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+Project Gutenberg's The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon, by Richard Connell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon
+       and other humorous tales
+
+Author: Richard Connell
+
+Release Date: September 15, 2011 [EBook #37430]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SIN OF MONSIEUR PETTIPON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Veronika Redfern, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
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+
+
+                              _The Sin of
+                           Monsieur Pettipon_
+
+                                  AND
+
+                         _Other Humorous Tales_
+
+
+                           _Richard Connell_
+
+
+
+
+                              _The Sin of
+                           Monsieur Pettipon_
+
+                                  AND
+
+                         _Other Humorous Tales_
+
+                                  BY
+
+                           _Richard Connell_
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+                              _New York_
+                          _Copyright, 1922,
+                     By George H. Doran Company_
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+        _Copyright, 1922, by P. F. Collier & Son Co._
+        _Copyright, 1921, by The Century Co._
+        _Copyright, 1920, by Street and Smith Corporation_
+        _Copyright, 1921, by The McCall Company_
+        _Copyright, 1920, 1921, 1922, By the Curtis Publishing Company_
+
+               PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+                       TO LOUISE FOX CONNELL
+
+            _My Wife Who Helped Me With These Stories_
+
+
+
+
+                             CONTENTS
+
+                                                            PAGE
+
+   I _The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon_                           11
+
+  II _Mr. Pottle and the South-Sea Cannibals_                 31
+
+ III _Mr. Pottle and Culture_                                 51
+
+  IV _Mr. Pottle and the One Man Dog_                         69
+
+   V _Mr. Pottle and Pageantry_                              101
+
+  VI _The Cage Man_                                          127
+
+ VII _Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?_                     145
+
+VIII _Mr. Braddy's Bottle_                                   165
+
+  IX _Gretna Greenhorns_                                     187
+
+   X _Terrible Epps_                                         207
+
+  XI _Honor Among Sportsmen_                                 239
+
+ XII _The $25,000 Jaw_                                       263
+
+
+
+
+I: _The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon_
+
+
+Moistening the tip of his immaculate handkerchief, M. Alphonse Marie
+Louis Camille Pettipon deftly and daintily rubbed an almost
+imperceptible speck of dust from the mirror in Stateroom C 341 of the
+liner _Voltaire_ of the Paris-New York Steamship Company, and a little
+sigh of happiness fluttered his double chins.
+
+He set about his task of making up the berths in the stateroom with the
+air of a high priest performing a sacerdotal ritual. His big pink hands
+gently smoothed the crinkles from the linen pillow cases; the woolen
+blankets he arranged in neat, folded triangles and stood off to survey
+the effect as an artist might. And, indeed, Monsieur Pettipon considered
+himself an artist.
+
+To him the art of being a steward was just as estimable as the art of
+being a poet; he was a Shelley of the dustpan; a Keats of the sheets. To
+him the making up of a berth in one of the cabins he tended was a
+sonnet; an orange pip or burnt match on the floor was as intolerable as
+a false quantity. Few poets took as much pains with their pens as he did
+with his whisk. He loved his work with a zeal almost fanatical.
+
+Lowering himself to his plump knees, Monsieur Pettipon swept the floor
+with a busy brush, humming the while a little Provence song:
+
+    _"My mama's at Paris,
+    My papa's at Versailles,
+    But me, I am here,
+    Sleeping in the straw._
+
+CHORUS:
+
+    _"Oo la la,
+    Oo la la,
+    Oo la, oo la,
+    Oo la la."_
+
+As he sang the series of "Oo la las" he kept time with strokes of his
+brush, one stroke to each "la," until a microscope could not have
+detected the smallest crumb of foreign matter on the red carpet.
+
+Then he hoisted himself wheezily to his feet and with critical eye
+examined the cabin. It was perfection. Once more he sighed the happy
+little sigh of work well done; then he gathered up his brush, his
+dustpan and his collection of little cleaning rags and entered the
+stateroom next door, where he expertly set about making things tidy to
+an accompaniment of "Oo la las."
+
+Suddenly in the midst of a "la la," he broke off, and his wide brow
+puckered as an outward sign that some disquieting thought was stirring
+beneath it. He was not going to be able to buy his little son Napoleon a
+violin this trip either.
+
+The look of contentment he usually wore while doing the work he loved
+gave way to small furrows of worry. He was saying silently to himself:
+"Ah, Alphonse, old boy, this violin situation is getting serious. Your
+little Napoleon is thirteen, and it is at that tender age that virtuosos
+begin to find themselves. And what is a virtuoso without a violin? You
+should be a steward of the first class, old turnip, where each trip you
+would be tipped the price of a violin; on second-class tips one cannot
+buy even mouth organs. Alas!"
+
+Each trip now, for months, Monsieur Pettipon had said to his wife as he
+left his tiny flat in the Rue Dauphine, "This time, Thérèse, I will have
+a millionaire. He will see with what care I smooth his sheets and pick
+the banana skins from the floor, and he will say, 'This Pettipon is not
+such a bad lot. I will give him twenty dollars.' Or he will write to M.
+Victor Ronssoy about me, and Monsieur Ronssoy will order the captain to
+order the chief steward to make me a steward of the first class, and
+then, my dear, I will buy a violin the most wonderful for our little
+cabbage."
+
+To which the practical Thérèse would reply, "Millionaires do not travel
+second class."
+
+And Monsieur Pettipon would smile hopefully and say "Who can tell?"
+although he knew perfectly well that she was right.
+
+And Thérèse would pick a nonexistent hair from the worn collar of his
+coat and remark, "Oh, if you were only a steward of the first class, my
+Alphonse!"
+
+"Patience, my dear Thérèse, patience," he would say, secretly glowing as
+men do when their life ambition is touched on.
+
+"Patience? Patience, indeed!" she would exclaim. "Have you not crossed
+on the _Voltaire_ a hundred and twenty-seven times? Has a speck of dust
+ever been found in one of your cabins? You should have been promoted
+long ago. You are being done a dirtiness, Monsieur Pettipon."
+
+And he would march off to his ship, wagging his big head.
+
+This trip, clearly, there was no millionaire. In C 341 was a young
+painter and his bride; his tip would be two dollars, and that would be
+enough, for was he not a fellow artist? In C 342 were two lingerie
+buyers from New York; they would exact much service, give hints of much
+reward and, unless Monsieur Pettipon looked sharp, would slip away
+without tipping him at all. In C 343 were school-teachers, two to a
+berth; Monsieur Pettipon appraised them at five dollars for the party; C
+344 contained two fat ladies--very sick; and C 345 contained two thin
+ladies--both sick. Say a dollar each. In C 346 was a shaggy-bearded
+individual--male--of unknown derivation, who spoke an explosive brand of
+English, which burst out in a series of grunts, and who had economical
+habits in the use of soap. It was doubtful, reasoned Monsieur Pettipon,
+if the principle of tipping had ever penetrated the wild regions from
+which this being unquestionably hailed. Years of experience had taught
+Monsieur Pettipon to appraise with a quite uncanny accuracy the amount
+of tips he would get from his clients, as he called them.
