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diff --git a/35675-8.txt b/35675-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e890a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/35675-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2341 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peeps at People, by Robert Cortes Holliday + +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: Peeps at People + +Author: Robert Cortes Holliday + +Illustrator: Walter Jack Duncan + +Release Date: March 24, 2011 [EBook #35675] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT PEOPLE *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +PEEPS AT PEOPLE + +ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + + + + +PEEPS AT PEOPLE + +BY + +ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + +AUTHOR OF "WALKING-STICK PAPERS," "BOOTH +TARKINGTON," "JOYCE KILMER: A +MEMOIR," "BROOME STREET +STRAWS," ETC. + +WITH PICTURES BY +WALTER JACK DUNCAN + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY +_Copyright, 1919, +By George H. Doran Company_ + +_Printed in the United States of America_ + + I WROTE A BOOK SOME TIME AGO WHICH WAS DEDICATED TO "THREE FINE + MEN." THIS IS A SMALLER BOOK. THEREFORE, I DEDICATE IT TO TWO FINE + MEN: + + EUGENE F. SAXTON CHRISTOPHER MORLEY + +[Illustration] + + These little what-you-call-'ems, with the exception of the opening + one and the concluding ones, all appeared originally in the + Saturday Magazine of the New York _Evening Post_. They are + reprinted here by the courtesy of the editors of that otherwise + estimable newspaper. For permission to reprint the opening paper + _The Bookman_ is to blame. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + EVEN SO! OR, AS YOU MAY SAY, A PREFACE 13 + + I THE FORGETFUL TAILOR 19 + + II TALK AT THE POST OFFICE 23 + + III AS TO OFFICE BOYS 28 + + IV A CONQUEROR'S ATTACK 32 + + V THE CASE OF MR. WOOLEN 36 + + VI WHEN THE TRAIN COMES IN 41 + + VII AN OLD FOGY 44 + + VIII HAIR THAT IS SCENERY 47 + + IX A NICE MAN 50 + + X NO SNOB 53 + + XI EVERY INCH A MAN 59 + + XII HIS BUSINESS IS GOOD 65 + + XIII A NICE TASTE IN MURDERS 71 + + XIV IDA'S AMAZING SURPRISE 74 + + XV NOT GULLIBLE, NOT HE 77 + + XVI CRAMIS, PATRON OF ART 81 + + XVII BARBER SHOPS AWESOME 85 + + XVIII MUCH MARRIED STRATFORD 88 + + XIX A HUMAN CASH REGISTER 92 + + XX IT STANDS TO REASON 94 + + XXI A THREE-RINGED CIRCUS 96 + + XXII SNAPSHOTS IN X-RAY 100 + + XXIII BACHELOR REMINISCENCES 103 + + XXIV A TESTIMONIAL 107 + + XXV FRAGRANT WITH PERFUME 110 + + XXVI WOULDN'T LOOK AT HIM 112 + + XXVII CONNUBIAL FELICITY 114 + +XXVIII A FRIEND, INDEED 116 + + + + +PEEPS AT PEOPLE + + + + +EVEN SO! OR, AS YOU MAY SAY, A PREFACE + + +I knew a man who used to do some writing, more or less of it--articles +and essays and little sketches and things like that--and he went to +another man who was a publisher. (I know all of this because it was told +to me not long ago at a club.) And he said (the first man) that he would +like to have published a book of some of his pieces. He hadn't done +much, if any, writing for a number of years. Matters had been going +rather bad with him, and he had lost more than a little of his buoyancy. +The spark had waned; in fact, it was not there. (This he did not say, +but so the matter was.) + +Anyhow, he did say that this collection of material had about it the +rich glow of his prime, that it was living with the fullness of his +life, that as a contributor to these papers and magazines he had (or +had had) a personal following decent enough in size, that the book, by +all reasoning, ought to go far, and so on. The volume was published. It +was called--no, I have forgotten what it was called. However, I heard +that it got a very fair press, and sold somewhat. + +Then, in about a year or so, round came the man again to the publisher +with another batch of little papers. He had aged perceptively within +this time, and matters had been going with him rather worse than before. +No, he hadn't been able to write anything lately. (For a moment a +haunted look crossed his face, a look as though in some sad hidden +secret he had been discovered.) But (brightening up again) here he had a +better book than before; it was a much better book than before, as it +was an earlier one. These things breathed the gusto of his young +manhood. They were perhaps a bit miscellaneous in character, he had got +them out of the files of various journals, but they had a verve, a fire, +a flare for life, which he couldn't better now. A great deal more he +said to this effect. + +Times, however, change (as has frequently been observed). What is sauce +for the goose is _not_ always sauce for the gander. That is to say, +other days other ways. I do not know that I gathered (that evening at +the club) what was the upshot of the matter in this instance between the +man of whom I am speaking and the publisher. But it is to be feared that +time had blown upon those things of his of other days as it had upon the +temple of his soul and its inhabitant. + +Well (so the story goes), the world went forward at a dizzy rate. There +was flame and sword. Ministries rose and fell. Dynasties passed away. +Customs handed down from antiquity, and honored among the ancients, were +obliterated by mandate and statute. And man wrought things of many sorts +in new ways. + +On a Friday at about half past two (a pleasant day it was, in the +Spring, with new buds coming out in the parks and a new generation of +children all about) again in came our old friend to see his friend the +publisher. Well, well, and how was he now, and what was new with him? +Why, a rotten bad run of cards had been his ever since he had been round +before: rheumatism and influenza, dentist and oculist, wife down and +brother dead, nothing much accomplished. He sat for a moment and there +was no light in him. No (you saw it now, quite), he was a lamp without +oil. + +He undid the package containing his manuscript. Here was a book (those +yellow clippings), well, here was a book! This was a _younger_ book than +either of his others. On it was the gleaming dew of his youth. Perhaps a +little scrappy, very brief, and, many of them, rather unequal in +length--these things; and very light. Ah, that was the point, that was +the point! The lightness, the freshness, the spontaneity, the gaiety of +the springtime of life! One could not recapture that. It would be +impossible, quite impossible, for him now to write such things as these. +He did not now think the same way, feel, see the same way, work--the +same way. No, no; there comes a hardening of the spiritual and +intellectual arteries. This was a _younger_ book, a _younger_ book (and +as he leaned forward with finger raised, a light, for an instant, +flickered again in his eye) than any of his others. + + * * * * * + +There was a man at that club when this story was told who remarked: "It +is said (is it not?) that Swift, re-reading 'Gulliver' many years after +it was written, exclaimed: 'My God, what a genius I had at that time!'" + +And another man there at the time reminded us of the place somewhere in +the books of George Moore where it is observed that "anybody can have +talent at twenty, the thing is to have talent at fifty." + +R. C. H. + +_New York,_ 1919. + + + + +I + +THE FORGETFUL TAILOR + +[Illustration] + + +He is a tailor. His shop is down at the corner. When trousers are left +with him to be pressed and to have suspender buttons sewed on he is +always obligingly willing to promise them by the morrow; or if you are +in somewhat of a hurry he will promise that the job shall be done this +very night. He is the politest and most obliging of men. He will send +those trousers up by a boy directly. He is such a cheerful man. + +After the time for those trousers to appear has long gone by and no boy +has arrived, it is possible that you may work yourself into a passion. +You clap your hat upon your head, storm out of the house, and stride +toward that tailor shop. You become a little cooled by the evening air, +and you begin to wonder if you have not been a trifle hasty. Perhaps you +yourself made some mistake concerning your address; things very similar +have happened before now, when you have laid the blame upon another and +eventually realized that the fault was your own. It would never do to +place yourself in such a position with this tailor--a comparative +stranger to you. So you will not become abusive to him until you +discover who is in the wrong. + +But if the fault is his, mind you, he shall learn your character; you +are not a man to be trifled with. This fellow can have no sense of +business, or anything else, you think. This shall be the last work he +will ever get from you. Such a man should not have a business. You will +speak to your friends about this; it will run him out of the +neighborhood. + +You have been walking rapidly and are tolerably heated again. You arrive +at the shop expecting to find the tailor on the defensive, with some +inane excuse prepared. But you have resolved that it won't go down. You +are considerably surprised, therefore, to discover the tailor seated, +comfortably reading a newspaper, by a genial fire. He glances up at you +as you open the door. His face is without expression at first. Then he +recollects you, and your business flashes upon him. He smiles +good-naturedly, then bursts into a hearty laugh. Well, of all things, if +he hasn't forgotten all about those trousers until this very minute! +It's such a joke, apparently, such a ridiculous situation. He so enters +into the spirit of the thing and enjoys it so that you have not the +heart to rebuke him. You even begin to appreciate the circumstance +yourself. + +It is so warm in the tailor-shop and the tailor is so jolly you become +almost jovial. The tailor promises to send those trousers around the +first thing in the morning. He would promise to have them ready for you +in ten minutes if you so desired. Upon leaving, you are tempted to +invite the tailor out to have a cigar with you. He is so droll, such a +felicitous chap, such a funny dog, that forgetful tailor. + +In the morning those trousers have not shown up. You pass the tailor +shop on your way downtown. The tailor is standing in his doorway, +smoking a cigar and looking altogether very bright and cheerful. When +he sees you his face becomes still brighter; he apparently becomes +brighter all over, in fact; and his eyes twinkle merrily. "Well! well!" +he laughs, and slaps his thighs. He is the most forgetful man. He hardly +knows what will become of him. + + + + +II + +TALK AT THE POST OFFICE + +[Illustration] + + +The attention of a little group within the dusk of the post office and +general store was, apparently, still colored by an event which mutilated +posters on a dilapidated wagon-shed wall, visible through the doorway in +the hot light outside, had advertised. A "Wild Bill" show had lately +moved through this part of the world. A large, loosely-constructed, +earnest-looking man was speaking to several others, seriously, taking +his time, allowing his words time to sink well in as he proceeded. + +"Now I have a brother," he was saying, "who I can produce," he added +impressively (one realizes that it would be hard to get around this +sort of evidence)--"who I can produce, who will take bullet +cartridges--Buffalo Bill don't use bullet cartridges--Annie Oakley don't +use bullet cartridges--and who will sit right here in this chair--sit +right here in this chair where I am now--and show you," he