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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:03:37 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:03:37 -0700 |
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diff --git a/35374-h/35374-h.htm b/35374-h/35374-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3addbb2 --- /dev/null +++ b/35374-h/35374-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6195 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Dreamers: a Club, by Frank R. Stockton. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 80%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px; width: 16em;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2em;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dreamers, by John Kendrick Bangs + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Dreamers + A Club + +Author: John Kendrick Bangs + +Illustrator: Edward Penfield + +Release Date: February 23, 2011 [EBook #35374] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMERS *** + + + + +Produced by Steve Read, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 403px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="403" height="600" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 385px;"> +<img src="images/tp.jpg" width="385" height="600" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h1>THE DREAMERS</h1> +<p class="center">A Club. <i>Being a More or Less Faithful<br /> +Account of the Literary Exercises of<br /> +the First Regular Meeting of that<br /> +Organization, Reported by</i></p> +<h2>JOHN KENDRICK BANGS</h2> +<h3><i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS<br /> +By</i> EDWARD PENFIELD +</h3> + +<p class="center"> +NEW YORK AND LONDON<br /> +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> +1899</p> + +<hr /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 474px;"> +<a name="Frontispiece" id="Frontispiece"></a> +<img src="images/gs01.jpg" width="474" height="546" alt="THE FIRST GLOOMSTER" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE FIRST GLOOMSTER</span> +</div> + + + +<hr /> +<h3>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Peeps at People.</span> Passages +from the Writings +of Anne Warrington +Witherup, Journalist. +Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Edward +Penfield</span>. 16mo, Cloth, +Ornamental, Uncut +Edges and Colored Top, +$1.25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ghosts I Have Met, and +Some Others.</span> With Illustrations +by <span class="smcap">Newell</span>, +<span class="smcap">Frost</span>, and <span class="smcap">Richards</span>. +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1.25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A House-Boat on the +Styx.</span> Being Some Account +of the Divers Doings +of the Associated +Shades. Illustrated by +<span class="smcap">Peter Newell</span>. 16mo, +Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Pursuit of the +House-Boat.</span> Being +Some Further Account +of the Doings of the Associated +Shades, under +the Leadership of Sherlock +Holmes, Esq. Illustrated +by <span class="smcap">Peter Newell</span>. +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1.25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Paste Jewels.</span> Being +Seven Tales of Domestic +Woe. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental +$1.00.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Bicyclers, and Three +Other Farces.</span> Illustrated. +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1.25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Rebellious Heroine.</span> +A Story. Illustrated by +<span class="smcap">W. T. Smedley.</span> 16mo, +Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut +Edges, $1.25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica.</span> +Illustrated by <span class="smcap">H. +W. McVickar</span>. 16mo, +Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Water Ghost, and +Others.</span> Illustrated. +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1.25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Idiot.</span> Illustrated. +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, +$1.00.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Three Weeks in Politics.</span> +Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, +Ornamental, 50 cents.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Coffee and Repartee.</span> Illustrated. +32mo, Cloth, +Ornamental, 50 cents.</p></div> + +<h4> +NEW YORK AND LONDON:<br /> + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.<br /><br /> + + +Copyright, 1899, by <span class="smcap">Harper & Brothers</span>.<br /> + +<i>All rights reserved.</i></h4> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +Dedicated<br /> +WITH ALL<br /> +DUE RESPECT AND PROPER APOLOGIES<br /> +<br /> +TO<br /> +<br /> +RICHARD HARDING DAVIS<br /> +JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY<br /> +WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS<br /> +RUDYARD KIPLING<br /> +HALL CAINE<br /> +SUNDRY MAGAZINE POETS<br /> +ANTHONY HOPE<br /> +THE WAR CORRESPONDENTS<br /> +A. CONAN DOYLE<br /> +IAN MACLAREN<br /> +JAMES M. BARRIE<br /> +THE INVOLVULAR CLUB<br /> +<span class="smcap">AND</span><br /> +MR. DOOLEY<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td align='right'><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>I. <span class="smcap">The Idea</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>II. <span class="smcap">In which Thomas Snobbe, Esq., of Yonkers, Unfolds a Tale</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_21'>21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>III. <span class="smcap">In which a Mince-pie is Responsible for a Remarkable Coincidence</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_44'>44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>IV. <span class="smcap">Being the Contribution of Mr. Bedford Parke</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_59'>59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>V. <span class="smcap">The Salvation of Findlayson</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_80'>80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VI. <span class="smcap">In which Harry Snobbe Recites a Tale of Gloom</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_102'>102</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VII. <span class="smcap">The Dreamers Discuss a Magazine Poem</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_123'>123</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VIII. <span class="smcap">Dolly Visits Chicago</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_142'>142</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>IX. <span class="smcap">In which Yellow Journalism Creeps In</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_163'>163</a><span class='pagenum'>[vi]</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>X. <span class="smcap">The Mystery of Pinkham’s Diamond Stud</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_185'>185</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XI. <span class="smcap">Lang Tammas and Drumsheugh Swear off</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_207'>207</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XII. <span class="smcap">Conclusion—Likewise Mr. Billy Jones</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_228'>228</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'><span class="smcap">Page</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE FIRST GLOOMSTER</td><td align='left'><a href='#Frontispiece'><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>DISCUSSING THE IDEA</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>AND SO TO DREAM</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_17'>17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE DREAMERS DINE</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_25'>25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“‘REMEMBER TO BE BRAVE’”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_35'>35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“‘ELEANOR HUYLER HAS DISAPPEARED’”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_39'>39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“WRIT A POME ABOUT A KID”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_47'>47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“I BOUGHT A BOOK OF VERSE”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_51'>51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“IT FILLED ME WITH DISMAY”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_55'>55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“‘COME IN’”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_61'>61</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>MARY</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_65'>65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>EDWARDS REBELS</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_71'>71</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE VICEROY EXAMINES HIS RUINED SMILE</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_85'>85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THEY GAVE HIM <i>PUNCH</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_89'>89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE DONKEY ENGINE CALLS ON FINDLAYSON</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_93'>93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE END OF THE GLOOMSTER</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_109'>109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>WISHED HER A HAPPY NEW-YEAR</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_117'>117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“‘O ARGENT-BROWED SARCOPHAGUS’”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_125'>125</a><span class='pagenum'>[viii]</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“<i>SARCOPHAGUSTUS</i>”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_131'>131</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>MR. BILLY JONES</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_137'>137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“‘I MUST SEE HIM,’ SAID DOLLY”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_145'>145</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“‘KAPE YOUR HOOSBAND HOME’”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_155'>155</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>MIXING ILLUSTRATIONS</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_159'>159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE SHIP’S BARBER AT WORK</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_167'>167</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A CLEVER CAROM</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_177'>177</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>SINKING THE <i>CASTILLA</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_181'>181</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE LAMP-POSTS WERE TWISTED</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_191'>191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>HOLMES IN DISGUISE INTERVIEWS WATTLES</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_199'>199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“‘YOU DID TOO!’ SAID POLLY”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_203'>203</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“‘HOOT MON!’”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_209'>209</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“A SWEET-FACED NURSE APPEARED”</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_213'>213</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>TAMMAS MEETS DRUMSHEUGH</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_221'>221</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>MR. JONES BEGINS</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_231'>231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>HE DID NOT SEE</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_243'>243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE STENOGRAPHER SLEPT</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_247'>247</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs02.jpg" width="500" height="267" alt="The Dreamers: A Club" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> +<h1>THE DREAMERS: A CLUB</h1> + +<hr /> +<h2>I</h2> + +<h3>THE IDEA</h3> + +<p>The idea was certainly an original one. +It was Bedford Parke who suggested it +to Tenafly Paterson, and Tenafly was so +pleased with it that he in turn unfolded +it in detail to his friend Dobbs Ferry, +claiming its inception as his very own. +Dobbs was so extremely enthusiastic about +it that he invited Tenafly to a luncheon at +the Waldoria to talk over the possibilities +of putting the plan into practical operation, +and so extract from it whatever of +excellence it might ultimately be found to +contain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> + +<p>“As yet it is only an idea, you know,” +said Dobbs; “and if you have ever had +any experience with ideas, Tenny, you are +probably aware that, unless reduced to a +practical basis, an idea is of no more value +than a theory.”</p> + +<p>“True,” Tenafly replied. “I can demonstrate +that in five minutes at the Waldoria. +For instance, you see, Dobbsy, I +have an idea that I am as hungry as a bear, +but as yet it is only a theory, from which +I derive no substantial benefit. Place a +portion of whitebait, a filet Bearnaise, and +a quart of Sauterne before me, and—”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Dobbsy. “Come along.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs03.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="DISCUSSING THE IDEA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">DISCUSSING THE IDEA</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> + +<p>And they went; and the result of that +luncheon at the Waldoria was the formation +of “The Dreamers: A Club.” The +colon was Dobbs Ferry’s suggestion. The +objects of the club were literary, and +Dobbs, who was an observant young man, +had noticed that the use of the colon in +these days of unregenerate punctuation +was confined almost entirely to the literary +contingent and its camp-followers. With +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +small poets particularly was it in vogue, +and Dobbs—who, by-the-way, had written +some very dainty French poems to the various +<i>fiancées</i> with whom his career had +been checkered—had a sort of vague idea +that if his brokerage business would permit +him to take the necessary time for it he +might become famous as a small poet himself. +The French poems and his passion +for the colon, combined with an exquisite +chirography which he had assiduously cultivated, +all contributed to assure him that +it was only lack of time that kept him in +the ranks of the mute, inglorious Herricks.</p> + +<p>As formulated by Dobbs and Tenafly, +then, Bedford Parke’s suggestion that a +Dreamers’ Club be formed was amplified +into this: Thirteen choice spirits, consisting +of Dobbs, Tenafly, Bedford Parke, +Greenwich Place, Hudson Rivers of Hastings, +Monty St. Vincent, Fulton Streete, +Berkeley Hights, Haarlem Bridge, the +three Snobbes of Yonkers—Tom, Dick, +and Harry—and Billy Jones of the <i>Weekly +Oracle</i>, were to form themselves into an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +association which should endeavor to extract +whatever latent literary talent the +thirteen members might have within them. +It was a generally accepted fact, Bedford +Parke had said, that all literature, not even +excepting history, was based upon the imagination. +Many of the masterpieces of +fiction had their basis in actual dreams, +and, when they were not founded on such, +might in every case be said to be directly +attributable to what might properly be +called waking dreams. It was the misfortune +of the thirteen gentlemen who were +expected to join this association that the +business and social engagements of all, +with the possible exception of Billy Jones +of the <i>Weekly Oracle</i>, were such as to prevent +their indulgence in these waking +dreams, dreams which should tend to +lower the colors of Howells before those +of Tenafly Paterson, and cause the memory +of Hawthorne to wither away before +the scorching rays of that rising sun of +genius, Tom Snobbe of Yonkers. Snobbe, +by-the-way, must have inherited literary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +ability from his father, who had once +edited a church-fair paper which ran +through six editions in one week—one +edition a day for each day of the fair—adding +an unreceipted printer’s bill for +eighty-seven dollars to the proceeds to be +divided among the heathen of Central +Africa.</p> + +<p>“It’s a well-known fact,” said Bedford—“a +sad fact, but still a fact—that if Poe +had not been a hard drinker he never would +have amounted to a row of beans as a +writer. His dreams were induced—and I +say, what’s the matter with our inducing +dreams and then putting ’em down?”</p> + +<p>That was the scheme in a nutshell—to +induce dreams and put them down. The +receipt was a simple one. The club was +to meet once a month, and eat and drink +“such stuff as dreams are made of”; the +meeting was then to adjourn, the members +going immediately home and to bed; the +dreams of each were to be carefully noted +in their every detail, and at the following +meeting were to be unfolded such soul-harrowing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +tales as might with propriety +be based thereon. An important part of +the programme was a stenographer, whose +duty it would be to take down the stories +as they were told and put them in type-written +form, which Dobbs was sure he +had heard an editor say was one of the +first steps towards a favorable consideration +by professional readers of the manuscripts +of the ambitious.</p> + +<p>“I am told,” said he, “that many a +truly meritorious production has gone +unpublished for years because the labor +of deciphering the author’s handwriting +proved too much for the reader’s endurance—and +it is very natural that it should +be so. A professional reader is, after all, +only human, and when to the responsibilities +of his office is added the wearisome +task of wading through a Spencerian morass +after the will-o’-wisp of an idea, I +don’t blame him for getting impatient. +Why, I saw the original manuscript of +one of Charles Dickens’s novels once, +and I don’t see how any one knew it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +good enough to publish until it got into +print!”</p> + +<p>“That’s simply a proof of what I’ve always +said,” observed one of the Snobbe +boys. “If Charles Dickens’s works had +been written by me, no one would ever +have published them.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t a doubt of it,” returned +Billy Jones of the <i>Oracle</i>, dryly. “Why, +Snobbey, my boy, I believe if you had +written the plays of Shakespeare they’d +have been forgotten ages ago!”</p> + +<p>“So do I,” returned Snobbe, innocently. +“This is a queer world.”</p> + +<p>“The stenographer will save us a great +deal of trouble,” said Bedford. “The +hard part of literary work is, after all, the +labor of production in a manual sense. +These real geniuses don’t have to think. +Their ideas come to them, and they let +’em develop themselves. In realistic writing, +as I understand it, the author sits +down with his pen in his hand and his +characters in his mind’s eye, and they +simply run along, and he does the private-detective<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +act—follows after them and jots +down all they do. In imaginative writing +it’s done the same way. The characters +of these ridiculous beings we read of are +quite as real to the imaginative writer as +the characters of the realist are to the latter, +and they do supernatural things naturally. +So you see these things require very +little intellectual labor. It’s merely the +drudgery of chasing a commonplace or +supernatural set of characters about the +world in order to get 400 pages full of +reading-matter about ’em that makes the +literary profession a laborious one. Our +stenographer will enable us to avoid all +this. There isn’t a man of us but can +talk as easily as he can fall off a log, and +a tale once told at our dinners becomes in +the telling a bit of writing.”</p> + +<p>“But, my dear Parke,” said Billy Jones +of the <i>Oracle</i>, who had been a “literary +journalist,” as his fond grandmother called +it, for some years, “a story told is hardly +likely to be in the form calculated to become +literature.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That’s just what we want you for, +Billy,” Bedford replied. “You know +how to give a thing that last finishing-touch +which will make it go, where otherwise +it might forever remain a fixture in +the author’s pigeon-hole. When our stories +are told and type-written, we want you to +go over them, correct the type-writer’s +spelling, and make whatever alterations +you may think, after consulting with us, +to be necessary. Then, if the tales are +ever published as a collection, you can have +your name on the title-page as editor.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” answered Billy, gratefully. +“I shall be charmed.”</p> + +<p>And then he hurried back to his apartments, +and threw himself on his bed in a +paroxysm of laughter which seemed never-ending, +but which in reality did not last +more than three hours at the most.</p> + +<p>Hudson Rivers of Hastings, when the +idea was suggested to him, was the most +enthusiastic of all—so enthusiastic that the +Snobbe boys thought that, in their own +parlance, he ought to be “called down.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> + +<p>“It’s bad form to go crazy over an idea,” +they said. “If Huddy’s going to behave +this way about it, he ought to be kept out +altogether. It is all very well to experience +emotions, but no well-bred person +ever shows them—that is, not in Yonkers.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but you don’t understand Huddy,” +said Tenafly Paterson. “Huddy has +two great ambitions in this life. One is +to get into the Authors’ Club, and the +other is to marry a certain young woman +whose home is in Boston and whose ambitions +are Bostonian. To appear before +the world as a writer, which the Dreamers +will give him a chance to do at small expense, +will help him on to the realization +of his most cherished hopes; in fact, +Huddy told me that he thought we ought +to publish the proceedings of the club at +least four times a year, so establishing a +quarterly magazine, to which we shall all +be regular contributors. He thinks it will +pay for itself, and knows it will make us all +famous, because Billy Jones is certain to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +see that everything that goes out is first +chop, and I’m inclined to believe Huddy +is right. The continual drip, drip, drip +of a drop of water on a stone will gradually +wear away the stone, and, by Jove! before +we know it, by constant hammering +away at this dream scheme of ours we’ll +gain a position that won’t be altogether +unenviable.”</p> + +<p>“That’s so,” said Billy. “I wouldn’t +wonder if with the constant drip, drip, +drip of your drops of ink and inspiration +you could wear the public out in a very +little while. The only troublesome thing +will be in getting a publisher for your +quarterly.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t any idea that we want a +publisher,” said Bedford Parke. “We’ve +got capital enough among ourselves to +bring the thing out, and so I say, what’s +the use of letting anybody else in on the +profits? A publisher wouldn’t give us +more than ten per cent. in royalties. If +we publish it ourselves we’ll get the whole +thing.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Yes,” assented Tom Snobbe, “and, +what’s more, it will have a higher tone to +it if we can say on the title-page ‘Privately +printed,’ eh? That’ll make everybody +in society want one for his library, and +everybody not in society will be crazy to +get it because it’s aristocratic all through.”</p> + +<p>“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Billy +Jones. “I’ve no doubt you are right, +only I’d think you’d sell more copies if +you’d also put on the title-page ‘For circulation +among the élite only.’ Then +every man, woman, or child who happened +to get a copy would take pride in +showing it to others, who would immediately +send for it, because not having it +would seem to indicate that one was not +in the swim.”</p> + +<p>Nor were the others to whom the proposition +was advanced any less desirous to +take part. They saw, one and all, opportunities +for a very desirable distinction +through the medium of the Dreamers, +and within two weeks of the original formation +of the plan the club was definitely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +organized. Physicians were consulted +by the various members as to what edibles +contained the properties most likely to +produce dreams of the nature desired, and +at the organization meeting all but Billy +Jones were well stocked with suggestions +for the inauguration dinner. Hudson +Rivers was of the opinion that there +should be six courses at that dinner, each +one of Welsh-rabbit, but varying in form, +such as Welsh-rabbit purée, for instance, +in which the cheese should have the consistency +of pea-soup rather than of leather; +such as Welsh-rabbit pâté, in which +the cheese should rest within walls of +pastry instead of lying quiescent and inviting +like a yellow mantle upon a piece +of toast; then a Welsh-rabbit roast; and +so on all through the banquet, rabbit upon +rabbit, the whole washed down with the +accepted wines of the ordinary banquet, +which experience had taught them were +likely in themselves to assist in the work +of dream-making.