+
+Still troubled in his mind over his inability to provide a new violin
+for the promising Napoleon, Monsieur Pettipon went about his work, and
+in the course of time reached Stateroom C 346 and tapped with soft
+knuckles.
+
+"Come," grunted the shaggy occupant.
+
+Monsieur Pettipon, with an apologetic flood of "pardons," entered. He
+stopped in some alarm. The shaggy one, in violently striped pajamas, was
+standing in the center of the cabin, plainly very indignant about
+something. He fixed upon Monsieur Pettipon a pair of accusing eyes. With
+the air of a conjurer doing a trick he thrust his hand, palm upward,
+beneath the surprised nose of Monsieur Pettipon.
+
+"Behold!" cried the shaggy one in a voice of thunder.
+
+Monsieur Pettipon peered into the outstretched hand. In the cupped palm
+was a small dark object. It was alive.
+
+Monsieur Pettipon, speechless with horror, regarded the thing with round
+unbelieving eyes. He felt as if he had been struck a heavy, stunning
+blow.
+
+At last with a great effort he asked weakly, "You found him here,
+monsieur?"
+
+"I found him here," declared the shaggy one, nodding his bushy head
+toward his berth.
+
+The world of Monsieur Pettipon seemed to come crashing down around his
+ears.
+
+"Impossible!" panted Monsieur Pettipon. "It could not be."
+
+"It could be," said the shaggy one sternly, "because it was."
+
+He continued to hold the damnatory evidence within a foot of Monsieur
+Pettipon's staring incredulous eyes.
+
+"But, monsieur," protested the steward, "I tell you the thing could not
+be. One hundred and twenty-seven times have I crossed on this
+_Voltaire_, and such a thing has not been. Never, never, never."
+
+"I did not make him," put in the passenger, with a show of irony.
+
+"No, no! Of course monsieur did not make him. That is true. But perhaps
+monsieur----"
+
+The gesture of the overwhelmed Pettipon was delicate but pregnant.
+
+The shaggy passenger glared ferociously at the steward.
+
+"Do you mean I brought him with me?" he demanded in a terrible voice.
+
+Monsieur Pettipon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Such things happen," he said soothingly. "When one travels----"
+
+The shaggy one interrupted him.
+
+"He is not mine!" he exploded bellicosely. "He never was mine. I found
+him here, I tell you. Here! Something shall be done about this."
+
+Monsieur Pettipon had begun to tremble; tiny moist drops bedewed his
+expanse of brow; to lose his job would be tragedy enough; but this--this
+would be worse than tragedy; it would be disgrace. His artistic
+reputation was at stake. His career was tottering on a hideous brink.
+All Paris, all France would know, and would laugh at him.
+
+"Give me the little devil," he said humbly. "I, myself, personally, will
+see to it that he troubles you no more. He shall perish at once,
+monsieur; he shall die the death. You will have fresh bedding, fresh
+carpet, fresh everything. There will be fumigations. I beg that monsieur
+will think no more of it."
+
+Savagely he took the thing between plump thumb and forefinger and bore
+it from the stateroom, holding it at arm's length. In the corridor, with
+the door shut on the shaggy one, Monsieur Pettipon, feverishly agitated,
+muttered again and again, "He did bring it with him. He did bring it
+with him."
+
+All that night Monsieur Pettipon lay in his berth, stark awake, and
+brooded. The material side of the affair was bad enough. The shaggy one
+would report the matter to the head steward of the second class;
+Monsieur Pettipon would be ignominiously discharged; the sin, he had to
+admit, merited the extremest penalty. Jobs are hard to get, particularly
+when one is fat and past forty. He saw the Pettipons ejected from their
+flat; he saw his little Napoleon a café waiter instead of a virtuoso.
+All this was misery enough. But it was the spiritual side that tortured
+him most poignantly, that made him toss and moan as the waves swished
+against the liner's sides and an ocean dawn stole foggily through the
+porthole. He was a failure at the work he loved.
+
+Consider the emotions of an artist who suddenly realizes that his
+masterpiece is a tawdry smear; consider the shock to a gentleman, proud
+of his name, who finds a blot black as midnight on the escutcheon he had
+for many prideful years thought stainless. To the mind of the crushed
+Pettipon came the thought that even though his job was irretrievably
+lost he still might be able to save his honor.
+
+As early as it was possible he went to the head steward of the second
+class, his immediate superior.
+
+There were tears in Monsieur Pettipon's eyes and voice as he said,
+"Monsieur Deveau, a great misfortune, as you have doubtless been
+informed, has overtaken me."
+
+The head steward of the second class looked up sharply. He was in a
+bearish mood, for he had lost eleven francs at cards the night before.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Pettipon?" he asked brusquely.
+
+"Oh, he has heard about it, he has heard about it," thought Monsieur
+Pettipon; and his voice trembled as he said aloud, "I have done faithful
+work on the _Voltaire_ for twenty-two years, Monsieur Deveau, and such a
+thing has never before happened."
+
+"What thing? Of what do you speak? Out with it, man."
+
+"This!" cried Monsieur Pettipon tragically.
+
+He thrust out his great paw of a hand; in it nestled a small dark
+object, now lifeless.
+
+The head steward gave it a swift examination.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed petulantly. "Must you trouble me with your pets at
+this time when I am busy?"
+
+"Pets, monsieur?" The aghast Pettipon raised protesting hands toward
+heaven. "Oh, never in this life, monsieur the head steward."
+
+"Then why do you bring him to me with such great care?" demanded the
+head steward. "Do you think perhaps, Monsieur Pettipon, that I wish to
+discuss entomology at six in the morning? I assure you that such a thing
+is not a curiosity to me. I have lived, Monsieur Pettipon."
+
+"But--but he was in one of my cabins," groaned Monsieur Pettipon.
+
+"Indeed?" The head steward was growing impatient. "I did not suppose you
+had caught him with a hook and line. Take him away. Drown him. Bury him.
+Burn him. Do I care?"
+
+"He is furious," thought Monsieur Pettipon, "at my sin. But he is
+pretending not to be. He will save up his wrath until the _Voltaire_
+returns to France, and then he will denounce me before the whole ship's
+company. I know these long-nosed Normans. Even so, I must save my honor
+if I can."
