since I’m not,
I’m doing my bit as best I can. Last week at the Home Trench we
entertained seven hundred and sixty-one soldier boys.”

“Yes’m,” said Joey Pell.

“I hope you’ll like the Home Trench,” she went on. “All the waitresses
there are Junior League girls. They dance with the boys.” Then she
added, “With all the boys. Isn’t it wonderful how this terrible war has
brought us all closer together?”

“Yes’m,” said Joey Pell.

“I wonder,” she said, “if you know my son at your camp—Major Sears
Wilmerding, on the general’s staff?”

“No’m,” said Joey Pell.

“You must introduce yourself to him when you go back.”

“Yes’m,” said Joey Pell, with mental reservations.

“You see, I consider all soldier boys my sons,” she said. “Ah, here we
are—at the Home Trench.”

The motor car purred up to the curb before an opulent brownstone house
on lower Fifth Avenue. Over the door was a sign, decorated with flags:

                            The Home Trench
                          All Soldiers Welcome

Joey followed Mrs. Wilmerding into the house. Inside, a pretty girl
pounced on Joey, asked his name, and pinned a tag on his coat bearing
the words “I am Private Pell.”

Blinking, he stepped from the hallway into the large front room. It was
filled with soldiers and girls. In one corner a phonograph was grinding
out brassily “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, and Smile,
Smile, Smile.” Some of the girls and soldiers were dancing—the soldiers
for the most part stiff and self-conscious, the girls bright-eyed and
putting much spirit into the task of making the soldiers enjoy
themselves.

A little bobbed-haired girl captured Joey.

“I’m Peggy Sturgis,” she announced, taking his hand, which hung limply
by his side, and shaking it violently. “You’re Private Pell, aren’t
you?”

Joey gulped, and nodded.

“I know some Pells at Tuxedo Park,” she said. “Are you one of them?”

“No’m,” said Joey.

“Shall we dance?”

He was too overwhelmed by this entirely novel experience to refuse. She
towed and hauled and steered him about the crowded room, while the
phonograph did its best with “Over There.”

“I think,” she said, “it’s just wonderful of you boys to do what you are
doing.” Joey flushed. “I wish,” she said wistfully, “that I were a man.
I’d be in the cavalry. Don’t you just adore horses, Mr. Pell?”

Joey licked dry lips and nodded. He hated horses, as a matter of fact;
but she had called him Mister, and that was another new and stimulating
experience.

Other girls danced with Joey Pell that day. They told him, every one of
them, how brave a thing he was doing. He drank a great deal of not very
sweet lemonade, and only when the Home Trench closed for the day, at six
o’clock, did he leave.

He was almost as much intoxicated as if the lemonade had been champagne,
as he strode up the avenue, chin out, eyes narrowed sternly.

He wished earnestly that he might meet one of the enemy face to face at
that moment. He felt capable of laying him low, barehanded. He saluted
all officers with a sharp precise salute; he even saluted a passing
letter carrier. His heart beat with unwonted vigor; he was a soldier; a
somebody.

He surveyed suspiciously each passerby in the hope that he might
discover a spy. He found no spy, but he did find an elderly gentleman
who gave him a theater ticket, and a blessing. Joey took the ticket
without embarrassment; he was getting used to gifts.

As he marched along he saw a sign:

                    Free Chow for the Lads in Khaki

He entered the big brick building and was greeted by an aroma of
disinfectant, liniment and athletes, and by a plump enthusiastic man,
who slapped Joey on the shoulder and cried jovially, “Howdy, buddy!
Greetings! Come right in and get your chow. Afterwards we’re going to
have a get-together and sing. You’ll stay, of course.” He patted Joey’s
shoulder with a big-brother gesture. “You sure are lucky to be in the
Army,” said the plump man. “It’s mighty fine, the spirit you boys are
showing. I wish I could be in khaki, but these darn flat feet of
mine——”

He waved an apologetic pink hand toward his feet.

In the dining-room Joey ate copiously of beans, cocoa and pie. He stayed
a while for the singing, and even added a cracked and unpractised tenor
to the chorus, which, led by the plump man with the unfortunate feet,
sang “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” “K-K-Katy,” and “Hail, Hail, the
Gang’s All Here.”

Joey slipped away and went to the theater. A war play was being given—a
moving piece with blank cartridge battles and air raids offstage, and a
whole corps of villains in the persons of enemy officers, cold sneering
devils with spiked mustachios and evil habits.

Joey hissed them loudly. He was so carried away indeed, that at one
critical juncture in the play he contemplated swarming over the
footlights and doing violence to the chief villain, a fiend in human
form if ever there was one.

He was diverted from this by an opportunity closer at hand. Between acts
a speaker urged the audience to buy bonds to support the war. The
speaker was eloquent, and he pointed dramatically at Joey, who sat in
the fifth row.

“Boys like him,” said the speaker, “are giving their lives for you. Will
you not give your dollars?”

Joey blushed with a happy pride; the eyes of the house were on him.
Pretty girls passed subscription blanks. The man in front of Joey did
not take one. He was a stumpy man with a round bristly head; Joey had
had his suspicions of him.

“Don’t be a slacker,” the girl with the blanks said.

“I em nod a slecker,” returned the man.

His voice was guttural; the enemy officers on the stage talked in that
same tone, Joey had observed.

To Joey his duty was plain.

He leaned forward and hissed into the man’s ear, “You buy one of dem,
see.”

The man looked around; his face was purplish and obstinate. He glared at
Joey.

“I vill nod,” he said.

Again Joey saw his simple duty; he punched the man squarely on his bulb
of nose. The man punched back, but a dozen fists descended on him from
all sides and he was hustled up the aisle by the ushers. As he passed,
members of the audience took kicks at him. Joey was left in possession
of the field. He glowed. On the way out, several men, strangers, shook
hands with him; one man gave him a box of cigarets.

Joey Pell returned to camp in high spirits. The wandering, furtive,
foggy look of his stable days was gone from his face; the droop was gone
from his spine. He had found himself; he was a soldier, a person to be
admired, respected, and even feared a little. In his dreams he,
single-handed, held the breach against a prodigious number of the enemy.
They charged upon him, but he, though bleeding from a dozen wounds, did
not retreat. He held them back; with rifle, bombs, bayonet, even fists,
he hurled them back until he was ringed round by piles of the slain. The
enemy fell back at last before his fury. Then came the general, who
pinned a large medal on Joey’s chest.

“You are a man,” said the general, “and a soldier. Give me your hand.”

Joey saluted, then fainted. In some dreams he never recovered; he was
given a military funeral of considerable pomp. He even saw his
tombstone, with the words carved on it:

                         _PRIVATE JOSEPH PELL_
                         _He Died for His Flag_

He saw Mrs. J. Goodhue Wilmerding, in black, sobbing. He saw Peggy
Sturgis, inconsolable. He saw the pretty girls at the Home Trench in
tears. He even saw the plump man with the traitorous feet turn his head
away to hide his emotion.

In most of his dreams, however, he permitted himself to survive; badly
wounded, of course. He saw himself nursed back to health by Peggy
Sturgis, under the solicitous maternal eye of Mrs. Wilmerding. He saw
himself given a good job by a grateful Government—something with a
large salary and not much work.

He contrived to go to New York often. He invented sick sisters, dying
mothers, important business of a private nature. He would step out into
the rattling rush of the city with the tread of a conquerer. He liked
the friendly, approving glances that were cast on him. His appetite for
deference grew keen. It was an enormously fine feeling to swing with
military step and carriage up Fifth Avenue on a crisp day, uniform
pressed, shoes shined, and with campaign hat rakishly shading eyes that
managed to look grim, warlike and noble all at the same time, and yet
did not miss a single sign of interest or sympathy in a single passing
face. It was a never-ending source of delight to Joey Pell that he could
step to the curb and signal any of the handsome motor cars that were
passing, and have the car stop for him, and be treated as an honored
guest by the occupant and be driven wherever he wished to go. It was
pleasant to know that he could not walk two blocks without having some
well-dressed person stop his motor car and invite Joey to have a ride.
He spent whole days being taken up Fifth Avenue and then back again. He
got so that he accepted offers only from the most expensive cars.

Always he found a ready welcome at the Home Trench. Mrs. Wilmerding was
so gracious, and Peggy Sturgis so interested and so eager that he should
feel at home. And there were many other places that opened their doors
to him—clubs and rest rooms and private homes. He was called “buddy,”
and told many times how proud everyone was of him; he was, indeed, not a
little proud of himself.

He was attacked by an urgent desire to live up to what was expected of
him, to be a hero in reality, to win medals, to do violence to the
enemy; his hate, daily more bitter, demanded an outlet.

He began to ask the sergeants, “When do we go across?”

They did not know, so they looked mysterious. He began to be worried; he
had a fear that the war might be over before he could get into it. He
even ventured to ask the captain when the regiment would sail. The
captain, who did not know, looked mysterious. Joey’s worry increased.
His dreams became haunted by visions of an early peace or by the specter
of himself being left behind when his regiment did, at last, sail. Why
didn’t it sail? Surely he was ready.

The day toward which all Joey Pell’s thoughts had turned did come. The
sergeants looked more mysterious than usual; the officers whispered
together and looked very wise. At retreat the captain announced the news
with a suitable gravity; Joey quivered from the peak of his campaign hat
to the nail-studded soles of his army shoes.

“The regiment sails from Hoboken May fifth.”

In all his life Joey Pell had never heard more exciting, more gratifying
words. May fifth was but six days distant.

Joey cajoled a one-day pass to New York from the top sergeant. It was
one of the brightest days he had ever known. Everyone was so kind to
him. At the Home Trench they were especially nice to him; Mrs.
Wilmerding had him to dinner in her own dining-room, and they had
turkey. To Joey for anyone to have turkey at any time but Christmas was
unheard-of luxury; it made him surer than ever that he was a personage.
They all wrung his hand when at last, reluctantly, he left, bearing a
load of wristlets, sweaters, trench mirrors, candy and cigarets.