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 478px;"> +<img src="images/gs04.jpg" width="478" height="500" alt="AND SO TO DREAM" title="" /> +<span class="caption">AND SO TO DREAM</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> + +<p>Monty St. Vincent observed that he had +no doubt that the Welsh-rabbit dinner +would work wonders, but he confessed his +inability to see any reason why the club +should begin its labors by committing +suicide. He added that, for his part, he +would not eat six Welsh rabbits at one sitting +if he was sure of Shakespeare’s immortality +as his reward, because, however +attractive immortality was, he preferred +mortality in the flesh to the other in the +abstract. If the gentlemen would begin +the meal with a grilled lobster apiece, he +suggested, going thence by an easy stage +to a devilled bird, rounding up with a +“slip-on”—which, in brief, is a piece of +mince-pie smothered in a blanket of molten +cheese—he was ready to take the +plunge, but further than this he would +not go. The other members were disposed +to agree with Monty. They thought +the idea of eating six Welsh rabbits in a +single evening was preposterous, and that +in making such a suggestion Huddy was +inspired by one of but two possible motives—that +he wished to leap to the foremost +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +position in imaginative literature at +one bound, or else was prompted, by jealousy +of what the others might do, to wish +to kill the club at its very start. Huddy +denied these aspersions upon his motives +with vociferous indignation, and to show +his sincerity readily acquiesced in the +adoption of Monty St. Vincent’s menu as +already outlined.</p> + +<p>The date of the dinner was set, Billy +Jones was made master of ceremonies, +the dinner was ordered, and eaten amid +scenes of such revelry as was possible in +the presence of the Snobbe boys, to whom +anything in the way of unrestrained enjoyment +was a bore and bad form, and at +its conclusion the revellers went straight +home to bed and to dream.</p> + +<p>Two weeks later they met again over +viands of a more digestible nature than +those which lent interest to the first dinner, +and told the tales which follow. And +I desire to add here that my report of this +dinner and the literature there produced +is based entirely upon the stenographer’s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +notes, coupled with additional information +of an interesting kind furnished me +by my friend William Jones, Esq., Third +Assistant Exchange Editor of <i>The Weekly +Oracle, a Journal of To-day, Yesterday, +and To-morrow</i>.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> +<h2>II</h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH THOMAS SNOBBE, ESQ., OF +YONKERS, UNFOLDS A TALE</h3> + + +<p>The second dinner of the Dreamers had +been served, all but the coffee, when Mr. +Billy Jones, of the <i>Oracle</i>, rapped upon +the table with a dessert-spoon and called +the members to order.</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen,” said he, when all was +quiet, “we have reached the crucial crisis +of our club career. We have eaten the +stuff of which our dreams were to be +made, and from what I can gather from +the reports of those who are now seated +about this festal board—and I am delighted +to note that the full membership +of our organization is here represented—there +is not a single one of you who is unprepared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +for the work we have in hand, +and, as master of ceremonies, it becomes +my pleasant duty to inform you that the +hour has arrived at which it behooveth us +to begin the narration of those tales which—of +those tales which I am certain—yes, +gentlemen, very certain—will cause the +unlaid ghosts of those masters of the +story-tellers’ art—”</p> + +<p>“Is this a continued story Billy is giving +us?” observed Tenafly Paterson.</p> + +<p>“No,” replied Bedford Parke, with a +laugh; “it is only a life sentence.”</p> + +<p>“Get him to commute it!” ejaculated +Hudson Rivers.</p> + +<p>“Order, gentlemen, order!” cried the +master of ceremonies, again rapping upon +the table. “The members will kindly +not interrupt the speaker. As I was saying, +gentlemen,” he continued, “we are +now to listen to the narration of tales +which I am convinced will cause the unlaid +ghosts of the past grand masters of +the story-tellers’ art to gnash their spirit +teeth with anguish for that they in life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +failed to realize the opportunities that +were theirs in not having told the tales to +which we are about to listen, and over +which, when published, the leading living +literary lights will writhe in jealousy.”</p> + +<p>When the applause which greeted these +remarks had subsided, Mr. Jones resumed:</p> + +<p>“That there may be no question of precedence +among the gifted persons from +whom we are now to hear, I have provided +myself with a small leathern bottle, such +as is to be seen in most billiard-parlors, +within which I have placed twelve numbered +ivory balls. These I will now proceed +to distribute among you. When you +receive them, I request that you immediately +return them to me, that I may arrange +the programme according to your +respective numbers.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Jones thereupon distributed the +ivory balls, and when the returns had +been made, according to his request, he +again rose to his feet and announced that +to Mr. Thomas Snobbe, of Yonkers, had +fallen the lot of telling the first story,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +adding that he took great pleasure in the +slightly supererogative task that devolved +upon him of presenting Mr. Snobbe to his +audience. Mr. Snobbe’s health was drunk +vociferously, after which, the stenographer +having announced himself as ready to begin, +the distinguished son of Yonkers arose +and told the following story, which he +called</p> + +<p> VAN SQUIBBER’S FAILURE</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs05.jpg" width="500" height="200" alt="THE DREAMERS DINE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE DREAMERS DINE</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> + +<p>You can’t always tell what kind of a day +you are going to have in town in October +just because you happen to have been in +town on previous October days, and Van +Squibber, for that reason, was not surprised +when his man, on waking him, informed +him that it was cold out. Even +if he had been surprised he would not +have shown it, for fear of demoralizing +his man by setting him a bad example. +“We must take things as they come,” +Van Squibber had said to the fellow when +he engaged him, “and I shall expect you +to be ready always for any emergency that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +may arise. If on waking in the morning +I call for a camel’s-hair shawl and a bottle +of Nepaul pepper, it will be your duty to +see that I get them without manifesting +the slightest surprise or asking any questions. +Here is your next year’s salary in +advance. Get my Melton overcoat and +my box, and have them at the Rahway +station at 7.15 to-morrow morning. If +I am not there, don’t wait for me, but +come back here and boil my egg at once.”</p> + +<p>This small bit of a lecture had had its +effect on the man, to whom thenceforth +nothing was impossible; indeed, upon this +very occasion he demonstrated to his employer +his sterling worth, for when, on +looking over Van Squibber’s wardrobe, he +discovered that his master had no Melton +overcoat, he telegraphed to his tailor’s +and had one made from his previous measure +in time to have it with Van Squibber’s +box at the Rahway station at the stipulated +hour the following morning. Of +course Van Squibber was not there. He +had instructed his man as he had simply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +to test him, and, furthermore, the egg +was boiled to perfection. The test cost +Van Squibber about $150, but it was successful, +and it was really worth the money +to know that his man was all that he +should be.</p> + +<p>“He’s not half bad,” said Van Squibber, +as he cracked the egg.</p> + +<p>“It’s wintry,” said Van Squibber’s +man on the morning of the 5th of October.</p> + +<p>“Well,” Van Squibber said, sleepily, +“what of that? You have your instructions +as to the bodily temperature I desire +to maintain. Select my clothing, as +usual—and mark you, man, yesterday was +springy, and you let me go to the club in +summery attire. I was two and a half degrees +too warm. You are getting careless. +What are my engagements to-day?”</p> + +<p>“University settlement at eleven, luncheon +at the Actors’ at one, drive with the +cynical Miss Netherwood at three, five-o’clock +tea at four—”</p> + +<p>“What?” cried Van Squibber, sharply.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> + +<p>“At fuf—five, I should say, sir,” stammered +the embarrassed man.</p> + +<p>“Thought so,” said Van Squibber. +“Proceed, and be more careful. The very +idea of five-o’clock tea at four is shocking.”</p> + +<p>“Dinner with the Austrian ambassador +at eight, opera at eleven—”</p> + +<p>“In October? Opera?” cried Van +Squibber.</p> + +<p>“Comic,” said the man. “It is Flopper’s +last night, sir, and you are to ring +down the curtain.”</p> + +<p>“True,” said Van Squibber, meditatively—“true; +I’d forgotten. And then?”</p> + +<p>“At midnight you are to meet Red +Mike at Cherry Street and Broadway to +accompany him to see how he robs national +banks, for the <i>Sunday Whirald</i>.”</p> + +<p>“What bank is it to be?”</p> + +<p>“The Seventeenth National.”</p> + +<p>“Gad!” cried Van Squibber, “that’s +hard luck. It’s my bank. Wire Red Mike +and ask him to make it the Sixteenth National, +at once. Bring me my smoking-jacket +and a boiled soda mint drop. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +don’t care for any breakfast this morning. +And, by-the-way, I feel a little chilly. +Take a quinine pill for me.”</p> + +<p>“Your egg is ready, sir,” said the man, +tremulously.</p> + +<p>“Eat it,” said Van Squibber, tersely, +“and deduct the Café Savarin price of a +boiled egg from your salary. How often +must I tell you not to have my breakfast +boiled until I am boil—I mean ready until +I am ready for it?”</p> + +<p>The man departed silently, and Van +Squibber turned over and went to sleep.</p> + +<p>An hour later, having waited for his +soda mint drop as long as his dignity would +permit, Van Squibber arose and dressed +and went for a walk in Central Park. It +was eccentric of him to do this, but he did +it nevertheless.</p> + +<p>“How Travers would laugh if he saw +me walking in Central Park!” he thought. +“He’d probably ask me when I’d come over +from Germany,” he added. And then, +looking ahead, a thing Van Squibber rarely +did, by-the-way—for you can’t always tell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +by looking ahead what may happen to +you—his eyes were confronted by a more +or less familiar back.</p> + +<p>“Dear me!” he said. “If that isn’t +Eleanor Huyler’s back, whose back is it, +by Jove?”</p> + +<p>Insensibly Van Squibber quickened his +pace. This was also a thing he rarely did. +“Haste is bad form,” he had once said to +Travers, who, on leaving Delmonico’s at +7.20, seemed anxious to catch the 7.10 +train for Riverdale. Insensibly quickening +his pace, he soon found himself beside +the owner of the back, and, as his premonitions +had told him, it was Eleanor +Huyler.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Why, Mr. Van Squibber!” she replied, +with a terrified smile. “You here?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” returned Van Squibber, not +anxious to commit himself, “I think so, +though I assure you, Miss Huyler, I am +not at all certain. I seem to be here, but +I must confess I am not quite myself this +morning. My man—”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Yes—I know,” returned the girl, +hastily. “I’ve heard of him. He is your +<i>alter ego</i>.”</p> + +<p>“I had not noticed it,” said Van Squibber, +somewhat nonplussed. “I think he +is English, though he may be Italian, as +you suggest. But,” he added, to change +the subject, “you seem disturbed. Your +smile is a terrified smile, as has been already +noted.”</p> + +<p>“It is,” said Miss Huyler, looking anxiously +about her.</p> + +<p>“And may I ask why?” asked Van +Squibber, politely—for to do things politely +was Van Squibber’s ambition.</p> + +<p>“I—I—well, really, Mr. Van Squibber,” +the girl replied, “I am always anxious +when you are about. The fact is, you +know, the things that happen when you +are around are always so very extraordinary. +I came here for a quiet walk, but +now that you have appeared I am quite +certain that something dramatic is about +to occur. You see—you—you have turned +up so often at the—what I may properly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +call, I think, the nick of time, and so rarely +at any other time, that I feel as though +some disaster were impending which you +alone can avert.”</p> + +<p>“And what then?” said Van Squibber, +proudly. “If I am here, what bodes disaster?”</p> + +<p>“That is the question I am asking myself,” +returned Miss Huyler, whose growing +anxiety was more or less painful to +witness. “Can your luck hold out? +Will your ability as an averter of danger +hold out? In short, Mr. Van Squibber, +are you infallible?”</p> + +<p>The question came to Van Squibber like +a flash of lightning out of a clear sky. +It was too pertinent. Had he not often +wondered himself as to his infallibility? +Had he not only the day before said to +Travers, “You can’t always tell in advance +just how a thing you are going into +may turn out, even though you have been +through that thing many times, and think +you do.”</p> + +<p>“I do lead a dramatic life,” he said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +quietly, hoping by a show of serenity to +reassure her. “But,” he added, proudly, +“I am, after all, Van Squibber; I am here +to do whatever is sent me to do. I am +not a fatalist, but I regard myself as the +chosen instrument of fate—or something. +So far, I have not failed. On the basis of +averages, I am not likely to fail now. Fate, +or something, has chosen me to succeed.”</p> + +<p>“That is true,” said Eleanor—“quite +true; but there are exceptions to all rules, +and I would rather you would fail to rescue +some other girl from a position of peril +than myself.”</p> + +<p>That Miss Huyler’s words were prophetic, +the unhappy Van Squibber was to +realize, and that soon, for almost as they +spoke the cheeks of both were blanched +by a dreadful roar in the bushes beside +the path upon which they walked.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs06.jpg" width="500" height="330" alt="REMEMBER TO BE BRAVE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“‘REMEMBER TO BE BRAVE’”</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Shall I leave you?” asked Van Squibber, +politely.</p> + +<p>“Not now—oh, not now, I beg!” cried +Miss Huyler. “It is too late. The +catastrophe is imminent. You should +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +have gone before the author brought it on. +Finding me defenceless and you gone, he +might have spared me. As it is, you are +here, and must fulfil your destiny.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” returned Van Squibber. +“That being so, I will see what this roaring +is. If it is a child endeavoring to +frighten you, I shall get his address and +have my man chastise his father, for I +could never strike a child; but if it is a +lion, as I fear, I shall do what seems best +under the circumstances. I have been +told, Miss Huyler, that a show of bravery +awes a wild beast, while a manifestation +of cowardice causes him to spring at once +upon the coward. Therefore, if it be a +lion, do you walk boldly up to him and +evince a cool head, while I divert his attention +from you by running away. In +this way you, at least, will be saved.”</p> + +<p>“Noble fellow!” thought Eleanor to +herself. “If he were to ask me, I think +I might marry him.”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Van Squibber had investigated, +and was horror-struck to find his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +misgivings entirely too well founded. It +was the lion from the park menagerie that +had escaped, and was now waiting in ambush +to pounce upon the chance pedestrian.</p> + +<p>“Remember, Eleanor,” he cried, forgetting +for the moment that he had never +called her by any but her last name with +its formal prefix—“remember to be brave. +That will awe him, and then when he sees +me running he will pursue me.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 480px;"> +<img src="images/gs07.jpg" width="480" height="480" alt="ELEANOR HUYLER HAS DISAPPEARED" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“‘ELEANOR HUYLER HAS DISAPPEARED’”</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>Removing his shoes, Van Squibber, +with a cry which brought the hungry +beast bounding out into the path, started +on a dead run, while Miss Huyler, full of +confidence that the story would end happily +whatever she might do, walked boldly +up to the tawny creature, wondering much, +however, why her rescuer had removed his +shoes. It was strange that, knowing Van +Squibber as well as she did, she did not at +once perceive his motive in declining to +run in walking-shoes, but in moments of +peril we are all excusable for our vagaries +of thought! You never can tell, when +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +you are in danger, what may happen next, +for if you could you would know how it +is all going to turn out; but as it is, mental +disturbance is quite to be expected.</p> + +<p>For once Van Squibber failed. He ran +fast enough and betrayed enough cowardice +to attract the attention of ten lions, +but this special lion, by some fearful idiosyncrasy +of fate, which you never can +count on, was not to be deceived. With +a louder roar than any he had given, he +pounced upon the brave woman, and in +an instant she was no more. Van Squibber, +turning to see how matters stood, +was just in time to witness the final engulfment +of the fair girl in the lion’s +jaws.</p> + +<p>“Egad!” he cried. “<i>I have failed!</i> +And now what remains to be done? Shall +I return and fight the lion, or shall I keep +on and go to the club? If I kill the lion, +people will know that I have been walking +in the park before breakfast. If I +continue my present path and go to the +club, the fellows will all want to know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +what I mean by coming without my shoes +on. What a dilemma! Ah! I have it; +I will go home.”</p> + +<p>And that is what Van Squibber did. +He went back to his rooms in the Quigmore +at once, hastily undressed, and when, +an hour later, his man returned with the +soda mint drop, he was sleeping peacefully.</p> + +<p>That night he met Travers at the club +reading the <i>Evening Moon</i>.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Van!” said Travers. “Heard +the news?”</p> + +<p>“No. What?” asked Van Squibber, +languidly.</p> + +<p>“Eleanor Huyler has disappeared.”</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” cried Van Squibber, with +well-feigned surprise. “I heard the boys +crying ‘Extra,’ but I never dreamed they +would put out an extra for her.”</p> + +<p>“They haven’t,” said Travers. “The +extra’s about the lion.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! And what’s happened to the +lion?” cried Van Squibber, nervously.</p> + +<p>“He’s dead. Got loose this morning +early, and was found at ten o’clock dying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +of indigestion. It is supposed he has devoured +some man, name unknown, for +before his nose was an uneaten patent-leather +pump, size 9¾ B, and in his throat +was stuck the other, half eaten.”</p> + +<p>“Ha!” muttered Van Squibber, turning +pale. “And they don’t know whose shoes +they were?” he added, in a hoarse whisper.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Travers. “There’s no clew, +even.”</p> + +<p>Van Squibber breathed a sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>“Robert!” he cried, addressing the +waiter, “bring me a schooner of absinthe, +and ask Mr. Travers what he’ll have.” +And then, turning, he said, <i>sotto voce</i>, to +himself, “Saved! And Eleanor is revenged. +Van Squibber may have failed, +but his patent-leather pumps have conquered.”</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> +<h2>III</h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH A MINCE-PIE IS RESPONSIBLE +FOR A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE</h3> + + +<p>When Mr. Snobbe sat down after the +narration of his story, there was a thunderous +outburst of applause. It was evident +that the exciting narrative had pleased +his fellow-diners very much—as, indeed, +it was proper that it should, since it dealt +in a veiled sort of way with characters +for whom all right-minded persons +have not only a deep-seated admiration, +but a feeling of affection as well. They +had, one and all, in common with the unaffected +portion of the reading community, +a liking for the wholesome and clean +humor of Mr. Van Bibber, and the fact +that Snobbe’s story suggested a certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +original, even in a weak sort of fashion, +made them like it in spite of its shortcomings.</p> + +<p>“Good work,” cried Hudson Rivers. +“Of course it’s only gas in comparison +with the sun, but it gives light, and we +like it.”</p> + +<p>“And it’s wholly original, too, even +though an imitation in manner. The real +Van Bibber never failed in anything he +undertook,” said Tenafly Paterson. “I’ve +often wished he might have, just once—it +would have made him seem more human—and +for that reason I think Tom is entitled +to praise.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know about that,” observed +Monty St. Vincent. “Tom hadn’t anything +to do with it—it was the dinner. +Honor to whom honor is due, say I. Praise +the cook, or the caterer.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the truth,” put in Billie Jones. +“Fact is, when this book of ours comes +out, I think, instead of putting our names +on the title-page as authors, the thing to +do is to print the menu.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You miss the point of this association,” +interjected Snobbe. “We haven’t +banded ourselves together to immortalize +a Welsh rabbit or a mince-pie—nay, nor +even a ruddy duck. It’s our own glory +we’re after.”</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” cried Monty St. Vincent—“that’s +the beauty of it. The scheme +works two ways. If the stuff is good and +there is glory in it, we’ll have the glory; +but if it’s bad, we’ll blame the dinner. +That’s what I like about it.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a valuable plan from that point +of view,” said the presiding officer. “And +now, if the gentleman who secured the +ball numbered two will make himself +known, we will proceed.”</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 480px;"> +<img src="images/gs08.jpg" width="480" height="530" alt="WRIT A POME ABOUT A KID" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“WRIT A POME ABOUT A KID”</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hudson Rivers rose up. “I have number +two,” he said, “but I have nothing +to relate. The coffee I drank kept me +awake all night, and when I finally slept, +along about six o’clock next morning, it +was one of those sweet, dreamless sleeps +that we all love so much. I must therefore +ask to be excused.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> + +<p>“But how shall you be represented in +the book?” asked Mr. Harry Snobbe.</p> + +<p>“He can do the table of contents,” suggested +St. Vincent.</p> + +<p>“Or the fly-leaves,” said Tenafly Paterson.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Huddy; “I shall ask that +the pages I should have filled be left blank. +There is nothing helps a book so much as +the leaving of something to the reader’s +imagination. I heard a great critic say so +once. He said that was the strong point +of the French writers, and he added that +Stockton’s <i>Lady or the Tiger</i> took hold because +Stockton didn’t insist on telling +everything.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a good idea,” said Mr. Jones. “I +don’t know but that if those pages are left +blank they’ll be the most interesting in +the book.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Rivers sat down with a smile of +conscious pride, whereupon Mr. Tenafly +Paterson rose up.</p> + +<p>“As I hold the number three ball, I +will give you the fruits of my dinner. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +attribute the work which I am about to +present to you to the mince-pie. Personally, +I am a great admirer of certain latter-day +poets who deal with the woes and joys +of more or less commonplace persons. I +myself would rather read a sonnet to a +snow-shovel than an ode to the moon, +but in my dream I seem to have conceived +a violent hatred for authors of +homely verse, as you will note when I +have finished reading my dream-poem +called ‘Retribution.’”</p> + +<p>“Great Scott!” murmured Billie Jones, +with a deep-drawn sigh. “Poetry! From +Tenafly Paterson! Of all the afflictions of +man, Job could have known no worse.”</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs09.