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diff --git a/35374.txt b/35374.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..179aa2e --- /dev/null +++ b/35374.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4194 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** 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 + + + + + + + + + + [Illustration: Cronkey Gudehart + [Page 103 + THE FIRST GLOOMSTER] + + + + + THE DREAMERS + A Club. _Being a More or Less Faithful + Account of the Literary Exercises + of the First Regular Meeting + of that Organization, Reported by_ + JOHN KENDRICK BANGS + _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_ + _By_ EDWARD PENFIELD + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK AND LONDON + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + 1899 + + + + + BY THE SAME AUTHOR. + + PEEPS AT PEOPLE. Passages from the Writings of Anne Warrington + Witherup, Journalist. Illustrated by EDWARD PENFIELD. 16mo, Cloth, + Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Colored Top, $1.25. + + GHOSTS I HAVE MET, AND SOME OTHERS. With Illustrations by NEWELL, + FROST, and RICHARDS. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25. + + A HOUSE-BOAT ON THE STYX. Being Some Account of the Divers Doings + of the Associated Shades. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. 16mo, Cloth, + Ornamental, $1.25. + + THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT. Being Some Further Account of the + Doings of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of Sherlock + Holmes, Esq. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, + $1.25. + + PASTE JEWELS. Being Seven Tales of Domestic Woe. 16mo, Cloth, + Ornamental $1.00. + + THE BICYCLERS, AND THREE OTHER FARCES. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, + Ornamental, $1.25. + + A REBELLIOUS HEROINE. A Story. Illustrated by W. T. SMEDLEY. 16mo, + Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges, $1.25. + + MR. BONAPARTE OF CORSICA. Illustrated by H. W. MCVICKAR. 16mo, + Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25. + + THE WATER GHOST, AND OTHERS. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, + $1.25. + + THE IDIOT. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00. + + THREE WEEKS IN POLITICS. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 + cents. + + COFFEE AND REPARTEE. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 + cents. + + NEW YORK AND LONDON: + HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. + + + Copyright, 1899, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + _All rights reserved._ + + + + + Dedicated + WITH ALL + DUE RESPECT AND PROPER APOLOGIES + + TO + + RICHARD HARDING DAVIS + JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS + RUDYARD KIPLING + HALL CAINE + SUNDRY MAGAZINE POETS + ANTHONY HOPE + THE WAR CORRESPONDENTS + A. CONAN DOYLE + IAN MACLAREN + JAMES M. BARRIE + THE INVOLVULAR CLUB + AND + MR. DOOLEY + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. THE IDEA 1 + II. IN WHICH THOMAS SNOBBE, ESQ., OF YONKERS, UNFOLDS A TALE 21 + III. IN WHICH A MINCE-PIE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A REMARKABLE + COINCIDENCE 44 + IV. BEING THE CONTRIBUTION OF MR. BEDFORD PARKE 59 + V. THE SALVATION OF FINDLAYSON 80 + VI. IN WHICH HARRY SNOBBE RECITES A TALE OF GLOOM 102 + VII. THE DREAMERS DISCUSS A MAGAZINE POEM 123 + VIII. DOLLY VISITS CHICAGO 142 + IX. IN WHICH YELLOW JOURNALISM CREEPS IN 163 + X. THE MYSTERY OF PINKHAM'S DIAMOND STUD 185 + XI. LANG TAMMAS AND DRUMSHEUGH SWEAR OFF 207 + XII. CONCLUSION--LIKEWISE MR. BILLY JONES 228 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + THE FIRST GLOOMSTER _Frontispiece_ + DISCUSSING THE IDEA 3 + AND SO TO DREAM 17 + THE DREAMERS DINE 25 + "'REMEMBER TO BE BRAVE'" 35 + "'ELEANOR HUYLER HAS DISAPPEARED'" 39 + "WRIT A POME ABOUT A KID" 47 + "I BOUGHT A BOOK OF VERSE" 51 + "IT FILLED ME WITH DISMAY" 55 + "'COME IN'" 61 + MARY 65 + EDWARDS REBELS 71 + THE VICEROY EXAMINES HIS RUINED SMILE 85 + THEY GAVE HIM _PUNCH_ 89 + THE DONKEY ENGINE CALLS ON FINDLAYSON 93 + THE END OF THE GLOOMSTER 109 + WISHED HER A HAPPY NEW-YEAR 117 + "'O ARGENT-BROWED SARCOPHAGUS'" 125 + "_SARCOPHAGUSTUS_" 131 + MR. BILLY JONES 137 + "'I MUST SEE HIM,' SAID DOLLY" 145 + "'KAPE YOUR HOOSBAND HOME'" 155 + MIXING ILLUSTRATIONS 159 + THE SHIP'S BARBER AT WORK 167 + A CLEVER CAROM 177 + SINKING THE _CASTILLA_ 181 + THE LAMP-POSTS WERE TWISTED 191 + HOLMES IN DISGUISE INTERVIEWS WATTLES 199 + "'YOU DID TOO!' SAID POLLY" 203 + "'HOOT MON!'" 209 + "A SWEET-FACED NURSE APPEARED" 213 + TAMMAS MEETS DRUMSHEUGH 221 + MR. JONES BEGINS 231 + HE DID NOT SEE 243 + THE STENOGRAPHER SLEPT 247 + + + + +[Illustration: The Dreamers: A Club] + + + + +THE DREAMERS: A CLUB + + + + +I + +THE IDEA + + +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. + +"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." + +"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--" + +"I see," said Dobbsy. "Come along." + +[Illustration: DISCUSSING THE IDEA] + +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 small poets particularly was +it in vogue, and Dobbs--who, by-the-way, had written some very dainty +French poems to the various _fiancees_ 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. + +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 _Weekly Oracle_, were to form themselves +into an 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 _Weekly Oracle_, 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 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. + +"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?" + +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 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. + +"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 good enough to publish until it got +into print!" + +"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." + +"I haven't a doubt of it," returned Billy Jones of the _Oracle_, dryly. +"Why, Snobbey, my boy, I believe if you had written the plays of +Shakespeare they'd have been forgotten ages ago!" + +"So do I," returned Snobbe, innocently. "This is a queer world." + +"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 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." + +"But, my dear Parke," said Billy Jones of the _Oracle_, 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." + +"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." + +"Thanks," answered Billy, gratefully. "I shall be charmed." + +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. + +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." + +"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." + +"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 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 elite 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." + +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 +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 puree, +for instance, in which the cheese should have the consistency of +pea-soup rather than of leather; such as Welsh-rabbit pate, 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. + +[Illustration: AND SO TO DREAM] + +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 +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. + +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. + +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 +notes, coupled with additional information of an interesting kind +furnished me by my friend William Jones, Esq., Third Assistant Exchange +Editor of _The Weekly Oracle, a Journal of To-day, Yesterday, and +To-morrow_. + + + + +II + +IN WHICH THOMAS SNOBBE, ESQ., OF YONKERS, UNFOLDS A TALE + + +The second dinner of the Dreamers had been served, all but the coffee, +when Mr. Billy Jones, of the _Oracle_, rapped upon the table with a +dessert-spoon and called the members to order. + +"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 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--" + +"Is this a continued story Billy is giving us?" observed Tenafly +Paterson. + +"No," replied Bedford Parke, with a laugh; "it is only a life sentence." + +"Get him to commute it!" ejaculated Hudson Rivers. + +"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 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." + +When the applause which greeted these remarks had subsided, Mr. Jones +resumed: + +"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." + +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, 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 + + VAN SQUIBBER'S FAILURE + +[Illustration: THE DREAMERS DINE] + +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 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." + +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 +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. + +"He's not half bad," said Van Squibber, as he cracked the egg. + +"It's wintry," said Van Squibber's man on the morning of the 5th of +October. + +"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?" + +"University settlement at eleven, luncheon at the Actors' at one, drive +with the cynical Miss Netherwood at three, five-o'clock tea at four--" + +"What?" cried Van Squibber, sharply. + +"At fuf--five, I should say, sir," stammered the embarrassed man. + +"Thought so," said Van Squibber. "Proceed, and be more careful. The very +idea of five-o'clock tea at four is shocking." + +"Dinner with the Austrian ambassador at eight, opera at eleven--" + +"In October? Opera?" cried Van Squibber. + +"Comic," said the man. "It is Flopper's last night, sir, and you are to +ring down the curtain." + +"True," said Van Squibber, meditatively--"true; I'd forgotten. And +then?" + +"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 _Sunday +Whirald_." + +"What bank is it to be?" + +"The Seventeenth National." + +"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 don't care for any +breakfast this morning. And, by-the-way, I feel a little chilly. Take a +quinine pill for me." + +"Your egg is ready, sir," said the man, tremulously. + +"Eat it," said Van Squibber, tersely, "and deduct the Cafe 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?" + +The man departed silently, and Van Squibber turned over and went to +sleep. + +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. + +"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 by looking ahead what may happen +to you--his eyes were confronted by a more or less familiar back. + +"Dear me!" he said. "If that isn't Eleanor Huyler's back, whose back is +it, by Jove?" + +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. + +"Good-morning," he said. + +"Why, Mr. Van Squibber!" she replied, with a terrified smile. "You +here?" + +"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--" + +"Yes--I know," returned the girl, hastily. "I've heard of him. He is +your _alter ego_." + +"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." + +"It is," said Miss Huyler, looking anxiously about her. + +"And may I ask why?" asked Van Squibber, politely--for to do things +politely was Van Squibber's ambition. + +"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 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." + +"And what then?" said Van Squibber, proudly. "If I am here, what bodes +disaster?" + +"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?" + +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." + +"I do lead a dramatic life," he said, 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." + +"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." + +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. + +"Shall I leave you?" asked Van Squibber, politely. + +[Illustration: "'REMEMBER TO BE BRAVE'"] + +"Not now--oh, not now, I beg!" cried Miss Huyler. "It is too late. The +catastrophe is imminent. You should 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." + +"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." + +"Noble fellow!" thought Eleanor to herself. "If he were to ask me, I +think I might marry him." + +Meanwhile Van Squibber had investigated, and was horror-struck to find +his 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. + +"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." + +[Illustration: "'ELEANOR HUYLER HAS DISAPPEARED'"] + +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 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. + +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. + +"Egad!" he cried. "_I have failed!_ 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 what I mean by coming without +my shoes on. What a dilemma! Ah! I have it; I will go home." + +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. + +That night he met Travers at the club reading the _Evening Moon_. + +"Hello, Van!" said Travers. "Heard the news?" + +"No. What?" asked Van Squibber, languidly. + +"Eleanor Huyler has disappeared." + +"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." + +"They haven't," said Travers. "The extra's about the lion." + +"Ah! And what's happened to the lion?" cried Van Squibber, nervously. + +"He's dead. Got loose this morning early, and was found at ten o'clock +dying of indigestion. It is supposed he has devoured some man, name +unknown, for before his nose was an uneaten patent-leather pump, size +9-3/4 B, and in his throat was stuck the other, half eaten." + +"Ha!" muttered Van Squibber, turning pale. "And they don't know whose +shoes they were?" he added, in a hoarse whisper. + +"No," said Travers. "There's no clew, even." + +Van Squibber breathed a sigh of relief. + +"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, _sotto voce_, to himself, "Saved! And Eleanor is revenged. Van +Squibber may have failed, but his patent-leather pumps have conquered." + + + + +III + +IN WHICH A MINCE-PIE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE + + +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 original, even in a weak sort of +fashion, made them like it in spite of its shortcomings. + +"Good work," cried Hudson Rivers. "Of course it's only gas in comparison +with the sun, but it gives light, and we like it." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +[Illustration: "WRIT A POME ABOUT A KID"] + +"But how shall you be represented in the book?" asked Mr. Harry Snobbe. + +"He can do the table of contents," suggested St. Vincent. + +"Or the fly-leaves," said Tenafly Paterson. + +"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 _Lady or the Tiger_ took hold because Stockton +didn't insist on telling everything." + +"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." + +Mr. Rivers sat down with a smile of conscious pride, whereupon Mr. +Tenafly Paterson rose up. + +"As I hold the number three ball, I will give you the fruits of my +dinner. I 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.'" + +"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." + +"The poem reads as follows," continued Paterson, ignoring the chairman's +ill-timed remark: + +[Illustration: "I BOUGHT A BOOK OF VERSE"] + + +RETRIBUTION + + Writ a pome about a kid. + Finest one I ever did. + + Heaped it full o' sentiment-- + Very best I could invent. + + Talked about his little toys; + How he played with other boys; + + How the beasts an' birdies all + Come when little Jamie'd call. + + 'N' 'en I took that little lad, + Gave him fever, mighty bad. + + 'N' 'en it sorter pleased my whim + To have him die and bury him. + + It got printed, too, it did + That small pome about the kid, + + In a paper in the West; + Put ten dollars in my vest. + + Every pa an' ma about + Cried like mighty--cried right out. + + I jess took each grandma's heart, + Lammed and bruised it, made it smart; + + 'N' everybody said o' me, + "Finest pote we ever see," + + 'Cept one beggar, he got mad. + Got worst lickin' ever had; + + Got my head atween his fists, + Called me "Prince o' anarchists." + + Clipped me one behind my ear-- + Laid me up for 'most a year. + + "'Cause," he said, "my poetry + 'D made his wife an' mother cry; + + "'Twarn't no poet's bizness to + Make the wimmin all boo-hoo." + + 'N' 'at is why to-day, by Jings! + I don't fool with hearts an' things. + + I don't care how high the bids, + I've stopped scribblin' 'bout dead kids; + + 'R if I haven't, kinder sorter + Think 'at maybe p'r'aps I'd oughter. + +The lines were received with hearty appreciation by all save Dobbs +Ferry, who looked a trifle gloomy. + +[Illustration: "IT FILLED ME WITH DISMAY"] + +"It is a strange thing," said the latter, "but that mince-pie affected +me in precisely the same way, as you will see for yourselves when I +read my contribution, which, holding ball number four as I do, I will +proceed to give you." + +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: + + I bought a book of verse the other day, + And when I read, it filled me with dismay. + + I wanted it to take home to my wife, + To bring a bit of joy into her life; + + And I'd been told the author of those pomes + Was called the laureate of simple homes. + + But, Jove! I read, and found it full of rhyme + That kept my eyes a-filling all the time. + + One told about a pretty little miss + Whose father had denied a simple kiss, + + And as she left, unhappy, full of cares, + She fell and broke her neck upon the stairs. + + And then he wrote a lot of tearful lines + Of children who had trouble with their spines; + + And 'stead of joys, he penned so many woes + I sought him out and gave him curvature 'f the nose; + + And all the nation, witnessing his plight, + Did crown me