The night before he was to sail Joey Pell did not sleep at all. He lay
watching his equipment; now and then he examined it to see if it was all
there and in perfect order; he did not want to take the most minute
chance or to risk in any way being left behind.

He was in M Company, which was to go aboard the transport last. He sat
on the chilly pier, chafing. He wanted to get under way; he could not be
sure he was actually going until the Statue of Liberty faded from view.

He heard a sergeant’s staccato order: “Detail—Privates Leary,
Kochanski, Pell——”

He sprang up and stood at attention with the others.

“Go aboard,” the sergeant ordered, “and feed the mules.”

Joey held back when he reached the hold where the artillery mules were;
they were restless and were scuffling and biting in the half darkness.
He decided that he had done his duty in bringing the pails of water that
far; others could give them to the mules. But a watchful corporal spied
him.

“Here, you!” shouted the corporal. “Water them mules.”

But still Joey held back.

“Say, you ain’t afraid of them, are you?” demanded the corporal
scornfully.

“Naw,” said Joey, “not exactly, but——”

“Don’t be yella!” shot out the corporal. “Are you a soldier or ain’t
you?”

Joey picked up the pails resolutely; decidedly he was a soldier. He
shouldered his way in among the mules; they seemed gigantic, grotesque
in the dimness. He set down one of the pails. It was then that a mule
lashed out with its steel-shod hoof. It hit Joey Pell squarely in the
back of the head. Sharply a swift blackness fell on his brain.

At the military hospital in a deserted department store on lower Sixth
Avenue, to which they rushed Joey Pell, the doctors said that his skull
was crushed and that part of it was pressing on his brain. His regiment
sailed without him; but Joey Pell never knew it.

His was a curious case, the doctors said. They were able to relieve some
of the pressure on his brain, but not all of it. He continued to exist.
But he existed as a vegetable does. The part of his brain that gave him
memory did not work at all. He had no past, no yesterdays. Each day when
he woke, it was as if he were freshly born. Certain habits
remained—eating, dressing, simple motion. But he was quite unsensitive
to impressions. Each day they told him his name, and a moment later he
forgot it. He never asked how he happened to be there; he never asked
about anything; he simply sat in the corner of the private room they had
given him, quiet, apathetic.

For two years the brain of Private Joseph Pell lay fallow. His mind
simply closed up shop and went on a vacation. So, while he sat there,
impervious to anything, in a perfect vacuum, his regiment fought, the
Armistice was signed, his regiment returned, there was a triumphal march
up Fifth Avenue, the regiment was demobilized, and the great city
swallowed it once more. The soldiers who had been clerks returned to
their counters, the soldiers who had been truckmen returned to their
trucks.

It was May fifth, two years after Joey Pell’s accident. The attendant on
duty near Joey’s room had gone to the floor below to play cards with
another attendant. Joey Pell in his chair grew sleepy in the drowsy
spring morning air. His head nodded forward on the bosom of his hospital
nightshirt. He fell asleep. A fire engine bellowing past in the street
below screamed with its siren under his window. The impact of the sound
startled him awake. It jerked him upright in his chair; the sudden
movement tipped the chair over and Joey Pell pitched backward to the
floor; his head struck violently a sharp corner of his iron bed.

He lay for a moment where he had fallen; then slowly he pulled himself
to his feet and stared, puzzled, about him. What was he, Private Joseph
Pell, doing in this room on the day his regiment was to sail for the
Front? Then he remembered; they had made him go among the mules; one of
the mules must have kicked him and stunned him; certainly his head still
buzzed; the fools had carted him to this hospital, thinking he was badly
hurt; as if a kick in the head could hurt a soldier! Decisively Joey
Pell tore the nightshirt from his body. His regiment was going to sail
that day at noon, and he was going to sail with it.

He saw that he must act swiftly, but with caution. In the next ward
soldiers were drowsing. Their uniforms hung on pegs by their beds. Joey
commandeered the first uniform he came to; its owner was asleep. He was
a very much bigger man than Joey, and the uniform was half a dozen sizes
too large, so that it draped around Joey’s meager frame in great folds.
The purloined shoes were elevens, and Joey customarily wore fives. The
hat came down over his ears; no matter; once aboard the transport, Joey
knew he could get a new outfit. He hunted feverishly for his pack and
his rifle. He could find no pack, but in a storeroom he did find a
rifle. It was not his, for it was rusty and dusty, and his own was
always clean and well cared for. He took it anyhow.

He had seen a clock, and saw that it was ten. He had two hours to get to
Hoboken. He had no idea where he was and his knowledge of geography was
limited, so he was not at all certain where Hoboken was; in Jersey,
somewhere, he fancied. He slipped out of the hospital; his idea was to
find the Hudson River and get a ferry. He saw from the street signs that
he was at Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth Street; he breathed a sigh of
relief. His problem was simple; he had only to hail a passing motor car
and ask its driver to take him to one of the downtown ferries. He turned
toward Fifth Avenue.

A man was coming along the street toward Joey. He was a well-dressed
man, and he was escorting an appreciable paunch. Joey smiled at him; the
man scowled and increased his pace.

Joey reached Fifth Avenue. People were hurrying along. They did not
smile at Joey Pell; they hardly glanced at him; when they did, it was
with scant interest and no friendliness. He wondered about it.

A big motor car cruised slowly past; there was a lady in white summer
furs in the back seat, and there were orchids in the silver vase. Joey
held up his hand as a signal for the car to stop. The lady looked at him
obliquely.

“Give us a lift,” called Joey Pell.

The lady leaned forward and said something to the chauffeur; the car
jumped ahead and sailed at a swifter rate of speed down the Avenue. Joey
looked after it; he scratched his head.

He signaled another car; it did not stop. He signaled another; it did
not stop. He signaled others; none of them paid the least heed to him.
He stood, perplexed, on the corner. Something hard prodded him in the
ribs; it was the night stick of a policeman.

“Move along there, Jack,” ordered the policeman. “I been watchin’ you.
If you wanna panhandle, go over on Broadway; Fifth Avenue is closed,
see?”

“But——” sputtered Joey.

“Don’t give me no argument,” said the policeman sternly. “Beat it.”

He gave Joey another prod with his club. Joey moved down Fifth Avenue;
he was a little giddy. He wished he had time to show that big stiff of a
cop that he could not talk to a soldier that way, but time was going
fast, and his regiment sailed at noon.

Joey Pell hurried along. He had no time to speculate about why no one
smiled at him. He had an idea, and that was to go to the Home Trench,
which was near Eleventh Street; Mrs. Wilmerding always had a car or two
on hand; a word to her, and he’d be driven to Hoboken at top speed.

He ran up the steps of her stately house. Someone had taken down the
Home Trench sign, he noticed. He tried to open the door, but it was
locked. That was odd, he thought; it had always been open from eight
till six. It must be stuck, he thought. So he pressed the bell. A
jowlish man with side bars came to the door and surveyed Joey in his
tentlike uniform coldly.

“Well?” inquired the man.

Joey started to enter, but the man barred the way.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“Goin’ in,” said Joey. “Wanna see Mrs. Wilmerding.”

“You’ll have to be announced,” the man stated. “What are your name and
business?”

“Why—er”—Joey stammered—“just tell her it’s Joey Pell—Private Pell.
She knows me.”

“Wait here,” said the man, and he closed the door.

Joey Pell waited. It was all very strange, he thought. He could look in
through the window and see the long front room; usually it was crowded
with soldiers; this day it was empty; not quite empty, however. At a
desk sat a well-nourished lady—Mrs. Wilmerding, unquestionably. Joey
Pell felt greatly relieved.

The door opened a trifle. The side-barred man was there. “Mrs.
Wilmerding is not at home,” he said.

Joey decided that the man was joking; that this was a new system of
entertainment.

“Say, kid,” he said, “you ain’t looked very hard. I can see her right in
there.”

“She’s not at home,” said the man; his voice was frigid.

“Say, cut the kiddin’,” said Joey. “My reg’ment sails at noon and I
gotta get to Hoboken.” The butler appeared to be closing the door.

“Hey, Mrs. Wilmerding! Mrs. Wilmerding!” Joey called loudly.

She came out from her drawing room; her face was unsmiling.

“Jeffords,” she said to the butler, “what does he want?”

“I told him you were not at home, madam,” the butler said.

“Mrs. Wilmerding,” broke in Joey, “I gotta get to
Hoboken—quick—see?—and I thought you could help me.”

“I advise you to apply to the Veteran’s Charity Bureau, in Madison
Avenue,” she said, and shut the door.

Joey stood on the steps for two precious minutes. He wondered what he
had done to offend her. But he knew he had no time to puzzle it out. He
again started down the Avenue. And again he noticed that the faces of
those who passed him were uninterested, without friendliness.

Out of the sea of faces swam a familiar one—Peggy Sturgis.

He saluted her and said, “Hello, Miss Sturgis. Well, I’m off.”

She did not return his salutation; she looked at him queerly, as if
there were something curious about him.

“I beg your pardon?” she said.

“Say—you ain’t forgot me already?” blurted Joey Pell.

“I’m sorry,” she said coolly, “but I’m afraid I have. One met so many
soldiers you know. I hope things are going well with you. Goodby.”

She was gone before he could catch his breath. What terrible thing had
he done, he wondered. But he had no room in his mind for much wondering;
his immediate problem was to get to Hoboken by noon. He pushed on toward
Washington Square.

As he progressed along, at a half run, he overtook two men who were also
going toward the square. Joey saw that they, too, were in uniform—but
it was not khaki; it was a garish uniform, strange to him. He stopped
short. But it was not the uniforms of the men that stopped him; it was
their talk. They were talking in the language of the enemy. Joey Pell
had learned to recognize it. Joey knew at once that they must be spies.
He slackened his pace and followed close behind them. Fear hit him. If
he captured the men he’d miss the transport. But it was his duty, he saw
that, to capture them; he would do his duty.