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="I BOUGHT A BOOK OF VERSE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“I BOUGHT A BOOK OF VERSE”</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p> + +<p>“The poem reads as follows,” continued +Paterson, ignoring the chairman’s ill-timed +remark:</p> + + +<h4>RETRIBUTION</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +Writ a pome about a kid.<br /> +Finest one I ever did.<br /> +<br /> +Heaped it full o’ sentiment—<br /> +Very best I could invent.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +<br /> +Talked about his little toys;<br /> +How he played with other boys;<br /> +<br /> +How the beasts an’ birdies all<br /> +Come when little Jamie’d call.<br /> +<br /> +’N’ ’en I took that little lad,<br /> +Gave him fever, mighty bad.<br /> +<br /> +’N’ ’en it sorter pleased my whim<br /> +To have him die and bury him.<br /> +<br /> +It got printed, too, it did<br /> +That small pome about the kid,<br /> +<br /> +In a paper in the West;<br /> +Put ten dollars in my vest.<br /> +<br /> +Every pa an’ ma about<br /> +Cried like mighty—cried right out.<br /> +<br /> +I jess took each grandma’s heart,<br /> +Lammed and bruised it, made it smart;<br /> +<br /> +’N’ everybody said o’ me,<br /> +“Finest pote we ever see,”<br /> +<br /> +’Cept one beggar, he got mad.<br /> +Got worst lickin’ ever had;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span><br /> +Got my head atween his fists,<br /> +Called me “Prince o’ anarchists.”<br /> +<br /> +Clipped me one behind my ear—<br /> +Laid me up for ’most a year.<br /> +<br /> +“’Cause,” he said, “my poetry<br /> +’D made his wife an’ mother cry;<br /> +<br /> +“’Twarn’t no poet’s bizness to<br /> +Make the wimmin all boo-hoo.”<br /> +<br /> +’N’ ’at is why to-day, by Jings!<br /> +I don’t fool with hearts an’ things.<br /> +<br /> +I don’t care how high the bids,<br /> +I’ve stopped scribblin’ ’bout dead kids;<br /> +<br /> +’R if I haven’t, kinder sorter<br /> +Think ’at maybe p’r’aps I’d oughter.<br /> +</p></div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 483px;"> +<img src="images/gs10.jpg" width="483" height="490" alt="IT FILLED ME WITH DISMAY" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“IT FILLED ME WITH DISMAY”</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> + +<p>The lines were received with hearty appreciation +by all save Dobbs Ferry, who +looked a trifle gloomy.</p> + +<p>“It is a strange thing,” said the latter, +“but that mince-pie affected me in precisely +the same way, as you will see for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +yourselves when I read my contribution, +which, holding ball number four as I do, +I will proceed to give you.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Ferry then read the following poem, +which certainly did seem to indicate that +the man who prepared the fatal pie had +certain literary ideas which he mixed in +with other ingredients:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +I bought a book of verse the other day,<br /> +And when I read, it filled me with dismay.<br /> +<br /> +I wanted it to take home to my wife,<br /> +To bring a bit of joy into her life;<br /> +<br /> +And I’d been told the author of those pomes<br /> +Was called the laureate of simple homes.<br /> +<br /> +But, Jove! I read, and found it full of rhyme<br /> +That kept my eyes a-filling all the time.<br /> +<br /> +One told about a pretty little miss<br /> +Whose father had denied a simple kiss,<br /> +<br /> +And as she left, unhappy, full of cares,<br /> +She fell and broke her neck upon the stairs.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span><br /> +And then he wrote a lot of tearful lines<br /> +Of children who had trouble with their spines;<br /> +<br /> +And ’stead of joys, he penned so many woes<br /> +I sought him out and gave him curvature ’f the nose;<br /> +<br /> +And all the nation, witnessing his plight,<br /> +Did crown me King, and cry, “It served him right.”<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>“A remarkable coincidence,” said +Thomas Snobbe. “In fact, the coincidence +is rather more remarkable than +the poetry.”</p> + +<p>“It certainly is,” said Billie Jones; +“but what a wonderfully suggestive pie, +considering that it was a mince!”</p> + +<p>After which dictum the presiding officer +called upon the holder of the fifth ball, +who turned out to be none other than +Bedford Parke, who blushingly rose up +and delivered himself of what he called +“The Overcoat, a Magazine Farce.”</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> +<h2>IV</h2> + +<h3>BEING THE CONTRIBUTION OF MR. BEDFORD +PARKE</h3> + +<h3><big>THE OVERCOAT</big><br /> +A FARCE. IN TWO SCENES</h3> + + +<p class="center">SCENE FIRST<br /> +<br /> +<i>Time</i>: <span class="smcap">Morning at Boston</span></p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards.</i> “I think it will +rain to-day, but there is no need to worry +about that. Robert has his umbrella and +his mackintosh, and I don’t think he is +idiotic enough to lend both of them. If +he does, he’ll get wet, that’s all.” Mrs. +Edwards is speaking to herself in the sewing-room +of the apartment occupied by +herself and her husband in the Hotel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +Hammingbell at Boston. It is not a large +room, but cosey. A frieze one foot deep +runs about the ceiling, and there is a +carpet on the floor. Three pins are seen +scattered about the room, in one corner +of which is a cane-bottomed chair holding +across its back two black vests and a cutaway +coat. Mrs. Edwards sits before a +Wilcox & Wilson sewing-machine sewing +a button on a light spring overcoat. +The overcoat has one outside and three +inside pockets, and is single-breasted. “It +is curious,” Mrs. Edwards continues, +“what men will do with umbrellas and +mackintoshes on a rainy day. They lend +them here and there, and the worst part +of it is they never remember where.” A +knock is heard at the door. “Who’s +there?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs11.jpg" width="500" height="365" alt="COME IN" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“‘COME IN’”</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Voice</i> (<i>without</i>). “Me.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards</i> (<i>with a nervous +shudder</i>). “Come in.” Enter Mary the +house-maid. She is becomingly attired in +blue alpaca, with green ribbons and puffed +sleeves. She holds a feather duster in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +her right hand, and in her left is a jar of +Royal Worcester. “Mary,” Mrs. Edwards +says, severely, “where are we at?”</p> + +<p><i>Mary</i> (<i>meekly</i>). “Boston, ma’am.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards.</i> “South Boston +or Boston proper?”</p> + +<p><i>Mary.</i> “Boston proper, ma’am.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards.</i> “Then when I +say ‘Who’s there?’ don’t say ‘Me.’ That +manner of speaking may do at New York, +Brooklyn, South Boston, or Congress, but +at Boston proper it is extremely gauche. +‘I’ is the word.”</p> + +<p><i>Mary.</i> “Yes, ma’am; but you know, +ma’am, I don’t pretend to be literary, +ma’am, and so these little points baffles I +very often.” Mrs. Edwards sighs, and, +walking over to the window, looks out +upon the trolley-cars for ten minutes; +then, picking up one of the pins from the +floor and putting it in a pink silk pin-cushion +which stands next to an alarm-clock +on the mantel-piece, a marble affair +with plain caryatids and a brass fender +around the hearth, she resumes her seat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +before the sewing-machine, and threads a +needle. Then—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards.</i> “Well, Mary, +what do you want?”</p> + +<p><i>Mary.</i> “Please, Mrs. Edwards, the +butcher is came, and he says they have +some very fine perairie-chickens to-day.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards.</i> “We don’t want +any prairie-chickens. The prairies are so +very vulgar. Tell him never to suggest +such a thing again. Have we any potatoes +in the house?”</p> + +<p><i>Mary.</i> “There’s three left, ma’am, and +two slices of cold roast beef.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards.</i> “Then tell him +to bring five more potatoes, a steak, and—Was +all the pickled salmon eaten?”</p> + +<p><i>Mary.</i> “All but the can, ma’am.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards.</i> “Well—Mr. Edwards +is very fond of fish. Tell him to +bring two boxes of sardines and a bottle +of anchovy paste.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 484px;"> +<img src="images/gs12.jpg" width="484" height="500" alt="MARY" title="" /> +<span class="caption">MARY</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Mary.</i> “Very well, Mrs. Edwards.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards.</i> “And—ah—Mary, +tell him to bring some Brussels +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +sprouts for breakfast. What are you doing +with that Worcester vase?”</p> + +<p><i>Mary.</i> “I was takin’ it to cook, ma’am. +Sure she broke the bean-pot this mornin’, +and she wanted somethin’ to cook the +beans in.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Robert Edwards.</i> “Oh, I see. +Well, take good care of it, Mary. It’s a +rare piece. In fact, I think you’d better +leave that here and remove the rubber +plant from the jardinière, and let Nora +cook the beans in that. Times are a little +too hard to cook beans in Royal Worcester.”</p> + +<p><i>Mary.</i> “Very well, ma’am.” Mary goes +out through the door. Mrs. Edwards resumes +her sewing. Fifteen minutes elapse, +interrupted only by the ticking of the +alarm-clock and the occasional ringing of +the bell on passing trolley-cars. “If it +does rain,” Mrs. Edwards says at last, +with an anxious glance through the window, +“I suppose Robert won’t care about +going to see the pantomime to-night. It +will be too bad if we don’t go, for this is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +the last night of the season, and I’ve been +very anxious to renew my acquaintance +with ‘Humpty Dumpty.’ It is so very +dramatic, and I do so like dramatic +things. Even when they happen in my +own life I like dramatic things. I’ll +never forget how I enjoyed the thrill +that came over me, even in my terror, that +night last winter when the trolley-car +broke down in front of this house; and +last summer, too, when the oar-lock broke +in our row-boat thirty-three feet from +shore; that was a situation that I enjoyed +in spite of its peril. How people can say +that life is humdrum, I can’t see. Exciting +things, real third-act situations, climaxes +I might even call them, are always +happening in my life, and yet some novelists +pretend that life is humdrum just to +excuse their books for being humdrum. +I’d just like to show these apostles of realism +the diary I could have kept if I had +wanted to. Beginning with the fall my +brother George had from the hay-wagon, +back in 1876, running down through my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +first meeting with Robert, which was romantic +enough—he paid my car-fare in +from Brookline the day I lost my pocket-book—even +to yesterday, when an entire +stranger called me up on the telephone, +my life has fairly bubbled with dramatic +situations that would take the humdrum +theory and utterly annihilate it.” As Mrs. +Edwards is speaking she is also sewing the +button already alluded to on Mr. Edwards’s +coat as described. “There,” taking the last +stitch in the coat, “that’s done, and now +I can go and get ready for luncheon.” She +folds up the coat, glances at the clock, +and goes out. A half-hour elapses. The +silence is broken only by occasional noises +from the street, the rattling of the wheels +of a herdic over the pavement, the voices +of newsboys, and an occasional strawberry-vender’s +cry. At the end of the +half-hour the alarm-clock goes off and the +curtain falls.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="center">SCENE SECOND<br /><br /> + +<i>Time</i>: <span class="smcap">Evening at Boston</span></p> + +<p>The scene is laid in the drawing-room +of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Edwards. Mrs. +Edwards is discovered reading <i>Pendennis</i>, +and seems in imminent danger of going to +sleep over it. Mr. Edwards is stretched +out upon the sofa, quite asleep, with <i>Ivanhoe</i> +lying open upon his chest. Twenty-five +minutes elapse, when the door-bell +rings.</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards</i> (<i>drowsily</i>). “Let me off +at the next corner, conductor.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “Why, Robert—what +nonsense you are talking!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 484px;"> +<img src="images/gs13.jpg" width="484" height="525" alt="EDWARDS REBELS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">EDWARDS REBELS</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards</i> (<i>rubbing his eyes and sitting +up</i>). “Eh? What? Nonsense? I +talk nonsense? Really, my dear, that is +a serious charge to bring against one of +the leading characters in a magazine farce. +Wit, perhaps, I may indulge in, but nonsense, +never!”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “That is precisely what +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +I complain about. The idea of a well-established +personage like yourself lying +off on a sofa in his own apartment and +asking a conductor to let him off at the +next corner! It’s—”</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “I didn’t do anything +of the sort.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “You did, too, Robert +Edwards. And I can prove it. If you +will read back to the opening lines of this +scene you will find that I have spoken the +truth—unless you forgot your lines. If +you admit that, I have nothing to say, +but I will add that if you are going to forget +lines that give the key-note of the +whole situation, you’ve got no business in +a farce. You’ll make the whole thing fall +flat some day, and then you will be discharged.”</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “Well, I wish I might +be discharged; I’m tired of the whole +business. Anybody’d take me for an +idiot, the way I have to go on. Every bit +of fun there is to be had in these farces is +based upon some predicament into which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +my idiocy or yours gets me. Are we +idiots? I ask you that. Are we? You +may be, but, Mrs. Edwards, I am not. The +idea of my falling asleep over <i>Ivanhoe</i>! +Would I do that if I had my way? Well, +I guess not! Would I even dare to say +‘I guess not’ in a magazine farce? Again, +I guess not. I’m going to write to the +editor this very night, and resign my situation. +I want to be me. I don’t want +to be what some author thinks I ought to +be. Do you know what I think?”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards</i> (<i>warningly</i>). “Take care, +Robert. Take care. You aren’t employed +to think.”</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “Precisely. That’s what +makes me so immortally mad. The author +doesn’t give me time to think. I could +think real thoughts if he’d let me, but +then! The curtain wouldn’t stay up half +a second if I did that; and where would +the farce be? The audience would go +home tired, because they wouldn’t get +their nap if the curtain was down. It’s +hard luck; and as for me, I wouldn’t keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +the position a minute if I could get anything +else to do. Nobody’d give me work, +now that I’ve been made out to be such +a confounded jackass. But let’s talk of +other things.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “I’d love to, Robert—but +we can’t. There are no other +things in the farce. The Billises are +coming.”</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “Hang the Billises! +Can’t we ever have an evening to ourselves?”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “How you do talk! +How can we? There’s got to be some +action in the farce, and it’s the Billis +family that draws out our peculiarities.”</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “Well, I’m going out, +and you can receive the Billises, and if it’s +necessary for me to say anything to give +go to the play, you can say it. I make you +my proxy.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “It can’t be done, Robert. +They are here. The bell rang ten +minutes ago, and they ought to have got +in here five minutes since. You can’t go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +out without meeting them in the wings—I +mean the hallway.”</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “Lost!”</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Mr.</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Mrs. Billis</span>.</p> + +<p><i>Billis.</i> “Ah, Edwards! Howdy do? +Knew you were home. Saw light in—”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Billis.</i> “Don’t rattle on so, my +dear. Speak more slowly, or the farce will +be over before nine.”</p> + +<p><i>Billis.</i> “I’ve got to say my lines, and +I’m going to say them my way. Ah, +Edwards! Howdy do? Knew you were +home. Saw light in window. Knew your +economical spirit. Said to myself must be +home, else why gas? He doesn’t burn +gas when he’s out. Wake up—”</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “I’m not asleep. Fact +is, I am going out.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Billis.</i> “Out?”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “Robert!”</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “That’s what I said—out. +<i>O-u-t.</i>”</p> + +<p><i>Billis.</i> “Not bad idea. Go with you. +Where to?”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “Anywhere—to find a +tragedy and take part in it. I’m done +farcing, my boy.”</p> + +<p><i>Billis</i> (<i>slapping</i> Edwards <i>on back</i>). +“Rah! my position exactly. I’m sick of +it too. Come ahead. I know that fellow +Whoyt—he’ll take us in and give us a +chance.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Billis.</i> “I’ve been afraid of this.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “Robert, consider your +family.”</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “I have; and if I’m to +die respected and honored, if my family +is to have any regard for my memory, +I’ve got to get out of farcing. That’s all. +Did you sew the button on my overcoat?”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “I did. I’ll go get it.”</p> + +<p>She goes out. Mrs. Billis throws herself +sobbing on sofa. Billis dances a jig. Forty +minutes elapse, during which Billis’s dance +may be encored. Enter Mrs. Edwards, +triumphantly, with overcoat.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “There’s your overcoat.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Mr. Edwards.</i> “But—but the button +isn’t sewed on. I can’t go out in this.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “I knew it, Robert. I +sewed the button on the wrong coat.”</p> + +<p>Billis and Robert fall in a faint. Mrs. +Billis rises and smiles, grasping Mrs. Edwards’s +hand fervently.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Billis.</i> “Noble woman!”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Edwards.</i> “Yes; I’ve saved the +farce.”</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Billis.</i> “You have. For, in spite +of these—these strikers—these theatric +Debses, you—you got in the point! <i>The +button was sewed on the wrong overcoat!</i>”</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Curtain.</span></h4> + +<hr style='width:30%' /> + +<p>“When the farce was finished,” said +Mr. Parke, “and the applause which +greeted the fall of the curtain had subsided, +I dreamed also the following author’s +note: ‘The elapses’ in this farce +may seem rather long, but the reader must +remember that it is the author’s intention +that his farce, if acted, should last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +throughout a whole evening. If it were +not for the elapses the acting time would +be scarcely longer than twenty minutes, +instead of two hours and a half.”</p> + +<p>“I mention this,” Mr. Parke added, +“not only in justification of myself, but +also as a possible explanation of certain +shortcomings in the work of the original +master. Sometimes the action may seem +to drag a trifle, but that is not the fault +of the author, but of life itself. To be real +one must be true, and truth is not to be +governed by him who holds the pen.”</p> + +<hr style='width:30%' /> + +<p>Mr. Parke’s explanation having been received +in a proper and appreciative spirit +by his fellow-Dreamers, Mr. Jones announced +that Mr. Monty St. Vincent was +the holder of the sixth ball, whereupon +Mr. St. Vincent arose and delivered himself +as follows:</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> +<h2>V</h2> + +<h3>THE SALVATION OF FINDLAYSON</h3> + + +<p class="center"><i>Being the story told by the holder of the sixth ball, +Mr. Monty St. Vincent.</i></p> + + +<p>A donkey engine, next to a Sophomore +at a football match that is going his +way, is the noisiest thing man ever made, +and No. 4-11-44, who travelled first-class on +the American liner <i>New York</i>, was not inclined +to let anybody forget the fact. +He held a commanding position on the +roof of the deck state-room No. 10, just +aft of the forecastle stringer No. 3, and +over the main jib-stay boom No. 6<small><sup>7</sup>/<sub>8</sub></small>, that +held the rudder-chains in place. All the +little Taffrails and Swashbucklers looked +up to him, and the Capstan loved him like +a brother, for he very often helped the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +Capstan to bring the Anchor aboard, when +otherwise that dissipated bit of iron would +have staid out all night. The Port Tarpaulins +insisted that the Donkey Engine +was the greatest humorist that ever lived, +although the Life Preservers hanging by +the rail did not like him at all, because he +once said they were Irish—“Cork all +through,” said he. Even the Rivets that +held the Top Gallant Bilges together used +to strain their eyes to see the points of +the Donkey Engine’s jokes, and the third +Deputy-assistant Piston Rod, No. 683, in +the hatchway stoke-hole, used to pound +the cylinders almost to pieces trying to +encore the Donkey Engine’s comic songs.</p> + +<p>The Main Mast used to say that the +Donkey Engine was as bright as the Starboard +Lights, and the Smoke Stack is +said to have told the Safety Valve that +he’d rather give up smoking than lose +the constant flow of wit the Donkey Engine +was always giving forth.</p> + +<p>Findlayson discovered all this. After +his Bridge had gone safely through that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +terrible ordeal when the Ganges rose and +struck for higher tides, Findlayson collapsed. +The Bridge—But that is another +story. This is this one, and there +is little profit in telling two stories at once, +especially in a day when one can get the +two stories printed separately in the several +magazines for which one writes exclusively.</p> + +<p>After the ordeal of the Kashi Bridge, +Findlayson, as I have said, collapsed, and +it is no wonder, as you will see for yourself +when you read that other story. As +the Main Girder of the Bridge itself wrote +later to the Suspension Cables of the Brooklyn +Bridge, “It’s a wonder to me that the +Sahib didn’t have the <i>Bashi-bazouks</i> earlier +in the game. He suffered a terrible strain +that night.”</p> + +<p>To which the Cables of the Brooklyn +Bridge wittily replied that while they +sympathized with Findlayson, they didn’t +believe he really knew what strain was. +“Wait until he has five lines of trolley-cars +running over him all day and night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +That <i>is</i> a strain! He’d be worse cut up +than ever if he had that. And yet we +thrive under it. After all, for solid health, +it’s better to be a Bridge than a Man. +When are you coming across?”</p> + +<p>Now Findlayson might have collapsed +a dozen times before the Government +would have cared enough to give him the +vacation he needed. Not that Government +is callous, like an elephant, but because +it is conducted, as a witty Cobra +once remarked in the jungle as he fascinated +a Tigress, by a lot of Red Tapirs. +Findlayson put in an application for a six +months’ vacation, but by the time the +necessary consent had reached him the +six months were up. Everybody remembers +the tale of Dorkins of the Welsh +Fusileers and his appointment to the Department +of the Poloese, how his term of +office was to be six years, and how by the +time his credentials reached him his term +of office had expired. So with Findlayson. +On the very date of the expiration +of his desired leave he received permission<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +to go, and of course could not then do +so, because it was too late. Fortunately +for Findlayson, however, the Viceroy himself +happened to be passing through, and +Findlayson entertained him at a luncheon +on the Bridge. By some curious mistake, +when the nuts and raisins were passed, +Findlayson had provided a plateful of +steel nuts, designed to hold rivets in +place, instead of the usual assortment of +almonds and <i>hiki-ree</i>.</p> + +<p>“This man needs a rest,” said the Viceroy, +as he broke his front tooth trying to +crack one of the steel nuts, and he immediately +extended Findlayson’s leave to +twenty years without pay, for which Findlayson +was very grateful.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 484px;"> +<img src="images/gs14.jpg" width="484" height="490" alt="THE VICEROY EXAMINES HIS RUINED SMILE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE VICEROY EXAMINES HIS RUINED SMILE</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> + +<p>“What is the matter with the man?” +asked the Viceroy, as he drove to the station +with the practising Jinrikshaw of the +place.