nodded once +to each listener, "something about shootin'," concluding, one who +reports him felt, somewhat more vaguely than his start had led one to +expect. + +[Illustration] + +"Well, Pawnee," began another of the group (from which sobriquet it will +be seen that the large man was a personage in matters of shooting), but +Pawnee stopped him. It seems he had not finished. + +"And if there is anybody that would like to shoot _shot_ with the _Old +Man_," he continued, breathing the two last words loud and strong, +"_I_," said Pawnee, with extreme emphasis on the personal pronoun, +"would like to see them, that's all!" + +An odd figure a trifle removed from the group had attracted the notice +of one reporting these proceedings, by a propensity which he evinced, +perceived by a kind of mental telepathy, to have some remarks directed +to him. One felt all through one, so to speak, the near presence of a +disposition eminently social. As one's sight became more accustomed to +the interior light this figure defined itself into that of an elderly +man, somewhat angular, slightly stooped, and wearing a ministerial sort +of straw hat, with a large rolling brim, considerably frayed; a man very +kindly in effect, and suggesting to a contemplative observer of humanity +a character whose walk in life is cutting grass for people. + +This gentleman (there was something very gentlemanly about him, not in +haberdashery, but, as one read him, in spirit) showed, as was said, a +decided inclination to, as less gentlemanly folks say, "butt in." + +"Here is a thing now," spoke up this old fellow, looking up from his +newspaper, over his iron-rimmed spectacles in a more determined manner +than heretofore, at one who reports him, and speaking in that tone in +which it is the habit of genial men traveling in railroad trains to open +a conversation with their seat-fellow for the journey, "that draws my +attention." In the racing term, he was "off." + +"You know there is a strict law against swearing over the telephone," he +paused for acquiescence. "Well, there _is_," he stated, very seriously, +drawing a little nearer as the acquaintance got on--"a strict law. Now +they say they can't stop it. It's a queer thing they can't stop it. They +know who's at the other end; or at least they know who owns the 'phone. +They know that. A fine of fifty dollars," he declared, "would stop it." +It strikes one that this kindly character is almost ferocious on the +side of morality. + +"Now," he continued, "there is no use in that. Say what you have to say, +that's all that's necessary. What's the good of all those +ad-_ject_-ives?" He pronounced the last word in three syllables with a +very decided accent on the second. "That is done, now," he concluded, +"by people who are, well--abrupt. Ain't that right, now? It's abrupt, +that's what it is; it's abrupt. + +"Most assuredly," he said, answering himself. + + + + +III + +AS TO OFFICE BOYS + +[Illustration] + + +Mr. MacCrary is in the real estate business. It is incident to Mr. +MacCrary's business that he has to employ an office boy. This position +as factotum in the office of Mr. MacCrary is subject to much +vicissitude. + +The first of the interesting line of boys successively employed by Mr. +MacCrary was an office boy by profession; by natural talent and +inclination he was a liar. He was a gifted liar, a brilliant and a +versatile liar; a liar of resource, of imagination. He was a liar of +something very near to genius. He lied for the love of lying. With him a +lie was a thing of art. An artist for art's sake, he, and for art's +sake alone. Like an amateur in short, a distinguished amateur, who is +too proud to sell his lies, but willingly gives one away, now and then +to some highly valued and much admiring friend. This boy would start +with a little lie, then, as he progressed in his story, the wonderful +possibilities of the thing would open up before him; he would grasp them +and contort them, twist them into shape, and produce, create, a thing +magnificent, stupendous, a thing which fairly made one gasp. He, a mere +boy! It was wonderful. + +On the last day he came into the office and said: "Runaway down the +street, Mr. MacCrary." + +"Is that so?" said Mr. MacCrary. + +"Yes," said the boy, "ran over a woman, killed her dead." + +"You don't say!" exclaimed Mr. MacCrary. + +"I should say so," said the boy; "killed the baby in her arms, too." + +"What!" cried Mr. MacCrary, "did she have a baby in her arms?" + +"And that ain't all," continued the boy, "ran on down the street and +into a trolley car." + +"And killed all the passengers!" exclaimed Mr. MacCrary. + +"And the conductor," added the boy, "broke all the horse's legs, smashed +the wagon, driver went insane from scare. They're shootin' the horse +now," said the boy. + +Mr. MacCrary dismissed this boy that he might find a sphere more suited +to his ability than the real estate business, which, to tell the truth, +was evidently a little bourgeoise for his genius. + +The next boy was not particularly gifted in any direction, but he was +mysterious. Upon a client's coming into the office during Mr. MacCrary's +absence he, the client, was sure to be impressed by two circumstances: +First, that there was no one in the office until he entered; secondly, +that the boy had strangely appeared from nowhere in particular, and was +following in close upon his heels. This consistently illustrates the +whole course of this boy's conduct throughout the time he remained with +Mr. MacCrary. + +The third boy, that is the present one, is not exactly mysterious, but +he is peculiar. He attends strictly to his own business. He believes +himself to be here for that purpose, apparently. He does not meddle +with Mr. MacCrary's business. That is no concern of his. He is imbued +with the good old adage: "If you want a thing well done, do it +yourself." He follows this excellent principle himself, and believes +others should do likewise. This boy is very sapient, and a wonderful +student. His nature is more receptive than creative. He procures heavy +sheep-skin-bound volumes from the circulating library, and his taste in +literature, for one of his age, is unique. These books generally relate +to primitive man, and contain exciting engravings of his stone hatchets +and cooking utensils. He is also fond of perusing horticulture journals, +these being the only magazines which he enjoys. When the first of these +appeared about the office, Mr. MacCrary picked up one and inquired: + +"What is this, James?" + +"Oh!" exclaimed James, "there's some fine pictures of berries in there." +James is too scholarly for real estate, and will soon, no doubt, follow +in the way of his earlier predecessor to the intellectual life. + + + + +IV + +A CONQUEROR'S ATTACK + +[Illustration] + + +On the post-office store porch an old brindled Dane dog, town loafer, +was asleep on his back. Chickens wallowed in the road. A baby crawled +from behind a barrel at the post-office store door. A quorum was met on +the hotel porch across the way. The butcher and the cobbler came forth +from dove-cot shops to pass the time of day. The villagers come in ones +and twos to get their mail. One, a fair, freckled milk-maid, as it would +seem, from some old story, stands on the sidewalk path, waiting for the +mail to be "sorted." A willowy lass, one would say a "summer boarder," +pokes her parasol musingly through a knot-hole in the porch floor. The +shop next door is a "dry goods and notions" store; butter and peaches +and cherries and roses and cream in the shape of a feminine clerk leans +beneath the low lintel, and, one can guess, like the old dog, dreams. +The one of brave days of the past, perchance; the other, perchance, of +conquests to come. + +A fat fly buzzes leisurely about the door, then suddenly takes a +straight line a considerable distance down the straggling street, +pauses, circles about, returns, now through the early sunshine, now +through the shadow of a venerable tree, back to the shelter of the +porch, hums around again, poises absolutely stationary, tacks away +another time over the same course, and returns as before. + +Suddenly appearing, briskly advancing upon the scene, walking rapidly up +from the direction of the railroad station, scintillating punctuality, +dispatch, succinctness, assurance, commercial agility, comes an +apparition from, without manner of doubt, the hurrying ways, the +collision of the busy marts of men. The chickens scatter from the road, +making for picketless gaps in the picket fence; the old dog opens an eye +and limply raises a limb; and the rapid, confident "traveling man" (it +can be none but he), resplendent in the very latest "gent's furnishing," +with a neat grip and a bundle of what apparently are rolled calendars, +springs nimbly upon the porch of the Chappaqua general store. Genial, +pushing, the hurrying "good fellow," though sociability is his bent as +well as business, he has not much time. It evidently is his habit to +snatch a brief moment of pleasant acquaintanceship as he passes. As to +this, he has as quick an eye for the sex as for commerce, and, as will +be seen, as successful a manner with them as in the other. + +"Attacking," said another conqueror, Barry Lyndon, "is the only secret. +That is my way of fascinating women." Quickly, as with a practiced eye, +this gallant looks over the ground. Chappaqua apparently is rich in +human flowers. A man of poorer mettle would be satisfied with one. That +is not the way with your conquerors. Smugly, flashingly, he thrusts his +grinning, big-prowed countenance forward, and with one killing glance +that fair, freckled milk-maid is undone. So much for number one. Quick +as a terrier that leaps from rat to rat, and with a single brilliant +crunch breaks each rodent's back, our high-stepping man leaps his +glance upon the dreaming butter and peaches and cream; her rich lashes +fall, but she does not frown. No; she does not frown. But be bold +enough, and you will not fail. + +He has stepped through the doorway, set his grip down. Brightly he turns +and does for the summer boarder. She springs open her parasol before her +pleased confusion, and retreats, very slowly. He has turned to business; +whips out his watch, snaps it shut, replaces it, unrolls a calendar. He +"makes" the next town in so many hours. + + + + +V + +THE CASE OF MR. WOOLEN + + +They stopped at a bright little house with a neat little grass plot +before it, fronting on the railroad. A border of very white, +white-washed stones led up each side of the little path to the little +porch before the door. On the porch, in the shade of the neat, screening +vines, sat an old fellow, a stranger to them. "Is Mrs. Woolen at home?" +one of the two inquired politely, as he thought. But this manner of +putting the matter, it appeared, was not happy, for it was taken by the +old fellow as implying that Mrs. Woolen was thought to be the one there +superior in authority. He eyed the couple before him a moment as if in +doubt whether to pay any attention to them; then, tapping himself on the +chest, "_I_ am Mrs. Woolen," he said sternly. As this was unmistakenly a +manner of saying, "You may state your business here if you have any," +one come for the washing humbly put the case in words as well chosen as +possible. The old fellow was mollified; he had merely desired +recognition, that was all. Mrs. Woolen was not at home; "the woman," he +said, had gone "to Quarterly Meetin' over at the Quaker Church." But it +was "all right," he said, which