King, and cry, "It served him right." + +"A remarkable coincidence," said Thomas Snobbe. "In fact, the +coincidence is rather more remarkable than the poetry." + +"It certainly is," said Billie Jones; "but what a wonderfully suggestive +pie, considering that it was a mince!" + +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." + + + + +IV + +BEING THE CONTRIBUTION OF MR. BEDFORD PARKE + +THE OVERCOAT + +A FARCE. IN TWO SCENES + + +SCENE FIRST + +_Time_: MORNING AT BOSTON + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "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 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?" + +_Voice_ (_without_). "Me." + +[Illustration: "'COME IN'"] + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards_ (_with a nervous shudder_). "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 her right +hand, and in her left is a jar of Royal Worcester. "Mary," Mrs. Edwards +says, severely, "where are we at?" + +_Mary_ (_meekly_). "Boston, ma'am." + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "South Boston or Boston proper?" + +_Mary._ "Boston proper, ma'am." + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "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." + +_Mary._ "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 before the +sewing-machine, and threads a needle. Then-- + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Well, Mary, what do you want?" + +_Mary._ "Please, Mrs. Edwards, the butcher is came, and he says they +have some very fine perairie-chickens to-day." + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "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?" + +_Mary._ "There's three left, ma'am, and two slices of cold roast beef." + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Then tell him to bring five more potatoes, a +steak, and--Was all the pickled salmon eaten?" + +_Mary._ "All but the can, ma'am." + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Well--Mr. Edwards is very fond of fish. +Tell him to bring two boxes of sardines and a bottle of anchovy paste." + +_Mary._ "Very well, Mrs. Edwards." + +[Illustration: MARY] + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "And--ah--Mary, tell him to bring some Brussels +sprouts for breakfast. What are you doing with that Worcester vase?" + +_Mary._ "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." + +_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "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 jardiniere, and let Nora cook the beans +in that. Times are a little too hard to cook beans in Royal Worcester." + +_Mary._ "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 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 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. + + +SCENE SECOND + +_Time_: EVENING AT BOSTON + +The scene is laid in the drawing-room of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Edwards. +Mrs. Edwards is discovered reading _Pendennis_, and seems in imminent +danger of going to sleep over it. Mr. Edwards is stretched out upon the +sofa, quite asleep, with _Ivanhoe_ lying open upon his chest. +Twenty-five minutes elapse, when the door-bell rings. + +_Mr. Edwards_ (_drowsily_). "Let me off at the next corner, conductor." + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "Why, Robert--what nonsense you are talking!" + +_Mr. Edwards_ (_rubbing his eyes and sitting up_). "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!" + +[Illustration: EDWARDS REBELS] + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "That is precisely what 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--" + +_Mr. Edwards._ "I didn't do anything of the sort." + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "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." + +_Mr. Edwards._ "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 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 _Ivanhoe_! 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?" + +_Mrs. Edwards_ (_warningly_). "Take care, Robert. Take care. You aren't +employed to think." + +_Mr. Edwards._ "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 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." + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "I'd love to, Robert--but we can't. There are no other +things in the farce. The Billises are coming." + +_Mr. Edwards._ "Hang the Billises! Can't we ever have an evening to +ourselves?" + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "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." + +_Mr. Edwards._ "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." + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "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 out without meeting them in the wings--I mean the +hallway." + +_Mr. Edwards._ "Lost!" + + _Enter_ MR. _and_ MRS. BILLIS. + +_Billis._ "Ah, Edwards! Howdy do? Knew you were home. Saw light in--" + +_Mrs. Billis._ "Don't rattle on so, my dear. Speak more slowly, or the +farce will be over before nine." + +_Billis._ "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--" + +_Mr. Edwards._ "I'm not asleep. Fact is, I am going out." + +_Mrs. Billis._ "Out?" + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "Robert!" + +_Mr. Edwards._ "That's what I said--out. _O-u-t._" + +_Billis._ "Not bad idea. Go with you. Where to?" + +_Mr. Edwards._ "Anywhere--to find a tragedy and take part in it. I'm +done farcing, my boy." + +_Billis_ (_slapping_ Edwards _on back_). "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." + +_Mrs. Billis._ "I've been afraid of this." + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "Robert, consider your family." + +_Mr. Edwards._ "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?" + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "I did. I'll go get it." + +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. + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "There's your overcoat." + +_Mr. Edwards._ "But--but the button isn't sewed on. I can't go out in +this." + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "I knew it, Robert. I sewed the button on the wrong +coat." + +Billis and Robert fall in a faint. Mrs. Billis rises and smiles, +grasping Mrs. Edwards's hand fervently. + +_Mrs. Billis._ "Noble woman!" + +_Mrs. Edwards._ "Yes; I've saved the farce." + +_Mrs. Billis._ "You have. For, in spite of these--these strikers--these +theatric Debses, you--you got in the point! _The button was sewed on the +wrong overcoat!_" + + +CURTAIN. + + * * * * * + +"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 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." + +"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." + + * * * * * + +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: + + + + +V + +THE SALVATION OF FINDLAYSON + + _Being the story told by the holder of the sixth ball, Mr. Monty + St. Vincent._ + + +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 _New York_, 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. 6-7/8, 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 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. + +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. + +Findlayson discovered all this. After his Bridge had gone safely through +that 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. + +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 _Bashi-bazouks_ earlier in the game. +He suffered a terrible strain that night." + +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. That _is_ 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?" + +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 +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 +_hiki-ree_. + +"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. + +"What is the matter with the man?" asked the Viceroy, as he drove to the +station with the practising Jinrikshaw of the place. + +[Illustration: THE VICEROY EXAMINES HIS RUINED SMILE] + +"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 only get him to laugh, I think he'd recover." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. _Punch_ 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. 