</p> + +<p>“It’s my professional opinion,” replied +the Jinrikshaw, “that the Sahib has a +bad attack of melancholia. He hasn’t +laughed for six months. If we could +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +only get him to laugh, I think he’d recover.”</p> + +<p>“Then it was not in a jocular spirit +that he ruined my teeth with those nuts?” +demanded the Viceroy, taking a small +mirror out of his pocket and gazing ruefully +on his ruined smile.</p> + +<p>“No, your most Excellent Excellency,” +replied the Jinrikshaw. “The fact that +he ate five of them himself shows that it +was an error, not a jest.”</p> + +<p>It was thus that Findlayson got his vacation, +and even to this day the Kaskalooloo +folk are laughing over his error +more heartily than they ever laughed +over a joke.</p> + +<p>A month after leaving his post Findlayson +reached London, where he was +placed under the care of the most famous +physicians. They did everything they +could to make him laugh, without success. +<i>Punch</i> was furnished, and he read +it through day after day, and burst into +hysterical weeping. They took him to +the theatres, and he never even smiled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +They secured a front seat in the House of +Commons for him during important debates, +and he merely sobbed. They took +him to the Army and Navy Stores, and he +shivered with fear. Even Beerbohm Tree +as Lady Macbeth, or whatever rôle it was +he was playing at the time, failed to coax +the old-time dimple to his cheek. His +friends began to whisper among themselves +that “old Findlayson was done +for,” when Berkeley Hauksbee, who had +been with him in the Soudan, suggested a +voyage to the United States.</p> + +<p>“He’ll see enough there to laugh at, +or I’m an unshod, unbroken, saw-backed, +shark-eating skate!” he asserted, and as a +last resource Findlayson was packed, bag +and baggage, aboard the liner <i>New York</i>.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs15.jpg" width="500" height="330" alt="THEY GAVE HIM PUNCH" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THEY GAVE HIM PUNCH</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> + +<p>The first three days out Findlayson was +dead to the world. He lay like a fallen +log in the primeval forest. Stewards +were of no avail. Even the repeated calls +of the doctor, whose apprehensions were +aroused, could not restore him to life.</p> + +<p>“They’ll be sewin’ him up in a jute +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +bag and droppin’ him overboard if he +doesn’t come to by to-morrow,” observed +the Water Bottle to the Soap Dish, with +a sympathetic glance at the prostrate +Findlayson.</p> + +<p>“He’ll be seasicker than ever if they +do,” returned the Soap Dish. “It’s a long +swim from here to Sandy Hook.”</p> + +<p>But Findlayson came to in time to +avert the catastrophe, and took several +turns up and down the deck. He played +horse-billiards with an English curate, +but showed no sign of interest or amusement +even at the curious aspect of the +ladies who lay inert in the steamer chairs +ranged along the deck.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid it’s hopeless,” said Peroo, +his valet, shaking his head sadly. “Unless +I take him in hand myself.” And +Peroo was seized with an idea.</p> + +<p>“I’ll do it!” he cried.</p> + +<p>He approached Findlayson.</p> + +<p>“The Sahib will not laugh,” he said. +“He will not smile even. He has not +snickered all day. Take these, then.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +They’re straight opium, but there’s fun +in them.”</p> + +<p>He took a small zinc bait-box from his +fishing-kit and handed it to Findlayson, +who, on opening it, found a dozen or more +brown pellets. Hastily swallowing six of +them, the sick man turned over in his +bunk and tried to go to sleep, while Peroo +went into the smoking-room for a game +of <i>Pok-Kah</i> with a party of <i>Drummerz</i> +who were crossing to America.</p> + +<p>A soft yellow haze suffused the state-room, +and Findlayson, nervously starting +to his feet to see what had caused it, was +surprised to find himself confronted by a +grinning row of Technicalities ranged in +a line upon the sofa under the port, while +seated upon his steamer trunk was the +Donkey Engine 4-11-44.</p> + +<p>“Well, here we are,” said the Deck +Beam, addressing the Donkey Engine. +“What are we here for?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 464px;"> +<img src="images/gs16.jpg" width="464" height="500" alt="THE DONKEY ENGINE CALLS ON FINDLAYSON" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE DONKEY ENGINE CALLS ON FINDLAYSON</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That’s it,” said the Capstan. “We’ve +left our places at your command. Now, +why?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I wanted you to meet my friend +Findlayson,” said the Donkey Engine. +“He’s a good fellow. Findlayson, let me +present you to my associates—Mr. Capstan, +Mr. Findlayson. And that gentleman +over in the corner, Mr. Findlayson, +is the Starboard Upper Deck Stringer. +Rivet, come over here and meet Mr. +Findlayson. The Davits will be here in +a minute, and the Centrifugal Bilge Pump +will drop in later.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad to meet you all,” said Findlayson, +rather dazed.</p> + +<p>“Thought you would be,” returned the +Donkey Engine. “That’s why I asked +them to come up.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mind if I smoke in here?” +said the Funnel.</p> + +<p>“Not a bit,” said Findlayson, solemnly. +“Let me offer you a cigar.”</p> + +<p>The party roared at this.</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t smoke cigars, Fin, old +boy,” said the Donkey Engine. “Offer +him a ton of coal Perfectos or a basket of +kindling Invincibles and he’ll take you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +up. Old Funnel makes a cigarette of a +cord of pine logs, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I should think so much smoking +would be bad for your nerves,” suggested +Findlayson.</p> + +<p>“’Ain’t got any,” said the Funnel. +“I’m only a Flue, you know. Every +once in a while I do get a sooty feeling +inside, but beyond that I don’t suffer at +all.”</p> + +<p>“Where’s the Keel?” asked the Thrust +Block, taking off one of his six collars, +which hurt his neck.</p> + +<p>“He can’t come up to-night,” said the +Donkey Engine, with a sly wink at Findlayson, +who, however, failed to respond. +“The Hold is feeling a little rocky, and +the Keel’s got to stay down and steady +him.”</p> + +<p>Findlayson looked blankly at the Donkey +Engine. As an Englishman in a nervously +disordered state, he did not seem +quite able to appreciate the Donkey Engine’s +joke. The latter sighed, shook his +cylinder a trifle, and began again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Hear about the Bow Anchor’s row +with the Captain?” he asked the Garboard +Strake.</p> + +<p>“No,” replied the Strake. “Wouldn’t +he bow?”</p> + +<p>“He’d bow all right,” said the Donkey +Engine, “but he wouldn’t ank. Result +is he’s been put in chains.”</p> + +<p>“Serves him right,” said the Bilge +Stringer, filling his pipe with Findlayson’s +tooth-powder. “Serves him right. +He ought to be chucked overboard.”</p> + +<p>“True,” said the Donkey Engine. “An +anchor can’t be made to ank unless you +chuck him overboard.”</p> + +<p>The company roared at this, but Findlayson +never cracked a smile.</p> + +<p>“That is very true,” he said. “In +fact, how could an anchor ank, as you +put it, without being lowered into the +sea?”</p> + +<p>“It’s a bad case,” observed Bulwark +Plate, in a whisper, to the Upper Deck +Plank.</p> + +<p>“It floors me,” said the Plank. “I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +don’t think he’d laugh if his uncle died +and left him a million.”</p> + +<p>“Shut up,” said the Donkey Engine. +“We’ve got to do it or bust. Let’s try +again.”</p> + +<p>Then he added, aloud,</p> + +<p>“Say, Technicalities, did you ever hear +that riddle of the Starboard Coal Bunker’s?”</p> + +<p>The company properly had not.</p> + +<p>“Well, the Starboard Coal Bunker got +it off at Lady Airshaft’s last reception at +Binks’s Ship-yard: ‘What’s the difference +between a man-o’-war going through the +Suez Canal under tow of a tug-boat and a +boiler with a capacity of 6000 tons of +steam loaded to 7000 tons, with no safety-valve, +in charge of an engineer who has a +certificate from Bellevue Hospital showing +that he is a good ambulance-driver, +but supports a widowed mother and seven +uncles upon no income to speak of, all of +which is invested in Spanish fours, bought +on a margin of two per cent. in a Wall +Street bucket-shop conducted by two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +professional card-players from Honolulu +under indictment at San Francisco for +arson?’”</p> + +<p>“Tutt!” said the Rudder. “What a +chestnut! I was brought up on riddles +of that kind. <i>They can’t climb a tree.</i>”</p> + +<p>“Nope,” said the Donkey Engine. +“That’s not the answer.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know it yourself,” suggested +the Funnel.</p> + +<p>“Nope,” said the Donkey Engine.</p> + +<p>“Well, what the deuce is the answer?” +said Findlayson, irritably.</p> + +<p>“Give it up—the rest of you?” cried +the Donkey Engine.</p> + +<p>“We do,” they roared in chorus.</p> + +<p>“I’m surprised at you,” said the Donkey +Engine. “It’s very simple indeed. +The man-o’-war going through the Suez +Canal under tow of a tug-boat has a pull—and +the other hasn’t, don’t you know—eh?”</p> + +<p>Findlayson scratched his forehead.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see—” he began.</p> + +<p>“There is no reason why you should.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +You’re not feeling well,” interrupted the +Donkey Engine, “but it’s a good riddle—eh?”</p> + +<p>“Quite so,” said Findlayson.</p> + +<p>“It’s long, anyhow,” said the Screw.</p> + +<p>“Which we can’t say for to-day’s run—only +867 miles?” suggested the Donkey +Engine, interrogatively.</p> + +<p>“It’s long enough,” growled the Screw.</p> + +<p>“It certainly is, if it is reckoned in +minutes,” retorted the Donkey Engine. +“I never knew such a long day.”</p> + +<p>And so they continued in an honest +and technical effort to restore Findlayson. +But he wouldn’t laugh, and finally the +Screw and the Centrifugal Bilge Pump +and the Stringers and the other well-meaning +Technicalities rose up to leave. +Day was approaching, and all were needed +at their various posts.</p> + +<p>“Good-night—or good-morning, Findlayson,” +said the Donkey Engine. “We’ve +had a very pleasant night. I am only sorry, +however, we cannot make you laugh.”</p> + +<p>“I never laugh,” said Findlayson.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +“But tell me, old chap, are you really +human? You talk as if you were.”</p> + +<p>“No,” returned the Donkey Engine, +sadly. “I am neither fish, flesh, nor +fowl. I’m a <i>bivalve—a cockney bivalve</i>,” +he added.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” replied Findlayson, with a gesture +of deprecation, “you are not a clam!”</p> + +<p>“No,” the Donkey Engine replied, as +with a sudden inspiration; “but I’m a +hoister.”</p> + +<p>And Findlayson burst into a paroxysm +of mirth—it must be remembered that he +was English—the like of which the good +old liner never heard before.</p> + +<p>And later, when Peroo returned, having +won at <i>Pok-Kah</i> with the <i>Drummerz</i>, he +found his master sleeping like the veriest +child.</p> + +<p>Findlayson was saved.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p> +<h2>VI</h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH HARRY SNOBBE RECITES A TALE +OF GLOOM</h3> + + +<p>Monty St. Vincent had no sooner +seated himself after telling the interesting +tale of the Salvation of Findlayson, when +Billy Jones, of the <i>Oracle</i>, rose up and +stated that Mr. Harry Snobbe, as the +holder of the seventh ball, would unfold +the truly marvellous story that had come +to him after the first dinner of the +Dreamers.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Snobbe requests all persons having +nerves to be unstrung to unstring +them now. His tale, he tells me, is one +of intense gloom; but how intense the +gloom may be, I know not. I will leave it +to him to show. Gentlemen, Mr. Snobbe.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Snobbe took the floor, and after a +few preliminary remarks, read as follows:</p> + + +<h4>THE GLOOMSTER</h4> + +<p class="center">A TALE OF THE ISLE OF MAN</p> + + +<p>Old Gloomster Goodheart, of Ballyhack, +left the Palace of the Bishop of Man +broken-hearted. The Bishop had summoned +him a week previous to show cause +why he should not be removed from his +office of Gloomster, a position that had +been held by members of his family for +ten generations, aye, since the days of +that ancient founder of the family, Cronky +Gudehart, of whom tradition states that +his mere presence at a wedding turned +the marriage feast into a seeming funeral +ceremony, making men and women weep, +and on two occasions driving the bride to +suicide and the groom into the Church. +Indeed, Cronky Gudehart was himself the +first to occupy the office of Gloomster. +The office was created for his especial benefit, +as you will see, for it was the mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +fact that the two grooms bereft at the +altar sought out the consolation of the +monastery that called the attention of the +ecclesiastical authorities to the desirability +of establishing such a functionary. The +two grooms were men of wealth, and, had +it not been for Cronky Gudehart’s malign +influence, neither they nor their wealth +would have passed into the control of the +Church, a fact which Ramsay Ballawhaine, +then Bishop of Man, was quick to note +and act upon.</p> + +<p>“The gloomier the world,” said he, +“the more transcendently bright will +Heaven seem; and if we can make Heaven +seem bright, the Church will be able to +declare dividends. Let us spread misery +and sorrow. Let us destroy the sunshine +of life that so gilds with glory the flesh +and the devil. Let all that is worldly be +made to appear mean and vile and sordid.”</p> + +<p>“But how?” Ramsay Ballawhaine was +asked. “That is a hard thing to do.”</p> + +<p>“For some ’twill doubtless so appear, +but I have a plan,” the Bishop had answered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +“We have here living, not far +from Jellimacksquizzle, the veriest spoil-sport +in the person of Cronky Gudehart. +He has a face that would change the +August beauties of a sylvan forest into a +bleak scene of wintry devastation. I am +told that when Cronky Gudehart gazes +upon a rose it withers, and children passing +him in the highways run shrieking to +their mothers, as though escaping from +the bogie man of Caine Hall—which castle, +as you know, has latterly been haunted +by horrors that surpass the imagination. +His voice is like the strident cry of doom. +Hearing his footsteps, strong men quail +and women swoon; and I am told that, +dressed as Santa Claus, on last Christmas +eve he waked up his sixteen children, and +with a hickory stick belabored one and all +until they said that mercy was all they +wanted for their Yule-tide gifts.”</p> + +<p>“’Tis true,” said the assistant vicar. +“’Tis very true; and I happen to know, +through my own ministrations, that when +a beggar-woman from Sodor applied to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +Cronky Gudehart for relief from the sorrows +of the world, he gave her a bottle of +carbolic acid, saying that therein lay the +cure of all her woes. But what of Cronky +and your scheme?”</p> + +<p>“Let us establish the office of Gloomster,” +returned the Bishop. “Set apart +Nightmare Abbey as his official residence, +and pay him a salary to go about among +the people spreading grief and woe among +them until they fly in desperation to us +who alone can console.”</p> + +<p>“It’s out of sight!” ejaculated the assistant +vicar, “and Cronky’s just the man +for the place.”</p> + +<p>It was thus that the office of Gloomster +was instituted. As will be seen, the duties +of the Gloomster were simple. He was +given liberty of entrance to all joyous +functions in the life of the Isle of Man, +social or otherwise, and his duties were to +ruin pleasure wherever he might find it. +Cronky Gudehart was installed in the office, +and Nightmare Abbey was set apart +as his official residence. He attended all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +weddings, and spoiled them in so far as he +was able. It was his custom, when the +vicar asked if there was any just reason +why these two should not be joined together +in holy wedlock, to rise up and say +that, while he had no evidence at hand, +he had no doubt there was just cause in +great plenty, and to suggest that the ceremony +should be put off a week or ten days +while he and his assistants looked into the +past records of the principals. At funerals +he took the other tack, and laughed joyously +at every manifestation of grief. At +hangings he would appear, and dilate +humorously upon the horrid features +thereof; and at afternoon teas he would +appear clad in black garments from head +to foot, and exhort all present to beware +of the future, and to give up the hollowness +and vanities of tea and macaroons.</p> + +<p>Results were not long in their manifestation. +In place of open marriage the +young people of the isle, to escape the +malignant persecution of the Gloomster, +took up the habit of elopement, and as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +elopements always end in sorrow and +regret, the monasteries and nunneries +waxed great in the land. To avoid funerals, +at which the Gloomster’s wit was so +fearsome a thing, the sick or the maimed +and the halt fled out into the open sea and +drowned themselves, and all sociability +save that which came from book sales and +cake auctions—in their very nature destructive +of a love of life—faded out of +the land.</p> + +<p>“Cronky Gudehart was an ideal Gloomster,” +said the Bishop of Man, with a sigh, +when that worthy spoil-sport, having gone +to Africa for a vacation, was eaten by +cannibals. “We shall not look upon his +like again.”</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs17.jpg" width="500" height="330" alt="THE END OF THE GLOOMSTER" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE END OF THE GLOOMSTER</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’ve no doubt he disagreed with the +cannibals,” sobbed the vicar, as he thought +over the virtues of the deceased.</p> + +<p>“None who ate him could escape appendicitis,” +commented the Bishop, wiping +a tear from his eye; “and, thank +Heaven, the operation for that has yet +to be invented. Those cannibals have +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +been taken by this time from their wicked +life.”</p> + +<p>So it had gone on for ten generations. +Cronky had been succeeded by his son +and by his son’s son, and so on. To be +Gloomster of the Isle of Man had by habit +become the prerogative of the Gudehart +family until the present, when Christian +Goodheart found himself summoned before +the Bishop to show cause why he +should not be removed. Hitherto the +Gloomster had given satisfaction. It +would be hard to point to one of them—unless +we except Eric Goodheart, the one +who changed the name from Gudehart to +Goodheart—who had not filled the island +with that kind of sorrow that makes life +seem hardly worth living. Eric Goodheart +had once caught his father, “Bully Gudehart,” +as he was called, in a moment of +forgetfulness, doing a kindly act to a +beggar at the door. A wanderer had appeared +at the door of Nightmare Abbey +in a starving condition, and Eric had surprised +the Gloomster in the very act of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +giving the beggar a piece of apple-pie. The +father found himself suddenly confronted +by the round, staring eyes of his son, and +he was frightened. If it were ever known +that the Gloomster had done a kindly +thing for anybody, he might be removed, +and Bully Gudehart recognized the fact.</p> + +<p>“Come here!” he cried brutally, to +Eric, as the beggar marched away munching +hungrily on the pie. “Come here, you +brat! Do you hear? Come <i>here</i>!” The +boy was coming all the while. “You saw?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, your Honor,” he replied, “I saw. +The man said he was nearly dead with +hunger, and you gave him food.”</p> + +<p>“No,” roared the Gloomster, full of fear, +for he knew how small boys prattle, “I did +not give him food! <i>I gave him pie!</i>”</p> + +<p>“All right, your Majesty,” the boy answered. +“You gave him pie. And I see +now why they call you Bully. For pie is +bully, and nothing less.”</p> + +<p>“My son,” the Gloomster responded, +seizing a trunk-strap and whacking the +lad with it forcefully, “you don’t understand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +Do you know why I fed that +man?”</p> + +<p>“Because he was dying of hunger,” +replied the lad, ruefully, rubbing his back +where the trunk-strap had hit him.</p> + +<p>“Precisely,” said the Gloomster. “If +I hadn’t given him that pie he’d have +died on the premises, and I can’t afford +the expense of having a tramp die here. +As it is, he will enjoy a lingering death. +<i>That was one of your mother’s pies.</i>”</p> + +<p>Eric ran sobbing to his room, but in +his heart he believed that he had detected +his father in a kindly act, and conceived +that a Gloomster might occasionally relax. +Nevertheless, when he succeeded to the +office he was stern and unrelenting, in +spite of the fact that occasionally there +was to be detected in his eye a glance of +geniality. This was doubtless due to the +fact that from the time of his intrusion +upon his father’s moment of weakness he +was soundly thrashed every morning before +breakfast, and spanked before retiring at +night, as a preliminary to his prayers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> + +<p>But Christian Goodheart, the present +incumbent, had not given satisfaction, +and his Bishop had summoned him to +show cause why he should not be removed, +and, as we have seen, the Gloomster had +gone away broken-hearted. Shortly after +having arrived at Nightmare Abbey he +was greeted by his wife.</p> + +<p>“Well, Christian,” she said, “what did +the Bishop say?”</p> + +<p>“He wants my resignation,” sighed +Christian. “He says I have shown myself +unworthy, and I fear he has evidence.”</p> + +<p>“Evidence? Against you, my husband, +the most disagreeable man in the +isle?” cried his wife, fondly.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” sighed Christian. “Do you remember, +you old termagant, how, forgetting +myself and my position, last Tuesday +I laughed when Peter Skelly told us what +his baby said to his nurse?”</p> + +<p>“I do, Christian,” the good woman answered. +“You laughed heartily, and I +warned you to be careful. It is not the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +Gloomster’s place to laugh, and I feared +it might reach the Bishop’s ears.”</p> + +<p>“It has done so,” sighed Christian, +shaking his head sadly and wringing his +hands in his agony. “It has reached the +Bishop’s ears. Little Glory Grouse was +passing by the door at the moment and +saw me. Astonished, the child ran home +and told her mother. ‘Mommer!’ she +cried, ‘I have seen the Gloomster laugh! +I have seen the Gloomster laugh!’ The +child was cross-questioned, but stuck to +her story until Mrs. Grouse was convinced, +and told her neighbors, and these +neighbors told other neighbors, until the +story came to the ears of Canon Cashman, +by whom it was conveyed to the Bishop +himself.”</p> + +<p>“What a little gossip that Glory Grouse +is! She’ll come to a bad end, mark my +words!” cried Mrs. Goodheart, angrily. +“She’ll have her honored father’s name +on the circus posters yet.”</p> + +<p>“Do not blame the child,” said Christian, +sadly. “She was right. Who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +ever seen a Gloomster smile before? As +well expect a ray of sunshine or a glimpse +of humor in a Manx novel—”</p> + +<p>“But the Bishop is not going to remove +you for one false step, is he, Christian? +He cannot do that, can he?” pleaded the +woman.</p> + +<p>“That is what I asked him,” Christian +answered. “And he handed me a type-written +memorandum of what he called +my record. It seems that for six months +they have been spying upon me. Read it +for yourself.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Goodheart took the paper and read, +with trembling hands:</p> + +<p>“‘January 1, 1898—wished Peggy Meguire +a happy New Year.’ Did you really, +Christian?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 458px;"> +<img src="images/gs18.jpg" width="458" height="510" alt="WISHED HER A HAPPY NEW-YEAR" title="" /> +<span class="caption">WISHED HER A HAPPY NEW-YEAR</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I don’t remember doing so,” sighed the +Gloomster. “If I did, it must have been +in sarcasm, for I hate Peggy Meguire, and +I am sure I wish her nothing of the sort. +I told the Bishop so, but all he would say +was, ‘Read on.’”</p> + +<p>“‘February 23, 1898,’” Mrs. Goodheart +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +continued, reading from the paper—“‘took +off his coat and wrapped it about +the shivering form of a freezing woman.’</p> + +<p>“How very imprudent of you, Christian!” +said his wife.</p> + +<p>“But the Bishop didn’t know the circumstances,” +said Christian. “It was the +subtlest kind of deviltry, not humanity, +that prompted the act. If I hadn’t given +her my coat, the old lady would have +frozen to death and been soon out of her +misery. As it was, my wet coat saved her +from an immediate surcease of sorrow, +and, as I had foreseen, gave her muscular +rheumatism of the most painful sort, +from which she has suffered ever since.”