was understood to mean that the washing +was ready here. + +"You'll find that washing first-class," said Mr. Woolen. "There's +nothing crooked about her; she's a good, honest woman." + +[Illustration] + +Asked concerning when Mrs. Woolen would be likely to return, Mr. Woolen +replied in a very business-like manner, "Six o'clock, six o'clock sharp +this evening." + +"Not till six o'clock?" He was asked when she had departed. + +"Eight o'clock, eight o'clock this morning," he said. He then furnished +the information that Quarterly Meeting lasted several days, and that +Mrs. Woolen was on deck, to put it so, throughout. + +From this point Mr. Woolen drifted into personal reminiscence of the +surrender at Appomattox, in proof of his having been present at which, +without his assertion having been questioned, he rather defiantly +offered to exhibit "the papers," as he called them, which he said were +"right there framed in the parlor." Though Mr. Woolen had been on the +conquering side at the historic surrender, he rather suggested the idea +of his having surrendered, in a more personal and figurative sense, at +about that time also; that is to say, he did not impress one as having, +for an able-bodied man, put up a very good fight since. + +He was recalled to the matter of the washing, and, rising, led the way +into the house to procure it. But directly the party had entered, Mr. +Woolen fell back, obviously in amazement, upon the toes of those +following him. He cried that it was "gone!" + +"It was right there on that chair," he said, "in the corner. There's +where she left it this morning. There's where she left it. Done up it +was in newspaper. She said to me, 'There it is; now don't you let that +go out of the house until you get your money for it.' That's what she +said." + +He was prevailed on to make a search through the house, though he +contended obstinately that it was right there in the corner, and no +other place, that that which they were seeking had been "left." He +almost offered the presence there of the chair as evidence. A search of +the house, however, was not exhausting nor impracticable, as there were +but two rooms to it, these very snug, no closets, and an economy of +furniture behind which the bundle might be. + +Mr. Woolen's perturbation was too genuine for suspicion of his having +made away with the package. But this very honesty of emotion, in +conjunction with the circumstance of the absence of the washing, and +divers indications in breath and manner, noticeable from the first, +aided in making out a case against him. A jury would reasonably have +inferred that Mr. Woolen had a frailty, known and provided against by +his wife, that, specifically, he had a weakness which, though not +uncommonly associated with the most amiable characters, is not +compatible with being left to receive money for washing. + +Mr. Woolen was decidedly provoked at the situation. "I can do a man's +work," he said, stumbling restlessly about the room, "but not a woman's. +I can lay brick, lay brick; that's my work, that's what I do, but I +can't keep the house in order." It was not to be expected of him. +Coming, in his movements, plump upon the door of the kitchen, he +disappeared through it, and could be heard going about out of view, +ostensibly still at the search, testily kicking the furniture and +mumbling concerning "her being away with a lot of her cronies." + + + + +VI + +WHEN THE TRAIN COMES IN + +[Illustration] + + +A busy railroad station is a grand child's picture-book, for him who +observes it. All the child has to do is to look; the leaves are turned +before him. There, in all the colors of the rainbow, are countless +pictures to cram himself with. And what is a rather curious fact is, +that a railroad station may freely be classed among humorous +picture-books. Other picture-books, such as church, theater, Broadway, +Fifth Avenue, political meeting, ball game, and so forth, have, of +course, many funny pictures. But, whether it is that almost all absurd +people constantly travel, and those with no touch of the motley do but +seldom, or whether, as here, nothing else goes forward seriously to +occupy the attention, one's mind is left more free to be struck by the +ridiculousness of all mankind, so it is that perhaps as humorous a place +as one may find is a busy railroad station. And one must be very blasé +who no longer feels an enjoyable stimulation at the approach of an +expected train at the station. + +The psychology of the arrival of a railroad train at the station belongs +to the proper study of mankind, and could be made into an interesting +little monograph. As the train becomes due one feels but half a mind on +the conversation, supposing one to be conversing; the other half is +waiting for the train. One has, too, a feeling, faint at first, looming +stronger within one, against continuing to sit quietly inside (supposing +one to have gone within), where one is. An impelling to go see if the +train is not coming numbs one's brain. A like contagious restlessness +breathes through the waiting-room. People begin to stand up by their +grips. Some go without on the search. They can be seen through the doors +and windows, pacing the platform; they return, some of them, and one +scans their expressions eagerly--they are discouragingly blank. After a +bit, they go out again, or others do, and return as before; wholly +unfitted now, one can see, for any concentration of thought. + +The train is late. There is an alarm or two. At last, an unmistakable +elasticity impregnates the place. A distant whistle is heard; it stirs +one like the tap of a drum. The train is coming! One's pulse beats high +as one moves into the press toward the doorway. The whistle is heard +much nearer. Then again and again! Then with a whirl that turns one a +somersault inside, a long dark, heavy mass rushes across the light +before one. When one comes again on one's feet, speaking figuratively, +the train is standing there, and one hurries aboard to get a seat. But, +first, one is stopped until arriving passengers get off. + + + + +VII + +AN OLD FOGY + +[Illustration] + + +Mr. Deats, senior, is an old fogy. There is no doubt about that. In +early life Mr. Deats, sr., had a pretty hard time. He was denied the +advantages of any particular schooling. In consequence of this, Mr. +Deats now occasionally uses very mortifying English. At an early +age--somewhere about the age of ten--he entered trade. A ridiculous +combination of adverse circumstances made it impossible for Mr. Deats to +go much into polite society. In consequence of this, he unfortunately +lacks polish. For a great number of years the world was not kind to him. +It may have been trouble that destroyed his beauty. At any rate, Mr. +Deats is not a handsome man. Not being able to do anything better, he +confined his attention to doing his duty; that is not a very brilliant +employment, it is true, but it was good enough for Mr. Deats. + +In the course of time, Mr. Deats took to himself a wife; and, in the +course of time again, this wife bore Mr. Deats a son--and died +simultaneously. Well, Mr. Deats was left with a boy, and this boy must +have something to start him on in life. "How can a boy start life with +nothing?" thought Mr. Deats; and very rightly, too. One can't feed, +clothe, and educate a boy on nothing. So Mr. Deats did his duty harder +than ever; and he built up a business. Building up a business doesn't +require culture or intelligence; but it does take some time. Mr. Deats +has grown a trifle old in the building; but it is a good business. It +has been said that Mr. Deats' business is one of the best in the city. +And Mr. Deats has a fine son. After the manner of his class, Mr. Deats +believed that all the things that were denied him were the very best +things for his son. His son should not have to work as his father +did--and he doesn't. + +Mr. Deats, jr., has had advantages; he is a college graduate, a member +of clubs, and one of the prominent young men of the city socially. Of +course, being much cleverer, young Deats sees many of the mistakes his +father made in life. He sees, for one thing, what an old fogy is Mr. +Deats, sr. He sees how much better the business could be run. Mr. Deats, +sr., does not know how to run a business; he is not modern enough. +Still, he thinks he knows it all--that is the way with these bull-headed +old codgers--and won't let young Deats conduct the business as it should +be conducted. This, naturally, is very irritating to young Deats. No man +enjoys seeing his own business go to rack and ruin. But the old man +can't be kicked plump out into the street. He has no home but with young +Deats. And, in a way, he is useful about the office; though even were he +not, he must be humored. After all, he is the father of young Deats, and +blood is thicker than water. + + + + +VIII + +HAIR THAT IS SCENERY + +[Illustration] + + +Mr. Wigger, Mrs. Wigger's husband (the writer boards with Mrs. Wigger), +is an iceman. It is not his business, however, with which this study is +concerned; it is with his hair. Perhaps it is a great assumption of +talent to attempt to describe Mr. Wigger's hair. Oh, Muse! as John +Milton says, lend a hand here! Mr. Wigger's abundant hair, first, is a +deep, lusterful black, and extremely curly. From his ears straight +upward to the crown of his head (from the three-quarters view of him +studied here only one full ear is visible, and just barely the tip of +the other one) an oblong block of close curls is attached to the side of +his head, like a pannier. Leftward from this, to a point directly over +the beginning of his eyebrow, a broad, bare strip extends up to a black, +undulating band of hair which marks the top of his head. Thence leftward +to the part in the middle of his head is a plot of hair like a little +black lawn, extending well down to his forehead and neatly rounded at +the corner away from the part. Now, from the part onward the hair in a +great mass sweeps upward in a towering concave wave, the high ridge of +which, though it folds ever slightly inward, culminates at the top in a +sharp, soaring point. Over the far temple the hair falls from the great +waves in little swirling wavelets. Mr. Wigger's mustache, a great, +glossy, oily, inky black, against a sallow background, with tall upward +ends, is a worthy companion to his hair. His neck, to continue the +portrait, takes a long dive into his collar, which is very much too big, +with the fullness protruding in front. His shoulders are steeply +sloping, and his waistcoat is cut extremely low, like one for full +dress, his shirt front bulging when, as for this portrait, he is seated. +In this man romance lives on. A prosaic age has not marred him. You can +readily see how a woman would become infatuated with such a one. He is a +man not tonsorially decadent. + +[Illustration] + + + + +IX + +A NICE MAN + +[Illustration] + + +The clerk of the store (dry goods and gentlemen's furnishings) is what +is known as a nice man. He is known as such among his neighbors. He is +known as such by his customers. People, wives sometimes to their +husbands, refer to him as a nice man. Motherly old ladies say, "He is +such a nice man!" Younger ladies exclaim, "What a nice man!" You cannot +look at him and fail to know that he is a nice man. You cannot look at +him and fail to know that his life has been blameless. He is very clean, +tidy, and very, fresh-faced. His cheeks are round and rosy; his eyes +are bright; his mustache is silken. He is in