Across the broad square he followed the two men. They headed for a crowd
assembled in the southeast corner of the square. Joey did not take his
eyes off them till they neared the crowd. Then he looked up, and his
heart turned a somersault. His fingers closed tight on his rifle. The
crowd was forming in a military formation, and they all wore the same
strange garish uniforms as the two spies; and furthermore, they were
speaking the same language. Joey stopped and stared.

The uniformed men carried a banner; it bore words in a foreign language.
The truth came to Joey Pell in a sickening flash: the enemy had captured
New York! How or when, he did not know. But there they were; they held
Washington Square. He watched them, petrified with horror and hate. He
tried to decipher their flag, but it meant nothing to him. He could not
read its inscription:

                         Young Men’s Uniformed
                         Gymnastic and Singing
                        Society of the Reformed
                            Lutheran Church

He could not tell from their speech that they were assembling to march
to the funeral of a deceased member. One thought filled his brain: the
enemy had captured New York. Now he understood why the people had
ignored him; they were afraid to do otherwise.

His hands tightened on his rifle; there was no question what his duty
was; they were two hundred to one; but he was a soldier.

He fumbled at his belt for cartridges, then groaned as he realized he
had none. Crouching behind a tree he drew from its scabbard the bayonet;
his teeth bit into each other as he fixed the bayonet in its socket.

Then he jumped from behind his tree. His voice, high and shrill, sounded
through the square.

“I’ll show you, you devils; I’ll show you!”

The surprised members of the uniformed gymnastic and singing society saw
his fantastic figure come running toward them. At first they thought he
was joking. Then, when they saw the leveled bayonet, they thought him
crazy. Straight into the midst of them charged Private Joseph Pell. His
big hat came down over his eyes, so the lunge he made with his bayonet
at the chest of the leader of the society missed its mark and the point
became entangled in the sleeve of that astonished young gymnast and
singer. The men were sure he was a madman now. They knocked him down on
the granite pavement; Private Joseph Pell’s head hit one of the blocks.

                 *        *        *        *        *

So ended the Battle of Washington Square, the briefest battle in
history, and yet the only one where the American Army’s casualties were
100 per cent.




                        THE LAST OF THE FLATFEET


HIS name was Ugobeecheebuggocheebeepawpawkeepiswiskiweeweechinoobee. In
Flatfoot Indian this means, of course,
Little-Big-Fat-Brown-Muskrat-Sitting-on-a-Pine-Stump-With-
His-Tail-just-Touching-the-Ground. At the school on the reservation
whither he was taken, screaming, at a tender age, the teacher, in the
interest of simplicity and patriotism, renamed him George Washington Ug.

After some months had passed, the teacher voiced a regret that he had
done this; it hardly seemed fair to the Father of His Country. Closer
acquaintance with the young aborigine forced the teacher to conclude
that it was entirely unlikely that Ug would ever be first in war, peace,
or, indeed, anything. Privately the teacher expressed the opinion that
if Ug were to unveil his boxlike head in the open air Ug would be in
acute peril from woodpeckers. The juvenile Ug seemed absolutely
impervious to the pearls of knowledge with which he was pelted. So the
teacher decided to change his name to Walter Muskrat.

It was then that the salient trait of Ug’s character shone forth. He
refused flatly to be Walter Muskrat. Somehow the idea had seeped through
some chink in his cranium that George Washington was, or had been, a
great white chief entitled to many feathers and rich in horses, squaws
and scalps, for whom it was an honor to be named. Ug announced without
passion but with palpable determination that he intended to remain
George Washington Ug. What was his, was his, he intimated. Arguments,
cajolery, threats left him equally unmoved. He refused to answer to any
other name, and he refused to eat. Before his wooden-faced obduracy the
teacher at length surrendered; Ug remained George Washington Ug.

To the task of civilizing Ug, the teacher, a zealous soul, gave
particular attention. It was a matter of pride with that teacher that
the civilizing job should be a thorough one, neat, efficient, and with
no rough edges; for Ug, it seemed quite probable, was destined to be the
last of the Flatfeet. To civilize a Flatfoot! That was an ambition
worthy of any man, thought the teacher. It had never been done; full
well the teacher knew this. Had he not been trying for thirty years? He
had seen no end of Flatfoot youths issue forth from his schoolroom, to
the outward eye finished products, glowing with the high polish of
civilization and possessed of well-cultivated tastes for derby hats,
bank accounts, a reasonable amount of morality, safety razors, hymns,
suspenders, lawsuits and the other essential habiliments of
civilization, only to backslide into barbarous practises at the first
suitable opportunity that presented itself.

“There’s a broad streak of atavism in the Flatfoot,” said the teacher.
“He reverts to type as easily as the rattlesnake sheds its skin. On
Saturday night he may be seen in a derby hat and rah-rah clothes,
peaceably eating a nut sundae in a drug store and discussing Ty Cobb,
ship subsidies and self-starters with the clerk. On the following
Monday, like as not, he is back in moccasins and feathers, doing some
forbidden tribal dance, whetting up his hunting knife and wistfully
regretting that the Government has such narrow-minded prejudices against
a little scalping.

“But,” concluded the teacher, “I’ve got hold of Ug early enough to
civilize him so it will stick. The last of the Flatfeet is going to be
the best of the Flatfeet. I’ll train Ug so that he will never want to
take off his derby hat. After all, the derby hat is the symbol of
civilization. No man can possibly be wild in a derby hat.”

So he labored over Ug. Time passed, as it is apt to, and Ug’s chest
measurement and appetite increased, and the teacher watched hopefully
for signs of mental and moral development. That Ug would ever become a
profound thinker, the teacher harbored grave doubts; there was scant
indication that the chunky, square-faced boy would ever become a
Flatfoot Aristotle. Indeed, in darker moments the teacher sometimes
opined that the only way to implant seeds of knowledge in that brown
head was by means of a major operation involving trepanning. It was not
that Ug preferred sin to syntax; docilely enough, and readily, he
accepted the leading facts of an elementary education—to wit: That in
1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue; that six times nine is invariably
fifty-four; that one must spell “separate” with an “a” till one’s hair
turns gray; that homicide is not only illegal but unethical; that the
femur is the longest bone in the human body; that when a fat man gets
into a tubful of water the water will overflow. Having accepted them, he
forgot them.

“However,” said the teacher, “if I can teach him to be a law-abiding
member of his community, who will work and keep sober, it will be
enough. A man can be civilized without being a mental Hercules.”

He continued most earnestly to train Ug in the way, by civilized canons,
he should go. When Ug was fourteen a most encouraging event happened.
With his own delighted eyes the teacher observed the behavior of Ug that
day at recess in the school yard when Ug became involved in a quarrel
with Henry James Curly Bear, a sprig of the Blackfoot tribe, and a youth
of superior size and brawn. Henry James Curly Bear, whom no amount of
effort had been able to redeem from savagery, had kicked Ug roundly in a
dispute over the somewhat knotty technical problem of whether Jack
Dempsey was a greater fighter than Ty Cobb was a ball player. Ordinarily
such an act meant instant and spirited fistic battle, for traditionally
the Flatfeet are of martial cast and care no more for Blackfeet than one
male bulldog cares for another male bulldog confined in the same coal
bin. The teacher made ready to launch himself into the fray and drag the
opponents apart. To his surprise and joy he heard Ug say in ringing
tones:

“I will not fight you, Henry James Curly Bear. The teacher says only bad
people fight. Good people sue in the courts. If you kick me again, Henry
James Curly Bear, when I say my prayers tonight I’ll tell our heavenly
Father on you, and He’ll fix you, Henry James Curly Bear.”

Young Curly Bear expressed the opinion that Ug was afraid of him. This
Ug gently denied.

“The Good Book,” said George Washington Ug, “says that it is wicked to
fight; and, anyhow, why don’t you take somebody your own size?”

Then, not without a show of dignity, Ug turned his back on young Curly
Bear and retired from the scene. The teacher felt the warming flush of
pride.

“Score one for civilization,” he said.

As he walked toward his home that evening the teacher was decidedly in a
self-congratulatory mood; overnight, almost, it seemed that Ug had begun
to respond to the efforts of the teacher. With such gratifying thoughts
in his brain, the teacher passed a grove of live oaks, a secluded spot.
To his ears came sounds. He stopped. Louder grew the sounds, and
stranger; they appeared to issue from the grove. Now he heard a wail,
shrill and laden with some emotion akin to anger; then he heard a chant,
weird, almost frenzied. The teacher cautiously pushed aside some
underbrush and peered into the grove. An unpedagogical expression leaped
to his lips, for he saw the person from whom the sounds came, and he
knew their import.

The chanting lips were the lips of his pupil, George Washington Ug. As
Ug chanted he danced—a wild, abandoned dance full of twists, turns,
bends and wriggles. Gone were Ug’s pants; they hung on a stump; and so
did his derby hat. In his black hair stood feathers, plainly the tail
feathers of a recently despoiled rooster. In his hand gleamed the blade
of a jackknife, and he made menacing gestures at what the teacher
thought at first was a bit of red string but which closer scrutiny
revealed to be an adult earthworm of the night-crawler variety. A
concentrated and bloodthirsty scowl was on the face of Ug as he twisted
in the dance, and chanted:

                        “Koopeekis koopeekis
                        Bobbochee cheebobo
                        Toowanda bonda bonda bonda
                        Bopokum kobokum.”

At this point Ug dispatched the earthworm by biting off its head.
Chagrin and horror overwhelmed the watching teacher, for he knew that
the chant meant:

    “Help me, O bloody war spirit, to strangle my enemy, Curly Bear,
    even as I strangle this serpent. Give me the strength to mash
    him, smash him, scalp him and cut him into very small bits.”

It was the forbidden snake dance. By such heathenish rites, the teacher
knew, Flatfoot braves in the unregenerate days of yore had whipped
themselves into a fury before going on the warpath.

The teacher descended, outraged, on Ug, confiscated the worm on the
spot, and chastised Ug corporeally on another spot. What, demanded the
teacher, did Ug mean by this? Ug, frightened, replied that he didn’t
know. Once, years and years before, when he was little more than a
papoose, he had seen his father and the other men of the tribe do this
dance in a secret spot. He had not thought of it since; but on this
evening, as he was wandering past the grove, smarting under the insults
and kicks of Henry James Curly Bear, an earthworm had crossed his path;
and suddenly, somehow, the idea had come to him to do the dance. He
could not explain why.