</p> + +<p>“You should have explained to the +Bishop.”</p> + +<p>“I did.”</p> + +<p>“And what did he say?”</p> + +<p>“He said my methods were too damned +artistic.”</p> + +<p>“What?” cried Mrs. Goodheart. “The +Bishop?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, well,” said Christian, “words to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +that effect. He doesn’t appreciate the +subtleties of gloom distinction. What he +looks for is sheer brutality. Might as +well employ an out-and-out desperado for +the work. I like to infuse a little art into +my work. I’ve tried to bring Gloomsterism +up to the level of an art, a science. +Slapping a man in the face doesn’t make +him gloomy; it makes him mad. But +subtlely infusing woe into his daily life, so +that he doesn’t know whence all his trouble +comes—ah! that is the perfect flower +of the Gloomster’s work!”</p> + +<p>“H’m!” said Mrs. Goodheart. “That’s +well enough, Christian. If you are rich +enough to consume your own product +with profit, it’s all right to be artistic; +but if you are dependent on a salary, don’t +forget your consumer. What else have +they against you?”</p> + +<p>“Read on, woman,” said the Gloomster.</p> + +<p>“‘April 1, 1898,’” the lady read. +“‘Gave a half-crown to a starving beggar.’”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That was another highly artistic act,” +said Christian. “I told the Bishop that +I had given the coin to the beggar knowing +it to be counterfeit, and hoping that +he would be arrested for trying to pass it. +The Bishop cut me short by saying that +my hope had not been fulfilled. It seems +that that ass of a beggar bought some +food with the half-crown, and the grocer +who sold him the food put the counterfeit +half-crown in the contribution-box the +next Sunday, and the Church was stuck. +That’s what I call hard luck.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, well,” returned Mrs. Goodheart, +putting the paper down in despair. +“There’s no need to read further. That +alone is sufficient to cause your downfall. +When do you resign?”</p> + +<p>“At once,” sighed Christian. “In fact, +the Bishop had already written my resignation—which +I signed.”</p> + +<p>“And the land is without a Gloomster +for the first time in five hundred years?” +demanded Mrs. Goodheart.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Christian, the tears coursing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +down his nose. “The place is filled already, +and by one who knows gloom only +theoretically—a mere summer resident of +the Isle of Man. In short, a famous London +author has succeeded me.”</p> + +<p>“His name!” cried Mrs. Goodheart.</p> + +<hr style='width:30%' /> + +<p>“Just then,” said Snobbe, “I awoke, +and did not catch the author’s name. It +is a curious thing about dreams that just +when you get to the crucial point you +wake up.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder who the deuce the chap +could have been?” murmured the other +diners. “Has any London author with a +residence on the Isle of Man ever shown +any acquaintance with gloom?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know for sure,” said Billy +Jones. “But my impression is that it +must be the editor of <i>Punch</i>. What I am +uncertain about is his residence on the +Isle of Man. Otherwise I think he fills +the bill.”</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p> +<h2>VII</h2> + +<h3>THE DREAMERS DISCUSS A MAGAZINE POEM</h3> + + +<p>The pathetic tale of the Gloomster having +been told and discussed, it turned out +that Haarlem Bridge was the holder of the +next ball in the sequence, the eighth. +Haarley had been looking rather nervous +all the evening, and two or three times he +manifested some desire to withdraw from +the scene. By order of the chairman, +however, the precaution had been taken +to lock all the doors, so that none of the +Dreamers should escape, and, consequently, +when the evil hour arrived, Haarley +was perforce on hand.</p> + +<p>He rose up reluctantly, and, taking a +single page of manuscript from his pocket, +after a few preliminary remarks that were +no more nor less coherent than the average<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +after-dinner speech, read the following +lines, which he termed a magazine +poem:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 458px;"> +<img src="images/gs19.jpg" width="458" height="425" alt="O ARGENT-BROWED SARCOPHAGUS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“‘O ARGENT-BROWED SARCOPHAGUS’”</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +“O argent-browed Sarcophagus,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That looms so through the ethered trees,</span><br /> +Why dost thou seem to those of us<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who drink the poisoned chalice on our knees</span><br /> +So distant and so empyrean,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So dour yet full of mystery?</span><br /> +Hast thou the oracle as yet unseen<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To guide thy fell misogyny?</span><br /> +<br /> +“Nay, let the spirit of the age<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With all its mystic beauty stand</span><br /> +Translucent ever, aye, in spite the rage<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of Cossack and of Samarcand!</span><br /> +Thou art enough for any soul’s desire!<br /> +Thou hast the beauty of cerulean fire!<br /> +But we who grovel on the damask earth<br /> +Are we despoilt of thy exigeant mirth?<br /> +<br /> +“Canst listen to a prayer, Sarcophagus?<br /> +Indeed O art thou there, Sarcophagus?<br /> +What time the Philistine denies,<br /> +What time the raucous cynic cries,<br /> +Avaunt, yet spare! Let this thy motto be,<br /> +With thy thesaurian verbosity.<br /> +Nor think that I, a caterpillian worm,<br /> +Before thy glance should ever honk or squirm.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +<br /> +“’Tis but the stern condition of the poor<br /> +That panting brings me pottering at thy door,<br /> +To breathe of love and argent charity<br /> +For thee, for thee, iguanodonic thee!”<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>“That’s an excellent specimen of magazine +poetry,” said Billy Jones. “But I +observe, Haarley, that you haven’t given it +a title. Perhaps if you gave it a title we +might get at the mystery of its meaning. +A title is a sort of Baedeker to the general +run of magazine poems.”</p> + +<p>Haarlem grew rather red of countenance +as he answered, “Well, I didn’t exactly +like to give it the title I dreamed; it +didn’t seem to shed quite as much light +on the subject as a title should.”</p> + +<p>“Still, it may help,” said Huddy Rivers. +“I read a poem in a magazine the other +day on ‘Mystery.’ And if it hadn’t had a +title I’d never have understood it. It ran +this way:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +“Life, what art thou? Whence springest thou?<br /> +The past, the future, or the now?<br /> +Whence comes thy lowering lunacy?<br /> +Whence comes thy mizzling mystery?<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>Hast thou a form, a shape, a lineament?<br /> +Hast thou a single seraph-eyed medicament<br /> +To ease our sorrow and our twitching woe?<br /> +Hast thou one laudable Alsatian glow<br /> +To compensate, commensurate, and condign<br /> +For all these dastard, sleekish qualms of mine?<br /> +Hast thou indeed an abject agate plot<br /> +To show that what exists is really not?<br /> +Or art thou just content to sit and say<br /> +Life’s but a specious, coral roundelay?”<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>“I committed the thing to memory because +it struck me as being a good thing +to remember—it was so full of good +phrases. ‘Twitching woe,’ for instance, +and ‘sleekish qualms,’” he continued.</p> + +<p>“Quaking qualms would have been better,” +put in Tenafly Paterson, who judged +poetry from an alliterative point of +view.</p> + +<p>“Nevertheless, I liked sleekish qualms,” +retorted Huddy. “Quaking qualms might +be more alliterative, but sleekish qualms +is <i>less</i> commonplace.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” said Tenafly. “I never +had ’em myself, so I’ll take your word for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +it. But what do you make out of ‘coral +roundelay’?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing at all,” said Huddy. “I +don’t bother my head about ‘coral roundelay’ +or ‘seraph-eyed medicament.’ I +haven’t wasted an atom of my gray matter +on ‘lowering lunacy’ or ‘agate plot’ +or ‘mizzling mystery.’ And all because +the poet gave his poem a title. He called +the thing ‘Mystery,’ and when I had read +it over half a dozen times I concluded +that he was right; and if the thing remained +a mystery to the author, I don’t +see why a reader should expect ever to be +able to understand it.”</p> + +<p>“Very logical conclusion, Huddy,” said +Billy Jones, approvingly. “If a poet +chooses a name for his poem, you may +make up your mind that there is good +reason for it, and certainly the verses you +have recited about the ‘coral roundelay’ +are properly designated.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’d like to have the title of that +yard of rhyme Haarlem Bridge just recited,” +put in Dobbs Ferry, scratching his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> +head in bewilderment. “It strikes me as +being quite as mysterious as Huddy’s. +What the deuce can a man mean by referring +to an ‘auburn-haired Sarcophagus’?”</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t auburn-haired,” expostulated +Haarlem. “It was argent-browed.”</p> + +<p>“Old Sarcophagus had nickel-plated +eyebrows, Dobby,” cried Tom Snobbe, +forgetting himself for a moment.</p> + +<p>“Well, who the dickens was old Sarcophagus?” +queried Dobby, unappeased.</p> + +<p>“He was one of the Egyptian kings, +my dear boy,” vouchsafed Billy Jones, exploding +internally with mirth. “You’ve +heard of Augustus Cæsar, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Dobby.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs20.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="SARCOPHAGUSTUS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“SARCOPHAGUSTUS”</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> + + +<p>“Well,” explained Billy Jones, “Sarcophagus +occupied the same relation to +the Egyptians that Augustus did to the +Romans—in fact, the irreverent used to +call him Sarcophagustus, instead of Sarcophagus, +which was his real name. This +poem of Haarley’s is manifestly addressed +to him.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Did he have nickel-plated eyebrows?” +asked Bedfork Parke, satirically.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Billy Jones. “As I remember +the story of Sarcophagus as I read of +him in college, he was a very pallid sort +of a potentate—his forehead was white as +marble. So they called him the Argent-browed +Sarcophagus.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a good thing for us we have Billy +Jones with us to tell us all these things,” +whispered Tom Snobbe to his brother +Dick.</p> + +<p>“You bet your life,” said Dick. “There’s +nothing, after all, like a classical education. +I wish I’d known it while I was +getting mine.”</p> + +<p>“What’s ‘fell misogyny’?” asked Tenafly +Paterson, who seemed to be somewhat +enamoured of the phrase. “Didn’t old +Sarcophagus care for chemistry?”</p> + +<p>“Chemistry?” demanded the chairman.</p> + +<p>“That’s what I said,” said Tenny. +“Isn’t misogyny a chemical compound +of metal and gas?”</p> + +<p>Tenny had been to the School of Mines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +for two weeks, and had retired because he +didn’t care for mathematics and the table +at the college restaurant wasn’t good.</p> + +<p>“I fancy you are thinking of heterophemy, +which is an infusion of unorthodox +gases into a solution of vocabulary particles,” +suggested Billy Jones, grasping his +sides madly to keep them from shaking.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” said Tenny, “of course. I +remember now.” Then he laughed somewhat, +and added, “I always get misogyny +and heterophemy mixed.”</p> + +<p>“Who wouldn’t?” cried Harry Snobbe. +“I do myself! There’s no chance to talk +about either where I live,” he added. +“Half the people don’t know what they +mean. They’re not very anthropological +up my way.”</p> + +<p>“What’s a Samarcand?” asked Tenafly, +again. “Haarley’s poem speaks of +Cossack and of Samarcand. Of course +we all know that a Cossack is a garment +worn by the Russian peasants, but I never +heard of a Samarcand.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a thing to put about your neck,”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +said Dick Snobbe. “They wear ’em in +winter out in Siberia. I looked it up +some years ago.”</p> + +<p>“Let’s take up ‘cerulean fire,’” said +Bedford Parke, Tenafly appearing to be +satisfied with Snobbe’s explanation.</p> + +<p>“What’s ‘cerulean fire’?”</p> + +<p>“Blue ruin,” said Huddy.</p> + +<p>“And ‘damask earth’?” said Bedford.</p> + +<p>“Easy,” cried Huddy. “Even I can +understand that. Did you never hear, +Beddy, of painting a town red? That’s +damask earth in a small way. If you can +paint a town red with your limited resources, +what couldn’t a god do with a +godlike credit? As I understand the +poem, old Sarcophagus comes down out +of the cerulean fire, and goes in for a little +damask earth. That’s why the poet +later says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +“‘Canst listen to a prayer, Sarcophagus?<br /> +Indeed O art thou there, Sarcophagus?’<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>He wanted to pray to him, but didn’t know +if he’d got back from damask earth yet.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You’re a perfect wonder, Huddy,” said +Billy Jones. “As a thought-detector you +are a beauty. I believe you’d succeed if +you opened up a literary bureau somewhere +and devoted your time to explaining +Browning and Meredith and others to +a mystified public.”</p> + +<p>“’Tis an excellent idea,” said Tom +Snobbe. “I’d really rejoice to see certain +modern British masterpieces translated +into English, and, with headquarters +in Boston, the institution ought to +flourish. Do worms honk?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 488px;"> +<img src="images/gs21.jpg" width="488" height="490" alt="MR. BILLY JONES" title="" /> +<span class="caption">MR. BILLY JONES</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I never heard of any doing so,” replied +the chairman, “but in these days it is +hardly safe to say that anything is impossible. +If you have watched the development +of the circus in the last five years—I +mean the real circus, not the literary—you +must have observed what an advance +intellectually has been made by the +various members of the animal kingdom. +Elephants have been taught to sit at table +and dine like civilized beings on things +that aren’t good for them; pigs have been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +educated so that, instead of evincing none +but the more domestic virtues and staying +contentedly at home, they now play +poker with the sangfroid of a man about +town; while the seal, a creature hitherto +considered useful only in the production +of sacques for our wives, and ear-tabs for +our children, and mittens for our hired +men, are now branching out as rivals to +the college glee clubs, singing songs, playing +banjoes, and raising thunder generally. +Therefore it need surprise no one +if a worm should learn to honk as high +as any goose that ever honked. Anyhow, +you can’t criticise a poet for anything of +that kind. His license permits him to +take any liberties he may see fit with existing +conditions.”</p> + +<p>“All of which,” observed Dick Snobbe, +“is wandering from the original point of +discussion. What is the meaning of Haarley’s +poem? I can’t see that as yet we +have reached a definite understanding on +that point.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I must confess,” said Jones,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> +“that I can’t understand it myself; but I +never could understand magazine poetry, +so that doesn’t prove anything. I’m only +a newspaper man.”</p> + +<p>“Let’s have the title, Haarley,” cried +Tenafly Paterson. “Was it called ‘Life,’ +or ‘Nerve Cells,’ or what?”</p> + +<p>For a second Bridge’s cheeks grew red.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, if you must have it,” he said, +desperately, “here it is. It was called, +‘A Thought on Hearing, While Visiting +Gibraltar in June, 1898, that the War Department +at Washington Had Failed to +Send Derricks to Cuba, Thereby Delaying +the Landing of General Shafter Three +Days and Giving Comfort to the Enemy.’”</p> + +<p>“Great Scott!” roared Dick Snobbe. +“What a title!”</p> + +<p>“It is excellent,” said Billy Jones. “I +now understand the intent of the poem.”</p> + +<p>“Which was—?” asked Rivers.</p> + +<p>“To supply a real hiatus in latter-day +letters,” Jones replied; “to give the public +a war poem that would make them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +think, which is what a true war poem +should do. Who has the ninth ball?”</p> + +<p>“I am the unfortunate holder of that,” +said Greenwich Place. “I’d just been +reading Anthony Hope and Mr. Dooley. +The result is a composite, which I will +read.”</p> + +<p>“What do you call it, Mr. Place?” +asked the stenographer.</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t know,” replied Greenwich. +“I guess ‘A Dooley Dialogue’ +about describes it.”</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> +<h2>VIII</h2> + +<h3>DOLLY VISITS CHICAGO</h3> + + +<p class="center"><i>Being the substance of a Dooley dialogue dreamed +by Greenwich Place, Esq.</i></p> + + +<p>“I must see him,” said Dolly, rising +suddenly from her chair and walking to +the window. “I really must, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Who?” I asked, rousing myself from +the lethargy into which my morning paper +had thrust me. It was not grammatical +of me—I was somewhat under the influence +of newspaper English—but Dolly +is quick to understand. “Must see who?” +I continued.</p> + +<p>“Who indeed?” cried Dolly, gazing at +me in mock surprise. “How stupid of +you! If I went to Rome and said I must +see him, you’d know I must mean the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +Pope; if I went to Berlin and said I must +see it, you’d know I meant the Emperor. +Therefore, when I come to Chicago and +say that I must see him, you ought to be +able to guess that I mean—”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Dooley?” I ventured, at a guess.</p> + +<p>“Good for you!” cried Dolly, clapping +her hands together joyously; and then +she hummed bewitchingly, “The Boy +Guessed Right the Very First Time,” until +I begged her to desist. When Dolly +claps her hands and hums, she becomes +a vision of loveliness that would give +the most confirmed misogynist palpitation +of the heart, and I had no wish to +die.</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose I could call upon +him without being thought too unconventional?” +she blurted out in a moment.</p> + +<p>“You can do anything,” said I, admiringly. +“That is, with me to help,” I added, +for I should be sorry if Dolly were to +grow conceited. “Perhaps it would be +better to have Mr. Dooley call upon you. +Suppose you send him your card, and put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +‘at home’ on it? I fancy that would +fetch him.”</p> + +<p>“Happy thought!” said Dolly. “Only +I haven’t one. In the excitement of our +elopement I forgot to get any. Suppose I +write my name on a blank card and send +it?”</p> + +<p>“Excellent,” said I.</p> + +<p>And so it happened; the morning’s +mail took out an envelope addressed to +Mr. Dooley, and containing a bit of pasteboard +upon which was written, in the +charming hand of Dolly:</p> + +<div class="bbox"> +<p class="center">Mrs. R. Dolly-Rassendyll.<br /> +At Home.<br /> + The Hippodorium.<br /> +Tuesday Afternoon. <br /> +</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs22.jpg" width="500" height="340" alt="I MUST SEE HIM" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“‘I MUST SEE HIM,’ SAID DOLLY”</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> + +<p>The response was gratifyingly immediate.</p> + +<p>The next morning Dolly’s mail contained +Mr. Dooley’s card, which read as +follows:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p> + +<div class="bbox"> +<p class="center"> +Mr. Dooley.<br /> +At Work.<br /> +Every Day. Archie Road.<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>“Which means?” said Dolly, tossing +the card across the table to me.</p> + +<p>“That if you want to see Dooley you’ll +have to call upon him at his place of business. +It’s a saloon, I believe,” I observed. +“Or a club—most American saloons are +clubs, I understand.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder if there’s a ladies’ day +there?” laughed Dolly. “If there isn’t, +perhaps I’d better not.”</p> + +<p>And I of course agreed, for when Dolly +thinks perhaps she’d better not, I always +agree with her, particularly when the +thing is a trifle unconventional.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry,” she said, as we reached +the conclusion. “To visit Chicago without +meeting Mr. Dooley strikes me as like +making the Mediterranean trip without +seeing Gibraltar.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> + +<p>But we were not to be disappointed, +after all, for that afternoon who should +call but the famous philosopher himself, +accompanied by his friend Mr. Hennessey. +They were ushered into our little parlor, +and Dolly received them radiantly.</p> + +<p>“Iv coorse,” said Dooley, “I hatter +come t’ see me new-found cousin. Hennessey +here says, he says, ‘She ain’t yer +cousin,’ he says; but whin I read yer +car-r-rd over th’ second time, an’ see yer +na-a-ame was R. Dooley-Rassendyll, wid th’ +hifalution betwixt th’ Dooley an’ th’ Rassendyll, +I says, ‘Hennessey,’ I says, ‘that +shmall bit iv a coupler in that na-a-ame +means only wan thing,’ I says. ‘Th’ la-ady,’ +I says, ‘was born a Dooley, an’ ’s +prood iv it,’ I says, ‘as she’d ought to be,’ +I says. ‘Shure enough,’ says Hennessey; +‘but they’s Dooleys an’ Dooleys,’ he says. +‘Is she Roscommon or Idunnaw?’ he says. +‘I dinnaw meself,’ I says, ‘but whichiver +she is,’ I says, ‘I’m goin’ to see her,’ I +says. ‘Anny wan that can feel at home +in a big hotel like the Hippojorium,’ I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +says, ‘is wort’ lookin’ at, if only for the +curawsity of it,’ I says. Are ye here for +long?”</p> + +<p>“We are just passing through,” said +Dolly, with a pleased smile.</p> + +<p>“It’s a gud pla-ace for that,” said Dooley. +“Thim as pass troo Chicago ginerally +go awaa pleased, an’ thim as stays t’ink +it’s th’ only pla-ace in th’ worruld, gud +luk to ’em! for, barrin’ Roscommon an’ +New York, it’s th’ only pla-ace I have +anny use for. Is yer hoosband anny relation +t’ th’ dood in the <i>Prizner iv Cinders</i>?”</p> + +<p>I laughed quietly, but did not resent +the implication. I left Dolly to her fate.</p> + +<p>“He is the very same person,” said +Dolly.</p> + +<p>“I t’ought as much,” said Dooley, eying +me closely. “Th’ strorberry mark on his +hair sort of identified him,” he added. +“Cousin Roopert, I ta-ak ye by the hand. +Ye was a bra-ave lad in th’ first book, an’ +a dom’d fool in th’ second; but I read th’ +second first, and th’ first lasht, so whin I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +left ye ye was all right. I t’ought ye was +dead?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said I. “I am only dead in the +sense that Mr. Hope has no further use +for me.”</p> + +<p>“A wise mon, that Mr. Ant’ny Hawp,” +said Dooley. “Whin I write me book,” he +continued, “I’m goin’ t’ shtop short whin +folks have had enough.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, indeed!” cried Dolly, enthusiastically. +“Are you writing a book, Mr. +Dooley? I am so glad.”</p> + +<p>“Yis,” said Dooley, deprecatingly, yet +pleased by Dolly’s enthusiasm. “I’m half +finished already. That is to say, I’ve made +th’ illusthrations. An’ the publishers have +accepted the book on th’ stringth iv them.”</p> + +<p>“Really?” said Dolly. “Do you really +draw?”</p> + +<p>“Nawm,” said Dooley. “I niver drew +a picture in me life.”</p> + +<p>“He draws corks,” put in Hennessey. +“He’s got a pull that bates—”</p> + +<p>“Hennessey,” interrupted Mr. Dooley, +“since whin have ye been me funnygraph?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> +Whin me cousin ashks me riddles, I’ll tell +her th’ answers. G’ down-shtairs an’ get +a cloob san’wich an’ ate yourself to death. +Char-rge it to—er—char-rge it to Misther +Rassendyll here—me cousin Roop, be +marritch. He looks liks a soft t’ing.”</p> + +<p>Hennessey subsided and showed an inclination +to depart, and I, not liking to +see a well-meaning person thus sat upon, +tried to be pleasant to him.</p> + +<p>“Don’t go just yet, Mr. Hennessey,” +said I. “I should like to talk to you.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Rassendyll,” he replied, “I’m not +goin’ just yet, but an invitation to join +farces with one iv the Hippojorium’s cloob +sandwhiches is too much for me. I must +accept. Phwat is the noomber iv your +shweet?”</p> + +<p>I gave him the number, and Hennessey +departed. Before he went, however, he +comforted me somewhat by saying that +he too was “a puppit in th’ han’s iv an +auter. Ye’ve got to do,” said he, “whativer +ye’re sint t’ do. I’m told ye’ve killed +a million Germans—bless ye!