+
+He leaned toward the head steward and said with great earnestness of
+tone, "I assure you, monsieur the head steward, that I took every
+precaution. The passenger who occupies the cabin is, between ourselves,
+a fellow of great dirtiness. I am convinced he brought this aboard with
+him. I have my reasons, monsieur. Did I not say to Georges Prunier--he
+is steward in the corridor next to mine--'Georges, old oyster, that
+hairy fellow in C 346 has a look of itchiness which I do not fancy. I
+must be on my guard.' You can ask Georges Prunier--an honest fellow,
+monsieur the head steward--if I did not say this. And Georges said,
+'Alphonse, my friend, I incline to agree with you.' And I said to
+Georges, 'Georges, my brave, it would not surprise me if----'"
+
+The head steward of the second class broke in tartly: "You should write
+a book of memoirs, Monsieur Pettipon. When I have nothing to do I will
+read it. But now have I not a thousand and two things to do? Take away
+your pet. Have him stuffed. Present him to a museum. Do I care?" He
+started to turn from Monsieur Pettipon, whose cheeks were quivering like
+spilled jelly.
+
+"I entreat you, Monsieur Deveau," begged Pettipon, "to consider how for
+twenty-two years, three months and a day, such a thing had not happened
+in my cabins. This little rascal--and you can see how tiny he is--is the
+only one that has ever been found, and I give you my word, the word of a
+Pettipon, that he was not there when we sailed. The passenger brought
+him with him. I have my reasons----"
+
+"Enough!" broke in the head steward of the second class with mounting
+irritation. "I can stand no more. Go back to your work, Monsieur
+Pettipon."
+
+He presented his back to Monsieur Pettipon. Sick at heart the adipose
+steward went back to his domain. As he made the cabins neat he did not
+sing the little song with the chorus of "oo la las."
+
+"There was deep displeasure in that Norman's eye," said Monsieur
+Pettipon to himself. "He does not believe that the passenger is to
+blame. Your goose is cooked, my poor Alphonse. You must appeal to the
+chief steward."
+
+To the chief steward, in his elaborate office in the first class, went
+Monsieur Pettipon, nervously opening and shutting his fat fists.
+
+The chief steward, a tun of a man, bigger even than Monsieur Pettipon,
+peeped at his visitor from beneath waggish, furry eyebrows.
+
+"I am Monsieur Pettipon," said the visitor timidly. "For twenty-two
+years, three months and a day, I have been second-class steward on the
+_Voltaire_, and never monsieur the chief steward, has there been a
+complaint, one little complaint against me. One hundred and twenty-seven
+trips have I made, and never has a single passenger said----"
+
+"I'm sorry," interrupted the chief steward, "but I can't make you a
+first-class steward. No vacancies. Next year, perhaps; or the year
+after----"
+
+"Oh, it isn't that," said Monsieur Pettipon miserably. "It is this."
+
+He held out his hand so that the chief steward could see its contents.
+
+"Ah?" exclaimed the chief steward, arching his furry brows. "Is this
+perhaps a bribe, monsieur?"
+
+"Monsieur the chief steward is good enough to jest," said Pettipon,
+standing first on one foot and then on the other in his embarrassment,
+"but I assure you that it has been a most serious blow to me."
+
+"Blow?" repeated the chief steward. "Blow? Is it that in the second
+class one comes to blows with them?"
+
+"He knows about it all," thought Monsieur Pettipon. "He is making game
+of me." His moon face stricken and appealing, Monsieur Pettipon
+addressed the chief steward. "He brought it with him, monsieur the chief
+steward. I have my reasons----"
+
+"Who brought what with whom?" queried the chief steward with a trace of
+asperity.
+
+"The passenger brought this aboard with him," explained Monsieur
+Pettipon. "I have good reasons, monsieur, for making so grave a charge.
+Did I not say to Georges Prunier--he is in charge of the corridor next
+to mine--'Georges, old oyster, that hairy fellow in C 346 has a look of
+itchiness which I do not fancy. I must be on my guard.' You can ask
+Georges Prunier--a thoroughly reliable fellow, monsieur, a wearer of the
+military medal, and the son of the leading veterinarian in Amiens--if I
+did not say this. And Georges said----"
+
+The chief steward held up a silencing hand.
+
+"Stop, I pray you, before my head bursts," he commanded. "Your repartee
+with Georges is most affecting, but I do not see how it concerns a busy
+man like me."
+
+"But the passenger said he found this in his berth!" wailed Monsieur
+Pettipon, wringing his great hands.
+
+"My compliments to monsieur the passenger," said the chief steward, "and
+tell him that there is no reward."
+
+"Now I am sure he is angry with me," said Monsieur Pettipon to himself.
+"These sly, smiling, fat fellows! I must convince him of my innocence."
+
+Monsieur Pettipon laid an imploring hand on the chief steward's sleeve.
+
+"I can only say," said Monsieur Pettipon in the accents of a man on the
+gallows, "that I did all within the power of one poor human to prevent
+this dreadful occurrence. I hope monsieur the chief steward will believe
+that. I cannot deny that the thing exists"--as he spoke he sadly
+contemplated the palm of his hand--"and that the evidence is against me.
+But in my heart I know I am innocent. I can only hope that monsieur
+will take into account my long and blameless service, my one hundred and
+twenty-seven trips, my twenty-two years, three months and----"
+
+"My dear Pettipon," said the chief steward with a ponderous jocosity,
+"try to bear your cross. The only way the _Voltaire_ can atone for this
+monstrous sin of yours is to be sunk, here, now and at once. But I'm
+afraid the captain and Monsieur Ronssoy might object. Get along now,
+while I think up a suitable penance for you."
+
+As he went with slow, despairing steps to his quarters Monsieur Pettipon
+said to himself, "It is clear he thinks me guilty. Helas! Poor
+Alphonse." For long minutes he sat, his huge head in his hands,
+pondering.
+
+"I must, I shall appeal to him again," he said half aloud. "There are
+certain points he should know. What Georges Prunier said, for instance."
+
+So back he went to the chief steward.
+
+"Holy Blue!" cried that official. "You? Again? Found another one?"
+
+"No, no, monsieur the chief steward," replied Monsieur Pettipon in
+agonies; "there is only one. In twenty-two years there has been only
+one. He brought it with him. Ask Georges Prunier if I did not say----"
+
+"Name of a name!" burst out the chief steward. "Am I to hear all that
+again? Did I not say to forget the matter?"
+
+"Forget, monsieur? Could Napoleon forget Waterloo? I beg that you permit
+me to explain."
+
+"Oh, bother you and your explanations!" cried the chief steward with the
+sudden impatience common to fat men. "Take them to some less busy man.
+The captain, for example."
+
+Monsieur Pettipon bowed himself from the office, covered with confusion
+and despair. Had not the chief steward refused to hear him? Did not the
+chief steward's words imply that the crime was too heinous for any one
+less than the captain himself to pass judgment on it? To the captain
+Monsieur Pettipon would have to go, although he dreaded to do it, for
+the captain was notoriously the busiest and least approachable man on
+the ship. Desperation gave him courage. Breathless at his own temerity,
+pink as a peony with shame, Monsieur Pettipon found himself bowing
+before a blur of gold and multi-hued decorations that instinct rather
+than his reason told him was the captain of the _Voltaire_.