perfect health; his +expression is pleasant; his disposition agreeable; and his manners are +perfect. His name is Will (certainly). + +The nice man has a little wife, who is almost as nice as he. She is +interested in Sunday schools. The nice man and his wife have a little +baby that looks just like its father. On Sundays they walk in the park, +pushing the baby-cab before them. On great days of celebration they go +together into the country, on picnics; and return home at night tired +out. On these trips to the country the little wife brings home chestnut +burrs to hang from the chandelier in the parlor. She made some +pussy-willow buds to look like little cats on a stick. These are on the +mantel. When Will got the job he now has his wife turned to the store's +advertisement the first thing in the newspaper every evening to read it. +She had always known that Will had it in him to be something, and so she +had always told him. When the nice men gets a raise in salary he and his +wife will put away so much a week and soon have a home of their own +somewhere in the suburbs. Already, the baby has a savings-bank account +of its own, and by the time it has developed into the grown image of the +nice man, its father, it will have a sum of money. + + + + +X + +NO SNOB + +[Illustration] + + +Let us walk down the street with Muldoon. + +Muldoon is always a bit shabby, and never well shaved. To be well +groomed is the mark of a snob. Muldoon walks with a brisk step and +somewhat defiantly. He carries his shoulders well back and a trifle +raised. He wears a cap; and a fine rakish thing is the way he wears it. +There is in his manner of wearing a cap a suggestion of the country fair +gambling game of ring-a-cane. His appearance gives the impression that +some one had tossed a cap at him and failed to ring him squarely, but +had landed it insecurely, and left it liable to fall off at any moment, +decidedly on one side of his head, and that then Muldoon had walked off +without giving the slightest thought to the matter. + +Professionally, Muldoon's greatest virtue is that he is a champion +"mixer" and "butter-in"; his greatest failing, that he is not reliable. +Still he is spoken of among his confrérie as "a good man," and is never +without employment. He has served upon a great multitude of newspapers +in sundry and divers cities, towns, and hamlets, though never upon any +one for a greater period than several months. His is a nature that +requires constant change and variety. In distant places he has been +editor--sporting editor, we believe he says--though in his own city--we +should hardly say that he had a city but that he always comes back +again--he serves in the capacity of police reporter. Thus we see that a +rolling stone is not without honor, save in his own country. + +Muldoon's classics in literature are "Down the Line with John Henry" and +"Fables in Slang," with a good appreciation of "Chimmy Fadden." He one +time wrote a book himself which was distinguished chiefly for spirit and +the odd circumstance that most of the lady characters were named +Flossie, and which was a failure financially. + +[Illustration] + +We were one day in company of Muldoon when he visited Hudson Street, in +the neighborhood of his childhood days, and where he met again some of +the friends of his youth. These meetings were affecting to witness. "Hi, +Pat Muldoon!" cried a fine stocky lad who immediately fell into the +attitude of pugilistic encounter. Muldoon, too, put up his fists. "Hi, +Owen Heely!" he cried; and they circled about, working their arms in and +out and grinning an affectionate greeting upon each other. + +We walk down the street with Muldoon; we pass an acquaintance (of +Muldoon's). "How 'do, Pat!" says the acquaintance. "Hullo, Tom!" (or +Dick, or Harry, as the case may be), cries Muldoon, then, as if in +afterthought, "Hold on, just a minute, Tom." Muldoon leaves us for a +moment--we had got quite past the acquaintance--goes back and engages +him in earnest conversation, inaudible to us. The acquaintance's head is +bent forward and while giving ear he gazes fixedly at the ground. Then +he slowly shakes his head, and, straightening up, says (we hear), "I +would if I had it, Pat. But I haven't got it with me." "All right," +cries Muldoon, in perfect good humor. "So long," and he returns to us. + +We continue down the street, and Muldoon beguiles the way with tales of +his checkered experience. Muldoon's duties as a representative of the +press require him to spend considerable of his time at the police +station. One time there came a great hurry-up call for the ambulance +when the ambulance surgeon was nowhere to be found. (This city hospital +was next door to the police station.) The horses were hitched, and +stomping and waiting. Again and again the call was repeated. A man, no +doubt, lay dying. Still no ambulance surgeon. Muldoon fretted and +waited. At length he could stand it no longer. He leaped into the seat, +jerked the reins in his hand, clanged the gong, and dashed full tilt to +the rescue. It was madness. What could he do when he got there? "Clang! +Clang!" went the gong. Reeling, plunging, staggering, now on two +wheels, now on one, now on none at all--on and on and on, around +corners, across tracks, between vehicles, past poles, dashed the +ambulance. "Clang! Clang!" Just missing a pedestrian here, who saves +himself only by a hair's-breadth, grazing a wheel there, on, on! until +he drew up by a knot of people along the curb. This drive was afterward +reckoned the fastest run in the history of the service. + +A laborer, swinging a mighty sledge, had dropped it on and mashed his +great toe. He was in acute pain. The man refused to budge until his +wound has been attended to. What was to be done? Muldoon had picked up a +trifling knowledge of surgery about the hospital. He whipped out the +surgical kit and took off the fellow's toe, neat as you please, by the +grace of heaven. We are now come to a public-house. Muldoon marches in +(we follow). He puts his foot on the rail, a dime, a ten-cent piece, on +the bar, turns to us, and says, "What'll you have?" We look at the dime +and say, "Beer." Now, Muldoon enters into conversation with the barman +(who has addressed him as "Pat"), and recounts to him the details of his +late illness, which are most astonishing. + +When we resume our journey, which Muldoon does with some reluctance, he +tells us the dream of his life. On the street where Muldoon spent his +boyhood live a great number of gossiping old cats, who, in so far as +they were able, made that boyhood miserable, who bore false witness to +one another, to his family, and to others, against Muldoon, and who +predicted that he (Muldoon) would come to a bad end. On the occasion of +his coming into any great sum of money, he intends to wind up a +tremendous bacchanalian orgy on that street. He will drive up it in a +cab in broad daylight, howling and singing, and with his feet out the +windows. On the roof of his equipage will be a great array of bottles, +and the cabman will be drunk and screaming. We believe Muldoon sees in +this mental picture a Brobdignagian placard on the back of the vehicle +reading, "This is Muldoon!!!" That will give 'em something to talk +about. It will be a fine revenge. + + + + +XI + +EVERY INCH A MAN + +[Illustration] + + +If there is a finer fellow in the world than Chester Kirk we have never +seen him. As he himself so often says, the finest things are done up in +small packages. (There was Napoleon, for instance, as we have heard him +say, and General Grant, and, at the moment, we do not remember who all.) + +When in eyeshot of ladies, especially when he is unknown to them, he is +grand. He takes his gloves from his pocket and holds them in his left +hand. He searches himself for a cigar, which, when found, he holds +before him, unlighted, in his right hand, on a level with his chest, his +elbow crooked. He stands very firmly, with one leg bending backward in a +line of virile, graceful curve. His back is taut. His other knee is bent +forward, relaxed. Or he strides up and down, with something of a fine +strut, like a fighting cock. So, he reminds us of Alan Breck. + +When, in this stimulating position, he has on a long coat, he swings its +skirt from side to side. He feels, undoubtedly so brave and strong. He +laughs, when there is opportunity for it, in a deep, manly voice, and +often. He sometimes pulls back his head so that he has a double chin. He +is every inch a man. + +As is quite fitting and proper, he is one of the most photographed of +men. This is a family trait. He has ever just had a new photograph taken +to send to his people, or his people have just sent some new ones to +him, which he shows about with great gusto to his friends. His room is +littered with likenesses of the Kirks, a very remarkable family. Here is +a photograph of his brother. + +"Notice that chest," says Kirk. "He's got an expansion on him like the +front of a house. Why, in his freshman year he had the biggest +expansion in his class. Athlete! That boy's a boxer." Kirk points the +stem of his pipe at you and continues: "He stood up before the huskiest +man in Seattle (and there are no huskier men than in Seattle), a big +brute of a fireman, a regular giant, with a reputation as a whirlwind +slugger. Yes. Why, it's all I can do to hold that boy myself. This," +exhibiting another picture, "is my father. See that pair of shoulders? +He is a little under the medium height, but the way he carries himself +he doesn't look it. He looks to be a rather big man. He has an air. He +came West a poor man, but one that could see chances, take them, and +hold on to them. He took them and hung on. He built up that business, I +think I have a right to say that it's the biggest on the Pacific Slope, +in an incredibly short time. Business he was from the word go. He could +handle men! An entertainer he is, too; he makes friends wherever he +goes; everybody likes him. Here's my sister. 