—but ye’re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +nawthin’ but a facthory hand afther all. +I’m th’ background iv Dooley. If Dooley +wants to be smar-rt, I’ve got t’ play th’ +fool. It’s the same with you; only you’ve +had yer chance at a printcess, later on +pla-acin’ the la-ady in a ’nonymous p’sition—which +is enough for anny man, Dooley +or no Dooley.”</p> + +<p>Hennessey departed in search of his +club sandwich, which was subsequently +alluded to in my bill, and for which I paid +with pleasure, for Hennessey is a good fellow. +I then found myself listening to the +conversation between Dolly and Dooley.</p> + +<p>“Roscommon, of course,” Dolly was saying. +What marvellous adaptability that +woman has! “How could you think, my +dear cousin, that I belonged to the farmer +Dooleys?”</p> + +<p>“I t’ought as much,” said Mr. Dooley, +genially, “now that I’ve seen ye. Whin +you put th’ wor-rds ‘at home’ on yer +car-rd, I had me doots. No Dooley iv th’ +right sor-rt iver liked annyt’ing a landlord +gave him; an’ whin y’ expreshed satisfaction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +wid th’ Hippojorium, I didn’t at +first t’ink ye was a true Dooley. Since I’ve +seen ye, I love ye properly, ma’am—like +th’ cousin I am. I’ve read iv ye, just as +I’ve read iv yer hoosband, Cousin Roopert +here be marritch, in th’ biojographies of +Mr. Ant’ny Hawp, an’ while I cudn’t help +likin’ ye, I must say I didn’t t’ink ye was +very deep on th’ surface, an’ when I read +iv your elopin’ with Cousin Roop, I says +to Hennessey, I says, ‘Hennessey,’ I says, +‘that’s all right, they’d bote iv ’em better +die, but let us not be asashinators,’ I says; +‘let ’em be joined in marritch. That’s +punishment enough,’ I says to Hennessey. +Ye see, Miss Dooley, I have been marrit +meself.”</p> + +<p>“But I have found married life far from +punishment,” I heard Dolly say. “I fear +you’re a sad pessimist, Mr. Dooley,” she +added.</p> + +<p>“I’m not,” Mr. Dooley replied. “I’m +a Jimmycrat out an’ out, if ye refer to me +politics; but if your remark is a reflection +on me religion, let me tell ye, ma’am,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +that, like all me countrymen in this beautiful +land, I’m a Uni-tarrian, an’ prood iv it.”</p> + +<p>I ventured to interpose at this point.</p> + +<p>“Dooley,” said I, “your cousin Roop, +as you call him, is very glad to meet you, +whatever your politics or your religion.”</p> + +<p>“Mosht people are,” said he, dryly.</p> + +<p>“That shows good taste,” said I. “But +how about your book? It has been accepted +on the strength of its illustrations, +you say. How about them? Can we see +them anywhere? Are they on exhibition?”</p> + +<p>“You can not only see thim, but you +can drink ’em free anny time you come +out to Archie Road,” Dooley replied, cordially.</p> + +<p>“Drink—a picture?” I asked.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 449px;"> +<img src="images/gs23.jpg" width="449" height="510" alt="KAPE YOUR HOOSBAND HOME" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“‘KAPE YOUR HOOSBAND HOME’”</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Yis,” said Dooley. “Didn’t ye iver +hear iv dhrinkin’ in a picture, Cousin Roopert? +Didn’t ye hear th’ tark about th’ +‘Angelus’ whin ’twas here? Ye cud hear +th’ bells ringin’ troo th’ paint iv it. Ye +cud almost hear th’ couple in front just +back iv th’ varnish quar’lin as t’whether +’twas th’ Angelus er the facthery bell that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> +was goin’ off. ’Twas big an’ little felt +th’ inflooance iv Misther Miller’s jaynius, +just be lukin’ at ut—though as fer me, th’ +fir-rst time I see the t’ing I says, says I, +‘Is ut lukin’ for bait to go fishin’ with +they are?’ I says. ‘Can’t ye hear the +pealin’ iv the bells?’ says Hennessey, who +was with me. ‘That an’ more,’ I says. ‘I +can hear the pealin’ o’ th’ petayties,’ I says. +‘Do ye dhrink in th’ feelin’ iv it?’ says +Hennessey. ‘Naw, t’ank ye,’ I says. ‘I’m +not thirsty,’ I says. ‘Besides, I’ve swore off +dhrinkin’ ile-paintin’s,’ I says. ‘Wathercoolers +is gud enough fer me,’ I says. An’ +wid that we wint back to the Road. But +that was th’ fir-rst time I iver heard iv +dhrinkin’ a work iv ar-rt.”</p> + +<p>“But some of the things you—ah—you +Americans drink,” put in Dolly, “are +works of art, my dear Mr. Dooley. Your +cousin Rupert gave me a cocktail at dinner +last night—”</p> + +<p>“Ye’ve hit ut, Miss Dooley,” returned +the philosopher, with a beautiful enthusiasm. +“Ye’ve hit ut square. I see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> +now y’re a thrue Dooley. An’ wid yer +kind permission I’ll dedicate me book to +ye. Ut’s cocktails that book’s about, +ma’am. <i>Fifty Cocktails I Have Met</i> is th’ +na-ame iv ut. An’ whin I submitted th’ +mannyscrip’ wid th’ illusthrations to the +publisher, he dhrank ’em all, an’ he says, +‘Dooley,’ he says, ‘ut’s a go. I’ll do yer +book,’ he says, ‘an’ I’ll pay ye wan hoondred +an’ siventy-five per cent.,’ he says. +‘Set ’em up again, Dooley,’ he says; an’ +I mixed ’em. ‘I t’ink, Dooley,’ he says, +afther goin’ troo th’ illusthrations th’ second +toime—‘I t’ink,’ he says, ‘ye’d ought +to get two hoondred an’ wan per cent. on +th’ retail price iv th’ book,’ he says. +‘Can’t I take a bottle iv these illusthrations +to me office?’ he says. ‘I’d like to +look ’em over,’ he says; an’ I mixed ’im +up a quar-rt iv th’ illusthrations to th’ +chapther on th’ Mar-rtinney, an’ sent him +back to his partner in th’ ambylanch.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 449px;"> +<img src="images/gs24.jpg" width="449" height="548" alt="MIXING ILLUSTRATIONS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">MIXING ILLUSTRATIONS</span> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I shall look forward to the publication +of your book with much interest, Mr. +Dooley,” said Dolly. “Now that I have +discovered our cousinship, I am even more +interested in you than I was before; and +let me tell you that, before I met you, +I thought of you as the most vital figure +in American humor that has been produced +in many years.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>“I know nothin’ iv American humor,” +said Dooley, “for I haven’t met anny lately, +an’ I know nothin’ iv victuals save +what I ate, an’ me appytite is as satisfoid +wid itself as Hobson is wid th’ kisses +brawt onto him by th’ sinkin’ iv th’ +Merrimickinley. But for you an’ Misther +Rassendyll, ma’am, I’ve nothin’ but good +wishes an’ ah—illusthrations to me book +whenever ye give yer orders. Kape your +hoosband home, Miss Dooley,” he added. +“He’s scrapped wanst too often already +wi’ th’ Ruraltarriers, an’ he’s been killed +off wanst by Mr. Ant’ny Hawp; but he’ll +niver die if ye only kape him home. If +he goes out he’ll git fightin’ agin. If he +attimpts a sayquil to the sayquil, he’s dead +sure enough!”</p> + +<p>And with this Dolly and Dooley parted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p> + +<p>For myself, Rupert Rassendyll, I think +Dooley’s advice was good, and as long as +Dolly will keep me home, I’ll stay. For +is it not better to be the happy husband +of Dolly of the Dialogues, than to be going +about like a knight of the Middle +Ages clad in the evening dress of the nineteenth +century, doing impossible things?</p> + +<p>As for Dooley’s impression of Dolly, I +can only quote what I heard he had said +after meeting her.</p> + +<p>“She’s a Dooley sure,” said he, being +novel to compliment. And I am glad she +is, for despite the charms of Flavia of +pleasant memory, there’s nobody like Dolly +for me, and if Dolly can only be acknowledged +by the Dooleys, her fame, I +am absolutely confident, is assured.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> +<h2>IX</h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH YELLOW JOURNALISM CREEPS +IN</h3> + + +<p>The applause which followed the reading +of the Dooley Dialogue showed very +clearly that, among the diners at least, +neither Dooley nor Dolly had waned in +popularity. If the dilution, the faint echo +of the originals, evoked such applause, how +potent must have been the genius of the +men who first gave life to Dooley and the +fair Dolly!</p> + +<p>“That’s good stuff, Greenwich,” said +Billie Jones. “You must have eaten a +particularly digestible meal. Now for the +tenth ball. Who has it?”</p> + +<p>“I,” said Dick Snobbe, rising majestically +from his chair. “And I can tell you +what it is; I had a tough time of it in my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +dream, as you will perceive when I recite +to you the story of my experiences at the +battle of Manila.”</p> + +<p>“Great Scott, Dick!” cried Bedford +Parke. “You weren’t in that, were you?”</p> + +<p>“Sir,” returned Dick, “I was not only +<i>in</i> it, I was the thing itself. I was the +war correspondent of the Sunday <i>Whirnal</i>, +attached to Dewey’s fleet.”</p> + +<p>Whereupon the talented Mr. Snobbe +proceeded to read the following cable despatch +from the special correspondent of +the <i>Whirnal</i>:</p> + + +<p class="center">MANILA FALLS<br /> +<small>THE SPANISH FLEET DESTROYED</small><br /> +THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE <i>WHIRNAL</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Aided by Commodore Dewey and his Fleet</span><br /> +CAPTURES THE PHILIPPINES</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Manila</span>, <i>May 1, 1898</i>.—I have glorious +news. I have this day destroyed the +Spanish fleet and captured the Philippine +Islands. According to my instructions +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +from the City Editor of the <i>Whirnal</i>, I +boarded the <i>Olympia</i>, the flag-ship of the +fleet under Commodore Dewey at Hong-kong, +on Wednesday last. Upon reading +my credentials the Commodore immediately +surrendered the command of the +fleet to me, and retired to his state-room, +where he has since remained. I deemed +it well to keep him there until after the +battle was over, fearing lest he should annoy +me with suggestions, and not knowing +but that he might at any time spread +dissension among the officers and men, +who, after the habit of seamen, frequently +manifest undue affection and sympathy +for a deposed commander. I likewise, +according to your wishes, concealed from +the officers and crew the fact that the +Commodore had been deposed, furthering +the concealment by myself making up as +Dewey. Indeed, it was not until after +the battle this morning that any but +Dewey and the ship’s barber were aware +of the substitution, since my disguise was +perfect. The ship’s barber I had to take +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>into my confidence, for unfortunately on +leaving Hong-kong I had forgotten to +provide myself with a false mustache, so +that in concealing the deposition of the +Commodore by myself assuming his personality +I was compelled to have the gentleman’s +mustache removed from his upper +lip and transferred to my own. This +the barber did with neatness and despatch, +I having first chloroformed the Commodore, +from whom some resistance might +have been expected, owing to his peculiar +temperament. Fortunately the fellow was +an expert wig-maker, and within an hour +of the shaving of Dewey I was provided +with a mustache which could not fail to +be recognized as the Commodore’s, since it +was indeed that very same object. When +five hundred miles at sea I dropped the +barber overboard, fearing lest he should +disturb my plans by talking too much. I +hated to do it, but in the interest of the +<i>Whirnal</i> I hold life itself as of little consequence, +particularly if it is the life of +some one else—and who knows but the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> +poor fellow was an expert swimmer, and +has by this time reached Borneo or some +other bit of dry land? He was alive when +I last saw him, and yelling right lustily. If +it so happen that he has swum ashore somewhere, +kindly let me know at your convenience; +for beneath a correspondent’s +exterior I have a warm heart, and it sometimes +troubles me to think that the poor +fellow may have foundered, since the sea +was stressful and the nearest dry point +was four hundred and sixty knots away +to S.E. by N.G., while the wind was blowing +N.W. by N.Y.C. & H.R.R. But to +my despatch.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 449px;"> +<img src="images/gs25.jpg" width="449" height="490" alt="THE SHIP'S BARBER AT WORK" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">THE SHIP’S BARBER AT WORK</span> +</div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> +<p>Dewey done for, despoiled of his mustache +and rifled of his place, with a heavy +sea running and a dense fog listing to +starboard, I summoned my officers to the +flag-ship, and, on the evening of April 30th, +the fog-horns of Cavité having indicated +the approach of the Philippine coast, gave +them, one and all, their final instructions. +These were, in brief, never to do anything +without consulting with me.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> +<p>“To facilitate matters, gentlemen,” said +I, ordering an extra supply of grog for the +captains, and milk punches for the lieutenants, +“we must connect the various +vessels of the fleet with telephone wires. +Who will undertake this perilous duty?”</p> + +<p>They rose up as one man, and, with the +precision of a grand-opera chorus, replied: +“Commodore”—for they had not penetrated +my disguise—“call upon us. If +you will provide the wires and the ’phones, +we will do the rest.” And they followed +these patriotic words with cheers for me.</p> + +<p>Their heroism so affected me that I had +difficulty in frowning upon the head-butler’s +suggestion that my glass should be +filled again.</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen,” said I, huskily—for I was +visibly affected—“I have provided for +all. I could not do otherwise and remain +myself. You will find ten thousand +miles of wire and sixty-six telephones in +the larder.”</p> + +<p>That night every ship in the fleet was +provided with telephone service. I appointed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +the <i>Olympia</i> to be the central +office, so that I might myself control all +the messages, or at least hear them as they +passed to and fro. In the absence of ladies +from the fleet, I appointed a somewhat +effeminate subaltern to the post of “Hello +Officer,” with complete control over the +switch-board. And, as it transpired, this +was a very wise precaution, because the +central office was placed in the hold, and +the poor little chap’s courage was so inclined +to ooze that in the midst of the +fight he was content to sit below the water-line +at his post, and not run about +the promenade-deck giving orders while +under fire. I have cabled the President +about him, and have advised his promotion. +His heroic devotion to the switch-board +ought to make him a naval attaché +to some foreign court, at least. I trust +his bravery will ultimately result in his +being sent to the Paris Exposition as +charge d’affaires in the Erie Canal department +of the New York State exhibit.</p> + +<p>But to return to my despatch—which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>from this point must disregard space and +move quickly. Passing Cape Bolinao, we +soon reached Subig Bay, fifty miles from +Manila. Recognizing the cape by the +crop of hemp on its brow, I rang up the +<i>Boston</i> and the <i>Concord</i>.</p> + +<p>“Search Subig Bay,” I ordered.</p> + +<p>“Who’s this?” came the answer from +the other end.</p> + +<p>“Never mind who I am,” said I. “Search +Subig Bay for Spaniards.”</p> + +<p>“Hello!” said the <i>Boston</i>.</p> + +<p>“Who the deuce are you?” cried the +<i>Concord</i>.</p> + +<p>“I’m seventeen-five-six,” I replied, with +some sarcasm, for that was not my number.</p> + +<p>“I want sixteen-two-one,” retorted the +<i>Boston</i>.</p> + +<p>“Ring off,” said the <i>Concord</i>. “What +do you mean by giving me seventeen-five-six?”</p> + +<p>“Hello, <i>Boston</i> and <i>Concord</i>,” I put in +in commanding tones. “I’m Dewey.”</p> + +<p>This is the only false statement I ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> +made, but it was in the interests of my +country, and my reply was electrical in +its effect. The <i>Boston</i> immediately blew +off steam, and the <i>Concord</i> sounded all +hands to quarters.</p> + +<p>“What do you want, Commodore?” +they asked simultaneously.</p> + +<p>“Search Subig Bay for Spaniards, as I +have already ordered you,” I replied, “and +woe be unto you if you don’t find any.”</p> + +<p>“What do you want ’em for, Commodore?” +asked the <i>Boston</i>.</p> + +<p>“To engage, you idiot,” I replied, +scornfully. “What did you suppose—to +teach me Spanish?”</p> + +<p>Both vessels immediately piped all hands +on deck and set off. Two hours later they +returned, and the telephone subaltern reported, +“No Spaniards found.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?” I demanded.</p> + +<p>“All gone to Cuba,” replied the <i>Boston</i>. +“Shall we pipe all hands to Cuba?”</p> + +<p>“Wires too short to penetrate without +a bust,” replied the <i>Concord</i>.</p> + +<p>“On to Manila!” was my answer. “Ding +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>the torpedoes—go ahead! Give us Spaniards +or give us death!”</p> + +<p>These words inspired every ship in the +line, and we immediately strained forward, +except the <i>McCulloch</i>, which I despatched +at once to Hong-kong to cable +my last words to you in time for the Adirondack +edition of your Sunday issue +leaving New York Thursday afternoon.</p> + +<p>The rest of us immediately proceeded. +In a short while, taking advantage of the +darkness for which I had provided by +turning the clock back so that the sun by +rising at the usual hour should not disclose +our presence, we turned Corregidor +and headed up the Boca Grande towards +Manila. As we were turning Corregidor +the telephone-bell rang, and somebody +who refused to give his name, but stating +that he was aboard the <i>Petrel</i>, called me up.</p> + +<p>“Hello!” said I.</p> + +<p>“Is this Dewey?” said the <i>Petrel</i>.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said I.</p> + +<p>“There are torpedoes ahead,” said the +<i>Petrel</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> + +<p>“What of it?” said I.</p> + +<p>“How shall we treat ’em?”</p> + +<p>“Blow ’em off—to soda water,” I answered, +sarcastically.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir,” the <i>Petrel</i> replied, +as she rang off.</p> + +<p>Then somebody from the <i>Baltimore</i> +rang me up.</p> + +<p>“Commodore Dewey,” said the <i>Baltimore</i>, +“there are mines in the harbor.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what of it?” I replied.</p> + +<p>“What shall we do?” asked the <i>Baltimore</i>.</p> + +<p>“Treat them coldly, as they do in the +Klondike,” said I.</p> + +<p>“But they aren’t gold-mines,” replied +the <i>Baltimore</i>.</p> + +<p>“Then salt ’em,” said I, dryly. “Apply +for a certificate of incorporation, water +your stock, sell out, and retire.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Commodore,” the <i>Baltimore</i> +answered. “How many shares shall +we put you down for?”</p> + +<p>“None,” said I. “But if you’ll use +your surplus to start a life-insurance company, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> +I’ll take out a policy for forty-eight +hours, and send you my demand note to +pay for the first premium.”</p> + +<p>I mention this merely to indicate to +your readers that I felt myself in a position +of extreme peril, and did not forget +my obligations to my family. It is a small +matter, but if you will search the pages of +history you will see that in the midst of +the greatest dangers the greatest heroes +have thought of apparently insignificant +details.</p> + +<p>At this precise moment we came in +sight of the fortresses of Manila. Signalling +the <i>Raleigh</i> to heave to, I left the +flag-ship and jumped aboard the cruiser, +where I discharged with my own hand the +after-forecastle four-inch gun. The shot +struck Corregidor, and, glancing off, as +I had designed, caromed on the smoke-stack +of the <i>Reina Cristina</i>, the flag-ship +of Admiral Montojo. The Admiral, unaccustomed +to such treatment, immediately +got out of bed, and, putting on his +pajamas, appeared on the bridge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs26.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="A CLEVER CAROM" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">A CLEVER CAROM</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>“Who smoked our struck-stack?” he +demanded, in broken English.</p> + +<p>“The enemy,” cried his crew, with some +nervousness. I was listening to their +words through the megaphone.</p> + +<p>“Then let her sink,” said he, clutching +his brow sadly with his clinched fist. +“Far be it from me to stay afloat in +Manila Bay on the 1st of May, and so +cast discredit on history!”</p> + +<p>The <i>Reina Cristina</i> immediately sank, +according to the orders of the Admiral, +and I turned my attention to the <i>Don +Juan de Austria</i>. Rowing across the +raging channel to the <i>Baltimore</i>, I boarded +her and pulled the lanyard of the port +boom forty-two. The discharge was terrific.</p> + +<p>“What has happened?” I asked, coolly, +as the explosion exploded. “Did we hit +her?”</p> + +<p>“We did, your honor,” said the Bo’s’n’s +mate, “square in the eye; only, Commodore, +it ain’t a her this time—it’s a him. +It’s the <i>Don Juan de</i>—”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Never mind the sex,” I cried. “Has +she sank?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” replied the Bo’s’n’s mate, +“she ’ain’t sank yet. She’s a-waiting +orders.”</p> + +<p>“Fly signals to sink,” said I, sternly, +for I had resolved that she should go +down.</p> + +<p>They did so, and the <i>Don Juan de +Austria</i> immediately disappeared beneath +the waves. Her commander evidently +realized that I meant what I signalled.</p> + +<p>“Are there any more of the enemy +afloat?” I demanded, jumping from the +deck of the <i>Baltimore</i> to that of the <i>Concord</i>.</p> + +<p>“No, Commodore,” replied the captain +of the latter.</p> + +<p>“Then signal the enemy to charter two +more gunboats and have ’em sent out. I +can’t be put off with two boats when I’m +ready to sink four,” I replied.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 451px;"> +<img src="images/gs27.jpg" width="451" height="490" alt="SINKING THE CASTILLA" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">SINKING THE CASTILLA</span> +</div> + +<p>The <i>Concord</i> immediately telephoned to +the Spanish commandant at the Manila +Café de la Paix, who as quickly chartered +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> +the <i>Castilla</i> and the <i>Velasco</i>—two very +good boats that had recently come in in +ballast with the idea of loading up with +bananas and tobacco.</p> + +<p>While waiting for these vessels to come +out and be sunk, I ordered all hands to +breakfast, thus reviving their falling courage. +It was a very good breakfast, too. +We had mush and hominy and potatoes +in every style, beefsteak, chops, liver and +bacon, chicken hash, buckwheat cakes +and fish-balls, coffee, tea, rolls, toast, +and brown bread.</p> + +<p>Just as we were eating the latter the +<i>Castilla</i> and <i>Velasco</i> came out. I fired my +revolver at the <i>Castilla</i> and threw a fish-ball +at the <i>Velasco</i>. Both immediately +burst into flames.</p> + +<p>Manila was conquered.</p> + +<p>The fleet gone, the city fell. It not +only fell, but slid, and by nightfall Old +Glory waved over the citadel.</p> + +<p>The foe was licked.</p> + +<p>To-morrow I am to see Dewey again.</p> + +<p>I think I shall resign to-night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>P.S.—Please send word to the magazines +that all articles by Dewey must be written +by Me. Terms, $500 per word. The +strain has been worth it.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> +<h2>X</h2> + +<h3>THE MYSTERY OF PINKHAM’S DIAMOND +STUD</h3> + + +<p class="center"><i>Being the tale told by the holder of the eleventh ball, +Mr. Fulton Streete</i></p> + + +<p>“It is the little things that tell in detective +work, my dear Watson,” said Sherlock +Holmes as we sat over our walnuts +and coffee one bitter winter night shortly +before his unfortunate departure to Switzerland, +whence he never returned.</p> + +<p>“I suppose that is so,” said I, pulling +away upon the very excellent stogie which +mine host had provided—one made in +Pittsburg in 1885, and purchased by +Holmes, whose fine taste in tobacco had +induced him to lay a thousand of these +down in his cigar-cellar for three years,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +and then keep them in a refrigerator, +overlaid with a cloth soaked in Château +Yquem wine for ten. The result may be +better imagined than described. Suffice +it to say that my head did not recover for +three days, and the ash had to be cut off +the stogie with a knife. “I suppose so, +my dear Holmes,” I repeated, taking my +knife and cutting three inches of the +stogie off and casting it aside, furtively, +lest he should think I did not appreciate +the excellence of the tobacco, “but it is +not given to all of us to see the little +things. Is it, now?