+
+The captain was worried about the fog, and about the presence aboard of
+M. Victor Ronssoy, the president of the line, and his manner was brisk
+and chilly.
+
+"Did I ring for you?" he asked.
+
+"No," jerked out Monsieur Pettipon, "but if the captain will pardon the
+great liberty, I have a matter of the utmost importance on which I wish
+to address him."
+
+"Speak, man, speak!" shot out the captain, alarmed by Monsieur
+Pettipon's serious aspect. "Leak? Fire? Somebody overboard? What?"
+
+"No, no!" cried Monsieur Pettipon, trickles of moist emotion sliding
+down the creases of his round face. "Nobody overboard; no leak; no fire.
+But--monsieur the captain--behold this!"
+
+He extended his hand and the captain bent his head over it with quick
+interest.
+
+For a second the captain stared at the thing in Monsieur Pettipon's
+hand; then he stared at Monsieur Pettipon.
+
+"Ten thousand million little blue devils, what does this mean?" roared
+the captain. "Have you been drinking?"
+
+Monsieur Pettipon quaked to the end of his toes.
+
+"No, no!" he stammered. "I am only too sober, monsieur the captain, and
+I do not blame you for being enraged. The _Voltaire_ is your ship, and
+you love her, as I do. I feel this disgrace even more than you can,
+monsieur the captain, believe me. But I beg of you do not be hasty; my
+honor is involved. I admit that this thing was found in one of my
+cabins. Consider my horror when he was found. It was no less than yours,
+monsieur the captain. But I give you my word, the word of a Pettipon,
+that----"
+
+The captain stopped the rush of words with, "Compose yourself. Come to
+the point."
+
+"Point, monsieur the captain?" gasped Pettipon. "Is it not enough
+point that this thing was found in one of my cabins? Such a thing--in
+the cabin of Monsieur Alphonse Marie Louis Camille Pettipon! Is that
+nothing? For twenty-two years have I been steward in the second class,
+and not one of these, not so much as a baby one, has ever been found. I
+am beside myself with chagrin. My only defense is that a passenger--a
+fellow of dirtiness, monsieur the captain--brought it with him.
+He denies it. I denounce him as a liar the most barefaced. For
+did I not say to Georges Prunier--a fellow steward and a man of
+integrity--'Georges, old oyster, that hairy fellow in C 346 has a look
+of itchiness which I do not fancy. I must be on my guard.' And Georges
+said----"
+
+The captain, with something like a smile playing about among his
+whiskers, interrupted with, "So this is the first one in twenty-two
+years, eh? We'll have to look into this, Monsieur Pettipon. Good day."
+
+"Look into this," groaned Pettipon as he stumbled down a gangway. "I
+know what that means. Ah, poor Thérèse! Poor Napoleon!"
+
+He looked down at the great, green, hungry waves with a calculating eye;
+he wondered if they would be cold. He placed a tentative hand on the
+rail. Then an inspiration came to him. M. Victor Ronssoy was aboard; he
+was the last court of appeal. Monsieur Pettipon would dare, for the sake
+of his honor, to go to the president of the line himself. For tortured
+minutes Alphonse Pettipon paced up and down, and something closely
+resembling sobs shook his huge frame as he looked about his little
+kingdom and thought of his impending banishment. At last by a supreme
+effort of will he nerved himself to go to the suite of Monsieur Ronssoy.
+It was a splendid suite of five rooms, and Monsieur Pettipon had more
+than once peeked into it when it was empty and had noted with fascinated
+eyes the perfection of its appointments. But now he twice turned from
+the door, his courage oozing from him. On the third attempt, with the
+recklessness of a condemned man, he rapped on the door.
+
+The president of the line was a white-haired giant with a chin like an
+anvil and bright humorous eyes, like a kingfisher.
+
+"Monsieur Ronssoy," began the flustered, damp-browed Pettipon in a
+faltering voice, "I have only apologies to make for this intrusion. Only
+a matter of the utmost consequence could cause me to take the liberty."
+
+The president's brow knitted anxiously.
+
+"Out with it," he ordered. "Are we sinking? Have we hit an iceberg?"
+
+"No, no, monsieur the president! But surely you have heard what I,
+Alphonse Pettipon, steward in the second class, found in one of my
+cabins?"
+
+"Oh, so you're Pettipon!" exclaimed the president, and his frown
+vanished. "Ah, yes; ah, yes."
+
+"He knows of my disgrace," thought Monsieur Pettipon, mopping his
+streaming brow. "Now all is lost indeed." Hanging his head he addressed
+the president: "Alas, yes, I am none other than that unhappy Pettipon,"
+he said mournfully. "But yesterday, monsieur, I was a proud man. This
+was my one hundred and twenty-eighth trip on the _Voltaire_. I had not a
+mark against me. But the world has been black for me, monsieur the
+president, since I found this."
+
+He held out his hand so that the president could view the remains lying
+in it.
+
+"Ah," exclaimed the president, adjusting his pince-nez, "a perfect
+specimen!"
+
+"But note, monsieur the president," begged Monsieur Pettipon, "that he
+is a mere infant. But a few days old, I am sure. He could not have been
+aboard long. One can see that. I am convinced that it was the passenger
+who brought him with him. I have my reasons for making this serious
+charge, Monsieur Ronssoy. Good reasons too. Did I not say to Georges
+Prunier--a steward of the strictest honesty, monsieur--'Georges, old
+oyster, that hairy fellow in C 346 has a look of itchiness which I do
+not fancy.' And Georges said, 'Alphonse, my friend----'"
+
+"Most interesting," murmured the president. "Pray proceed."
+
+With a wealth of detail and with no little passion Monsieur Pettipon
+told his story. The eyes of the president encouraged him, and he told of
+little Napoleon and the violin, and of his twenty-two years on the
+_Voltaire_ and how proud he was of his work as a steward, and how severe
+a blow the affair had been to him.
+
+When he had finished, Monsieur Ronssoy said, "And you thought it
+necessary to report your discovery to the head steward of the second
+class?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"And to the chief steward?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"And to the captain?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"And finally to me, the president of the line?"
+
+"Even so, monsieur," said the perspiring Pettipon.
+
+M. Victor Ronssoy regarded him thoughtfully.
+
+"Monsieur Pettipon," he said, "the sort of man I like is the man who
+takes his job seriously. You would not have raised such a devil of a
+fuss about so small a thing as this if you were not that sort of man. I
+am going to have you made steward of my suite immediately, Monsieur
+Pettipon. Now you may toss that thing out of the porthole."
+
+"Oh, no, monsieur!" cried Alphonse Pettipon, great, grateful tears
+rushing to his eyes. "Never in this life! Him I shall keep always in my
+watch charm."