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 role +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. + +"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 _New York_. + +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. + +[Illustration: THEY GAVE HIM _PUNCH_] + +"They'll be sewin' him up in a jute 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. + +"He'll be seasicker than ever if they do," returned the Soap Dish. "It's +a long swim from here to Sandy Hook." + +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. + +"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. + +"I'll do it!" he cried. + +He approached Findlayson. + +"The Sahib will not laugh," he said. "He will not smile even. He has not +snickered all day. Take these, then. They're straight opium, but +there's fun in them." + +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 _Pok-Kah_ with a party of _Drummerz_ who were crossing to America. + +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. + +"Well, here we are," said the Deck Beam, addressing the Donkey Engine. +"What are we here for?" + +"That's it," said the Capstan. "We've left our places at your command. +Now, why?" + +[Illustration: THE DONKEY ENGINE CALLS ON FINDLAYSON] + +"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." + +"I'm glad to meet you all," said Findlayson, rather dazed. + +"Thought you would be," returned the Donkey Engine. "That's why I asked +them to come up." + +"Do you mind if I smoke in here?" said the Funnel. + +"Not a bit," said Findlayson, solemnly. "Let me offer you a cigar." + +The party roared at this. + +"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 up. Old Funnel makes a cigarette of a cord of pine logs, +you know." + +"I should think so much smoking would be bad for your nerves," suggested +Findlayson. + +"'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." + +"Where's the Keel?" asked the Thrust Block, taking off one of his six +collars, which hurt his neck. + +"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." + +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. + +"Hear about the Bow Anchor's row with the Captain?" he asked the +Garboard Strake. + +"No," replied the Strake. "Wouldn't he bow?" + +"He'd bow all right," said the Donkey Engine, "but he wouldn't ank. +Result is he's been put in chains." + +"Serves him right," said the Bilge Stringer, filling his pipe with +Findlayson's tooth-powder. "Serves him right. He ought to be chucked +overboard." + +"True," said the Donkey Engine. "An anchor can't be made to ank unless +you chuck him overboard." + +The company roared at this, but Findlayson never cracked a smile. + +"That is very true," he said. "In fact, how could an anchor ank, as you +put it, without being lowered into the sea?" + +"It's a bad case," observed Bulwark Plate, in a whisper, to the Upper +Deck Plank. + +"It floors me," said the Plank. "I don't think he'd laugh if his uncle +died and left him a million." + +"Shut up," said the Donkey Engine. "We've got to do it or bust. Let's +try again." + +Then he added, aloud, + +"Say, Technicalities, did you ever hear that riddle of the Starboard +Coal Bunker's?" + +The company properly had not. + +"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 professional +card-players from Honolulu under indictment at San Francisco for +arson?'" + +"Tutt!" said the Rudder. "What a chestnut! I was brought up on riddles +of that kind. _They can't climb a tree._" + +"Nope," said the Donkey Engine. "That's not the answer." + +"You don't know it yourself," suggested the Funnel. + +"Nope," said the Donkey Engine. + +"Well, what the deuce is the answer?" said Findlayson, irritably. + +"Give it up--the rest of you?" cried the Donkey Engine. + +"We do," they roared in chorus. + +"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?" + +Findlayson scratched his forehead. + +"I don't see--" he began. + +"There is no reason why you should. You're not feeling well," +interrupted the Donkey Engine, "but it's a good riddle--eh?" + +"Quite so," said Findlayson. + +"It's long, anyhow," said the Screw. + +"Which we can't say for to-day's run--only 867 miles?" suggested the +Donkey Engine, interrogatively. + +"It's long enough," growled the Screw. + +"It certainly is, if it is reckoned in minutes," retorted the Donkey +Engine. "I never knew such a long day." + +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. + +"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." + +"I never laugh," said Findlayson. "But tell me, old chap, are you +really human? You talk as if you were." + +"No," returned the Donkey Engine, sadly. "I am neither fish, flesh, nor +fowl. I'm a _bivalve--a cockney bivalve_," he added. + +"Oh," replied Findlayson, with a gesture of deprecation, "you are not a +clam!" + +"No," the Donkey Engine replied, as with a sudden inspiration; "but I'm +a hoister." + +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. + +And later, when Peroo returned, having won at _Pok-Kah_ with the +_Drummerz_, he found his master sleeping like the veriest child. + +Findlayson was saved. + + + + +VI + +IN WHICH HARRY SNOBBE RECITES A TALE OF GLOOM + + +Monty St. Vincent had no sooner seated himself after telling the +interesting tale of the Salvation of Findlayson, when Billy Jones, of +the _Oracle_, 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. + +"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." + +Mr. Snobbe took the floor, and after a few preliminary remarks, read as +follows: + + +THE GLOOMSTER + +A TALE OF THE ISLE OF MAN + +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 +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. + +"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." + +"But how?" Ramsay Ballawhaine was asked. "That is a hard thing to do." + +"For some 'twill doubtless so appear, but I have a plan," the Bishop had +answered. "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." + +"'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 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?" + +"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." + +"It's out of sight!" ejaculated the assistant vicar, "and Cronky's just +the man for the place." + +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 +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. + +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 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. + +"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." + +"I've no doubt he disagreed with the cannibals," sobbed the vicar, as he +thought over the virtues of the deceased. + +[Illustration: THE END OF THE GLOOMSTER] + +"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 been taken by this time +from their wicked life." + +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 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. + +"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 +_here_!" The boy was coming all the while. "You saw?" + +"Yes, your Honor," he replied, "I saw. The man said he was nearly dead +with hunger, and you gave him food." + +"No," roared the Gloomster, full of fear, for he knew how small boys +prattle, "I did not give him food! _I gave him pie!_" + +"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." + +"My son," the Gloomster responded, seizing a trunk-strap and whacking +the lad with it forcefully, "you don't understand. Do you know why I +fed that man?" + +"Because he was dying of hunger," replied the lad, ruefully, rubbing his +back where the trunk-strap had hit him. + +"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. _That was one +of your mother's pies._" + +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. + +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. + +"Well, Christian," she said, "what did the Bishop say?" + +"He wants my resignation," sighed Christian. "He says I have shown +myself unworthy, and I fear he has evidence." + +"Evidence? Against you, my husband, the most disagreeable man in the +isle?" cried his wife, fondly. + +"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?" + +"I do, Christian," the good woman answered. "You laughed heartily, and I +warned you to be careful. It is not the Gloomster's place to laugh, and +I feared it might reach the Bishop's ears." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Do not blame the child," said Christian, sadly. "She was right. Who +had ever seen a Gloomster smile before? As well expect a ray of +sunshine or a glimpse of humor in a Manx novel--" + +"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. + +"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." + +Mrs. Goodheart took the paper and read, with trembling hands: + +"'January 1, 1898--wished Peggy Meguire a happy New Year.' Did you +really, Christian?" + +"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.'" + +[Illustration: WISHED HER A HAPPY NEW-YEAR] + +"'February 23, 1898,'" Mrs. Goodheart continued, reading from the +paper--"'took off his coat and wrapped it about the shivering form of a +freezing woman.' + +"How very imprudent of you, Christian!" said his wife. + +"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." + +"You should have explained to the Bishop." + +"I did." + +"And what did he say?" + +"He said my methods were too damned artistic." + +"What?" cried Mrs. Goodheart. "The Bishop?" + +"Oh, well," said Christian, "words to 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!" + +"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?" + +"Read on, woman," said the Gloomster. + +"'April 1, 1898,'" the lady read. "'Gave a half-crown to a starving +beggar.'" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"At once," sighed Christian. "In fact, the Bishop had already written my +resignation--which I signed." + +"And the land is without a Gloomster for the first time in five hundred +years?" demanded Mrs. Goodheart. + +"No," said Christian, the tears coursing 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." + +"His name!" cried Mrs. Goodheart. + + * * * * * + +"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." + +"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?" + +"I don't know for sure," said Billy Jones. "But my impression is that it +must be the editor of _Punch_. What I am uncertain about is his +residence on the Isle of Man. Otherwise I think he fills the bill." + + + + +VII + +THE DREAMERS DISCUSS A MAGAZINE POEM + + +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. + +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 after-dinner speech, read the following +lines, which he termed a magazine poem: + +[Illustration: "'O ARGENT-BROWED SARCOPHAGUS'"] + + "O argent-browed Sarcophagus, + That looms so through the ethered trees, + Why dost thou seem to those of us + Who drink the poisoned chalice on our knees + So distant and so empyrean, + So dour yet full of mystery? + Hast thou the oracle as yet unseen + To guide thy fell misogyny? + + "Nay, let the spirit of the age + With all its mystic beauty stand + Translucent ever, aye, in spite the rage + Of Cossack and of Samarcand! + Thou art enough for any soul's desire! + Thou hast the beauty of cerulean fire! + But we who grovel on the damask earth + Are we despoilt of thy exigeant mirth? + + "Canst listen to a prayer, Sarcophagus? + Indeed O art thou there, Sarcophagus? + What time the Philistine denies, + What time the raucous cynic cries, + Avaunt, yet spare! Let this thy motto be, + With thy thesaurian verbosity. + Nor think that I, a caterpillian worm, + Before thy glance should ever honk or squirm. + + "'Tis but the stern condition of the poor + That panting brings me pottering at thy door, + To breathe of love and argent charity + For thee, for thee, iguanodonic thee!" + +"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." + +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." + +"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: + + "Life, what art thou? Whence springest thou? + The past, the future, or the now? + Whence comes thy lowering lunacy? + Whence comes thy mizzling mystery? + Hast thou a form, a shape, a lineament? + Hast thou a single seraph-eyed medicament + To ease our sorrow and our twitching woe? + Hast thou one laudable Alsatian glow + To compensate, commensurate, and condign + For all these dastard, sleekish qualms of mine? + Hast thou indeed an abject agate plot + To show that what exists is really not? + Or art thou just content to sit and say + Life's but a specious, coral roundelay?" + +"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. + +"Quaking qualms would have been better," put in Tenafly Paterson, who +judged poetry from an alliterative point of view. + +"Nevertheless, I liked sleekish qualms," retorted Huddy. "Quaking qualms +might be more alliterative, but sleekish qualms is _less_ commonplace." + +"No doubt," said Tenafly. "I never had 'em myself, so I'll take your +word for it. But what do you make out of 'coral roundelay'?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Well, I'd like to have the title of that yard of rhyme Haarlem Bridge +just recited," put in Dobbs Ferry, scratching his 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'?" + +"It wasn't auburn-haired," expostulated Haarlem. "It was argent-browed." + +"Old Sarcophagus had nickel-plated eyebrows, Dobby," cried Tom Snobbe, +forgetting himself for a moment. + +"Well, who the dickens was old Sarcophagus?" queried Dobby, unappeased. + +"He was one of the Egyptian kings, my dear boy," vouchsafed Billy Jones, +exploding internally with mirth. "You've heard of Augustus Caesar, +haven't you?" + +"Yes," said Dobby. + +"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." + +[Illustration: "SARCOPHAGUSTUS"] + +"Did he have nickel-plated eyebrows?" asked Bedfork Parke, satirically. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"What's 'fell misogyny'?" asked Tenafly Paterson, who seemed to be +somewhat enamoured of the phrase. "Didn't old Sarcophagus care for +chemistry?" + +"Chemistry?" demanded the chairman. + +"That's what I said," said Tenny. "Isn't misogyny a chemical compound of +metal and gas?" + +Tenny had been to the School of Mines for two weeks, and had retired +because he didn't care for mathematics and the table at the college +restaurant wasn't good. + +"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. + +"Oh yes," said Tenny, "of course. I remember now." Then he laughed +somewhat, and added, "I always get misogyny and heterophemy mixed." + +"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." + +"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." + +"It's a thing to put about your neck," said Dick Snobbe. "They wear 'em +in winter out in Siberia. I looked it up some years ago." + +"Let's take up 'cerulean fire,'" said Bedford Parke, Tenafly appearing +to be satisfied with Snobbe's explanation. + +"What's 'cerulean fire'?" + +"Blue ruin," said Huddy. + +"And 'damask earth'?" said Bedford. + +"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: + + "'Canst listen to a prayer, Sarcophagus? + Indeed O art thou there, Sarcophagus?' + +He wanted to pray to him, but didn't know if he'd got back from damask +earth yet." + +"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." + +"'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?" + +[Illustration: MR. BILLY JONES] + +"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 +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." + +"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." + +"Well, I must confess," said Jones, "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." + +"Let's have the title, Haarley," cried Tenafly Paterson. "Was it called +'Life,' or 'Nerve Cells,' or what?" + +For a second Bridge's cheeks grew red. + +"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.'" + +"Great Scott!" roared Dick Snobbe. "What a title!" + +"It is excellent," said Billy Jones. "I now understand the intent of the +poem." + +"Which was--?" asked Rivers. + +"To supply a real hiatus in latter-day letters," Jones replied; "to give +the public a war poem that would make them think, which is what a true +war poem should do. Who has the ninth ball?" + +"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." + +"What do you call it, Mr. Place?" asked the stenographer. + +"Well, I don't know," replied Greenwich. "I guess 'A Dooley Dialogue' +about describes it." + + + + +VIII + +DOLLY VISITS CHICAGO + + _Being the substance of a Dooley dialogue dreamed by Greenwich + Place, Esq._ + + +"I must see him," said Dolly, rising suddenly from her chair and walking +to the window. "I really must, you know." + +"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. + +"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 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--" + +"Mr. Dooley?" I ventured, at a guess. + +"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. + +"Do you suppose I could call upon him without being thought too +unconventional?" she blurted out in a moment. + +"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 'at home' on it? I fancy that would fetch him." + +"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?" + +"Excellent," said I. + +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: + + Mrs. R. Dolly-Rassendyll. + At Home. + The Hippodorium. + Tuesday Afternoon. + +The response was gratifyingly immediate. + +The next morning Dolly's mail contained Mr. Dooley's card, which read as +follows: + +[Illustration: "'I MUST SEE HIM,' SAID DOLLY"] + + Mr. Dooley. + At Work. + Every Day. Archie Road. + +"Which means?" said Dolly, tossing the card across the table to me. + +"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." + +"I wonder if there's a ladies' day there?" laughed Dolly. "If there +isn't, perhaps I'd better not." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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 says, 'is wort' lookin' at, if only for the curawsity +of it,' I says. Are ye here for long?" + +"We are just passing through," said Dolly, with a pleased smile. + +"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 _Prizner iv Cinders_?" + +I laughed quietly, but did not resent the implication. I left Dolly to +her fate. + +"He is the very same person," said Dolly. + +"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 left ye ye was all right. I t'ought ye was dead?" + +"No," said I. "I am only dead in the sense that Mr. Hope has no further +use for me." + +"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." + +"Oh, indeed!" cried Dolly, enthusiastically. "Are you writing a book, +Mr. Dooley? I am so glad." + +"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." + +"Really?" said Dolly. "Do you really draw?" + +"Nawm," said Dooley. "I niver drew a picture in me life." + +"He draws corks," put in Hennessey. "He's got a pull that bates--" + +"Hennessey," interrupted Mr. Dooley, "since whin have ye been me +funnygraph? 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." + +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. + +"Don't go just yet, Mr. Hennessey," said I. "I should like to talk to +you." + +"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?" + +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 +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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"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 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." + +"But I have found married life far from punishment," I heard Dolly say. +"I fear you're a sad pessimist, Mr. Dooley," she added. + +"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, that, like all me countrymen in this beautiful land, +I'm a Uni-tarrian, an' prood iv it." + +I ventured to interpose at this point. + +"Dooley," said I, "your cousin Roop, as you call him, is very glad to +meet you, whatever your politics or your religion." + +"Mosht people are," said he, dryly. + +"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?" + +"You can not only see thim, but you can drink 'em free anny time you +come out to Archie Road," Dooley replied, cordially. + +"Drink--a picture?" I asked. + +[Illustration: "'KAPE YOUR HOOSBAND HOME'"] + +"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 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." + +"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--" + +"Ye've hit ut, Miss Dooley," returned the philosopher, with a beautiful +enthusiasm. "Ye've hit ut square. I see 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. _Fifty Cocktails I Have Met_ 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." + +[Illustration: MIXING ILLUSTRATIONS] + +"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." + +"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!" + +And with this Dolly and Dooley parted. + +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? + +As for Dooley's impression of Dolly, I can only quote what I heard he +had said after meeting her. + +"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. + + + + +IX + +IN WHICH YELLOW JOURNALISM CREEPS IN + + +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! + +"That's good stuff, Greenwich," said Billie Jones. "You must have eaten +a particularly digestible meal. Now for the tenth ball. Who has it?" + +"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 dream, as you will +perceive when I recite to you the story of my experiences at the battle +of Manila." + +"Great Scott, Dick!" cried Bedford Parke. "You weren't in that, were +you?" + +"Sir," returned Dick, "I was not only _in_ it, I was the thing itself. I +was the war correspondent of the Sunday _Whirnal_, attached to Dewey's +fleet." + +Whereupon the talented Mr. Snobbe proceeded to read the following cable +despatch from the special correspondent of the _Whirnal_: + + MANILA FALLS + THE SPANISH FLEET DESTROYED + THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE _WHIRNAL_ + AIDED BY COMMODORE DEWEY AND HIS FLEET + CAPTURES THE PHILIPPINES + +[Illustration: THE SHIP'S BARBER AT WORK] + +MANILA, _May 1, 1898_.--I have glorious news. I have this day destroyed +the Spanish fleet and captured the Philippine Islands. According to my +instructions from the City Editor of the _Whirnal_, I boarded the +_Olympia_, 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 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 _Whirnal_ I hold life itself as of little +consequence, particularly if it is the life of some one else--and who +knows but the 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. + +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 Cavite 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. + +"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?" + +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. + +Their heroism so affected me that I had difficulty in frowning upon the +head-butler's suggestion that my glass should be filled again. + +"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." + +That night every ship in the fleet was provided with telephone service. +I appointed the _Olympia_ 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 attache 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. + +But to return to my despatch--which 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 _Boston_ and the _Concord_. + +"Search Subig Bay," I ordered. + +"Who's this?" came the answer from the other end. + +"Never mind who I am," said I. "Search Subig Bay for Spaniards." + +"Hello!" said the _Boston_. + +"Who the deuce are you?" cried the _Concord_. + +"I'm seventeen-five-six," I replied, with some sarcasm, for that was not +my number. + +"I want sixteen-two-one," retorted the _Boston_. + +"Ring off," said the _Concord_. "What do you mean by giving me +seventeen-five-six?" + +"Hello, _Boston_ and _Concord_," I put in in commanding tones. "I'm +Dewey." + +This is the only false statement I ever made, but it was in the +interests of my country, and my reply was electrical in its effect. The +_Boston_ immediately blew off steam, and the _Concord_ sounded all hands +to quarters. + +"What do you want, Commodore?" they asked simultaneously. + +"Search Subig Bay for Spaniards, as I have already ordered you," I +replied, "and woe be unto you if you don't find any." + +"What do you want 'em for, Commodore?" asked the _Boston_. + +"To engage, you idiot," I replied, scornfully. "What did you suppose--to +teach me Spanish?" + +Both vessels immediately piped all hands on deck and set off. Two hours +later they returned, and the telephone subaltern reported, "No Spaniards +found." + +"Why not?" I demanded. + +"All gone to Cuba," replied the _Boston_. "Shall we pipe all hands to +Cuba?" + +"Wires too short to penetrate without a bust," replied the _Concord_. + +"On to Manila!" was my answer. "Ding the torpedoes--go ahead! Give us +Spaniards or give us death!" + +These words inspired every ship in the line, and we immediately strained +forward, except the _McCulloch_, 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. + +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 _Petrel_, called me up. + +"Hello!" said I. + +"Is this Dewey?" said the _Petrel_. + +"Yes," said I. + +"There are torpedoes ahead," said the _Petrel_. + +"What of it?" said I. + +"How shall we treat 'em?" + +"Blow 'em off--to soda water," I answered, sarcastically. + +"Thank you, sir," the _Petrel_ replied, as she rang off. + +Then somebody from the _Baltimore_ rang me up. + +"Commodore Dewey," said the _Baltimore_, "there are mines in the +harbor." + +"Well, what of it?" I replied. + +"What shall we do?" asked the _Baltimore_. + +"Treat them coldly, as they do in the Klondike," said I. + +"But they aren't gold-mines," replied the _Baltimore_. + +"Then salt 'em," said I, dryly. "Apply for a certificate of +incorporation, water your stock, sell out, and retire." + +"Thank you, Commodore," the _Baltimore_ answered. "How many shares shall +we put you down for?" + +"None," said I. "But if you'll use your surplus to start a +life-insurance company, I'll take out a policy for forty-eight hours, +and send you my demand note to pay for the first premium." + +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. + +At this precise moment we came in sight of the fortresses of Manila. +Signalling the _Raleigh_ 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 +_Reina Cristina_, 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. + +[Illustration: A CLEVER CAROM] + +"Who smoked our struck-stack?" he demanded, in broken English. + +"The enemy," cried his crew, with some nervousness. I was listening to +their words through the megaphone. + +"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!" + +The _Reina Cristina_ immediately sank, according to the orders of the +Admiral, and I turned my attention to the _Don Juan de Austria_. Rowing +across the raging channel to the _Baltimore_, I boarded her and pulled +the lanyard of the port boom forty-two. The discharge