'Sis' is the society woman +of the younger set at home. That's my other brother. He's a hunter." + +Next to pictures of himself and family, and their pets and live stock, +there is nothing Kirk revels in so much as snapshots of his native +country, "greatest country in the world." He has these pasted into +several volumes: each print is labeled, as "Mt. Ranier, looking north," +"Puget Sound, low tide," and so forth. Each new acquaintance Kirk takes +through the lot and explains the circumstances under which each picture +was taken. + +As Kirk himself remarks, his handwriting is very strong. It is that +strong that it has only about three, sometimes four, short words to a +line, with good strong spaces in between. The descending loops of +letters on one line often come down and lariat small letters on the line +below. The sense goes at a splendid break-neck speed, and takes pauses +and stops as though they were hurdles. The whole is penned in somewhat +that fashion in which express clerks make out receipts. + +That reminds us. We one time went with Kirk into an express office to +send a package. We ignorantly considered this to be a thing of little +moment. That was because we do not know how to handle men. A pale young +man, with a high, bald forehead, who had the appearance of an excellent +assistant to some one in an office, was standing at the counter. He +witnessed the entrance of the two without remarking it as an impressive +ceremony. Indeed, the clerk was quite apathetic. In an instant all this +was changed. + +"Let me have your pencil," Kirk demanded. It was the voice of the man +born to command, the man that moves an army of subordinates this way or +that, as he wills, like chessmen. He took the pencil, hoisted his +package onto the counter with a flourish, tilted his cigar upward in one +corner of his mouth by a movement of his jaws, and fell into so fine an +attitude that the pale young man became interested and leaned over to +see what important name would appear in the address. In his strongest +hand Kirk addressed it. It was a package worth two dollars Kirk was +sending to his brother, who needed it. "Send collect," cried Kirk. And +the entire company, Kirk included, and ourself, who also knew the +contents of the package, felt, it was evident, that a transaction very +important to the interests of business had been accomplished. + +Kirk was one time playing checkers when we entered. "Well, how are you +coming out?" we inquired. "Are you being beaten, Chester?" He flared up +like a flash. "I can beat you!" he cried. We had never seen the man so +beautiful. (He had never in his life seen us play checkers.) He looked +to be invincible; though he wasn't; for he had lost every game. + + + + +XII + +HIS BUSINESS IS GOOD + +[Illustration] + + +"HULLO there, Bill! I'm glad to see you. How're you getting along? Do +you know, I didn't know you when you first came in. Let me see, it's +been a couple--no, four years since I saw you before. I was pretty much +down and out then, ha! ha! Just bummed my way to New York, you know. +Well, how are things with you? You know, I sat there looking an' a +looking at you--couldn't make up my mind whether it was you or not. I +says to myself, 'I'll risk it,' I says. 'If it's Bill, we'll have a +time,' I says. Ha! Ha! I came over to take a bath--there's a fine bath +place across the street, where I always go. I'm in the photograph +business, you know, over in Brooklyn. Yes, doing well now; I'm manager +of the place; I'll take you over to see it. Been in the business three +years, same place; first two years work, work all the time, no pay at +all, so to speak. But I knew I was learning the business, and I liked +the job and liked the boss; we were busted together, you know. I was +head musher in a mushhouse at Coney, you know, when I first met him; +then I lost the job; we bummed around together awhile. Then I went back +to Indiana--by freight--to see my folks. + +"Yes, the old man's well; Dora's married, you know; married a Sunday +school superintendent, church where she taught Sunday school. Nothing +doing in Indiana. Laid around awhile, then I got a letter from this +feller. He had come into money, set up a photograph shop, told me to +come back and take a job with him. I went to my sister, Dora, you know, +and got railroad fare here. I says to her, 'If you can get me the money, +I'll pay you as soon as I can, which won't be long,' I says. 'I've got a +good job there,' I says. I says, 'Of course, I can bum my way back, but +it will take me four or five days, maybe a week,' I says. 'If I have +railroad fare I can get on a train here one day and get off there the +next,' I says. She got me the money from her husband--sixteen dollars; +she's been awful good to me; and I came in a passenger train. First +time, you know, ha! ha! Second-class, though; just as good as first, +though. I got on at Indianapolis one day, you know, and got off in New +York the next day. Twenty-four hours, you know. + +"First thing, I went to the feller's place, but he had moved. Didn't +leave any address, where he had gone, you know; nobody around there knew +anything about him. I was in a deuce of a fix. Didn't have a cent of +money--wasn't the first time, though. We used to write to each other +sometimes through the General Delivery, so I went there, and sure enough +there was a letter for me; but there was some postage due on it somehow. +I says to the man, I says, 'I haven't got any money; I can't pay it'; +there was a feller standing behind me in the line; he ups and says, +'Here, I'll pay it,' he says; 'it's only two cents' he says. So I got +the letter and set right out for the address; the feller had moved to a +better place. + +"Well, Bill, business has been good; we do a corking business on +Saturdays and Sundays, and the feller owns two or three galleries now. +He goes around tending to all of them and I have charge of one; there's +my card. I'm thinking about quitting, though, and going out West again; +business is too good, that's the trouble. No excitement; I'm getting +discouraged. Too much responsibility. Lord, Bill, I'm a _tramp_; I am; +yes, sir, that's what I am. I was raised that way. I like the life. The +man across the street from me owns a restaurant, where I eat; offered to +loan me a couple of hundred dollars to buy the gallery where I am. Ha! +Ha! That's a good one, isn't it? + +"Girls, Bill! you ought to see the girls that come to my place, Bill, +yes, sir, to get their pictures taken. They all call me 'Jack.' Yes, +everybody around here calls me 'Jack.' I used to be 'John,' you know, at +home, where we were boys together; great days those, yes, sir; I never +will forget those days. + +"Why, you know, I could have been married, Bill; yes, sir, ha! ha! Me, a +tramp. A fine girl, too, a regular lady, the real article, yes, sir, +rich too, yes, sir. Why I went over there one day, and their dog--a +blame little black dog--was sick; you ought to have seen the case of +medicine they had for that dog. A whole blame box full of bottles of +medicine; good medicine, too, yes, sir; why, I would have liked to have +had some of that medicine myself. + +"I'll take you over and introduce you to some of those girls; here's a +picture I took of one; she's a daisy. I took her to the theater last +Saturday night. You know, it does a feller good to see good shows at the +theater. This theater--it's a little place right near my gallery--I go +there every once in awhile; they have better shows there than they do at +the Opera House; I like 'em better. This was a fine show, 'His Mother's +Son.' Yes, sir, it does a feller good to go to the theater. + +"What's the matter with your coming over and staying with me to-night? +But no, I haven't a room now; you'd have to bunk in the gallery. That's +where I sleep now. I did have a room, you know, blame fine room, running +water, hot and cold, and all that sort of thing, three dollars a week. +But I got tired of it. Yes, too comfortable, bed all made up for me +every day, and everything else. It made me sick. I like to make my own +bed. I like to rough it like I'm used to doing, yes, so I gave it up +and sleep in the gallery now where I belong. I feel at home there, and +there's plenty of room. + +"Say, Bill, how are you fixed? Need any money? I've got more'n I want. +Don't know what to do with it all, you know. Not used to it, just blow +it in. Well, all right, we'll take and spend it then. Drink up, Bill, +and let's go some other place." + + + + +XIII + +A NICE TASTE IN MURDERS + +[Illustration] + + +WE are much interested in the picturesque character of Caroline. +Caroline is twelve. She is like a buxom, rosy apple. Her dress is a +"Peter Thompson." Her physical sports are running like the wind, and, in +summer, fishing. Our concern, however, is more with her mind. Caroline +is a voracious reader. We are somewhat bookish ourselves, and the +conversations between us are often frankly literary. Caroline's taste in +this matter, for one of her sex, is rather startling. + +"Oh, you ought to read the 'Pit and the Pendulum,'" says Caroline. "Is +it good?" we ask. "Fine!" Caroline replies. "It's at the time of the +Inquisition, you know," she explains. "They take a man and torture him. +It's fine," declares Caroline. "The demon's eyes grow brighter and +brighter" (phrases we recall from her synopsis of the tale), "the +pendulum comes nearer and nearer--but I think he deserved to escape," +says Caroline, "because he tried so hard." Now that is really a deep +moral observation, "because he tried so hard," and a sound questioning +of the philosophical verity of a work of art. + +"There's a good murder in here," says Caroline. + +"I like Sherlock Holmes," Caroline says. + +She reads the "Mark of the Beast" and the "Black Cat" with great +satisfaction. For comedy or for psychological moments she does not care, +but there is nobody, we believe, with greater capacity for enjoyment of +terrible murder in horrible dark places in the land of fiction. + +Night after night we heard her voice reading aloud to her visitor Emily +after the two had retired, until we fell asleep; and in the morning we +saw that the relish of horror was still upon her. + +Emily had gone. Caroline had retired alone. We read by the lamp in the +living-room. We were startled and mystified to hear suddenly mingle with +the sound of the night rain all around, a long, uncertain wailing, a +melancholy, haunting, sinking, rising, halting, gruesome sound, +uncannily redolent of weird Gothic tales; the "Castle of Otranto" came +into our mind. This apparently proceeded from an "upper chamber," as +would be said in the type of story mentioned. + +"That," said brother Henry, in replying doubtless to a blank face, "is +Caroline playing the flute." + +No one alive, of course, has not in his head a picture of another that +in the still hours sought solace in and loved a flute, Mr. Richard +Swiveler propped up in bed, his nightcap raked, fluting out the sad +thoughts in his bosom. So in the night and the storm, does another +bizarre soul, Caroline, speak with the elements. + + + + +XIV + +IDA'S AMAZING SURPRISE + +[Illustration] + + +IN "Bleak House," I think it is, that Poor Joe keeps "movin' along." One +of the atoms of London, he passes his whole life in the midst of +thousands upon thousands of signs. Printed letters, painted letters, +carved letters, words, words, words, blaze upon him all about. Yet not a +syllable of them all speaks to him; seen but all unheard by him they +clothe his path. Poor Joe cannot read. How must he regard these strange, +unmeaning signs? What is it goes on in this head which so little can +enter? What has filtered in where the great main avenue of approach +remains, as far from the first, black and unopened? What does this mind, +sitting there far off in the dark, looking out, comprehend of the +pageant? And how does it strike him? Some such a mysterious mind looks +out from Ida's eyes. + +Ida is "colored." It is my belief that though she is grown and well +formed a little child dwells in her head. I know that when I ask her to +bring me another cup of coffee and she pauses, slightly bends forward, +her lips a trifle parted, and fastens her clear, utterly innocent, +curious eyes upon me, waiting to hear repeated what she has already +heard, she sees me as a sort of toy balloon on a string, whose +incomprehensible movements excite a pleasurable wonder. As regularly as +the dinner hour comes around Ida asks, with that same amazingly +unsophisticated, interested look, if each of us will have soup. If it +were our custom occasionally not to take soup, if we had declined soup a +couple of times even, a good while ago, if even we had declined soup +once--but, as Mr. MacKeene says, what could have put it into her head +that we might not take soup? It is the same with dessert, with cereal +at breakfast. I hardly know why it is not the same with having our beds +made. + +It is easy to give Ida pleasure. She has not been satiated, perhaps, +with pleasure. A very little quite overjoys her. I turn