+
+
+
+
+II: _Mr. Pottle and the South-Sea Cannibals_
+
+
+§1
+
+Mr. Pottle was a barber, but also a man of imagination, and as his hands
+went through their accustomed motions, his mind was far away, recalling
+what he had read the night before.
+
+     "Bright Marquesas sunlight glinted from the cutlass of the
+     intrepid explorer as with a sweep of his arm he brought the
+     blade down on the tattooed throat of the man-eating savage."
+
+Mr. Pottle's errant mind was jerked back sharply from the South Seas to
+Granville, Ohio, by a protesting voice.
+
+"Hey, Pottle, what's bitin' you? You took a slice out o' my Adam's apple
+that time."
+
+Mr. Pottle, with apologetic murmurs, rubbed the wound with an alum
+stick; then he dusted his victim with talcum powder, and gave the
+patented chair a little kick, so that its occupant was shot bolt
+upright.
+
+"Bay rum?" asked Mr. Pottle, professionally.
+
+"Nope."
+
+"Dandruff-Death?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"Sweet Lilac Tonic?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"Plain water?"
+
+"Yep."
+
+     "Naked savages danced and howled round the great pot in which
+     the trussed explorer had been placed. The cannibal chief,
+     fire-brand in hand, made ready to ignite the fagots under the
+     pot. It began to look bad for the explorer."
+
+Again a shrill voice of protest punctured Mr. Pottle's day-dream.
+
+"Hey, Pottle, come to life! You've went and put Sweet Lilac Tonic on me
+'stead of plain water. I ain't going to no coon ball. You've gone and
+smelled me up like a screamin' geranium."
+
+"Why, so I have, so I have," said Mr. Pottle, in accents of surprise and
+contrition. "Sorry, Luke. It'll wear off in a day or two. Guess I must
+be gettin' absent-minded."
+
+"That's what you said last Saddy when you clipped a piece out o' Virgil
+Overholt's ear," observed Luke, with some indignation. "What's bitin'
+you, anyhow, Pottle? You used to be the best barber in the county before
+you took to readin' them books."
+
+"What books?"
+
+"All about cannibals and explorers and the South-Sea Islands," answered
+Luke.
+
+"They're good books," said Mr. Pottle warmly. His eyes brightened. "I
+just got a new one," he said. "It's called 'Green Isles, Brown
+Man-Eaters, and a White Man.' I sat up till two readin' it. It's about
+the Marquesas Islands, and it's a darn' excitin' book, Luke."
+
+"It excited you so much you sliced my Adam's apple," grumbled Luke,
+clamping on his rubber collar. "You had better cut out this fool
+readin'."
+
+"Don't you ever read, Luke?"
+
+"Sure I do. 'The Mornin' News-Press' for week-days, 'The P'lice Gazette'
+when I come here to get shaved Saddy nights, and the Bible for Sundays.
+That's readin' enough for any man."
+
+"Did you ever read 'Robinson Crusoe'?"
+
+"Nope, but I heard him."
+
+"Heard him? Heard who?"
+
+"Crusoe," said Luke, snapping his ready-tied tie into place.
+
+"Heard him? You couldn't have heard him."
+
+"I couldn't, hey? Well, I did."
+
+"Where?" demanded Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Singin' on a phonograph," said Luke.
+
+Mr. Pottle said nothing; Luke was a regular customer, and in successful
+modern business the customer is always right. However, Mr. Pottle seized
+a strop and by his vigorous stroppings silently expressed his disgust at
+a man who hadn't heard of "Robinson Crusoe," for Robinson was one of Mr.
+Pottle's deities.
+
+When Luke reached the door, he turned.
+
+"Say, Pottle," he said, "if you're so nutty about these here South Sea
+Islands, why don't you go there?"
+
+Mr. Pottle ceased his stropping.
+
+"I am going," he said.
+
+Luke gave a dubious hoot and vanished. He did not realize that he had
+heard Mr. Pottle make the big decision of his life.
+
+
+§2
+
+That night Mr. Pottle finished the book, and dreamed, as he had dreamed
+on many a night since the lure of the South Seas first cast a spell on
+him, that in a distant, sun-loved isle, bright with greens and purples,
+he reclined beneath the _mana-mana-hine_ (or umbrella fern) on his own
+_paepae_ (or platform), a scarlet _pareu_ (or breech-clout) about his
+middle, a yellow _hibiscus_ flower in his hair, while the _kukus_ (or
+small green turtle-doves) cooed in the branches of the _pevatvii_ (or
+banana-tree), and _Bunnidori_ (that is, she, with the Lips of Love), a
+tawny maid of wondrous beauty, played softly to him on the ukulele. The
+tantalizing fragrance of a bowl of _popoi_ (or pudding) mingled in his
+nostrils with the more delicate perfume of the golden blossoms of the
+_puu-epu_ (or mulberry-tree). A sound in the jungle, a deep _boom! boom!
+boom!_ roused him from this reverie.
+
+"What is it, O Bunnidori?" he asked.
+
+"'Tis a feast, O my Pottle, Lord of the Menikes (that is, white men),"
+lisped his companion.
+
+"Upon what do the men in the jungle feast, O plump and pleasing daughter
+of delight?" inquired Mr. Pottle, who was up on Polynesian etiquette.
+
+She lowered her already low voice still lower.
+
+"Upon the long pig that speaks," she whispered.
+
+A delicious shudder ran down the spine of the sleeping Mr. Pottle, for
+from his reading he knew that "the long pig that speaks" means--man!
+
+For Mr. Pottle had one big ambition, one great suppressed desire. It was
+the dearest wish of his thirty-six years of life to meet a cannibal, a
+real cannibal, face to face, eye to eye.
+
+Next day he sold his barber's shop. Two months and seventeen days later
+he was unpacking his trunk in the tiny settlement of Vait-hua, in the
+Marquesas Islands, in the heart of the South Seas.
+
+The air was balmy, the sea deep purple, the nodding palms and giant
+ferns of the greenest green were exactly as advertised; but when the
+first week or two of enchantment had worn off, Mr. Pottle owned to a
+certain feeling of disappointment.
+
+He tasted _popoi_ and found it rather nasty; the hotel in which he
+stayed--the only one--was deficient in plumbing, but not in fauna. The
+natives--he had expected great things of the natives--were remarkably
+like underdone Pullman porters wrapped in bandana handkerchiefs. They
+were not exciting, they exhibited no inclination to eat Mr. Pottle or
+one another, they coveted his pink shirt, and begged for a drink from
+his bottle of Sweet Lilac Tonic.
+
+He mentioned his disappointment at these evidences of civilization to
+Tiki Tiu, the astute native who kept the general store.
+
+Mr. Pottle's mode of conversation was his own invention. From the books
+he had read he improvised a language. It was simple. He gave English
+words a barbaric sound, usually by suffixing "um" or "ee," shouted them
+at the top of his voice into the ear of the person with whom he was
+conversing, and repeated them in various permutations. He addressed Tiki
+Tiu with brisk and confident familiarity.