“It just came over me, like, teacher, please,” he said.

That night the teacher thought long over the problem of civilizing Ug.

“I must do more than make him accept the ways of white men,” the teacher
said. “I must make him like them. But how? First, I must get hold of his
imagination. I must find the secret spring in his nature to which he
will respond with genuine enthusiasm.”

The teacher was unlike many teachers in this: He did not think that
every little Indian was exactly like every other little Indian. He set
about the task of prodding for Ug’s own particular secret spring. It
took days, but he found it at last. It was pride; ardent patriotic
pride.

Mostly, when the teacher was talking of fractions or verbs or such
things, Ug was in a species of torpor, with dull face. But when the
teacher conducted the class in history and civics and spoke of Uncle
Sam, Ug, the teacher noticed, straightened his backbone and brightness
came into his black eyes. The clue was enough for the astute teacher. He
dilated on the power of Uncle Sam and his love for all in the country,
but particularly for his wards, the Indians, and most particularly of
all for a certain youthful Flatfoot named George Washington Ug. Ug was
impressed; that was plain. He became passionately devoted to Uncle Sam;
he appeared to derive unlimited comfort and inspiration from the fact
that a benevolent old gentleman in a tall gray hat, a star-spangled
vest, striped trousers and a goatee was his friend and protector. Tho
Ug’s notions of what a ward is were slightly fogbound, he was very proud
of the fact that he was a ward of Uncle Sam. He rather looked down on
the white farmers whose land adjoined the reservation; they were mere
citizens; he was a ward. No longer, when larger Indians kicked him, did
he plan to massacre them as they slept. Instead, he said, “Just you
wait! I’ll tell my Uncle Sam on you some day when I see him.” And he
wrote down their names in a small note-book.

From the day that Ug discovered Uncle Sam he became a changed Flatfoot.
Gladly he embraced the ways of the white man. “Uncle Sam won’t like you
if you don’t do this or that,” the teacher would say; it would be
enough.

No longer with reluctance did Ug wash his ears. He attended church
cheerfully; he brushed his derby hat without being told; he contributed
an occasional penny to the missionary box; he learned empirically that
it is unwise to use the fingers in eating custard and he desisted from
doing so; he voluntarily abandoned the notion of keeping a family of pet
skunks under his beds; he discontinued the practise of putting
grasshoppers down the necks of smaller Indians during Sabbath school; he
expressed at various times ambitions to be a railroad engineer, a
moving-picture actor and a big-league shortstop; he told lies only when
it was necessary, and sometimes not then. The teacher felt that Ug at
last was headed in the right direction; the last of the Flatfeet was
destined to be completely civilized.

When Ug was twenty the teacher decided that the job was done. It was
true that Ug’s scholarship was still of dubious quality; he was still
under the impression that Utah is the capital of Omaha and that six
times six is forty-six. But his devotion to Uncle Sam, his burning
patriotism—they were unimpeachable. Love of his country and its
institutions was in his blood; it broke out in a rash of small flags in
his coat lapels. Ug was given a diploma full of curly penmanship, and a
new derby hat, a gift from a proud teacher, and sent forth into the
world. He was not worried about his future; Uncle Sam would take care of
him. Perhaps he’d raise pigs; that seemed like a genteel occupation and
one not involving undue labor. Anyhow, whatever he did, if he was a good
Flatfoot, washed his ears regularly, paid his bills, resisted any
wayward impulses to commit assault, battery, arson or theft, and in
general respected the edicts of his Uncle Sam’s representatives, all
would go well with him. He had, as one of his most valued possessions, a
newspaper picture of the Atlantic Fleet riding the high seas; and, Ug
liked to reflect, at a word from him to his uncle, these giant war
canoes, with cannons as big as redwood trees, would come chugging up the
mountain streams leading to the reservation to protect the rights of Ug
and strike terror to the hearts of Ug’s enemies. Of course, Ug must
merit this protection by leading an unblemished life. This idea was the
only thing George Washington Ug carried away from the school in addition
to his diploma and his new derby hat; but the teacher was satisfied that
it was enough.

There was no doubt about it—Ug was a good Indian, a credit to his
teacher and an estimable member of society. His room-and-a-half frame
house on the edge of the reservation he painted red, white and blue. He
bought a tin bathtub. He planted hollyhocks. He carried a nail file in a
leather case and used it openly and unabashed at the gibes of the less
refined Indians. He refused to have dealings with traffickers in illicit
spirits; indeed, he obeyed all rules, laws, ordinances and regulations
punctiliously. On the wall of his dwelling, opposite the rotogravure of
the Atlantic Fleet, was a large picture of the Washington Monument, for
the teacher, when pressed, had told Ug that this was one of the homes of
his Uncle Sam. Ug had sent to himself from Chicago a very civilized suit
of blue serge with braid-bound lapels and freckled with small pearl
buttons. He wore a rubber collar on Sundays, on formal calls and on the
Fourth of July, which he believed to be Uncle Sam’s birthday.

He even decided to shatter the best traditions of the male Flatfoot and
work a little.

The work he selected for himself was of a sort in keeping with the
importance and social position of a ward of Uncle Sam. George Washington
Ug became a model. He permitted himself to be photographed by passing
tourists, and for this privilege he charged a dime. It was worth it. Ug
was a perfect specimen of Flatfoot beauty. His head had sharp corners,
because when he was a papoose it had been strapped to a board, this
being the Flatfoot contribution to the science of child-rearing. His
face was a mocha prairie, with nostrils like gopher holes. He had eyes
like bits of new patent leather. In figure Ug was inclined to plumpness;
in general outline he resembled a hot-water bag at high tide.

It was natural, as one of the fruits of civilization, that Ug should
aspire to be a capitalist. Accordingly he saved his dimes and, after
prayer and meditation, invested them in a pig. It was not much of a pig,
and it was given to whimpering. Ug had no special fondness for dumb
animals, especially pigs; but he kept his charge under his bed and
waited for him to increase and multiply. It was Ug’s hope and plan that
the pig would be the nucleus of a far-flung pig ranch. After consulting
his school history book Ug named the animal General Grant.

Then he left the pig to browse about in the chickweed in the back yard
and toughen its snout by trying to root under the hog-tight fence, while
Ug himself added more dimes to his store by lurking in the vicinity of
the railroad station and displaying his charms to the lenses of amateur
photographers in passing trains.

The lightning of calamity struck Ug one afternoon at six minutes past
five. Returning to his domicile, Ug discovered that General Grant was
not snuffling about the back door, as was the General’s habit. That the
General could have burrowed under the fence was impossible. So Ug
searched the house. He looked everywhere—under the bed, in the bathtub,
in the phonograph-record case. General Grant had vanished. Ug retained
enough hunting instinct to look for tracks, and he found them. They were
nail-shod boot tracks and they pointed in the direction of the farm of
one Patrick Duffy, white farmer, just across the boundary of the
reservation. To him went Ug.

Mr. Duffy came out from his supper with egg on his overalls and fire in
his eye. He was a high, wide, thick man, with a bushel of torch-colored
hair, a jaw like an iceberg and fists like demijohns. Ug removed his
derby hat, bowed, and inquired politely if Mr. Duffy had seen a pig
answering to the name of General Grant.

“I have,” said Mr. Duffy, grim of voice.

“Where is he, please?”

“In my pen,” responded Mr. Duffy.

“I’ll take him away,” said Ug.

“You will not,” said Mr. Duffy.

“But he’s mine,” protested Ug.

“He was,” corrected Mr. Duffy. “Now he’s mine.”

“Since when, Patsy Duffy?” Ug was growing agitated; he had heard tales
of Mr. Duffy.

“Your thievin’ pig,” declared Mr. Duffy, “come over and et my prize
parsnips. I was goin’ to show ’em at the state fair. They was worth
eleven dollars—to me, anyhow—not countin’ the honor an’ glory. Now
they’re et. I’ll be keeping the pig.”

“You give me back my pig, Patsy Duffy!” cried Ug.

“You give me back my parsnips,” returned Mr. Duffy coldly.

“But General Grant didn’t eat your parsnips,” said Ug. “He hates
parsnips. And, anyhow, he was home all day. You took——”

“Look here, Injin,” said Mr. Duffy severely, “I ain’t got time to stand
out here debatin’ with you.”

Ug was trembling with an emotion he knew to be sinful and contrary to
all moral precepts. An ax lay on a near-by woodpile, and Ug’s eyes
leaped from it to the bushy head of Patrick Duffy and then back to the
ax again; for a second, civilization tottered. Then Ug, with a movement
of resolution, replaced the derby hat on his black locks.

“All right, Patsy Duffy,” he said with dignity. “Just you wait! I’m
going to tell my uncle on you.” And Ug turned away.

“You can tell your aunt, too,” Mr. Duffy called after him, “and all your
cousins. But the pig stays here, and if I ketch you pesterin’ around
here, Injin, I’ll boot you for a gool.”

Ug made his way cabinward with cloudy brow. Here was injustice, flagrant
injustice. He was a ward of Uncle Sam and he didn’t propose to be
treated like that, even by Patsy Duffy.

“It’s not the pig; it’s the principle of the thing,” muttered Ug as he
tramped along.

It was not that he was sentimentally attached to General Grant; the pig,
indeed, had grown to be more of a pest than a pet. But the pig was his
property, and another man had dared to take him. Ug shook his fist in
the direction of the Duffy house.

“You’ll rue the day, Patsy Duffy,” said Ug; he had seen melodramas. Then
Ug chuckled to himself. He had reached the cabin and his eye had fallen
on the picture of the Atlantic Fleet; he was picturing to himself Patsy
Duffy shelled into submission by its big guns.