about in my +chair to reach a book, and discover Ida silently dusting the furniture. +"Why! I didn't know you were in here," I say to Ida. Ida breaks into +great light at this highly entertaining situation. "Didin you know I was +in here! Didin you!" Her eyebrows go up with delight. Her pose might be +the original of Miss Rogson's "Merely Mary Ann." + + + + +XV + +NOT GULLIBLE, NOT HE + +[Illustration] + + +"Sir," said Doctor Johnson, "a fallible being will fail somewhere," So +far as penetration, at least, is concerned, this is not true of Dean. He +is never caught without his grains of salt. + +Dean believes nothing that he reads in newspapers. He is not caught, for +one thing, believing anecdotes of celebrated persons. These anecdotes +are pretty stories yearned for by a sentimental public. The public is +amusing, composed as it is of simple, guileless people who know nothing +of the world. Newspapers are concoctions of press agents, for the most +part--bait for the gullible. A citizen of the word is Dean, and he has, +alas! lost his innocence. This pleases him. You can't impose on Dean's +credulity. He hasn't got any credulity. In this respect he has much the +same effect upon his company as the Mark Twain dog that didn't have any +hind legs had upon the mind of his antagonist. That dog was hardly a +pleasure to his opponent. He was baffling. + +It is perhaps a man's misfortune that he should be so without delusions. +Dean has found out there is no Santa Claus, in a manner of speaking, +while the rest of us are yet humbugged. So while we may be pleased with +our callings or our hobby-horses, our coins, or our cockle-shells, our +drums, our fiddles, our pictures, our talents, our maggots and our +butterflies, he can only shrug his shoulders and depreciate them to the +best of his ability, saying that they are very poor cockle-shells, to be +sure, though no man more than he deplores it that this is so. Though no +doubt it must be a melancholy thing to feel so severely the failings of +all, Dean's cavilings are cheerfully made always, and they come to us +filtered through a humorous nature. And to do him justice, he is +whimsically aware of his own idiosyncrasies, and readily acknowledges +them as he sees them, which is in a mellow, kindly light. "Now I could +never make money," he says humorously, as it were. But that is not the +sum of life, he knows perhaps too well. + +He sees the vanity of it all, does Dean. He sees the vanity of all +useful endeavor. He sees the vanity most of all perhaps, of success. +What is this success we see around us, after all? What is the fame of +this man, this Mr. So-and-So, but sensationalism? Of what the success of +that other, but cheap notoriety, and a rich wife? They are both of them, +very probably, at heart as miserable as Dean. Ah me! 'tis a profitless +world, and there's no satisfaction in it anywhere. "Though probably you +are hardly of an age to see it yet," says Dean, and he smiles at the +juvenility of ambition. You will see it, however, when you too have +failed. + +"In this age when every man you meet is a genius," says Dean--it amuses +him that he is not of the many--"I have really seen only one really +great man, and I have been compelled to know a good many of the geniuses +too." This remarkable, unique gentleman, it appears, was an old +sou'easter sawbuck of a codger up in the backwoods of Maine, where he +lived hermit-wise in a shanty, being a squatter. When Dean met him +there he felt instinctively that here he was before a _man_. Uncle Eli +was old: he was a trifle filthy; he was addicted to drink; and not what +you would call much good in any way. He was uncouth; a man with the bark +on; one of nature's noblemen. He lacked culture, and education, and +intelligence; but he had eye-teeth. Lord! He wasn't polite; he wasn't +learned; but when it came to downright bull-headed horse-sense he +knocked the socks of all of them. He was a philosopher, this old B'gosh +half-idiot wreck. By George, he was, and a great one. He reminded Dean +of Lincoln. Some of his philosophical splinters from the old rail, rough +they were but ready, rather laid over the wisdom of Hercules himself. +"Ef 'n ol' hoss wus a Billygoat mighty few Christians there be 'ud git +to Heaven." That hits the nail on the head, Dean reckons. + + + + +XVI + +CRAMIS, PATRON OF ART + + +"Have you got any tobacco?" I inquired of Cramis. + +"Sure," he replied, "I'm never without it." + +He is a slave to the weed, a hopeless smoker. He hands me his pouch; the +tobacco is a little old and mildewed. When Cramis comes to visit me he +always brings a most disreputable looking pipe along in his mouth, +charred and cold. This he calls attention to, musingly, as it were, by +remarking that "that looks natural." + +"I shouldn't have known you without it," I answer. Then we are the best +of friends. An old Swede, an engineer of some rare sort, a whimsical +fellow, quite a character--Cramis is greatly interested in +characters--was much addicted to his pipe (so runs Cramis's story). It +was a limb of his body. He was one of those inveterate smokers that you +find here and there about the world. One day placards announcing that +smoking was prohibited among employees in the building were posted at +conspicuous places in the mill where Olie was employed. Olie went on +smoking. The manager came through; he paused at Olie. + +"Look-a-here," he said, "don't you see that sign? No smoking among +employees in this building." Olie slowly took the pipe from his mouth, +regarding it thoughtfully in his out-stretched hand as he blew a great +cloud of blue smoke. + +"Where my pipe goes," he said, replacing it between his teeth, "I goes." +You may notice it: there is something of the same idiosyncrasy between +that picturesque character and Cramis. + +For all the idler and the dilettante that he is, no man ever more +conscientiously attended to business than Cramis. He is at it early and +late. He is very successful. Yet he knows himself to be an impractical +cuss, a dreamer, an æsthetic visionary. No man so thoroughly reliable +was ever before so irresponsible. + +On his visits at my place, Cramis writes a great quantity of letters. +All globe trotters do this, I suppose, whether it is necessary or not. +It is only natural. If Cramis did not, many of his friends would not, +no doubt, be aware that he was in Connecticut, or, indeed, that he ever +got off the island of Manhattan. + +Though Cramis is by nature shrewd, saving, and methodically economical, +he is very careless about money. He has no more idea of the value of it +than Oliver Goldsmith. It is pitiful--yet lovable. + +[Illustration] + +Among Cramis's curious circle of acquaintances--his collection of +acquaintances is a regular menagerie, as he so often says--was a +painter, a fellow twenty-four years old and with nobody to support him. +Cramis believed, after carefully inquiring, that the fellow had talent +and might amount to something. He loaned him money. The scoundrel +squandered it, probably; at any rate, he bought no fame with it. That +was a year ago, and Cramis is eight dollars out of pocket. Still, his +heart is a brother to genius. He consulted me on the question of the +very least amount upon which a man could live, the length of time at the +smallest estimate wherein he could reasonably be expected to attain +greatness, and was for setting the fellow up in a studio elsewhere. I +pointed out to Cramis that it might possibly be years before the hungry +man became famous, and he abandoned the idea. It was too great a risk. + + + + +XVII + +BARBER SHOPS AWESOME + +[Illustration] + + +To patronize barbers' shops is a trying affair. Nothing but a crying +need of services obtained there can drive one who knows them well into +one of them. When you enter a barber shop, a long row of barber's +chairs, like a line of guns down the deck of a man-o'-war, stretching +away in perspective, confronts you. Three barbers, say, are engaged with +patrons; and they go calmly on. They are unaware of your existence. The +rest have been enjoying newspapers and leisure. You interrupt them; and +they spring, as one man, each to the head of his chair, and stand at +attention. To find such a company of well-fed, well-groomed, better-men +than-you-are suddenly at your service is disturbing; to have to insult +all the others in your selection of one is an uncomfortable thought. +They are all equally friendly toward you; but it is impossible for them +all to shave you; you must turn against some of them. There is no +retreat for you; you cannot turn around and go out. You choose the +nearest man, as the only solution: and the others show their displeasure +by returning to their seats. A fiend is in this man whom you have +chosen; his suavity was a diabolical mask. He gloats in publicly +humiliating you. He forces you to confess there before his "gang" that +you do not want anything but a shave. You have brought this man from his +newspaper simply to shave you! Now the number of things the barber +manages to do to you against your desire is a measure of the resistant +force of your character. You deny that you need a shampoo. There is no +denying that your hair is falling out. There is no denying that you +sometimes shave yourself. You need try to conceal nothing from this man. +He sees quite through you. (You recall a certain Roundabout Paper.) He +has Found You Out! All you ask is to be allowed to go. He washes your +face for you and turns you out of the chair. You pass into the hands of +a boy, the same boy you denied to polish your shoes, a boy that has his +opinions, who plays the tune of "Yankee Doodle" on you with a +whisk-broom very much as if he snapped his fingers in your face; and you +may go. + + + + +XVIII + +MUCH MARRIED STRATFORD + + +What an excellent thing it is that Stratford is comfortably married. He +is built for marriage. That is the life for him; a nice, quiet, +wholesome, unexciting life of home comforts. Mr. and Mrs. Stratford +dwell happily in a little nest called a cottage. Here they are +surrounded by all the sundry and divers chattels and effects incident to +the life they follow. + +[Illustration] + +In order that he may be properly protected against the elements, +Stratford is plentifully supplied with overshoes, earbobs, Storm King +chest protectors, mufflers, and umbrellas. He arms himself with these +instruments according to the precise demand of each different occasion. +Going out into the weather is an undertaking, and an adventure, +accompanied by hazardous risks. With Stratford, preparation for it is a +system and a science. Sometimes, however, Stratford's judgment errs in +the matter of precaution. One day last week Stratford went downtown. +Yielding to his vanity on that day, he recklessly wore kid gloves +instead of his mittens, which were so much more suited to the then +prevailing inclement weather. Now he suffers from it. He has a cough, +and is compelled to keep his breast goose-greased. + +Few people realize the importance of health, and the relation of diet to +health. Pork is not wholesome. New potatoes are very hard to digest. +Cream should never be eaten with peaches. This pernicious combination +curdles. Stratford knows much more about these things than does the +writer, which is fortunate for Stratford; the writer has only attempted +to point out and warn you against a few of the most important, which he +learned from Stratford. Stratford learned all this from experience. Last +evening at dinner Stratford drank two cups of coffee. He did not sleep a +wink all the night in consequence. Coffee is very bad for the nerves, +very bad. + +It may be that there are many persons like the writer in not knowing how +to serve coffee. The cream should always be put in the cup first, then +the coffee poured on. Though you may not be aware of the fact, it +absolutely ruins coffee to serve it any other way. It is better to put +sugar on oatmeal after the cream is on. The writer does not know why; +but it is better. + +[Illustration] + +Though one would hardly suspect it, in his youth Stratford was +considerable of a rake. He often tells the story. It appears that in a +spirit of reckless dare-deviltry on an occasion Stratford partook of +some spirituous liquor. Now Stratford has a tolerably strong head. But +this wine--or was it cocktail?