+
+"Helloee, Tiki Tiu. Me wantum see can-balls. Can-balls me wantum see. Me
+see can-balls wantum."
+
+The venerable native, who spoke seventeen island dialects and tongues,
+and dabbled in English, Spanish, and French, appeared to apprehend his
+meaning; indeed, one might almost have thought he had heard this
+question before, for he answered promptly:
+
+"No more can-balls here. All Baptists."
+
+"Where are can-balls? Can-balls where are? Where can-balls are?"
+demanded Mr. Pottle.
+
+Tiki Tiu closed his eyes and let blue smoke filter through his nostrils.
+Finally he said:
+
+"Isle of O-pip-ee."
+
+"Isle of O-pip-ee?" Mr. Pottle grew excited. "Where is? Is where?"
+
+"Two hundred miles south," answered Tiki Tiu.
+
+Mr. Pottle's eyes sparkled. He was on the trail.
+
+"How go there? Go there how? There go how?" he asked.
+
+Tiki Tiu considered. Then he said:
+
+"I take. Nice li'l' schooner."
+
+"How much?" asked Mr. Pottle. "Much how?"
+
+Tiki Tiu considered again.
+
+"Ninety-three dol's," he said.
+
+"Goodum!" cried Mr. Pottle, and counted the proceeds of 186 hair-cuts
+into the hand of Tiki Tiu.
+
+"You take me to-mollow? To-mollow you take me? Me you take to-mollow?
+To-mollow? To-mollow? To-mollow?" asked Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Yes," promised Tiki Tiu; "to-mollow."
+
+Mr. Pottle stayed up all night packing; from time to time he referred to
+much-thumbed copies of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Green Isles, Brown
+Man-Eaters, and a White Man."
+
+Tiki Tiu's nice li'l' schooner deposited Mr. Pottle and his impedimenta
+on the small, remote Isle of O-pip-ee; Tiki Tiu agreed to return for him
+in a month.
+
+"This is something like it," exclaimed Mr. Pottle as he unpacked his
+camera, his ukulele, his razors, his canned soup, his heating outfit,
+and his bathing-suit. Only the wild parrakeets heard him; save for their
+calls, an ominous silence hung over the thick foliage of O-pip-ee. There
+was not the ghost of a sign of human habitation.
+
+Mr. Pottle, vaguely apprehensive of sharks, pitched his pup-tent far up
+on the beach; to-morrow would be time enough to look for cannibals.
+
+He lay smoking and thinking. He was happy. The realization of a life's
+ambition lay, so to speak, just around the corner. To-morrow he could
+turn that corner--if he wished.
+
+He squirmed as something small nibbled at his hip-bone, and he wondered
+why writers of books on the South Seas make such scant mention of the
+insects. Surely they must have noticed the little creatures, which had,
+he discovered, a way of making their presence felt.
+
+He wondered, too, now that he came to think of it, if he hadn't been a
+little rash in coming alone to a cannibal-infested isle with no weapons
+of defense but a shot-gun, picked up at a bargain at the last minute,
+and his case of razors. True, in all the books by explorers he had read,
+the explorer never once had actually been eaten; he always lived to
+write the book. But what about the explorers who had not written books?
+What had happened to them?
+
+He flipped a centipede off his ankle, and wondered if he hadn't been
+just a little too impulsive to sell his profitable barber-shop, to come
+many thousand miles over strange waters, to maroon himself on the lonely
+Isle of O-pip-ee. At Vait-hua he had heard that cannibals do not fancy
+white men for culinary purposes. He gave a little start as he looked
+down at his own bare legs and saw that the tropic sun had already
+tinted them a coffee hue.
+
+Mr. Pottle did not sleep well that night; strange sounds made his eyes
+fly open. Once it was a curious scuttling along the beach. Peeping out
+from his pup-tent, he saw half a dozen _tupa_ (or giant tree-climbing
+crabs) on a nocturnal raid on a cocoanut-grove. Later he heard the big
+nuts come crashing down. The day shift of insects had quit, and the
+night shift, fresh and hungry, came to work; inquisitive vampire bats
+butted their soft heads against his tent.
+
+At dawn he set about finding a permanent abode. He followed a small
+fresh-water stream two hundred yards inland, and came to a coral cave by
+a pool, a ready-made home, cool and, more important, well concealed. He
+spent the day settling down, chasing out the bats, putting up
+mosquito-netting, tidying up. He dined well off cocoanut milk and canned
+sardines, and was so tired that he fell asleep before he could change
+his bathing-suit for pajamas. He slept fairly well, albeit he dreamed
+that two cannibal kings were disputing over his prostrate form whether
+he would be better as a ragout or stuffed with chestnuts.
+
+Waking, he decided to lie low and wait for the savages to show
+themselves, for he knew from Tiki Tiu that the Isle of O-pip-ee was not
+more than seven miles long and three or four miles wide; sooner or later
+they must pass near him. He figured that there was logic in this plan,
+for no cannibal had seen him land; therefore he knew that the cannibals
+were on the isle, but they did not know that he was. The advantage was
+his.
+
+
+§3
+
+For days he remained secluded, subsisting on canned foods, cocoanuts,
+_mei_ (or breadfruit), and an occasional boiled baby _feke_ (or young
+devil-fish), a nest of which Mr. Pottle found on one furtive moonlight
+sally to the beach.
+
+Emboldened by this sally and by the silence of the woods, Mr. Pottle
+made other expeditions away from his cave; on one he penetrated fully
+five hundred yards into the jungle. He was prowling, like a Cooper
+Indian, among the _faufee_ (or lacebark-trees) when he heard a sound
+that sent him scurrying and quaking back to his lair.
+
+It was a faint sound that the breezes bore to him, so faint that he
+could not be sure; but it sounded like some far-off barbaric instrument
+mingling its dim notes with those of a human voice raised in a weird,
+primeval chant.
+
+But the savages did not show themselves, and finding no cannibals by
+night, Mr. Pottle grew still bolder; he ventured on short explorations
+by day. He examined minutely his own cove, and then one morning crept
+over a low ledge and into the next cove. He made his way cautiously
+along the smooth, white beach. The morning was still, calm, beautiful.
+Its peace all but drove thoughts of cannibals from his mind. He came to
+a strip of land running into the sea; another cove lay beyond. Mr.
+Pottle was an impulsive man; he pushed through the _keoho_ (or
+thorn-bushes); his foot slipped; he rolled down a declivity and into the
+next cove.
+
+He did not stay there; he did not even tarry. What he saw sent him
+dashing through the thorn-bushes and along the white sand like a
+hundred-yard sprinter. In the sand of the cove were many imprints of
+naked human feet.
+
+A less stout-hearted man than Mr. Pottle would never have come out of
+his cave again; but he had come eight thousand miles to see a cannibal.
+An over-mastering desire had spurred him on; he would not give up now.