To his teacher, as the nearest representative of Uncle Sam, Ug went and
stated the case of the kidnaped General Grant. The teacher listened
sympathetically, but he shook his gray head; he knew Patsy Duffy, his
gusty temper, his heavy fist, his plethoric bank roll, his political
power. He pointed out to Ug that the recovering of kidnaped pigs was not
a pedagogical function; furthermore, Ug was no longer a schoolboy, but a
man of the world. Ug suggested a direct appeal to Uncle Sam. The teacher
said emphatically that that would never do. Uncle Sam was much too busy
to be bothered about one pig. He never, the teacher assured Ug,
concerned himself personally with any matter involving less than a
million pigs; his hired men looked after lesser cases, the teacher said,
congratulating himself secretly that “hired men” was a rather good
stroke. The law, suggested the teacher, was on Ug’s side; his best
advice to Ug was to consult the law in the person of Marcellus Q.
Wigmore, attorney and counselor, in his office in Timberlake City. Yes,
that was the civilized thing to do. Uncle Sam would approve; yes, yes,
consult the law by all means.

Ug, a shade disappointed but not at all downhearted, greased his hair,
dusted off his derby and walked the sixteen miles to Timberlake City.
The majesty of the law, as embodied in Attorney and Counselor Wigmore,
was enthroned in two cobwebby back rooms over a hay-and-feed store on
Main Street. Ug was permitted to sit in the outer room until he was
impressed, and this did not take long, for it was a musty, intimidating,
legal-smelling place lined with books of repealed statutes and reports
of drainage commissions, important-looking books with bindings suffering
from tetter. Then Ug was summoned into the presence of Attorney Wigmore,
a lean, dusty man of prehistoric aspect, with a dazzling bald head, an
imposing frock coat and a collar like a spite fence.

He pursed shrewd lips and said, “And in what way may I have the honor of
serving you, sir?” in a solemn court-room voice.

Ug, overawed, got out, “Patsy Duffy stole General Grant.”

“Ah?” said Mr. Wigmore. “Ah?”

“He said he et his parsnips,” hurried on Ug. “But General Grant never et
them. He hated parsnips—honest.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Wigmore, “an interesting historical fact. But how, may I
inquire, do the tastes of the late general concern me?”

Ug poured out his story of the abduction of his pig. Mr. Wigmore said,
to himself, “Patsy Duffy? Ah, yes; ah, yes.” Then he addressed Ug, as if
he were a jury.

“My dear sir,” said Attorney and Counselor Wigmore gravely, “this is
indeed a pretty legal problem. Hur-r-rumph! Yes, a pretty legal problem.
I hesitate to give an _ex-cathedra_ opinion on a question involving so
moot a point of jurisprudence. Hur-r-rumph!”

Ug listened, confused but fascinated. The eyes of Mr. Wigmore searched
the grimy ceiling.

“Hur-r-rumph!” he said, with a bass judicial clearing of the throat.
“Let us put the case in its simplest terms. We have you, the plaintiff,
the party of the first part; we have one Patrick Duffy, defendant, party
of the second part; we have one General Grant, pig, _casus belli_, party
of the third part; we have certain parsnips, party of the fourth part.
It is alleged by the party of the first part that the party of the
second part did feloniously steal, make away with and confiscate the
party of the third part because said Duffy alleges said General Grant
did unlawfully eat, devour and consume or cause to be consumed the party
of the fourth part. The plaintiff contends that he can prove an alibi
for the aforementioned General Grant and that the said General Grant is
innocent of the overt act imputed to him by the party of the second
part. Is that not correctly stated, sir?”

“Yes, sir,” said Ug, by now dizzy.

Mr. Wigmore consulted a book weighing ten pounds. For minutes he
regarded the pages darkly. Then he spoke:

“Hur-r-rumph! To speak _ex capite_, your case is not unlike the case of
Bullpitt _versus_ Nudd, 67 Rhode Island, 478, in which the honorable
court ruled that the unlawful abduction of animals was _contra bonos
mores_; and, if I remember correctly—and I think I do—fined the
defendant two dollars and costs. Your case, sir, clearly involves a
definition of _meum_ and _tuum_; and, speaking _cum grano salis_, it has
a precedent, if my memory is not at fault, and I do not believe it is,
in the case of the International Knitted Knight Klose Korporation
_versus_ Gumbel _et al._, 544 South Carolina, 69, although I must warn
you that it will be a question of adjudication just how far the doctrine
of _caveat emptor_ conflicts with that of _cave canem_. You can see that
for yourself, can’t you?”

Ug, utterly numb of brain, nodded.

Mr. Wigmore thoughtfully rubbed a bony chin with a thumb.

“_Inter se_,” he observed, “it will take much study to determine what
your remedy is. Your pig was caught _in flagrante delicto_, according to
the defendant, which would make him _particeps criminis_, would it not?”

Ug gulped.

“It might,” said Mr. Wigmore, “be possible to obtain a writ of _habeas
corpus_. Or again we might have the defendant indicted for abduction.
Possibly a question of riparian rights is involved. I hesitate to say
without consulting an authority on torts. Have you ten dollars?”

Ug had. He produced it and saw it vanish into a recess beneath the tails
of Mr. Wigmore’s long coat.

“Pray wait here,” said Mr. Wigmore, “while I go into conference.”

Mr. Wigmore went into the other room and the door closed behind him. He
watched the men pitching horseshoes in the street below for ten minutes,
and then returned, with grave face, to the sanctum where Ug waited,
perspiring freely.

“My dear sir,” said Mr. Wigmore blandly, “my advice to you is—drop the
case.”

Ug stared.

“And not get my pig back?” he quavered.

“What,” said Mr. Wigmore philosophically, “is a pig more or less in the
cosmic scheme?”

“But he’s mine! I want my pig!” Ug was nearly in tears.

“Possession,” remarked Mr. Wigmore, showing impatience, “is nine points
of the law. You came to me for advice. I gave it to you. You have
received it. The law says nothing that would help you. Forget the pig.”

“But that isn’t fair! He’s mine! Patsy Duffy is a thief!”

Mr. Wigmore grew stern.

“Take care, young man,” he said. “There are laws against slander. Mr.
Duffy is a respected member of this community. His brother is the
sheriff, his brother-in-law is the county judge and his son is the
district attorney. Good afternoon. What a bright warm day it is, isn’t
it?”

Ug found himself on Main Street, stunned. He had appealed to the law and
it had failed him. It didn’t seem possible that so learned a man as
Marcellus Q. Wigmore could be wrong, and yet Ug found himself embracing
that heresy. It seemed to him that he had a right to get his pig back.
He decided to appeal to another of Uncle Sam’s representatives, the
superintendent of the reservation.

He was a genial soul, the superintendent, who professed often and loudly
a love for the Indians. The winds of politics had wafted him from his
cigar store in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Indians, except wooden ones,
are something of a rarity, to his present position. He greeted Ug
warmly, almost affectionately, slapped his back and asked after his
health. Ug replied that he was in a persecuted state of mind, and
pigless, and narrated the story of the loss of General Grant. The
superintendent was horrified, sympathetic, indignant simultaneously.

“How dare this fellow Duffy take the property of one of my Indians?” he
demanded with heat. “I’ll show him! Now don’t you worry, young fellow.
I’ll take this matter up myself, personally, see?” And he patted Ug out
of the office.

Ug waited a week. But his pig was not returned. He summoned up his
courage, bathed his rubber collar, and once more tremulously visited the
superintendent. As he approached the office he noted that the
superintendent was busy with some visitor. Ug paused in his approach. He
could see the visitor now. There was no mistaking that beacon light of
red hair and those haystack shoulders. Ug grinned; doubtless at that
very moment the superintendent was castigating Duffy for purloining the
pig. Then Ug perceived that that could hardly be the case, for Mr. Duffy
emitted a bull bellow of a laugh, and Ug heard with dismay that the
superintendent laughed with him. Ug crept nearer the window. He saw that
on the table between the two men were cards and piles of chips and a
brown bottle. Ug departed as softly as he had come. He did not go back
to the superintendent again. Somehow he had divined that it would be of
no avail.

He went to the teacher. What could he do now? Write to one of the men in
Washington to whom Uncle Sam had intrusted the task of looking after the
Indians, the teacher suggested. Ug returned to his cabin and struggled
with pen, ink and paper all evening. By morning he had produced a smeary
note:

    Indian Commissioner,
    Washington, D. C.

    _Hon. sir_: I had pig—boughten by me for $3.45. His name was
    General Grant. Patsy Duffy stealed him. General Grant did not et
    them parsnips. He hates parsnips worse than the dickens. White
    man has not right to take Indian pig I guess. I want my pig
    back. Please tell Uncle Sam.

                            Your loving son,
                                              George Washington Ug
                                                   Flatfoot Indian.

Having dispatched this missive, Ug waited quietly, and with assurance.
From time to time he glanced at the Atlantic Fleet, and reflected with
pride that at a word from him that terrible machinery would be set in
motion against that red-headed Duffy man. In eleven days he received a
letter—a long, important-looking document with an eagle in the corner.
Excitedly he tore it open. It read:

    _Dear sir_: In reply refer to No. 73965435, file 4534, section
    23x.

    Your communication has been received and will be acted upon in
    due course.

                                   Chief Clerk of the Chief Clerk,
                                        Department of the Interior.

Ug was not entirely pleased by the letter. He had hoped for a short,
firm order to Patrick Duffy that would lead to the immediate restitution
of his pig. Then, too, there was something so cool, aloof, impersonal
about it, considering that he was a relative of Uncle Sam. He wondered
how long “in due course” was. When it proved to be more than two weeks
Ug, growing restive, wrote a post card to the Indian commissioner:

    _Hon. sir_: How about my pig?

                            Your loving son,
                                             George Washington Ug,
                                                   Flatfoot Indian.

He received a reply in a week:

    _Dear sir_: In reply refer to No. 656565, drawer; pig.

    A careful search of this department has resulted in the finding
    of no pig, pigs or other animals belonging to you, and we are
    therefore at a loss to understand your esteemed favor of the
    nineteenth.

                      Chief Clerk of the Bureau of Missing Animals.