--proved almost too much for him. Ah, +well! those wild and lawless days are past and gone. Stratford has +reformed, and will not fill a drunkard's grave. No one, we hope, +respects Stratford the less for having been a little wild. We all hate a +milksop, you will agree. + + + + +XIX + +A HUMAN CASH REGISTER + + +Across the table from a lodger sits Mr. Fife. Mr. Fife is a clerk. This +statement comprises, not inadequately, his memoirs. + +[Illustration] + +When a man speaks to you of the useful piece of mechanism called a cash +register, you comprehend him perfectly. You know what a cash register +is, for what purpose it was designed, how it looks, how much +approximately it is worth, what it will perform, and what it will +remain--a cash register. A cash register could not have been born a toy +balloon, spent its youth as a bicycle, been educated as a pulpit, have +imprudently married a footlight, been forced to obtain employment as a +cash register, but cherishes a secret ambition to be a typewriter and +solace itself in turn as a violin, a mug of ale, and a tobacco pipe. A +lodger does not say that Mr. Fife is no better in any way than a cash +register. A mother nursed him at her breast, watched him as he slept; he +was somebody's baby. A grown man was strangely moved, probably, when he +was born. He played somewhere as a child. Dirty little brothers and +sisters, perhaps, were his. He was spanked and had diseases and suffered +and was frightened and rejoiced. Hearts have been glad when he was near. +One or two little girls, no doubt, have admired him very much. Some +woman, probably somewhere, admires him still. A lodger does not say that +Mr. Fife has no inner life. He does not say that the forces of existence +constantly, ceaselessly beating in on this man (or rather clerk) are not +here slowly, inevitably shaping a moral character, this way or that. But +as this human life sits here at Mrs. Wigger's board a clerk is here, +with his past and his future. + +Mr. Fife has a "furnished room" somewhere around on the next street, and +only takes his meals at Mrs. Wigger's. + + + + +XX + +IT STANDS TO REASON + + +On the hotel porch a large, earnest man was delivering the argument. He +poised his pipe in his hand; and, moving forward from period to period +with judicial deliberation, choosing his words with care, building his +sentences with a nice regard for precision, he constructed his +exposition in logical sequence. He had time at his command; and, so he +gripped his audience, was in no fear of interruption. "For instance, we +will take, for instance, just for instance, do you understand? the +little town of New York to represent the whole country. Well, here we +have the little town of New York. Now, it stands to reason----" One who +chanced to overhear passed beyond range. + +But what of the disquisition had been caught gave rise to an important +reflection. When you examine the subject you find there are three +fundamental phrases in arguing, in the dexterous use of which is +largely constituted the talent of the born arguer. These home-driving +phrases, which are his stock in trade, are: "It stands to reason," +"between man and man," and "that's human nature." With these, strongly +used, one can do almost anything. "Does capital meet labor?" says the +born arguer. "No; what is the consequence? It stands to reason. Labor +goes to the wall." Or, again: "You take the generations we have now, the +young people." He smokes a while in silence. "It's human nature," comes +the philosophical conclusion. And when the arguer addresses his audience +"as between man and man," when in this direct, blunt way all the +frangipani of class and convention is cleared aside, and only their +manhood stands between them, he has got at the bed-rock of argument. + + + + +XXI + +A THREE-RINGED CIRCUS + +[Illustration] + + +Our friend MacKeene is a very interesting person. One of his most +pronounced characteristics is an assiduous striving on his part to +increase his vocabulary. We are always made aware of any of his new +acquisitions in this direction by its frequent repetition during a +conversation, the loving way in which he appears to dwell upon it, to +hug it to his heart, allow it gradually to mount to his throat, roll it +in his mouth to suck its flavor, to send it forth at length, to watch it +tenderly and admiringly (like a fine ring of tobacco smoke) until it +loses itself in the flow of speech that comes after it. We relish this +new word ourselves. It is like a play; it thrills our soul, and we sigh +when it is gone--but we know it will come again many times before the +night is passed. + +It has never been our fortune to see a man that enjoyed the show of life +more than does MacKeene. He reads newspapers with a relish that is +positively amazing; he smacks his lips over them; their contents are to +him the headiest romance. MacKeene goes to the finest theater in the +world every evening when he reads his penny paper. The anxiety with +which he awaits the account of each new murder, swindle, election, +disaster, marriage, or divorce of a special publicity, the mental +agility with which he pounces upon it, the astonishing variety of points +of view he can take of the thing, and the application with which he +follows through successive installments the story to the very end, are +delightful to behold. + +He invariably winds up his observations upon life with the comment that +"it is a funny world; such funny people in it." + +True, or, rare MacKeene! It _is_ a funny world, and there _are_ such +funny people in it! Everybody is queer but thee and us. + +The other evening, after he had devoured his newspaper and sat staring +at the wall, we started him going by the remark: + +"Well, what's in the paper to-night, MacKeene?" + +"What's in the paper to-night?" cried he. + +[Illustration] + +"Everything is in the paper, everything--worlds of it--plays, skits, +comedies, farces, tragedies, burlesques: material for the student, the +historian, the author, the poet, the moralist, the humorist, much matter +to be fast applauded for its slapstick good nature, and some bowed with +leaden-eyed despair, some replete with rosy schemes, some of waxing +hopes and sweet, unprofitable pipe dreams, some of many moneys, births, +deaths, marriages and giving in marriages, loves, hatreds, wisdoms, +follies, crimes, vices and virtues, heroisms, hypocrisies, arts, +commercialism, surprises, bacchanals, hard exigencies, and poor resorts +and petty contrivances. _Life_--ah! that's the boy--life and all its +train of consequences, ringing in my ears, dancing before my eyes, +crowding on the senses, a three-ringed circus in full blast, a roary, +noisy, bloomin' spectacle, a mammoth aggregation of prodigious +eye-openers and unparalleled splendors, with gorgeous hippodrome under +perfect subjection, and a Casino Wonderland Musée of queer, peculiar, +wild, domestic, instructing, funny, beautiful, horrible, and revolting +curios and monstrosities of land, air, and sea." + + + + +XXII + +SNAPSHOTS IN X-RAY + +[Illustration] + + +What a terrible thing is the X-ray! + +Terrible? + +Listen. Contemplate the prospect of this invention's being brought into +popular use, so that, say, anybody might have such an attachment to his +kodak. In such case, science, which has been so powerful a force in +refining the civilization of man, would by one stroke lay waste the +whole of her handiwork. Civilized society would collapse. + +A German professor at one time went pretty well into the subject of +clothes and the philosophy thereof, and reasoned among other things +that society would instantly dissolve without them. Nothing could more +vividly bear out this gentleman than contemplation of the possibilities +of the Roentgen ray. It is an exciting prospect. A press of the button, +and there would be Herr Teufelsdrockh's "straddling Parliament." But a +thousand times more grotesque: gentlemen stripped not only of the +tailored habiliment of the bodies, the symbols of their gentility, as it +were, but of the fleshly garments of their frame, laying bare their +mortality. And humorously, witheringly, for among the other distinctions +man is said to possess above his brethren the beasts, being the only +animal that laughs, and so forth, it is certainly true that of all +creation he has the funniest skeleton. It would be the end. No candidate +for public office would dare to come forth upon the platform. What stout +lady could give a party? + +Unless, indeed, as would probably result, for the preservation of +society the use and carrying of kodaks would be regulated, like the +carrying of revolvers, by statute. To photograph a gentleman or lady on +the street would be a criminal deed carrying a penalty of twenty years' +imprisonment. For though ladies blessed by nature might not, in this +lingerie-less, tube-skirt age, shrink from further perception of their +loveliness, it is doubtful if any man could make love to a woman after +having seen an effigy of her skeleton. To snap the President would be +equivalent, in the eyes of the law, to assassinating him. To take an +X-ray photograph of a fashionable assembly would be, like discharging a +dynamite bomb in the midst, punishable with death. + + + + +XXIII + +BACHELOR REMINISCENCES + + +Sometimes my thoughts carry me away from my solitary strife with the +world; back to my boyhood, when all men were not thieves and scoundrels, +as they are now; back to my old home and my family, where we loved one +another and did not, lynx-eyed, watch for a grip upon our neighbors' +throats nor count our every friend as a possibility of our own +advancement, and every favor we did another a business investment. + +[Illustration] + +In one such mood as this, on an evening, I was pleased, upon answering +the knock at my door, to usher in my neighboring lodger Harrison. In +reminiscence we would renew our youth; and to that purpose I started him +off upon the desired track. + +Harrison poses as something of a philosopher, and he began with some of +his customary rot. + +"Well," said he, "I have never known a man that talked at all upon the +subject who did not follow a calling which was the most trying of all +those at which men labor in this world, who did not have a most +remarkably hard time in early life, and who did not fondly imagine that +he was a very bad boy in his youth. These, I take it, are the three most +familiar hallucinations in life. I am a victim to them myself. But I +shall not regale you with them to-night. I was thinking of my own +boyhood, the wickedness of it, and the happiness. Ah! boyhood, that is +the happy time; girlhood may be, too--but I doubt it. + +"These many years have I been like poor Joe in 'Bleak House,' I