+Of such stuff are Ohio barbers made.
+
+
+§4
+
+A few days later, at twilight, he issued forth from his cave again.
+Around his loins was a scarlet _pareu_; he had discarded his
+bathing-suit as too civilized. In his long, black hair was a yellow
+_hibiscus_ flower.
+
+Like a burglar, he crept along the beach to the bushy promontory that
+hid the cove where the foot-prints were, he wiggled through the bush, he
+slid down to the third beach, and crouched behind a large rock. The
+beach seemed deserted; the muttering of the ocean was the only sound Mr.
+Pottle heard. Another rock, a dozen feet away, seemed to offer better
+concealment, and he stepped out toward it, and then stopped short. Mr.
+Pottle stood face to face with a naked, brown savage.
+
+Mr. Pottle's feet refused to take him away; a paralysis such as one has
+in nightmares rooted him to the spot. His returning faculties took in
+these facts: first, the savage was unarmed; second, Mr. Pottle had
+forgotten to bring his shot-gun. It was a case of man to man-eater.
+
+The savage was large, well-fed, almost fat; his long black hair fringed
+his head; he did not wear a particularly bloodthirsty expression;
+indeed, he appeared startled and considerably alarmed.
+
+Reason told Mr. Pottle that friendliness was the best policy.
+Instinctively, he recalled the literature of his youth, and how Buffalo
+Bill had acted in a like circumstance. He raised his right hand solemnly
+in the air and ejaculated, "How!"
+
+The savage raised his right hand solemnly in the air, and in the same
+tone also ejaculated, "How!" Mr. Pottle had begun famously. He said
+loudly:
+
+"Who you? You who? Who you?"
+
+The savage, to Mr. Pottle's surprise, answered after a brief moment:
+
+"Me--Lee."
+
+Here was luck. The man-eater could talk the Pottle lingo.
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Pottle, to show that he understood, "you--Mealy."
+
+The savage shook his head.
+
+"No," he said; "Me--Lee. Me--Lee." He thumped his barrel-like chest with
+each word.
+
+"Oh, I see," cried Mr. Pottle; "you Mealy-mealy."
+
+The savage made a face that among civilized people would have meant that
+he did not think much of Mr. Pottle's intellect.
+
+"Who you?" inquired Mealy-mealy.
+
+Mr. Pottle thumped his narrow chest.
+
+"Me, Pottle. Pottle!"
+
+"Oh, you Pottle-pottle," said the savage, evidently pleased with his own
+powers of comprehension.
+
+Mr. Pottle let it go at that. Why argue with a cannibal? He addressed
+the savage again.
+
+"Mealy-mealy, you eatum long pig? Eatum long pig you? Long pig you
+eatum?"
+
+This question agitated Mealy-mealy. He trembled. Then he nodded his head
+in the affirmative, a score of rapid nods.
+
+Mr. Pottle's voice faltered a little as he asked the next question.
+
+"Where you gottum tribe? You gottum tribe where? Tribe you gottum
+where?"
+
+Mealy-mealy considered, scowled, and said:
+
+"Gottum velly big tribe not far. Velly fierce. Eatum long pig. Eatum
+Pottle-pottle."
+
+Mr. Pottle thought it would be a good time to go, but he could think of
+no polite excuse for leaving. An idea occurred to Mealy-mealy.
+
+"Where your tribe, Pottle-pottle?"
+
+His tribe? Mr. Pottle's eyes fell on his own scarlet _pareu_ and the
+brownish legs beneath it. Mealy-mealy thought he was a cannibal, too.
+With all his terror, he had a second or two of unalloyed enjoyment of
+the thought. Like all barbers, he had played poker. He bluffed.
+
+"My tribe velly, velly, velly, velly, velly, velly big," he cried.
+
+"Where is?" asked Mealy-mealy, visibly moved by this news.
+
+"Velly near," cried Mr. Pottle; "hungry for long pig; for long pig
+hungry----"
+
+There was suddenly a brown blur on the landscape. With the agility of an
+ape, the huge savage had turned, darted down the beach, plunged into the
+bush, and disappeared.
+
+"He's gone to get his tribe," thought Mr. Pottle, and fled in the
+opposite direction.
+
+When he reached his cave, panting, he tried to fit a cartridge into his
+shot-gun; he'd die game, anyhow. But rust had ruined the neglected
+weapon, and he flung it aside and took out his best razor. But no
+cannibals came.
+
+He was scared, but happy. He had seen his cannibal; more, he had talked
+with him; more still, he had escaped gracing the festal board by a
+snake's knuckle. He prudently decided to stay in his cave until the
+sails of Tiki Tiu's schooner hove in sight.
+
+
+§5
+
+But an instinct stronger than fear drove him out into the open: his
+stock of canned food ran low, and large red ants got into his flour. He
+needed cocoanuts and breadfruit and baby _fekes_ (or young octopi). He
+knew that numerous succulent infant _fekes_ lurked in holes in his own
+cove, and thither he went by night to pull them from their homes.
+Hitherto he had encountered only small _fekes_, with tender tentacles
+only a few feet long; but that night Mr. Pottle had the misfortune to
+plunge his naked arm into the watery nest when the father of the family
+was at home. He realized his error too late.
+
+A clammy tentacle, as long as a fire hose, as strong as the arm of a
+gorilla, coiled round his arm, and his scream was cut short as the giant
+devil-fish dragged him below the water.
+
+The water was shallow. Mr. Pottle got a foothold, forced his head above
+water, and began to yell for help and struggle for his life.
+
+The chances against a nude Ohio barber of 140 pounds in a wrestling
+match with an adult octopus are exactly a thousand to one. The giant
+_feke_ so despised his opponent that he used only two of his eight
+muscular arms. In their slimy, relentless clutch Mr. Pottle felt his
+strength going fast. As his favorite authors would have put it, "it
+began to look bad for Mr. Pottle."
+
+The thought that Mr. Pottle thought would be his last on this earth was,
+"I wouldn't mind being eaten by cannibals, but to be drowned by a trick
+fish----"
+
+Mr. Pottle threshed about in one final, frantic flounder; his strength
+gave out; he shut his eyes.
+
+He heard a shrill cry, a splashing in the water, felt himself clutched
+about the neck from behind, and dragged away from the _feke_. He opened
+his eyes and struggled weakly. One tentacle released its grip. Mr.
+Pottle saw by the tropic moon's light that some large creature was doing
+battle with the _feke_. It was a man, a large brown man who with a busy
+ax hacked the gristly limbs from the _feke_ as fast as they wrapped
+around him. Mr. Pottle staggered to the dry beach; a tentacle was still
+wound tight round his shoulder, but there was no octopus at the other
+end of it.
+
+The angry noise of the devil-fish--for, when wounded, they snarl like
+kicked curs--stopped. The victorious brown man strode out of the water
+to where Mr. Pottle swayed on the moonlit sand. It was Mealy-mealy.