Ug groaned aloud when he read this. He bought a fresh bottle of ink and
gave himself over for two days to the arduous task of literary
composition. The letter he sent away to Washington read:

    _Hon. sir_: Now look here please. I am good little Indian. I had
    pig. Name, General Grant. Patsy Duffy, bad man but white, he
    steal that pig. He say G. Grant et his parsnips. This is a fib.
    I keep all laws and teacher says I am sibbleized. Please tell
    Uncle Sam I want back my pig.

                            Your loving son,
                                             George Washington Ug,
                                                   Flatfoot Indian.

Ten days later a very fat letter came for Ug, and he took it
triumphantly. He even bought a can of condensed milk for General Grant’s
home-coming party. In his cabin he opened the letter. It read:

    _Dear sir_: In reply refer to No. 4399768554333; section 29,
    subsection 9.

        Your communication has been received and placed on file.
        Nothing can be done because of insufficient information.
        Please answer the inclosed questionnaire and return same
        to above.

    What is your full name?

    When and where were you born?

    What proofs have you that you were?

    What are your father’s and mother’s names, date of birth, age,
    sex and cause of death, if any?

    What is your tribe?

    What is your sex?

    What is the full name of the pig in this case?

    What is its sex?

    Has it any distinguishing marks? Send map of same.

    Give dimensions of pig, using inclosed measurement chart.

    Did you yourself steal the pig in the first place?

    If not, inclose bill of sale.

    Inclose statement signed by five witnesses proving that pig is
    not fond of parsnips.

    Inclose photograph of pig and sample of parsnip alleged to have
    been eaten by same.

    Inclose full description of Patrick Duffy, giving name, age, sex
    and photograph—without hat.

                   Chief Clerk, Bureau of Claims, Flatfoot Section.

It took Ug three days, seven pens, two bottles of ink—one spilled—two
smeared shirts and much grunting to answer the questions, but answer
them he did. He mailed the letter and waited.

The Indian Bureau replied in two weeks that his communication had been
received and given careful attention; but, inasmuch as it appeared to
involve a pig, it had been referred to the Department of Agriculture.
The secretary to the secretary to the Secretary of Agriculture wrote Ug
that the case had been referred to the Bureau of Animal Husbandry. Ug,
puzzled, sent a hasty post card to say that General Grant had no
husband, but this information was ignored. Instead, he received a letter
saying that because of the legal aspects of the case it had been passed
on to the Department of Justice. Ug sighed and waited. The Department of
Justice referred the case, it notified Ug, to the ninth assistant
attorney-general, who gave it some days of study and sent it back to the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs, who wrote Ug to know if it was a pig or
a rig that he had lost. Ug wrote “Pig, Pig, Pig!” on a post card and
sent it to Washington. Day followed day. No letter came to Ug. He
finally could stand delay no longer. He decided one night to play his
trump card. He wrote to Uncle Sam:

    _Dear Uncle Sam_: You know me. I am George Washington Ug, a very
    sibbleized good Indian; wear derby hat; go church; say prayers;
    don’t fight. Now this Patsy Duffy, bad white man, took my pig,
    General Grant, and I don’t know how he get that way. Please send
    large gunboats and make Patsy Duffy give back my pig please.

                          Your loving neffew,
                                                           George,
                                                          Flatfoot.

Doubts, worries, irritations melted away as Ug read and reread his
letter. It was all up with Patsy Duffy now. Uncle Sam could not resist
that letter, even if it did involve less than one million pigs. It
involved an injustice to his ward, and Uncle Sam would not permit that.
Ug smiled as he wrote on the envelop in his big, round scraggly hand,
“Uncle Sam, Washington, D. C.”

The reply came more promptly than replies to any of his other letters;
Ug knew it would. He picked up the official envelop almost reverently.
He carried it past the other Indians in his hand. He wanted them to see
that he, Ug, had received a letter from his Uncle Sam. He postponed the
pleasure of opening it, just as a child saves the best cake till last.
He opened it after some blissful reverie in his own cabin. As he read it
the brown face of Ug became like a cup of coffee to which a great deal
of milk has suddenly been added. The letter was short, formal. It was
from the Post Office Department, and it read:

    No such person as Uncle Sam is known in Washington, D. C. In the
    future please give full name and street and number.

Ug felt as if he had been tomahawked. He took himself, his dismay and
his _café-au-lait_ face to the teacher.

“What is Uncle Sam’s last name?” he asked.

The teacher didn’t know. Ug had caught him in an unguarded moment; the
admission had slipped out; the teacher flushed, flustered.

“What is Uncle Sam’s street and number?” asked Ug. His small eyes now
held suspicion.

The teacher didn’t know.

“Ug,” he said in his most kindly manner, “you’re a grown man now. I
think, perhaps, I ought to tell you. Uncle Sam isn’t a man; that is to
say, he isn’t like you or me. He’s a sort of—well, a sort of spirit.”

“Like God?” asked Ug.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Not like God.”

“Like Santa Claus?”

“Yes, yes; that’s it,” said the teacher hastily. “Rather more like Santa
Claus.”

“Teacher,” said Ug, and his face was as set as a totem pole, “three
years ago you told me that there was no Santa Claus.”

The teacher looked away from Ug. The subject was very unpleasant to the
teacher.

“You’ve been a good boy, Ug,” he said.

“I’ve tried to be,” said Ug, picking up his derby hat.

Homeward through a quiet evening went Ug, very slowly; his square head
was bent forward till his chin obscured his rubber collar; the path
across the meadow was well defined by the rising moon, but Ug’s feet now
and then strayed from it; he walked like a man very tired. Not far from
his small red, white and blue cabin Ug stopped short. Something was
moving in the grass near the path. Ug bent toward it. It was a large,
glistening, red earthworm. Ug’s hands went up to his head, and when they
came down one of them held his derby hat. A sharp motion and the hat
went skimming out into the alfalfa. A hen, the property of a white
neighbor, disturbed in her beauty sleep, cackled. Ug made other sharp
motions. One of them stripped off his blue-serge pants. Another ended
the earthly days of the hen by quick and vigorous strangulation. Still
another plucked out the feathers; and yet another nipped the earthworm
by the nape of its slimy neck before it could slither back into its
burrow. Then the quiet night heard sounds—the sounds of a wild martial
chant in a barbarous tongue:

                 “Koopeekis koopeekis
                 Bobbochee cheebobo
                 Toowanda bonda bonda, Patsy Duffy,
                 Bopokum kobokum.”

The owls and the gophers, the only witnesses, saw a plump square-headed
man, with feathers in his hair, a knife in one hand and a wriggling worm
in the other, twisting and turning and dancing a primitive abandoned
dance in the moonlight.

Patsy Duffy, smoking his corncob on his porch in the cool of the
evening, heard the distant sounds too. He heard them draw nearer. He did
not understand what was happening till a fantastic figure bounded, as if
it were India rubber, to his porch. He recognized Ug. It was not the Ug
he had known.

It was an Ug with eyes that blazed, an Ug that spoke the chopped
untutored speech of his ancestors.

“What the devil!” growled Patsy Duffy, starting up.

“White man, you steal um pig! Me heap bad Injun! You give um pig or you
catch hell!”

“I’ll boot you——” began Patsy Duffy, but he had no chance to finish
his threat. Ug was on him, clawing him like a demon; one brown hand
gripped the red hair, the other flourished the long-bladed jackknife.
Down they went, with Ug on top. A shrill cry like the note of a drunken
whippoorwill caught in a buzz saw cut the night; his breath and his
spirit deserted Patrick Duffy; he knew that cry; years and years ago it
had struck cold fear to the hearts of white pioneers; it was the war
whoop of the Flatfeet.

“You let me up!” sniveled Patrick Duffy. “I was just havin’ a little
joke with you; honest I was, Ug.”

Even a braver man might well have been cowed by the ferocity of a
Flatfoot on the warpath. Ug rose. He scowled at the prostrate Duffy.

“White man,” said Ug, “if I catch you near my tepee I’ll scalp you.”

But Ug knew from Patrick Duffy’s eyes that that eventuality would never
occur.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Across the moonlit meadow a figure made its way; in shape it was not
unlike a hot-water bag at high tide. Certain feathers in its hair cast
grotesque shadows; it went forward with a conquering swagger, and this
was no mean feat, considering that the figure held clasped tight in its
arms a fat, squirming pig.




                    THE MAN WHO COULD IMITATE A BEE


IT was not until his twenty-second year that Hervey Deyo realized that
he was taking life too seriously. Then the realization struck him
sharply.

He had been a serious infant and had nursed more from a sense of duty
than pleasure; his juvenile marble and hoop games had been grave
affairs, conducted with nicety and decorum; he learned to read shortly
after he was breeched and at seven presented a slip at the public
library for the Encyclopedia from A to Z. The librarian demurred, but he
gently insisted; he was permitted to carry it home volume by volume. At
twelve he had resolved to be a scientist and furthermore a great
scientist. He determined to pursue the career of ornithologist; there
was something so dignified and withal scientific about a science that
called the sparrow _Passer Domesticus_ and the robin _Erithacus
Rubecula_. He made rapid progress. On his thirteenth birthday he took a
bird walk at dawn and was able to record in his note-book the scientific
names of forty-nine birds, including the ruby-and-topaz humming-bird
(_Chrysolampis Mosquitus_) which is rare around Boston.

At fifteen he wrote a daring monograph which proved beyond cavil that it
would be possible to revivify the extinct great auk (_Plautus Impennis_)
by a judicious and protracted series of matings between the penguin
(_Sphenisciformes_) and the ostrich (_Struthio Camelus_). This theory
was hotly challenged by a German savant in a seventy thousand word
exegesis; Hervey Deyo crushed him under a hundred thousand word
rejoinder and thus at a tender age came to enjoy a certain decent
celebrity in the world of ornithology. At seventeen, still in the
University, he was becoming known as a first-rate all-round bird man; he
rather looked down on old Fodd at the Natural History Museum who was a
beetle man and particularly on Armbuster who was a mere bee man; yes,
Armbuster and his bees decidedly wearied Hervey Deyo. As if bees
counted!