must +keep moving along; but when I was a boy I had a home. A strange word it +is to me now. I am reminded of the old vaudeville 'stunt': Any old place +I hang my hat is home, sweet home, to me. I follow a trunk about the +world, and a devil of a globe-trotter of a trunk it is. + +"But when I was a boy," continued Harrison, the lines in his face +softened--and he somehow just now looked very like a boy--"I had a home; +there the board was always paid." The lines came back in his face for an +instant, then faded away again. "There in the winter it was always +warm," he said, looking very hard at my small fire. "There we had great +feasting and drinking." I could not but notice how spare he was now. +"There were noise and romping," and the softness of his voice now +emphasized the extreme desertedness of my chambers. "There were brothers +and sisters. Did you ever have a brother?" he asked me rather suddenly. + +I replied that I never did. + +"Or a sister?" he inquired. + +I said "No." + +He looked at me with a sort of annoying pity. + +"I hope," he said rather irritatedly, "that you had a mother?" + +I replied that I had had, but I did not see why we should fight about +it. + +"Now, don't lose your temper, old man," said Harrison. "You're such an +incorrigible old dope, you know, such a cynical, confirmed old bachelor +of a bohemian, I mean; so contented with this lonesome, vagabond life, +that I hardly think you ever had a real, happy, wholesome boyhood home. +By the way, did you ever have a boyhood?" he asked with something very +near to a sneer. + +[Illustration] + +"Now, look here," I said, "if you had such an insufferable home, why +didn't you stay there and make your own family miserable instead of +wandering about the world bemoaning your fate, wishing yourself back +there, and insulting people who are not moved by ties of relationship to +be tolerant with your spleen? And who won't be," I added, rising. + +"You're a fool," said Harrison, as he banged the door. + + + + +XXIV + +A TESTIMONIAL + +[Illustration] + + +For years I was a great sufferer from insomnia. At one time this dread +scourge had so fastened its terrible fangs upon me that I could scarcely +walk. My body became one mass of sleeplessness; I tried many remedies, +but without avail, and my friends had all given me up for dead when by +chance from a mere acquaintance I heard of this great cure which I would +recommend to all who are afflicted as I was. + +I remember with horror the tortures I used to endure in agony as I +tossed to and fro on the hot pillow, going over in my fevered mind +interminably the formulas of the so-called reliefs from this peerless +disease. An unconscionable number of times I numbered a round of sheep +over a stile. I counted up to ten, over and over again; and then up to +fifteen, and then twenty, twenty-five, thirty, fifty, only to craze +myself with the thought of the futility of this lunacy. I heard my +dollar watch tick on the dresser, until in madness I arose and placed it +on the restraining pad of a clothes-brush. I heard the clock in the next +room relentlessly tell the passing hours; I heard a neighboring public +clock follow it through the watches of the night. I heard my happy +neighbor snore. I heard the sound of rats near by, and the creaking of +floors, and the voice of the wind. I tried bathing my feet before going +to bed. I tried eating a light lunch. I tried intoxicating liquors. But +always I stared through the blackness of the fearful night until an +eerie color tinged my window, and then the dawn came up like thunder +across the bay. + +It was when my spirit had become worn through my body like elbows +through the sleeve of an old coat that I heard the remarkable recipe for +insomnia: Think of the top of your head. That is what I was told to do. +"Think of the top of your head," I said to myself with some disdain in +the awful grip of the night; "now how in thunder do you think of the top +of your head?" + +"Do you think of your hair?" I asked, turning my eyeballs upward in +their sockets. "Do you think of that lightly hidden baldness?" striving +to put my mind, so to say, on the top of my head. "How the +Dickens-can-you-think-of----" but a drowsy numbness pained my sense as +though of hemlock I had drunk, or emptied some dull opiate to the drains +one minute past, and Lethewards had sunk. And I dreamed that quite +plainly, as though it were some other fellow's, I saw the top of my +head. + + + + +XXV + +FRAGRANT WITH PERFUME + + +Mr. Duff is the tenant of the second floor front. His wife has been +away. Mr. Duff himself may be encountered about in the halls. He is a +large man with a considerable girth and a face that one knows to be +youthful for his age; he cannot be under thirty. + +Recently the second floor hall became fragrant with the odor of perfume. +Mrs. Duff, presumably, had returned. Yes, Mrs. Duff was at the +telephone. She calls, "Hello!" very sweetly, in two syllables. Mr. +Duff's first name, it appears, is Walter, pronounced by his doting wife +also in two syllables, "Wal-ter." Mrs. Duff bleats, it seems, in two +syllables. Mr. Duff's middle name evidently is "Hon-ey." + +Mrs. Duff said over the telephone that she "had been ba-ad." She said +it, or, so sweetly. She had, she said, taken a little walk and had +stayed "too long" and she had been away when he had called her up. But +she had had the "best little time." She was going to work now, "oh! so +ha-rd." She was going to clean out the bureau drawers and "that little +box," and unpack her trunk and put away her things. No, she would be +careful not to overwork herself. She would see him, Walter Honey Duff, +when he came home from work. "Good-by, little boy," she said. + +[Illustration] + +Then she called up a creamery. She wanted the creamery to send her, +please, a pint of milk, and the smallest jar it had of cream cheese. How +soon could those be sent, please? Oh-h! not till then? Well, she +supposed she would have to wait. + +The second floor hall is fragrant with the odor of perfume. + + + + +XXVI + +WOULDN'T LOOK AT HIM + +[Illustration] + + +"They say," remarked the portly man with several double chins on the +back of his neck, "that the Duke is over in the Library." + +"I wouldn't walk across the street to see him," said a shabby +individual, helping himself to a cracker. + +"He's no better than any other man," said the bar-boy. + +"I wouldn't look at him if they brought him in to me," announced an +aggressive-looking character. + +Now this was a remark rich in pictorial suggestion. It was eloquent +with dramatic evocation. One instantly imagines the striking scene; the +duke is dragged in; the aggressive-looking character is called upon to +look at him; this he refuses to do. + +"He breathes the same kind of air we do, don't he?" pointedly inquired +the shabby individual. + +"I guess that's right enough, too!" exclaimed the bar-boy. + + + + +XXVII + +CONNUBIAL FELICITY + + +I've got a fine wife, too. I tell you, Bob, there's nothin' better can +happen to a feller than to get the right woman. I don't care for battin' +around any more now. Nothin' I like any better than to go home to my +flat at night, take off my shoes and put on my slippers, and listen to +my wife play the piano. My wife is musical, vocal and instrumental. Her +vocal is on a par with her instrumental. I like music. I always said if +ever I got married I'd marry, a wife that was musical. I ain't educated +in music, exactly, but I've an ear. A feller told me,--Doc. Hoff, a +mighty smart man, I'd like you to know him, his talk sometimes it would +take a college professor to understand it,--he says to me, "I'm no +phrenologist but I can see you've got an ear for music." + +My wife is an aristocrat. When I married her, Thunder! I had no polish, +that is to speak of. You know that, Bob. My talk was the vernacular. My +wife's an Episcopalian. She asked me if I had any objection to the +Episcopal ceremony for marrying. I said I didn't have no religion; +anything would suit me so long as it was legal. I had fifteen hundred +dollars to the good. I don't know how I come to have it. I oughtn't to +have, by rights. Some of these book makers ought to have had it, +accordin' to the life I led. But I did have it, anyhow. I took three +hundred dollars and got a sweet of drawing room furniture--Louie +fourteenth, or fifteenth, they call it, I forget which. Then I got a +mahogany table, solid parts through, for our dining room, and some what +they call Chippendale chairs. I got a darn good library up there, too. + +My wife don't say "and so forth"; she says "and caetera." + + + + +XXVIII + +A FRIEND, INDEED + + +He was a sturdy-looking little man, with a square, honest face, and an +upright manner, to put it so. He seemed to be a Swede. His companion had +something the look of Mr. Heep, and he wore a cap. + +"Yes, sir, Will," said his companion, "I'd like to see you own that +piece of property. I would. If you owned that piece of property, Will, +then you see you'd have something. You'd have something, Will. Something +you could always call your own, Will." + +"Do you think it's good land?" said Will. + +"Oh, yes," said his companion; "that's a very fine piece of land, Will. +I know every bit of it. I've worked up there, Will." + +"Rocky?" asked Will. + +"Oh, no, Will; there's hardly a rock on it." + +"How far now does it come down this way?" inquired Will musingly. + +"Down the hill, Will?" asked his companion, with great attention. + +"Yes," said Will. + +"Well, now as to that," said the other, casting his face upward in +thought, "I couldn't just exactly say." + +"Down to the oak tree, don't it?" said Will. + +"That's right, Will!" exclaimed the other, in delighted recognition of +the fact. "Down to the oak tree, Will. You're right, Will." + +"And how far would you say," asked Will thoughtfully, "does it run back +in?" + +"Run back in, Will?" said the other as though in surprise. "Well, now +you know, Will," shaking his head in doubt, "it's been some time since I +was up there, Will." + +"It goes back as far as the big rock, don't you think?" said Will, +thinking hard. + +"Back to the big rock, Will!" cried the other eagerly. "That's right, +Will. You're right! Back to the big rock, Will!" + +"What's the name of those people who own the land just this way?" Will +asked, looking hard into his mind. + +"Well, now, Will, I can't just bring to mind the name of those people," +answered the other, looking equally hard, apparently, into his own +mind. + +"Smithers, ain't it?" said Will, gropingly. + +"Smithers is the name!" ejaculated the other. "You're right, Will! +That's it! Smithers! You're right, Will! Nice people, too, Will!" + +"Well, I don't think though that I'll get that land, after all," said +Will, in the manner of a man who has at length arrived at a decision. + +"Well, of course, Will," said his companion, nodding his head up and +down, "property is a great care. I don't know that you're not right, +Will. Property's a great care, Will; you're right about that, Will. You +can do better, Will. You're right about that!" + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Peeps at People, by Robert Cortes Holliday + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT PEOPLE *** + +***** This file should be named 35675-8.txt or 35675-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/6/7/35675/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +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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