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, rising and picking up +the rejected portion of the stogie. “We +all see everything that goes on, but we +don’t all know it. We all hear everything +that goes on, but we are not conscious of +the fact. For instance, at this present +moment there is somewhere in this world +a man being set upon by assassins and +yelling lustily for help. Now his yells +create a certain atmospheric disturbance. +Sound is merely vibration, and, once set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +going, these vibrations will run on and on +and on in ripples into the infinite—that +is, they will never stop, and sooner or later +these vibrations must reach our ears. We +may not know it when they do, but they +will do so none the less. If the man is in +the next room, we will hear the yells almost +simultaneously—not quite, but almost—with +their utterance. If the man +is in Timbuctoo, the vibrations may not +reach us for a little time, according to the +speed with which they travel. So with +sight. Sight seems limited, but in reality +it is not. <i>Vox populi, vox Dei</i>. If +<i>vox</i>, why not <i>oculus</i>? It is a simple proposition, +then, that the eye of the people +being the eye of God, the eye of God being +all-seeing, therefore the eye of the +people is all-seeing—Q. E. D.”</p> + +<p>I gasped, and Holmes, cracking a walnut, +gazed into the fire for a moment.</p> + +<p>“It all comes down, then,” I said, “to +the question, who are the people?”</p> + +<p>Holmes smiled grimly. “All men,” he +replied, shortly; “and when I say all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +men, I mean all creatures who can reason.”</p> + +<p>“Does that include women?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” he said. “Indubitably. +The fact that women <i>don’t</i> reason does +not prove that they can’t. I <i>can</i> go up in +a balloon if I wish to, but I <i>don’t</i>. I <i>can</i> +read an American newspaper comic supplement, +but I <i>don’t</i>. So it is with women. +Women can reason, and therefore +they have a right to be included in the +classification whether they do or don’t.”</p> + +<p>“Quite so,” was all I could think of to +say at the moment. The extraordinary +logic of the man staggered me, and I again +began to believe that the famous mathematician +who said that if Sherlock +Holmes attempted to prove that five apples +plus three peaches made four pears, +he would not venture to dispute his conclusions, +was wise. (This was the famous +Professor Zoggenhoffer, of the Leipsic +School of Moral Philosophy and Stenography.—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span>)</p> + +<p>“Now you agree, my dear Watson,” he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +said, “that I have proved that we see +everything?”</p> + +<p>“Well—” I began.</p> + +<p>“Whether we are conscious of it or +not?” he added, lighting the gas-log, for +the cold was becoming intense.</p> + +<p>“From that point of view, I suppose so—yes,” +I replied, desperately.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, this being granted, consciousness +is all that is needed to make +us fully informed on any point.”</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, with some positiveness. +“The American people are very conscious, +but I can’t say that generally they are +well-informed.”</p> + +<p>I had an idea this would knock him out, +as the Bostonians say, but counted without +my host. He merely laughed.</p> + +<p>“The American is only self-conscious. +Therefore he is well-informed only as to +self,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You’ve proved your point, Sherlock,” +I said. “Go on. What else have you +proved?”</p> + +<p>“That it is the little things that tell,” +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> +he replied. “Which all men would realize +in a moment if they could see the little +things—and when I say ‘if they could +see,’ I of course mean if they could be +conscious of them.”</p> + +<p>“Very true,” said I.</p> + +<p>“And I have the gift of consciousness,” +he added.</p> + +<p>I thought he had, and I said so. “But,” +I added, “give me a concrete example.” +It had been some weeks since I had listened +to any of his detective stories, and I was +athirst for another.</p> + +<p>He rose up and walked over to his +pigeon-holes, each labelled with a letter, +in alphabetical sequence.</p> + +<p>“I have only to refer to any of these +to do so,” he said. “Choose your letter.”</p> + +<p>“Really, Holmes,” said I, “I don’t +need to do that. I’ll believe all you say. +In fact, I’ll write it up and <i>sign my +name</i> to any statement you choose to +make.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 451px;"> +<img src="images/gs28.jpg" width="451" height="490" alt="THE LAMP-POSTS WERE TWISTED" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">THE LAMP-POSTS WERE TWISTED</span> +</div> + +<p>“Choose your letter, Watson,” he retorted. +“You and I are on terms that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> +make flattery impossible. Is it F, J, P, +Q, or Z?”</p> + +<p>He fixed his eye penetratingly upon me. +It seemed for the moment as if I were hypnotized, +and as his gaze fairly stabbed me +with its intensity, through my mind there +ran the suggestion “Choose J, choose J, +choose J.” To choose J became an obsession. +To relieve my mind, I turned my +eye from his and looked at the fire. Each +flame took on the form of the letter J. I +left my chair and walked to the window +and looked out. The lamp-posts were +twisted into the shape of the letter J. I +returned, sat down, gulped down my +brandy-and-soda, and looked up at the +portraits of Holmes’s ancestors on the +wall. They were all J’s. But I was resolved +never to yield, and I gasped out, +desperately,</p> + +<p>“Z!”</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” he said, calmly. “Z be it. +I thought you would. Reflex hypnotism, +my dear Watson, is my forte. If I wish a +man to choose Q, B takes hold upon him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> +If I wish him to choose K, A fills his +mind. Have you ever observed how the +mind of man repels a suggestion and flees +to something else, merely that it may +demonstrate its independence of another +mind? Now I have been suggesting J to +you, and you have chosen Z—”</p> + +<p>“You misunderstood me,” I cried, +desperately. “I did not say Z; I said +P.”</p> + +<p>“Quite so,” said he, with an inward +chuckle. “P was the letter I wished you +to choose. If you had insisted upon Z, +I should really have been embarrassed. +See!” he added. He removed the green-ended +box that rested in the pigeon-hole +marked Z, and, opening it, disclosed an +emptiness.</p> + +<p>“I’ve never had a Z case. But P,” he +observed, quietly, “is another thing altogether.”</p> + +<p>Here he took out the box marked P +from the pigeon-hole, and, opening it, removed +the contents—a single paper which +was carefully endorsed, in his own handwriting,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> +“The Mystery of Pinkham’s Diamond +Stud.”</p> + +<p>“You could not have selected a better +case, Watson,” he said, as he unfolded +the paper and scanned it closely. “One +would almost think you had some prevision +of the fact.”</p> + +<p>“I am not aware,” said I, “that you +ever told the story of Pinkham’s diamond +stud. Who was Pinkham, and what kind +of a diamond stud was it—first-water or +Rhine?”</p> + +<p>“Pinkham,” Holmes rejoined, “was an +American millionaire, living during business +hours at Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, +where he had to wear a brilliant stud +to light him on his way through the +streets, which are so dark and sooty that +an ordinary search-light would not suffice. +In his leisure hours, however, he lived at +the Hotel Walledup-Hysteria, in New York, +where he likewise had to wear the same +diamond stud to keep him from being a +marked man. Have you ever visited New +York, Watson?”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> + +<p>“No,” said I.</p> + +<p>“Well, when you do, spend a little of +your time at the Walledup-Hysteria. It +is a hotel with a population larger than +that of most cities, with streets running +to and from all points of the compass; +where men and women eat under conditions +that Lucullus knew nothing of; +where there is a carpeted boulevard on +which walk all sorts and conditions of +men; where one pays one’s bill to the +dulcet strains of a string orchestra that +woo him into a blissful forgetfulness of +its size; and where, by pressing a button +in the wall, you may summon a grand +opera, or a porter who on request will +lend you enough money to enable you and +your family to live the balance of your +days in comfort. In America men have +been known to toil for years to amass a +fortune for the one cherished object of +spending a week in this Olympian spot, +and then to be content to return to their +toil and begin life anew, rich only in the +memory of its luxuries. It was here that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> +I spent my time when, some years ago, +I went to the United States to solve the +now famous Piano Case. You will remember +how sneak thieves stole a grand piano +from the residence of one of New York’s +first families, while the family was dining +in the adjoining room. While in the city, +and indeed at the very hotel in which I +stopped, and which I have described, Pinkham’s +diamond stud disappeared, and, hearing +that I was a guest at the Walledup-Hysteria, +the owner appealed to me to +recover it for him. I immediately took +the case in hand. Drastic questioning of +Pinkham showed that beyond all question +he had lost the stud in his own apartment. +He had gone down to dinner, leaving it +on the centre-table, following the usual +course of most millionaires, to whom diamonds +are of no particular importance. +Pinkham wanted this one only because of +its associations. Its value, $80,000, was +a mere bagatelle in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Now of course, if he positively left it +on the table, it must have been taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> +by some one who had entered the room. +Investigation proved that the maid, a valet, +a fellow-millionaire from Chicago, and +Pinkham’s children had been the only ones +to do this. The maid and the valet were +above suspicion. Their fees from guests +were large enough to place them beyond +the reach of temptation. I questioned +them closely, and they convinced me at +once of their innocence by conducting me +through the apartments of other guests +wherein tiaras of diamonds and necklaces +of pearls—ropes in very truth—rubies, +turquoise, and emerald ornaments of priceless +value, were scattered about in reckless +profusion.</p> + +<p>“‘D’ yez t’ink oi’d waste me toime on +an eighty-t’ousand-dollar shtood, wid all +dhis in soight and moine for the thrubble +uv swipin’ ut?” said the French maid.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 418px;"> +<img src="images/gs29.jpg" width="418" height="530" alt="HOLMES IN DISGUISE INTERVIEWS WATTLES" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">HOLMES IN DISGUISE INTERVIEWS WATTLES</span> +</div> + +<p>“I acquitted her at once, and the valet +similarly proved his innocence, only with +less of an accent, for he was supposed to +be English, and not French, as was the +maid, although they both came from Dublin. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> +This narrowed the suspects down to +Mr. Jedediah Wattles, of Chicago, and +the children. Naturally I turned my attention +to Wattles. A six-year-old boy +and a four-year-old girl could hardly be +suspected of stealing a diamond stud. So +drawing on Pinkham for five thousand +dollars to pay expenses, I hired a room in +a tenement-house in Rivington Street—a +squalid place it was—disguised myself +with an oily, black, burglarious mustache, +and dressed like a comic-paper gambler. +Then I wrote a note to Wattles, asking +him to call, saying that I could tell him +something to his advantage. He came, +and I greeted him like a pal. ‘Wattles,’ +said I, ‘you’ve been working this game for +a long time, and I know all about you. +You are an ornament to the profession, +but we diamond-thieves have got to combine. +Understand?’ ‘No, I don’t’ said +he. ‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ said I. ‘You’re +a man of good appearance, and I ain’t, +but I know where the diamonds are. If +we work together, there’s millions in it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> +I’ll spot the diamonds, and you lift ’em, +eh? You can do it,’ I added, as he began +to get mad. ‘The ease with which you +got away with old Pinky’s stud, that I’ve +been trying to pull for myself for years, +shows me that.’</p> + +<p>“I was not allowed to go further. Wattles’s +indignation was great enough to +prove that it was not he who had done +the deed, and after he had thrashed me +out of my disguise, I pulled myself together +and said, ‘Mr. Wattles, I am convinced +that you are innocent.’ As soon +as he recognized me and realized my object +in sending for him, he forgave me, and, I +must say, treated me with great consideration.</p> + +<p>“But my last clew was gone. The +maid, the valet, and Wattles were proved +innocent. The children alone remained, +but I could not suspect them. Nevertheless, +on my way back to the hotel I bought +some rock-candy, and, after reporting to +Pinkham, I asked casually after the children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs30.jpg" width="500" height="380" alt="YOU DID TOO!" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">“‘YOU DID TOO!’ SAID POLLY”</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>“‘They’re pretty well,’ said Pinkham. +‘Billie’s complaining a little, and the +doctor fears appendicitis, but Polly’s all +right. I guess Billie’s all right too. The +seventeen-course dinners they serve in the +children’s dining-room here aren’t calculated +to agree with Billie’s digestion, I +reckon.’</p> + +<p>“‘I’d like to see ’em,’ said I. ‘I’m +very fond of children.’</p> + +<p>“Pinkham immediately called the +youngsters in from the nursery. ‘Guess +what I’ve got,’ I said, opening the package +of rock-candy. ‘Gee!’ cried Billie, +as it caught his eye. ‘Gimme some!’ +‘Who gets first piece?’ said I. ‘Me!’ +cried both. ‘Anybody ever had any before?’ +I asked. ‘He has,’ said Polly, +pointing to Billie. The boy immediately +flushed up. ‘’Ain’t, neither!’ he retorted. +‘Yes you did, too,’ said Polly. ‘<i>You swallered +that piece pop left on the centre-table +the other night!</i>’ ‘Well, anyhow, it was +only a little piece,’ said Billie. ‘An’ it +tasted like glass,’ he added. Handing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +candy to Polly, I picked Billie up and +carried him to his father.</p> + +<p>“‘Mr. Pinkham,’ said I, handing the +boy over, ‘here is your diamond. It has +not been stolen; it has merely been swallowed.’ +‘What?’ he cried. And I explained. +The stud mystery was explained. Mr. +Pinkham’s boy had eaten it.”</p> + +<p>Holmes paused.</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t see how that proves your +point,” said I. “You said that it was the +little things that told—”</p> + +<p>“So it was,” said Holmes. “If Polly +hadn’t told—”</p> + +<p>“Enough,” I cried; “it’s on me, old +man. We will go down to Willis’s and +have some Russian caviare and a bottle +of Burgundy.”</p> + +<p>Holmes put on his hat and we went out +together. It is to get the money to pay +Willis’s bill that I have written this story +of “The Mystery of Pinkham’s Diamond +Stud.”</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p> +<h2>XI</h2> + +<h3>LANG TAMMAS AND DRUMSHEUGH SWEAR +OFF</h3> + + +<p class="center"><i>A tale of dialect told by Mr. Berkeley Hights, holder +of the twelfth ball</i></p> + + +<p>“Hoot mon!”</p> + +<p>The words rang out derisively on the +cold frosty air of Drumtochty, as Lang +Tammas walked slowly along the street, +looking for the residence of Drumsheugh. +The effect was electrical. Tammas stopped +short, and turning about, scanned the +street eagerly to see who it was that had +spoken. But the highway was deserted, +and the old man shook his stick, as if at +an imaginary foe.</p> + +<p>“I’ll hoot-mon the dour eediot that’s +eensoolted a veesitor to Drumtochty!” he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> +shouted. “I haena brought me faithfu’ +steck for naething!” he added.</p> + +<p>He glared about, now at this closed +window, now at that, as if inviting his +enemy to come forth and be punished, but +seeing no signs of life, turned again to +resume his walk, muttering angrily to +himself. It was indeed hardly to be +tolerated that he, one of the great characters +of fiction, should be thus jeered at, +as he thought, while on a friendly pilgrimage +from Thrums to Drumtochty, the +two rival towns in the affections of the +consumers of modern letters; and having +walked all the way from his home at +Thrums, Lang Tammas was tired, and +therefore in no mood to accept even a +mild affront, much less an insult.</p> + +<p>He had scarcely covered ten paces, however, +when the same voice, with a harsh +cackling laugh, again broke the stillness +of the street:</p> + +<p>“Gang awa’, gang awa’—ha, ha, ha!”</p> + +<p>Tammas rushed into the middle of the +way and picked up a stone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 457px;"> +<img src="images/gs31.jpg" width="457" height="500" alt="HOOT MON!" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">“‘HOOT MON!’”</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>“Pit your bogie pate oot o’ your weendow, +me gillie!” he cried. “I’ll gie it a +garry crack. Pit it oot, I say! Pit it +oot!”</p> + +<p>And the old man drew himself back +into an attitude which would have defied +the powers of Phidias to reproduce in +marble, the stone poised accurately and +all too ready to be hurled.</p> + +<p>“Ye ramshackle macloonatic!” he cried. +“Standin’ in a weendow, where nane may +see, an’ heepin’ eensoolts on deecint fowk. +Pit it oot—pit it oot—an’ get it crackit!”</p> + +<p>The reply was instant:</p> + +<p>“Gang awa’, gang awa’—ha, ha, ha!”</p> + +<p>Had Lang Tammas been a creation of +Lever, he would at this point have removed +his coat and his hat and thrown them +down violently to earth, and then have +whacked the walk three times with the +stout stick he carried in his right hand, as +a preliminary to the challenge which followed. +But Tammas was not Irish, and +therefore not impulsive. He was Scotch—as +Scotch as ever was. Wherefore he removed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +his hat, and, after dusting it carefully, +hung it up on a convenient hook; +took off his coat and folded it neatly; +picked up his “faithfu’ steck,” and observed:</p> + +<p>“I hae naething to do that’s of eemportance. +Drumsheugh can wait, an’ sae can +ee. Pit it oot, pit it oot! Here I am, +an’ here I stay until ye pit it oot to be +crackit.”</p> + +<p>“Gang awa’, gang awa’—ha, ha, ha!” +came the reply.</p> + +<p>Lang Tammas turned on the instant to +the sources of the sound. He fixed his +eyes sternly on the very window whence +he thought the words had issued.</p> + +<p>“Number twanty-three, saxth floor,” +he muttered to himself. “I will call, and +then we shall see what we <i>shall</i> see; and +if what we see gets off wi’oot a thorough +‘hootin’,’ then I dinna ken me beezniss.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 479px;"> +<img src="images/gs32.jpg" width="479" height="572" alt="A SWEET-FACED NURSE APPEARED" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">“A SWEET-FACED NURSE APPEARED”</span> +</div> + +<p>Hastily discarding his outward wrath, +and assuming such portions of his garments +as went with his society manner, +Tammas walked into the lobby of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +apartment-house in which his assumed insulter +lived. He pushed the electric button +in, and shortly a sweet-faced nurse +appeared.</p> + +<p>“Who are you?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Me,” said Lang Tammas, somewhat +abashed. “I’ve called too see the head o’ +the hoose.”</p> + +<p>“I am sorry,” said the trained nurse, +bursting into tears, “but the head of the +house is at the point of death, sir, and cannot +see you until to-morrow. Call around +about ten o’clock.”</p> + +<p>“Hoots an’ toots!” sighed Lang Tammas. +“Canna we Scuts have e’er a story +wi’oot somebody leein’ at the point o’ +death! It’s most affectin’, but doonricht +wearin’ on the constitootion.”</p> + +<p>“Was there anything you wished to say +to him?” asked the nurse.</p> + +<p>“Oh, aye!” returned Lang Tammas. +“I dinna ken hoo to deny that I hed that +to say to him, an’ to do to him as weel. +I’m a vairy truthfu’ mon, young lady, an’ +if ye must be told, I’ve called to wring his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +garry neck for dereesively gee’in an unoffending +veesitor frae Thrums by yelling +deealect at him frae the hoose-tops.”</p> + +<p>“Are you sure it was here?” asked the +nurse, anxiously, the old gentleman seemed +so deeply in earnest.</p> + +<p>“Sure? Oh, aye—pairfectly,” replied +Lang Tammas; but even as he spoke, the +falsity of his impression was proved by the +same strident voice that had so offended +before, coming from the other side of the +street:</p> + +<p>“What a crittur ye are, ye cow! What +a crittur ye are!”</p> + +<p>“Soonds are hard to place, ma’am,” said +Lang Tammas, jerking about as if he had +been shot. It was a very hard position for +the old man, for, with the immediate need +for an apology to the nurse, there rushed +over him an overwhelming wave of anger. +Hitherto it was merely a suspicion that he +was being made sport of that had irritated +him, but this last outburst—“What a crittur +ye are, ye cow!”—was convincing evidence +that it was to him that the insults<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +were addressed; for in Thrums it is history +that Hendry and T’nowhead and +Jim McTaggart frequently greeted Lang +Tammas’s jokes with “Oh, ye cow!” and +“What a crittur ye are!” But the old +man was equal to the emergency, and fixing +one eye upon the house opposite and +the other upon the sweet-faced nurse, he +darted glances that should kill at his persecutor, +and at the same time apologized +for disturbing the nurse. The latter he +did gracefully.</p> + +<p>“Ye look aweary, ma’am,” he said. +“An’ if the head o’ the hoose maun dee, +may he dee immejiately, that ye may rest +soon.”</p> + +<p>And with this, pulling his hat down +over his forehead viciously, he turned and +sped swiftly across the way. The nurse +gazed anxiously after him, and in her secret +soul wondered if she would not better +send for Jamie McQueen, the town constable. +Poor Tammas’s eye was really so +glaring, and his whole manner so manifestly +that of a man exasperated to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> +verge of madness, that she considered +him somewhat in the light of a menace +to the public safety. She was not at all +reassured, either, when Tammas, having +reached the other side of the street, began +gesticulating wildly, shaking his “faithfu’ +steck” at the façade of the confronting +flat-house. But an immediate realization +of the condition of the sick man +above led her to forego the attempt to +protect the public safety, and closing the +door softly to, she climbed the weary +stairs to the sixth floor, and soon forgot +the disturbing trial of the morning in +reading to her patient certain inspiring +chapters from the Badminton edition of +<i>Haggert’s Chase of Heretics</i>, relieved with +the lighter <i>Rules of Golf; or, Auld Putt +Idylls</i>, by the Rev. Ian McCrockett, one +of the most exquisitely confusing humorous +works ever published in the Highlands.</p> + +<p>Lang Tammas meanwhile was addressing +an invisible somebody in the building +over the way, and in no uncertain tones.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p> + +<p>“If I were not a geentlemon and a humorist,” +he said, impressively, agitating +his stick nervously at the building front, +“I could say much that nae Scut may say. +But were I nae Scut, I’d say this to ye: +‘Ye have all the eelements of a confairmed +heeritic. Ye’ve nae sense of deecint fun. +Ye’re not a man for a’ that, as most men +air—ye’re an ass, plain and simple, wi’ +naether the plainness nor the simpleecity +o’ the individual that Balaam rode. +Further—more—’”</p> + +<p>What Lang Tammas would have said +furthermore had he not been a Scot the +world will never know, for from the other +side of the street—farther along, however—came +the squawking voice again:</p> + +<p>“Gang awa’, gang awa’, ye crittur, ye +cow! Hoot mon—hoot mon—hoot mon! +Gang awa’, gang awa’!” And this was +followed by a raucous cry, which might +or might not have been Scottish, but +which was, in any event, distinctly maddening. +And even as the previous insults +had electrified poor Tammas, so this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +last petrified him, and he stood for an appreciable +length of time absolutely transfixed. +His mind was a curious study. +His coming had been prompted entirely +by the genial spirit which throbbed beneath +his stony Scottish exterior. For a +long time he had been a resident of the +most conspicuous Scotch town in all literature, +and he was himself its accepted +humorist. Then on a sudden Thrums +had a rival. Drumtochty sprang forth, +and in the matter of pathos, if not humor, +ran Thrums hard; and Lang Tammas, +attracted to Drumsheugh, had come this +distance merely to pay his respects, and +to see what manner of man the real +Drumsheugh was.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs33.jpg" width="500" height="390" alt="TAMMAS MEETS DRUMSHAUGH" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">TAMMAS MEETS DRUMSHAUGH</span> +</div> + +<p>And this was his reception! To be +laughed at—he, a Scotch humorist! Had +any one ever laughed at a Scotch humorist +before? Never. Was not the test of humor +in Scotland the failure to laugh of +the hearer of the jest? Would Scotch +humor ever prove great if not taken seriously? +Oh, aye! Hendry never laughed +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> +at his jokes, and Hendry knew a joke when +he saw one. McTaggart never smiled at +Lang Tammas; and as for the little Minister—he +knew what was due to the humorist +of Thrums, as well as to himself, and +enjoyed the exquisite humor of Tammas +with a reserve well qualified to please the +Presbytery and the Congregation.