Something revolutionary happened to him in the spring of his
twenty-second year. The mild spring evenings, biology, inexorable Nature
conspired against him; his mind began to reach out for contacts with new
things outside the world of birds. He made the disturbing discovery that
he could be interested in things unfeathered; girls, for example.

He made this discovery at a tea to which he had gone, most reluctantly,
with his mother, who was intensely serious about her social duties. He
found himself sitting on a divan beside a girl; her hair was blonde and
bobbed and she had an attentive little smile. To be polite, he explained
to her the essential differences between the European redstart
(_Phœnicurus Phœnicurus_) and its cousin, the American flycatching
warbler (_Setophaga Ruticilla_). As he talked the notion grew on him
that teas were not the bore he had thought them. It disconcerted him
when the girl rather abruptly left him to join a fattish young man who
had just entered. Hervey Deyo could tell at a glance that the newcomer
had not the intellect to so much as stuff a lark.

His alert mother spied his lonely state and steered him to another
corner and another girl. He sought to fascinate her with an account of
the curious circumstance that the male loon (_Gavia Immer_) has three
more bones in his ankle than the female of that specie; he told her this
in strictest confidence, for it was the very latest gossip of the world
of ornithology. He could not but note that after fifteen minutes her
attention seemed to wander. Presently she murmured some vague excuse and
slipped away to join a laughing group in another part of the room. He
followed her flight with a glum eye.

The group appeared to have as its center the fattish young man and it
was growing distinctly hilarious. Hervey Deyo had a pressing, but, he
told himself, wholly scientific interest in learning what conversational
charm or topic made the fattish young man so much more interesting than
himself. He edged his chair within earshot.

The fattish young man was not talking; he appeared to be making a series
of odd noises through his nose, varied now and then by throaty bellows.

“_Norrrrrrrrrk. Norrrrrk. Wurrrrr. Wurrrrr._”

The trained ear of Hervey Deyo was puzzled; clearly they were not bird
noises, yet they had a scientific sound; perhaps the fattish young man
was a scientist after all, a mammal man.

“_Norrrrrrrrrk. Norrrrrk. Wurrrrr. Wurrrrr._”

The girl with the attentive smile solved the mystery. She called across
the room.

“Oh, Bernice, do come over here. You simply must hear Mr. Mullett
imitate a trained seal!”

Hervey Deyo felt actually ill. So that was the secret of Mr. Mullett’s
powers; that was the magnet!

“_Norrrrrrrrr. Norrrrrk. Wurrrr. Wurrrr._”

Hervey Deyo couldn’t stand it. Stiffly he went out and as he took his
hat and stick he could still hear the laughter and the fainter,

“_Norrrrrrrrr. Norrrrrk. Wurrrr. Wurrrr._”

In a fury of disgust he went to his laboratory and so violently stuffed
a grackle (_Euphagus Ferrugineus_) that it burst.

Next day he realized that something annoying had happened, was happening
to him; he could not keep his mind on his work; it kept straying,
despite him, to the little girl with the attentive smile. She had been
interested in his talk of birds until the accomplished Mr. Mullett,
imitator of trained seals, had made his untimely appearance. His teeth
gritted together at the thought.

That afternoon he surprised his mother by suggesting that he accompany
her to a tea; she was glad his social consciousness seemed to be aroused
at last. They went.

“Who is Mr. Mullett?” he asked her as they rode tea-ward in her motor
car, a product of the seriousness applied by Mr. Deyo, senior, to his
brick business.

“Mr. Mullett? Why, he’s one of the Brookline Mulletts,” his mother said.
“Why?”

“Is he an animal man?”

“No; he sells insurance.”

“He seems popular.”

“Oh, he has some parlor tricks.”

“I beg pardon, mother? The allusion escapes me.”

“Parlor tricks,” repeated his mother. “He imitates a trained seal; it
appears to strike the younger people as excessively comical. I believe
he can also swallow a lighted cigaret.”

Hervey emitted a polite moan.

“Must one do parlor tricks?”

“They have their uses,” said his mother.

The girl with the attentive smile was at the tea and Hervey Deyo
captured her. Her name was Mina Low. He was congratulating himself on
having interested her in his new monograph on parrakeet bills, when she
sprang up with a little cry of pleasure.

“Oh, Mr. Deyo, there’s Ned Mullett. Let’s get him to imitate a trained
seal. He’s perfectly killing.”

“I do not know seals,” said Hervey Deyo, severely. “They fail to attract
me. I am a bird man.”

He left the tea with a heavy heart while the talented Mullett was
bellowing,

“_Norrrrrrrrrk. Norrrrrk. Wurrrr. Wurrrr._”

Lying in his bed that night the brain of Hervey Deyo entertained two
thoughts. One was that Miss Low was a singularly charming girl; the
other was he could not interest her by birds alone. How then? He
analyzed the situation with the same care and logic that he applied to
the dissection of a humming-bird. His conclusion was revolting but
inescapable. He must master a parlor trick. He shuddered at the notion,
but he was resolved.

“The end justifies the means,” he muttered.

He rose early and attacked the problem with the weapons of science. In
his note-book he carefully wrote down all the animals and the sounds
they made, with comments and remarks on their value as entertainment.

        Ant-eater . . . . _Wheeeeewhoooowheeee_ (difficult).
        Buffalo . . . . _Roooooor roooor_ (uncouth).
        Bull . . . . _Horrrrr rorrrr rorrrr_ (too like buffalo).
        Beagle . . . . _Irrrrp yirrrrrp yirrp_ (lacks dignity).
        Elephant . . . . _Arrraooow arrraooow_ (hard on
        one’s throat).

He went through the list of the mammals and the result was
disappointing. None of them seemed so interesting as a seal, and
besides, he did not wish to lay himself open to the charge of
plagiarism. He could not, of course, employ the calls of birds, although
he was rather good at that; it seemed sacrilegious to employ ornithology
as a parlor trick.

He turned his attention to the noises made by inanimate things; he
jotted down in his book “fog-horn, buzzsaw, locomotive, saxophone.” He
was considering them with furrowed brow when Armbuster agitatedly burst
in. He disliked Armbuster; he gave himself too many airs for a mere bee
man; Hervey considered it rather an imposition when Armbuster was given
an adjoining laboratory at the Museum.

“Have you seen her, Deyo?” cried Armbuster.

“Her? Who?”

“My queen. She’s escaped.”

“No,” said Hervey Deyo coldly. It was annoying to have one’s thoughts
broken in upon to be asked about a wretched bee.

“If you do see her, be sure to tell me,” said Armbuster.

“Certainly.”

The bee man vanished.

Hervey Deyo again bent over his note-book; he added the words “dentist’s
electric drill,” and was considering whether Miss Low would regard an
imitation of it as unpleasant, when a faint sound caused him to turn his
head. A large bumblebee was crawling up the window-pane grumbling to
herself. Hervey Deyo watched, listened. His first thought was to capture
her and return her to Armbuster, and he reached out his hand toward her.
She bumbled noisily and eluded him. It came to him as a flash of
inspiration that his problem was solved. He’d imitate a bee!

He knew it was not honorable to keep her, but he did. He spent the
afternoon chasing her up and down the pane with a gloved hand; she
muttered and grumbled and buzzed. “_Bzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzz,
bzzzzzzzz._”

He smiled a smile of grim triumph; what was a trained seal’s raucous
bellow to this? Softly he imitated the sounds she made; patiently he
practised; before dusk came he was satisfied with the perfection of his
imitation, and yet not entirely satisfied. The thing lacked a dramatic
quality; it came to no climax. He could buzz loudly and softly, angrily
or soothingly; but there was no grand finale. He felt that one was
needed; Mr. Mullett ended his seal imitation with a crescendo roar.

A thought, murderous and ruthless, shot into one of Hervey Deyo’s brain
cells. Normally he was neither murderous nor ruthless; quite gentle,
indeed. But love brings out the primal man; for the sake of Mina Low he
would, for a second, be atavistic. He chased the protesting bee across
the pane; he got her into a corner; his gloved hand closed on her; she
buzzed frantically; he closed his thumb and forefinger smartly together;
he cut her off in full buzz with a sharp incisive sound like a torch
plunged into a pond. A perfect climax! Hurriedly, furtively, he fed her
corpse to a live flamingo in a cage in the corner. On his way home he
passed Armbuster in the hall; Armbuster was distractedly searching for
his queen; he was peering under a rug. Hervey Deyo did not meet the bee
man’s eye.

In his room that night he practised assiduously his new accomplishment.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

He attained perfection in that final shrill, staccato “_bzzzzzrf_.” His
mother, hearing the sounds, came to the door to ask if he was ill. He
called her in.

“Listen,” he said.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

“Oh, dear,” she cried, “a bee! Where is he?”

Hervey bowed.

“I am he,” he said.

He amazed his mother still more next day by asking her to give a tea for
him at the earliest opportunity. He mentioned, matter-of-factly, that he
wouldn’t mind having her ask Miss Mina Low.

He planned the seating scientifically; he saw to it that he and Miss Low
were seated together in a quiet corner near a window. When she had
finished her first cup of tea, he turned to her suddenly, his eyes
excited.

“I say, Miss Low. Look!”

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

He pretended to pursue an imaginary bee up the window-pane and to catch
him at last.

“Oh, it’s a bee!” she cried.

“Where?” he asked, with a smile.

“Oh, it’s not really one. It was you. Oh, _do_ do it again!”

He did it again.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

She clapped her hands in ecstasy.

“Oh, Mr. Deyo, how perfectly wonderful! I didn’t think you——”

“What?”

“Oh, do let me call the others.”

“If you wish,” said Hervey Deyo.

They gathered about him.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

They were enchanted.

“Oh, do it again,” they begged. He did. With a gracious smile Hervey
Deyo acceded to their request. He glowed. He was tasting the heady
draught of sudden popularity. Late arrivals at the tea were told of his
accomplishment; they insisted on hearing it.