was terrific. + +"What has happened?" I asked, coolly, as the explosion exploded. "Did we +hit her?" + +"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 _Don Juan +de_--" + +"Never mind the sex," I cried. "Has she sank?" + +"No, sir," replied the Bo's'n's mate, "she 'ain't sank yet. She's +a-waiting orders." + +"Fly signals to sink," said I, sternly, for I had resolved that she +should go down. + +They did so, and the _Don Juan de Austria_ immediately disappeared +beneath the waves. Her commander evidently realized that I meant what I +signalled. + +"Are there any more of the enemy afloat?" I demanded, jumping from the +deck of the _Baltimore_ to that of the _Concord_. + +"No, Commodore," replied the captain of the latter. + +"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. + +[Illustration: SINKING THE _CASTILLA_] + +The _Concord_ immediately telephoned to the Spanish commandant at the +Manila Cafe de la Paix, who as quickly chartered the _Castilla_ and +the _Velasco_--two very good boats that had recently come in in ballast +with the idea of loading up with bananas and tobacco. + +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. + +Just as we were eating the latter the _Castilla_ and _Velasco_ came out. +I fired my revolver at the _Castilla_ and threw a fish-ball at the +_Velasco_. Both immediately burst into flames. + +Manila was conquered. + +The fleet gone, the city fell. It not only fell, but slid, and by +nightfall Old Glory waved over the citadel. + +The foe was licked. + +To-morrow I am to see Dewey again. + +I think I shall resign to-night. + + 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. + + + + +X + +THE MYSTERY OF PINKHAM'S DIAMOND STUD + + _Being the tale told by the holder of the eleventh ball, + Mr. Fulton Streete_ + + +"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. + +"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, and then +keep them in a refrigerator, overlaid with a cloth soaked in Chateau +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?" + +"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 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. _Vox populi, vox Dei_. If _vox_, why not _oculus_? 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." + +I gasped, and Holmes, cracking a walnut, gazed into the fire for a +moment. + +"It all comes down, then," I said, "to the question, who are the +people?" + +Holmes smiled grimly. "All men," he replied, shortly; "and when I say +all men, I mean all creatures who can reason." + +"Does that include women?" I asked. + +"Certainly," he said. "Indubitably. The fact that women _don't_ reason +does not prove that they can't. I _can_ go up in a balloon if I wish to, +but I _don't_. I _can_ read an American newspaper comic supplement, but +I _don't_. 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." + +"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.--ED.) + +"Now you agree, my dear Watson," he said, "that I have proved that we +see everything?" + +"Well--" I began. + +"Whether we are conscious of it or not?" he added, lighting the gas-log, +for the cold was becoming intense. + +"From that point of view, I suppose so--yes," I replied, desperately. + +"Well, then, this being granted, consciousness is all that is needed to +make us fully informed on any point." + +"No," I said, with some positiveness. "The American people are very +conscious, but I can't say that generally they are well-informed." + +I had an idea this would knock him out, as the Bostonians say, but +counted without my host. He merely laughed. + +"The American is only self-conscious. Therefore he is well-informed only +as to self," he said. + +"You've proved your point, Sherlock," I said. "Go on. What else have you +proved?" + +"That it is the little things that tell," 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." + +"Very true," said I. + +"And I have the gift of consciousness," he added. + +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. + +He rose up and walked over to his pigeon-holes, each labelled with a +letter, in alphabetical sequence. + +"I have only to refer to any of these to do so," he said. "Choose your +letter." + +"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 _sign my name_ to any statement you +choose to make." + +[Illustration: THE LAMP-POSTS WERE TWISTED] + +"Choose your letter, Watson," he retorted. "You and I are on terms that +make flattery impossible. Is it F, J, P, Q, or Z?" + +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, + +"Z!" + +"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. 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--" + +"You misunderstood me," I cried, desperately. "I did not say Z; I said +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. + +"I've never had a Z case. But P," he observed, quietly, "is another +thing altogether." + +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, "The Mystery of Pinkham's Diamond Stud." + +"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 pre-vision of the fact." + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"No," said I. + +"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 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. + +"Now of course, if he positively left it on the table, it must have been +taken 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. + +"'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. + +[Illustration: HOLMES IN DISGUISE INTERVIEWS WATTLES] + +"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. 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. +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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +[Illustration: "'YOU DID TOO!' SAID POLLY"] + +"'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.' + +"'I'd like to see 'em,' said I. 'I'm very fond of children.' + +"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. '_You swallered +that piece pop left on the centre-table the other night!_' 'Well, +anyhow, it was only a little piece,' said Billie. 'An' it tasted like +glass,' he added. Handing the candy to Polly, I picked Billie up and +carried him to his father. + +"'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." + +Holmes paused. + +"Well, I don't see how that proves your point," said I. "You said that +it was the little things that told--" + +"So it was," said Holmes. "If Polly hadn't told--" + +"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." + +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." + + + + +XI + +LANG TAMMAS AND DRUMSHEUGH SWEAR OFF + + _A tale of dialect told by Mr. Berkeley Hights, holder of the + twelfth ball_ + + +"Hoot mon!" + +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. + +"I'll hoot-mon the dour eediot that's eensoolted a veesitor to +Drumtochty!" he shouted. "I haena brought me faithfu' steck for +naething!" he added. + +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. + +He had scarcely covered ten paces, however, when the same voice, with a +harsh cackling laugh, again broke the stillness of the street: + +"Gang awa', gang awa'--ha, ha, ha!" + +Tammas rushed into the middle of the way and picked up a stone. + +[Illustration: "'HOOT MON!'"] + +"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!" + +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. + +"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!" + +The reply was instant: + +"Gang awa', gang awa'--ha, ha, ha!" + +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 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: + +"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." + +"Gang awa', gang awa'--ha, ha, ha!" came the reply. + +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. + +"Number twanty-three, saxth floor," he muttered to himself. "I will +call, and then we shall see what we _shall_ see; and if what we see gets +off wi'oot a thorough 'hootin',' then I dinna ken me beezniss." + +[Illustration: "A SWEET-FACED NURSE APPEARED"] + +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 apartment-house in which his assumed insulter lived. He pushed +the electric button in, and shortly a sweet-faced nurse appeared. + +"Who are you?" she asked. + +"Me," said Lang Tammas, somewhat abashed. "I've called too see the head +o' the hoose." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Was there anything you wished to say to him?" asked the nurse. + +"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 garry neck +for dereesively gee'in an unoffending veesitor frae Thrums by yelling +deealect at him frae the hoose-tops." + +"Are you sure it was here?" asked the nurse, anxiously, the old +gentleman seemed so deeply in earnest. + +"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: + +"What a crittur ye are, ye cow! What a crittur ye are!" + +"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 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. + +"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." + +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 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 facade 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 _Haggert's Chase of Heretics_, relieved with the lighter +_Rules of Golf; or, Auld Putt Idylls_, by the Rev. Ian McCrockett, one +of the most exquisitely confusing humorous works ever published in the +Highlands. + +Lang Tammas meanwhile was addressing an invisible somebody in the +building over the way, and in no uncertain tones. + +"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--'" + +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: + +"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 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. + +[Illustration: TAMMAS MEETS DRUMSHAUGH] + +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 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. + +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. + +"_Knox et praeterea nihil!_" he exclaimed. "What in Glasgie hae we here?" + +Lang Tammas turned upon him. + +"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." + +"Eensoolts?" retorted Drumsheugh. "Eensoolts, ye say? An' wha hae bin +eensooltin' ye?" + +"That I know nowt of, save that he be a doonricht foo' a-heepin' his +deealect upon me head," said Lang Tammas. + +"And wha are ye to be so seensitive o' deealect?" demanded Drumsheugh. + +"My name is Lang Tammas--" + +"O' Thrums?" cried Drumsheugh. + +"Nane ither," said Tammas. + +Drumsheugh burst into an uproarious fit of laughter. + +"The humorist?" he cried, catching his sides. + +"Nane ither," said Tammas, gravely. "And wha are ye?" + +"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." + +And the two old men walked off together. + +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 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: + +"Hoot mon! Hoot mon!" + +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: + +"Gang awa' a-that, a-that, a-that--gang awa'! Oh, ye crittur! oh, ye +cow!" + +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: + +"Gang awa', gang awa'!" he cried, and preened himself. "Hoot mon, gang +awa'!" + +"_Knox nobiscum!_" 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. + +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: + +"I acquet Drumtochty o' its eensoolts, Drumsheugh, but I've lairnt a +lesson this day." + +"What's that?" asked Drumsheugh. + +"When pairruts speak Scutch deealect, it's time we Scuts gae it oop," +said Tammas. + +"I think so mysel'," agreed Drumsheugh. "But hoo express our thochts?" + +"I dinna ken for ye," said Lang Tammas, "but for me, mee speakee heathen +Chinee this timee on." + +"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." + +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. + + + + +XII + +CONCLUSION--LIKEWISE MR. BILLY JONES + + +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. + +When the cheers had subsided Mr. Jones rose from his chair and +congratulated the club upon its exhibit. + +"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. + +"I now declare The Dreamers adjourned _sine die_!" + +"Not much!" cried the members, unanimously. "Where's your contribution?" + +"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." + +"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.'" + +"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--" + +"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. + +"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." + +[Illustration: MR. JONES BEGINS] + +Mr. Jones hereupon took the manuscript from his bulging pocket and read +as follows: + + +THE INVOLVULAR CLUB; OR, THE RETURN OF THE SCREW + +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 +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 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, 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. + + ["Excuse me," said Mr. Tom Snobbe, rising and interrupting the + reader at this point, "but is that all one sentence, Mr. Jones?" + + "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. + + "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." + + "Be quiet, Tom," said Harry Snobbe. "It's bad form to interrupt. + Let Billy finish his story." Mr. Jones then resumed his + manuscript.] + +A perceptible shudder ran through, or rather rolled over, the group, for +it was 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 facade would seem not to admit +of an aesthetic 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, 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 unaesthetic, 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 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. + + [At this point the reader was interrupted again. + + "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?" + + "Yes," replied Jones, a trifle annoyed. + + "And the second sentence means that those who heard it felt + creepy?" + + "Precisely." + + "Then why the deuce couldn't you have said, 'When So-and-So had + finished, the company shuddered'?" + + "Because," replied Jones, "I am reading a story which is + constructed after the manner of a certain school. I'm not reading + a postal-card or a cable message." + + The reader then resumed.] + +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 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 if not coincidently with it, the +object of his affections. + + [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.] + +[Illustration: HE DID NOT SEE] + +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 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. + +"And did his soul never thaw?" Diana asked. + +"Never," replied Vanderbank, "It is frozen yet." + + * * * * * + +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. + +_The Dreamers slept._ + +"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 down," +he added to the stenographer; but that worthy never stirred or made +reply. _He too was sleeping._ + +Jones muttered angrily to himself. + +"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. + +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. + +[Illustration: THE STENOGRAPHER SLEPT] + +All I do know is what the landlord tells me, and that is that at 5 A.M. +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, _sine die_. + + +THE END + + * * * * * + + + + + BY A. CONAN DOYLE + + + THE REFUGEES. A Tale of Two Continents. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, + Ornamental, $1.75. + + + THE WHITE COMPANY. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.75. + + + MICAH CLARKE. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.75; 8vo, + Paper, 45 cents. + + + THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, + Ornamental, $1.50. + + CONTENTS: 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. + + + MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, + $1.50. + + CONTENTS: 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. + + + THE PARASITE. A Story. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, + $1.00. + + + THE GREAT SHADOW. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00. + + + HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + + _Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, + to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt + of the price._ + + + + + BY FRANK R. STOCKTON + + + THE ASSOCIATE HERMITS. A Novel. Illustrated by A. B. Frost. Post 8vo, + Cloth, Ornamental, $1.50. + + 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.--_Independent._ + + The interest never flags, and there is nothing intermittent about + the sparkling humor.--_Philadelphia Press._ + + + THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS. A Novel. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. Post + 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.50. + + 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. + + + HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + + _Either of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, + to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of + the price._ + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcribers Notes: + + +The following printing mistakes have been corrected: + + Page 116 - question mark removed, comma substituted + Page 121 - period replaced by comma + Pages 154, 180 - spurious double quote removed + +Also illustrations have been moved to adjust within paragraph breaks. + + + + + +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.txt or 35374.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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