</p> + +<p>How long Lang Tammas would have +stood petrified no man may say; but just +then who should come along but the person +he had come to call upon—Drumsheugh +himself.</p> + +<p>“<i>Knox et præterea nihil!</i>” he +exclaimed. “What in Glasgie hae we +here?”</p> + +<p>Lang Tammas turned upon him.</p> + +<p>“Ye hae nowt in Glasgie here,” he said, +sternly. “Ye hae a vairy muckle pit-oot +veesitor, wha hae coom on an airand o’ +good-will to be gret wi’ eensoolts.”</p> + +<p>“Eensoolts?” retorted Drumsheugh. +“Eensoolts, ye say? An’ wha hae bin +eensooltin’ ye?”</p> + +<p>“That I know nowt of, save that he be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> +a doonricht foo’ a-heepin’ his deealect +upon me head,” said Lang Tammas.</p> + +<p>“And wha are ye to be so seensitive o’ +deealect?” demanded Drumsheugh.</p> + +<p>“My name is Lang Tammas—”</p> + +<p>“O’ Thrums?” cried Drumsheugh.</p> + +<p>“Nane ither,” said Tammas.</p> + +<p>Drumsheugh burst into an uproarious +fit of laughter.</p> + +<p>“The humorist?” he cried, catching +his sides.</p> + +<p>“Nane ither,” said Tammas, gravely. +“And wha are ye?”</p> + +<p>“Me? Oh, I’m—Drumsheugh o’ Drumtochty,” +he replied. “Come along hame +wi’ me. I’ll gie ye that to make the eensoolt +seem a compliment.”</p> + +<p>And the two old men walked off together.</p> + +<p>An hour later, on their way to the kirk, +Drumsheugh observed that after the service +was over he would go with Lang +Tammas and seek out the man who had +insulted him and “gie” him a drubbing, +which invitation Tammas was nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> +loath to accept. Reverently the two new-made +friends walked into the kirk and +sat themselves down on the side aisle. A +hymn was sung, and the minister was +about to read from the book, when the +silence of the church was broken by a +shrill voice:</p> + +<p>“Hoot mon! Hoot mon!”</p> + +<p>Tammas clutched his stick. The voice +was the same, and here it had penetrated +the sacred precincts of the church! Nowhere +was he safe from insult. Drumsheugh +looked up, startled, and the voice +began again:</p> + +<p>“Gang awa’ a-that, a-that, a-that—gang +awa’! Oh, ye crittur! oh, ye cow!”</p> + +<p>And then a titter ran through that +solemn crowd; for, despite the gravity of +the situation, even John Knox himself +must have smiled. A great green parrot +had flown in at one of the windows, and +had perched himself on the pulpit, where, +with front undismayed, he addressed the +minister:</p> + +<p>“Gang awa’, gang awa’!” he cried, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> +preened himself. “Hoot mon, gang +awa’!”</p> + +<p>“<i>Knox nobiscum!</i>” ejaculated Drumsheugh. +“It’s Moggie McPiggert’s pairrut,” +and he chuckled; and then, as Lang +Tammas realized the situation, even he +smiled broadly. He had been insulted by +a parrot only, and the knowledge of it +made him feel better.</p> + +<p>The bird was removed and the service +proceeded; and later, when it was over, +as the two old fellows walked back to +Drumsheugh’s house in the gathering +shades of the night, Lang Tammas said:</p> + +<p>“I acquet Drumtochty o’ its eensoolts, +Drumsheugh, but I’ve lairnt a lesson this +day.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” asked Drumsheugh.</p> + +<p>“When pairruts speak Scutch deealect, +it’s time we Scuts gae it oop,” said Tammas.</p> + +<p>“I think so mysel’,” agreed Drumsheugh. +“But hoo express our thochts?”</p> + +<p>“I dinna ken for ye,” said Lang Tammas, +“but for me, mee speakee heathen +Chinee this timee on.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Vairy weel,” returned Drumsheugh. +“Vairy weel; I dinna ken heathen Chinee, +but I hae some acqueentance wi’ the tongue +o’ sairtain Amairicans, and that I’ll speak +from this day on—it’s vairy weel called +the Bowery eediom, and is a judeecious +mixture o’ English, Irish, and Volapeck.”</p> + +<p>And from that time on Lang Tammas +and Drumsheugh spoke never another +word of Scotch dialect; and while Tammas +never quite mastered pidgin-English, +or Drumsheugh the tongue of Fadden, +they lived happily ever after, which in a +way proves that, after all, the parrot is a +useful as well as an ornamental bird.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p> +<h2>XII</h2> + +<h3>CONCLUSION—LIKEWISE MR. BILLY +JONES</h3> + + +<p>The cheers which followed the narration +of the curious resolve of Lang Tammas +and Drumsheugh were vociferous, +and Berkeley Hights sat down with a +flush of pleasure on his face. He construed +these as directed towards himself +and his contribution to the diversion of +the evening. It never entered into his +mind that the applause involved a bit of +subtle appreciation of the kindness of +Tammas and of Drumsheugh to the reading +public in thus declining to give them +more of something of which they had +already had enough.</p> + +<p>When the cheers had subsided Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> +Jones rose from his chair and congratulated +the club upon its exhibit.</p> + +<p>“Even if you have but faintly re-echoed +the weaknesses of the strong,” he said, +“you have done well, and I congratulate +you. It is not every man in your walk in +life who can write as grammatically as you +have dreamed. I have failed to detect in +any one of the stories or poems thus far +read a single grammatical error, and I +have no doubt that the manuscripts that +you have read from are gratifyingly free +from mistakes in spelling as well, so that, +from a newspaper man’s stand-point, I see +no reason why you should not get these +proceedings published, especially if you +do it at your own expense.</p> + +<p>“I now declare The Dreamers adjourned +<i>sine die</i>!”</p> + +<p>“Not much!” cried the members, unanimously. +“Where’s your contribution?”</p> + +<p>“Out with it, William!” shouted Tom +Snobbe. “I can tell by the set of your +coat that you’ve got a manuscript concealed in +your pocket.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p> + +<p>“There’s nothing ruins the set of a +coat more quickly than a rejected manuscript +in the pocket,” put in Hudson Rivers. +“I’ve been there myself—so, as +Lang Tammas said, Billy, ‘Pit it oot, and +get it crackit.’”</p> + +<p>“Well,” Jones replied, with a pleased +smile, “to tell you the truth, gentlemen, +I had come prepared in case I was called +upon; but the hour is late,” he added, +after the manner of one who, though willing, +enjoyed being persuaded. “Perhaps +we had better postpone—”</p> + +<p>“Out with it, old man. It is late, but +it will be later still if you don’t hurry up +and begin,” said Tenafly Paterson.</p> + +<p>“Very well, then, here goes,” said Jones. +“Mine is a ghost-story, gentlemen, and it +is called ‘The Involvular Club; or, The +Return of the Screw.’ It is, like the rest +of the work this evening, imitative, after a +fashion, but I think it will prove effective.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 464px;"> +<img src="images/gs34.jpg" width="464" height="518" alt="MR. JONES BEGINS" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">MR. JONES BEGINS</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> +</p> + + +<p>Mr. Jones hereupon took the manuscript +from his bulging pocket and read +as follows:</p> + +<h4>THE INVOLVULAR CLUB; OR, THE RETURN +OF THE SCREW</h4> + +<p>The story had taken hold upon us as we +sat round the blazing hearth of Lord Ormont’s +smoking-room, at Castle Aminta, +and sufficiently interfered with our comfort, +as indeed from various points of +view, not to specify any one of the many, +for they were, after all, in spite of their +diversity, of equal value judged by any +standard, not even excepting the highest, +that of Vereker’s disturbing narrative of +the uncanny visitor to his chambers, which +the reader may recall—indeed, must recall +if he ever read it, since it was the +most remarkable ghost-story of the year—a +year in which many ghost-stories of +wonderful merit, too, were written—and +by which his reputation was made—or +rather extended, for there were a certain +few of us, including Feverel and Vanderbank +and myself, who had for many years +known him as a constant—almost too constant, +some of us ventured, tentatively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +perhaps, but not the less convincedly, to +say—producer of work of a very high +order of excellence, rivalling in some of +its more conspicuous elements, as well as +in its minor, to lay no stress upon his +subtleties, which were marked, though at +times indiscreetly inevident even to the +keenly analytical, hinging as these did +more often than not upon abstractions +born only of a circumscribed environment—circumscribed, +of course, in the larger +sense which means the narrowing of a circle +of appreciation down to the select few +constituting its essence—the productions +of the greatest masters of fictional style +the world has known, or is likely, in view +of present tendencies towards miscalled +romance, which consists solely of depicting +scenes in which bloodshed and murder +are rife, soon to know again—it was +proper it should, in a company chosen as +ours had been from among the members +of The Involvular Club, with Adrian Feverel +at its head, Vereker as its vice-president, +and Lord Ormont, myself, and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> +number of ladies, including Diana of the +Crossways, and little Maisie—for the child +was one of our cares, her estate was so +pitiable a one—Rhoda Fleming, Daisy +Miller, and Princess Cassimassima, one +and all, as the reader must be aware, personages—if +I may thus refer to a group +of appreciation which included myself—who +knew a good thing when they saw it, +which, it may as well be confessed at +once, we rarely did in the raucous fields +of fiction outside of, though possibly at +times moderately contiguous to, our own +territory, although it should be said that +Miss Miller occasionally manifested a +lamentable lack of regard for the objects +for which The Involvular was formed, by +showing herself, in her semi-American +way, regrettably direct of speech and given +over not infrequently to an unhappy +use of slang, which we all, save Maisie, +who was young, and, in spite of all she +knew, not quite so knowledgeable a young +person as some superficial observers have +chosen to believe, sincerely deprecated,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +and on occasion when it might be done +tactfully, endeavored to mitigate by a reproving +glance, or by a still deeper plunge +into nebulous rhetoric, as a sort of palliation +to the Muse of Obscurity, which in +our hearts we felt that good goddess +would accept, strove to offset.</p> + +<p>[“Excuse me,” said Mr. Tom Snobbe, +rising and interrupting the reader at this +point, “but is that all one sentence, Mr. +Jones?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Jones replied. “Why not? It’s +perfectly clear in its meaning. Aren’t you +used to long sentences on the Hudson?” +he added, sarcastically.</p> + +<p>“No,” retorted Snobbe; “that is to +say, not where I live. I believe they have +’em at Sing Sing occasionally. But they +never get used to them, I’m told.”</p> + +<p>“Be quiet, Tom,” said Harry Snobbe. +“It’s bad form to interrupt. Let Billy +finish his story.” Mr. Jones then resumed +his manuscript.]</p> + +<p>A perceptible shudder ran through, or +rather rolled over, the group, for it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +corrugating in its quality, bringing forcibly +to mind, quite as much for its chill, +too, as for the wrinkling suggestion of its +passage up and down our backs, turned as +some of these were towards the fire, and +others towards the steam-radiator, which +now and again clicked startlingly in the +dull red glow of the hearth light, augmenting +the all too obvious nervousness +of the listeners, the impassive and uninspiring +squares of iron of which certain +modern architects of a limited decorative +sense—if, indeed, they have any at all, for +the mere use of corrugated iron in the +construction of a façade would seem not +to admit of an æsthetic side to its designer’s +nature, however ornately distributed +over the surface of an exterior it may +be—have chosen to avail themselves, +prompted either by an appalling parsimony +on the part of a client, or for +reasons of haste employed for the lack +of more immediately available material, it +being an undeniable fact that in some +portions of the world stucco and terracotta,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> +now frequently used in lieu of more +substantial, if not more enduring materials, +are difficult of access, and the use +of a speedily obtainable substitute becoming +thus a requirement as inevitable as it +is to be regretted, as in the case of the +fruit-market at Venice, standing as it does +on the bank of the Grand Canal, a pile of +stark, staring, obtrusive, wrinkling zinc +thrusting itself brazenly into the line of a +vision attuned to the most gloriously towering +palazzos, as rich in beauty as in +romance, with such self-sufficiency as to +bring tears to the eyes of the most stolidly +unappreciative, of the most coldly unæsthetic, +or, in short, as some one has chosen +to say, in an essay the title of which and +the name of whose author escape us at +this moment, with such complacent vulgarity +as to amount to nothing less than a +dastardly blot upon the escutcheon of +the Venetians, which all of their glorious +achievements in art, in history, and in +letters can never quite ineradically efface, +and alongside of which the whistling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +steam-tugs with their belching funnels, +which are by slow degrees supplanting +the romantic gondolier with his picturesque +costume and his tender songs of +sunny climes in the cab service of the +Bride of the Adriatic, seem quite excusable, +or, in any event, not so unforgivable +as to constitute what the Americans would +call an infernal shame.</p> + +<p>[At this point the reader was interrupted +again.</p> + +<p>“Hold on a minute, Billy—will you, +please?” said Tenafly Paterson. “Let’s +get this story straight. As I understand +the first sentence somebody told a ghost-story, +didn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied Jones, a trifle annoyed.</p> + +<p>“And the second sentence means that +those who heard it felt creepy?”</p> + +<p>“Precisely.”</p> + +<p>“Then why the deuce couldn’t you +have said, ‘When So-and-So had finished, +the company shuddered’?”</p> + +<p>“Because,” replied Jones, “I am reading +a story which is constructed after the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> +manner of a certain school. I’m not reading +a postal-card or a cable message.”</p> + +<p>The reader then resumed.]</p> + +<p>Miss Miller, to relieve the strain upon +the nerves of those present, which was +becoming unbearably tense—and, in fact, +poor Maisie had burst into tears with the +sheer terror of the climax, and had been +taken off to be put to bed by Mrs. Brookenham, +who, in spite of many other qualities, +was still a womanly woman at heart, +and not wholly deficient in those little +tendernesses, those trifling but ineffable +softnesses of nature, which are at once the +chief source of woman’s strength and of +her weakness, a fact she was constantly +manifesting to us during our stay at Lord +Ormont’s, and which we all remarked and +in some cases commented upon, since the +discovery had in it some of the qualities +of a revelation—began to sing one of those +extraordinary popular songs that one hears +at the music-halls in London, and in the +politer and more refined circles of American +society, if indeed there may be said to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> +be such a thing in a land so new as to be +as yet mostly veneer, with little that is +solid in its social substructure, beginning +as its constituent factors do at the top +and working downward, rather than choosing +the more natural course of beginning +at the bottom and working upward, and +which must materially, one may think, +affect the social solidarity of the nation +by retarding its growth and in otherwise +interfering with its healthy, not to say +normal development, and which, as the +words and import of it come back to me, +was known by the rather vulgar and +vernacular title of “All Coons Look Alike +to Me,” thus indicating that the life treated +of in the melody, which was not altogether +unmusical, and was indeed as a matter of +fact quite fetching in its quality, running +in one’s ears for days and nights long +after its first hearing, was that of the +negro, and his personal likeness to his +other black brethren in the eyes even of +one who was supposed to have been at +one time, prior to the action of the song<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> +if not coincidently with it, the object of his +affections.</p> + +<p>[Had Jones not been wholly absorbed +in the reading of this wonderful story, he +might at this moment have heard a slight +but unmistakable rumbling sound, and +have looked up and seen much that +would have interested him. But, as this +kind of a story requires for its complete +comprehension a complete concentration +of mind, he did not hear, and so, continuing, +did not see.]</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs35.jpg" width="500" height="348" alt="HE DID NOT SEE" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">HE DID NOT SEE</span> +</div> + +<p>Diana was the first to mitigate the +silence with comment [he read] a silence +whose depth had only been rendered the +more depressing by Miss Miller’s uncalled-for +intrusion upon our mood of something +that smacked of a society towards which +most of us, in so far as we were able to do +so, had always cultivated a strenuous aloofness, +prompted not by any whelmful sense +of our own perfection, latent or obvious, +but rather by a realization on our part +that it lacked the essentials that could +make of it an interesting part of the lives +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> +of a group given over wholly, or at least +as nearly wholly as the exiguities of existence +would permit of a persistent and +continuous devotion, to the contemplation +of the beautiful in art, letters, or any +other phase of human endeavor.</p> + +<p>“And did his soul never thaw?” Diana +asked.</p> + +<p>“Never,” replied Vanderbank, “It is +frozen yet.”</p> + +<hr style='width:30%' /> + +<p>Here the rumbling sound grew to such +volume that, absorbed as he was in his +reading, Jones could no longer fail to hear +it. Lowering his manuscript, he looked +sternly upon the company. The rumbling +sound was a chorus, not unmusical, +of snores.</p> + +<p><i>The Dreamers slept.</i></p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll be hanged!” cried Jones, angrily, +and then he walked over and looked +behind the screen where the stenographer +was seated. “I’ll finish it if it takes all +night,” he muttered. “Just take this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> +down,” he added to the stenographer; +but that worthy never stirred or made +reply. <i>He too was sleeping.</i></p> + +<p>Jones muttered angrily to himself.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” he said. “I’ll read it to +myself, then,” and he began again. For +ten minutes he continued, and then on a +sudden his voice faltered; his head fell +forward upon his chest, his knees collapsed +beneath him, and he slid inert, and snoring +himself, into his chair. The MS. +fluttered to the floor, and an hour later +the waiters entering the room found the +club unanimously engaged in dreaming +once more.</p> + +<p>The Involvular Club was too much for +them, even for the author of it, but +whether this was because of the lateness +of the hour or because of the intricacies +of the author’s style I have never been +able to ascertain, for Mr. Jones is very +sore on the point, and therefore reticent, +and as for the others, I cannot find that +any of them remember enough about it to +be able to speak intelligently on the subject.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 366px;"> +<img src="images/gs36.jpg" width="366" height="492" alt="THE STENOGRAPHER SLEPT" title="" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p> +<span class="caption">THE STENOGRAPHER SLEPT</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p> + +<p>All I do know is what the landlord tells +me, and that is that at 5 <small>A.M.</small> thirteen +cabs containing thirteen sleeping souls +pursued their thirteen devious ways to +thirteen different houses, thus indicating +that the Dreamers were ultimately adjourned, +and, as they have not met since, +I presume the adjournment was, as usual, +<i>sine die</i>.</p> + + +<h4>THE END</h4> + +<hr style='width:100%' /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> +<h3><span class="smcap">By</span> A. CONAN DOYLE</h3> + + +<p class="center"><b>THE REFUGEES.</b> A Tale of Two Continents.<br /> +Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.75.<br /> +<br /> +<b>THE WHITE COMPANY.</b><br /> +Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.75.<br /> +<br /> +<b>MICAH CLARKE.</b><br /> +Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.75; 8vo, Paper, 45 cents.<br /> +<br /> +<b>THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.</b><br /> +Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Contents</span>: A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-headed +League, A Case of Identity, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, +The Five Orange Pips, The Man with the Twisted +Lip, The Blue Carbuncle, The Speckled Band, The Engineer’s +Thumb, The Noble Bachelor, The Beryl Coronet, +The Copper Beeches.</p></div> + +<p class="center"><b>MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.</b><br /> +Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Contents</span>: Silver Blaze, The Yellow Face, The Stock-Broker’s +Clerk, The “Gloria Scott,” The Musgrave Ritual, +The Reigate Puzzle, The Crooked Man, The Resident +Patient, The Greek Interpreter, The Navy Treaty, The +Final Problem.</p></div> + +<p class="center"><b>THE PARASITE.</b> A Story.<br /> +Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00.<br /> +<br /> +<b>THE GREAT SHADOW.</b><br /> +Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00.<br /> +</p> + +<h4>HARPER & BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">Publishers</span><br /> +NEW YORK AND LONDON</h4> + +<p class="center"><i>Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage<br /> +prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or<br /> +Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i></p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> +<h3><span class="smcap">By</span> FRANK R. STOCKTON</h3> + + +<p class="center"><b>THE ASSOCIATE HERMITS.</b> A Novel.<br /> +Illustrated by A. B. Frost. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If there is a more droll or more delightful writer now +living than Mr. Frank R. Stockton we should be slow to +make his acquaintance, on the ground that the limit of +safety might be passed.... Mr. Stockton’s humor asserts +itself admirably, and the story is altogether enjoyable.—<i>Independent.</i></p> + +<p>The interest never flags, and there is nothing intermittent +about the sparkling humor.—<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p> +</div> + +<p class="center"><b>THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS.</b> A Novel.<br /> +Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Peter Newell</span>. Post 8vo, Cloth, +Ornamental, $1.50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The scene of Mr. Stockton’s novel is laid in the twentieth +century, which is imagined as the culmination of +our era of science and invention. The main episodes are +a journey to the centre of the earth by means of a pit +bored by an automatic cartridge, and a journey to the +North Pole beneath the ice of the Polar Seas. These +adventures Mr. Stockton describes with such simplicity +and conviction that the reader is apt to take the story in +all seriousness until he suddenly runs into some gigantic +pleasantry of the kind that was unknown before Mr. +Stockton began writing, and realizes that the novel is a +grave and elaborate bit of fooling, based upon the scientific +fads of the day. The book is richly illustrated by +Peter Newell, the one artist of modern times who is +suited to interpret Mr. Stockton’s characters and situations.</p></div> + + +<h4>HARPER & BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">Publishers</span><br /> +NEW YORK AND LONDON</h4> + +<p class="center"><i>Either of the above works will be sent by mail, postage<br /> +prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or<br /> +Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width:100%' /> + +<h3>** Transcribers Notes **</h3> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The following printing mistakes have been corrected:</p> + +<p> + Page 116 - typo - question mark removed, comma substituted +<br /> + Page 121 - typo - period replaced by comma +<br /> + Pages 154, 180 - typo - spurious double quote removed +</p> + +<p>Also illustrations have been moved to adjust within paragraph breaks.</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dreamers, by John Kendrick Bangs + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMERS *** + +***** This file should be named 35374-h.htm or 35374-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/7/35374/ + +Produced by Steve Read, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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