“_Bzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

Quite casual acquaintances came up to invite him to their homes, to
teas, to dinner parties. He smiled and promised to come. From the corner
of his eye he could see that Miss Low was regarding him with something
very like interest.

He went to a dinner party at the home of Professor and Mrs. Murgatroyd;
he had been stuffing an emu (_Dromaeus Irroratus_) and it had so
absorbed him that he was late. He entered with the fish course and the
guests beamed expectantly.

“Oh, here is Mr. Deyo,” cried his hostess. “We were so afraid you’d
disappoint us. I’ve been telling everyone about your perfectly delicious
imitation of a bee.”

He obliged them.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

They encored him. One of the guests was the fattish young man, Mr.
Mullett, but the spotlight had shifted from him and he sat eating
morosely and regarding Hervey Deyo with bilious, jealous eye. During the
dessert Mr. Mullett essayed to bark like a seal, but Mrs. Murgatroyd
looked at him disapprovingly and he never reached the roared climax; he
buried his chagrin in the peche Melba. Hervey Deyo, observing, smiled
quietly to himself.

After dinner he had a tête-à-tête with Mina Low. For her own special and
private diversion he twice repeated his imitation; on the second
occasion he ventured to take her hand and she pretended to be so
absorbed in the imitation that she did not notice.

Three nights later he called on her at her home. It was with difficulty
that her young brothers were finally dragged off to bed; the imitation
fascinated them and Hervey Deyo was forced to do it no less than seven
times. He was getting to be a virtuoso. He could keep it up for five
minutes at a time, now pretending that the bee was in the lampshade, now
under a glass, now behind the piano, and even up the pant leg of the
youngest Low boy. When he and Mina were at last alone together, he
pretended that the bee was buzzing very near her blonde, bobbed hair; in
capturing it, he kissed her. Their engagement was announced the
following Friday.

The notice in the local newspaper pleased and yet vaguely disturbed
Hervey Deyo. It described him thus: “Mr. Hervey Deyo is well known in
local society; he is a gifted scientist and has gained a reputation for
his ability to imitate a bee.”

As he reread this he could not but feel that some reference should have
been made to the fact that he was the author of an authoritative work on
the cuckoo (_Cuculus Canorus_), that he was a Doctor of Philosophy, and
that in the fall he was to become Chief Curator of Birds in the Museum.
Still, he reflected, newspapers haven’t room to print everything; they
strive to print what to them are the salient facts.

He and his fiancée went about a great deal and the party at which Hervey
Deyo did not give his imitation of a bee was adjudged a sterile affair.
Frequently he congratulated himself in those days that it took a man of
science to know when to be serious and when not to be. They were married
in August, and no less than seventeen friends sent the happy pair
various representations of bees as wedding gifts; they received bronze
bees, porcelain bees, silver bees, gold bees, and a pewter bee; his
colleagues at the Museum gave him a handsome bronze inkstand made to
resemble a bee-hive.

On his return from his honeymoon, Hervey Deyo threw himself into his
bird labors at the Museum with energy; he was a bird man, even a
first-class bird man, and so far his ambition was gratified; but it
still burned with a hot unappeased flame. He wanted to be the biggest
bird man in the world. However, after his marriage he permitted himself
certain digressions from the relentless pursuit of this aim. There was a
constant demand for him socially and, as Mina was fond of teas and
parties and bridge and balls, he found himself giving rather less time
to his birds than formerly. He was by no means averse to a measure of
social life.

“A great scientist can afford to have his human side,” he assured
himself.

Wherever he went with Mina, be it tea, party, bridge, or ball, he was
invariably pressed to give his imitation of a bee. He would bow; he
would let them insist a bit; invariably he gave it.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

No stranger ever came to the city who did not, sooner or later, hear
“that screamingly funny fellow, Deyo, and his perfectly killing
imitation of a bee.” His fame spread.

He had been married a number of years and had a child or two when he
came home one evening visibly excited.

“My dear,” he called to his wife, his voice full of excitement tinged
with awe, “tonight I am to meet Professor Schweeble. He just came to
town. Think of it! Karl Humperdinck Schweeble!”

“Schweeble?” said Mina, blankly.

“You don’t mean to say you never heard of Schweeble!”

“I’m afraid not.”

“But I’ve spoken of him score of times.”

“Oh, perhaps you have,” she said, yawning. “I thought he was a bird.”

“Why, Schweeble is the biggest bird man in the world,” he exclaimed. “It
will be a big night in ornithology when Schweeble and Deyo shake hands.
He must know my work; of course he must. He can’t have missed that great
auk monograph and the cuckoo book.”

He was so excited he could hardly tie his dinner tie.

“Schweeble,” he kept repeating, “the great Schweeble. I’ve wanted to
meet him all my life. He comes just at the right time, too, just when my
paper on the _Pyrrhula Europaea_—bull-finch, my dear—is causing talk.”

“Don’t forget your goloshes,” admonished Mina.

Hervey Deyo, red, proud and flustered, was introduced half an hour later
to that great Bohemian savant, Professor Schweeble, at the University
Club. Professor Schweeble made him a courtly bow.

“Charmed, Doctor Deyo,” he said. “I haff heard much gebout you.”

Hervey Deyo bowed deeply; he was warm and crimson with pleasure.

“Oh, really?” he murmured.

“Yezz,” said the distinguished visitor, “who haff not heard of Deyo, the
bee man?”

Deyo . . . the bee man!

“I?” Hervey Deyo was stunned, “I, a bee man? Oh, no, no, no, no, no!”

“Pardon. Pardon many times. You are but too modest,” said Professor
Schweeble, wagging his index finger at the stricken Deyo. “But surely
you are that same Deyo who makes the sound like the bee.”

Hervey Deyo stuttered; he would have flung out a denial. But the other
scientists had gathered about.

“Oh, come, Deyo,” they urged him. “There’s a good chap. Imitate a bee
for the Professor.”

Hervey bit his lips.

“How iss it?” encouraged Professor Schweeble. “_Bzzzzzzz._”

“No,” cried Hervey Deyo, wildly. “Not like that. Like this.
‘_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_’”

“Ah, most droll,” said Professor Schweeble. “You have talent; you are a
comedian. You should go on the stage.”

Hervey Deyo could not articulate. Professor Schweeble addressed him in
the tone Hervey knew so well, for he employed it often; it was the tone
of tolerance a scientist adopts to a layman.

“Have you ever taken an interest in birds, Doctor Deyo? There are some
fine birds a clever fellow like you could learn to imitate.”

Hervey Deyo did not enjoy that dinner.

He was up at daybreak and he attacked his work with a cold and terrible
energy. He stuffed a whole family of bobolinks (_Dolichonyx Dryzivorus_)
and dissected snipe (_Gallinago_) by the dozen. He sat up till his eyes
ached writing a masterly treatise on the habits and home life of the
adult pelican (_Pelecanus_).

“Deyo, the bee man, eh,” his lips kept saying. “I’ll show ’em who’s a
bee man. I’ll show ’em.”

But he found it impossible to withdraw from social life; the adulation
he received as the most perfect imitator of a bee extant had come to be
necessary to him; he continued to go out to social functions; he
continued to be asked to imitate a bee; he continued to comply. Mina’s
smile had less and less of an attentive quality in it; she began to find
excuses for not going with him; but he insisted that it was her duty;
she could not give him adequate reasons for evading it.

He was forty when he went down to New York to attend a dinner—a very
special dinner—of the Ornithological Congress of the World, then in
session. For months he worked to prepare a paper that would definitely
place him at the head of his science, now that Schweeble was no more. It
was on the mental habits of grouse (_Tetraoninae_). He rose to read it,
but some bibulous lesser bird man in the rear of the hall called out,
“Forget the grouse. Give us the bee.” Others took up the cry.

“Forget the grouse. Give us the bee.”

The whole room took up the cry.

“Forget the grouse. Give us the bee.”

“Yes, yes, the bee. We want the bee. We want the bee. WE WANT THE BEE.”

Ornithologists have their light moods.

He twisted the table-cloth in a great despair; a furious refusal stuck
in his throat; habit was stronger than he.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

They sang “He’s a jolly good fellow which nobody can deny.” A jolly good
fellow! It was the last thing in the world Hervey Deyo had ever wanted
to be. This, then, was his fame.

He returned to his home city. His house was silent when he entered it.
On his desk was a note.

    “Dear Hervey:

    “I’ve taken the children and gone to live with Mother. I love
    you as much as ever, but I can not live with a bee. If I should
    hear you buzz just once more I should go mad Don’t forget to put
    on your goloshes.

                                                             Mina.”

He went out of the house. Deliberately he did not wear his goloshes; it
was a slushy night. At seven they took him to the hospital with a severe
case of influenza.

In the morning a careless nurse left a newspaper where he could reach
it. An item struck his eye.

    “Hervey Deyo is dangerously ill in St. Paul’s Hospital. He is
    the man who can imitate a bee.”

When he read this, Hervey Deyo let the paper slip from his fingers, and
sank back on his pillow. When the doctor came in, he found him lying
staring at the ceiling. A glance told the doctor that Hervey Deyo had
not long to live; the doctor sought to rouse him from his torpor, to fan
the flickering flame of his interest; he turned on his professional
bedside smile.

“Ah,” said the doctor, “thinking about bees, I’ll wager.”

“No,” Hervey Deyo got out feebly, “not bees.”

“But, surely, I’m not mistaken. You are Deyo, the famous bee man.”

Hervey Deyo struggled to muster up vitality enough to cry, “I’m a bird
man.” But he could not.

“Come, now,” said the doctor, genially, “won’t you imitate that bee for
me?”

Hervey Deyo tried to glare a negative, but had not the strength.

“I’ve heard so much about it,” said the doctor. “And I’ve never heard
you do it, you know.”

On a faint ebb of strength, Hervey Deyo managed to say, “Really?”

“No. Never.”

Hervey Deyo with a final effort gathered together all the little, last
strength in him.

“It—goes—like—this.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzz bzzz bzz bzrf!_”




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