+
+"Bad fishum!" said Mealy-mealy, with a grin.
+
+"Good manum!" cried Mr. Pottle, heartily.
+
+Here was romance, here was adventure, to be snatched from the jaws, so
+to speak, of death by a cannibal! It was unheard of. But a disquieting
+thought occurred to Mr. Pottle, and he voiced it.
+
+"Mealy-mealy, why you save me? Why save you me? Why you me save?"
+
+Mealy-mealy's grin seemed to fade, and in its place came another look
+that made Mr. Pottle wish he were back in the anaconda grip of the
+_feke_.
+
+"My tribe hungry for long pig," growled Mealy-mealy. He seemed to be
+trembling with some powerful emotion. Hunger?
+
+Mr. Pottle knew where his only chance for escape lay.
+
+"My tribe velly, velly, velly hungry, too," he cried. "Velly, velly,
+velly near."
+
+He thrust his fingers into his mouth and gave a piercing school-boy
+whistle. As if in answer to it there came a crashing and floundering in
+the bushes. His bluff had worked only too well; it must be the fellow
+man-eaters of Mealy-mealy.
+
+Mr. Pottle turned and ran for his life. Fifty yards he sped, and then
+realized that he did not hear the padding of bare feet on the sand
+behind him or feel hot breath on the back of his neck. He dared to cast
+a look over his shoulder. Far down the beach the moonlight showed him a
+flying brown figure against the silver-white sand. It was Mealy-mealy,
+and he was going in the opposite direction as fast as ever his legs
+would take him.
+
+Surprise drove fear temporarily from Mr. Pottle's mind as he watched the
+big cannibal become a blur, then a speck, then nothing. As he watched
+Mealy-mealy recede, he saw another dark figure emerge from the bush
+where the noise had been, and move slowly out on the moon-strewn beach.
+
+It was a baby wild pig. It sniffed at the ocean, squealed, and trotted
+back into the bush.
+
+As he gnawed his morning cocoanut, Mr. Pottle was still puzzled. He was
+afraid of Mealy-mealy; that he admitted. But at the same time it was
+quite clear that Mealy-mealy was afraid of him. He was excited and more
+than a little gratified. What a book he could write! Should he call it
+"Cannibal-Bound on O-pip-ee," or, "Cannibals Who have almost Eaten Me"?
+
+Tiki Tiu's schooner would be coming for him very soon now,--he'd lost
+track of the exact time,--and he would be almost reluctant to leave the
+isle. Almost.
+
+Mr. Pottle had another glimpse of a cannibal next day. Toward evening he
+stole out to pick some supper from a breadfruit-tree not far from his
+cave, a tree which produced particularly palatable _mei_ (or
+breadfruit).
+
+He drew his _pareu_ tight around him and slipped through the bushes; as
+he neared the tree he saw another figure approaching it with equal
+stealth from the opposite direction; the setting sun was reflected from
+the burnished brown of the savage's shoulders. At the same time Mr.
+Pottle spied the man, the man spied him. The savage stopped short,
+wheeled about, and tore back in the direction from which he had come.
+Mr. Pottle did not get a good look at his face, but he ran uncommonly
+like Mealy-mealy.
+
+
+§6
+
+Mr. Pottle thought it best not to climb the _mei_-tree that evening; he
+returned hastily to his cave, and finished up the breakfast cocoanut.
+
+Over a pipe he thought. He was pleased, thrilled by his sight of a
+cannibal; but he was not wholly satisfied. He had thought it would be
+enough for him to get one fleeting glimpse of an undoubted man-eater in
+his native state, but it wasn't. Before he left the Isle of O-pip-ee he
+wanted to see the whole tribe in a wild dance about a bubbling pot.
+Tiki Tiu's schooner might come on the morrow. He must act.
+
+He crept out of the cave and stood in the moonlight, breathing the
+perfume of the jungle, feeling the cool night air, hearing the mellow
+notes of the Polynesian nightingale. Adventure beckoned to him. He
+started in the direction Mealy-mealy had run.
+
+At first he progressed on tiptoes, then he sank to all fours, and
+crawled along slowly, pig-wise. On, on he went; he must have crept more
+than a mile when a sound stopped him--a sound he had heard before. It
+was faint, yet it seemed near: it was the sound of some primitive
+musical instrument blending with the low notes of a tribal chant. It
+seemed to come from a sheltered hollow not two dozen yards ahead.
+
+He crouched down among the ferns and listened. The chant was crooned
+softly in a deep voice, and to the straining ears of Mr. Pottle it
+seemed vaguely familiar, like a song heard in dreams. The words came
+through the thick tangle of jungle weeds:
+
+    "Eeet slon ay a teep a ari."
+
+Mr. Pottle, fascinated, wiggled forward to get a look at the tribe. Like
+a snake, he made his tortuous approach. The singing continued; he saw a
+faint glow through the foliage--the campfire. He eased himself to the
+crest of a little hummock, pushed aside a great fern leaf and looked.
+
+Sitting comfortably in a steamer-chair was Mealy-mealy. In his big brown
+hands was a shiny banjo at which he plucked gently. Near his elbow food
+with a familiar smell bubbled in an aluminum dish over a trim
+canned-heat outfit; an empty baked-bean can with a gaudy label lay
+beside it. From time to time Mealy-mealy glanced idly at a pink
+periodical popular in American barber-shops. The song he sang to himself
+burst intelligibly on Mr. Pottle's ears--
+
+    "It's a long way to Tipperary."
+
+Mealy-mealy stopped; his eye had fallen on the staring eyes of Mr.
+Pottle. He caught up his ax and was about to swing it when Mr. Pottle
+stood up, stepped into the circle of light, pointed an accusing finger
+at Mealy-mealy and said:
+
+"Are you a cannibal?"
+
+Mealy-mealy's ax and jaw dropped.
+
+"What the devil are you?" he sputtered in perfect American.
+
+"I'm a barber from Ohio," said Mr. Pottle.
+
+Mealy-mealy emitted a sudden whooping roar of laughter.
+
+"So am I," he said.
+
+Mr. Pottle collapsed limply into the steamer-chair.
+
+"What's your name?" he asked in a weak voice.
+
+"Bert Lee, head barber at the Schmidt House, Bucyrus, Ohio," said the
+big man. He slapped his fat, bare chest. "Me--Lee," he said, and laughed
+till the jungle echoed.
+
+"Did you read 'Green Isles, Brown Man-Eaters, and a White Man'?" asked
+Mr. Pottle, feebly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'd like to meet the man who wrote it," said Mr. Pottle.
+
+
+
+
+III: _Mr. Pottle and Culture_
+
+
+Out of the bathtub, rubicund and rotund, stepped Mr. Ambrose Pottle. He
+anointed his hair with sweet spirits of lilac and dusted his anatomy
+with crushed rosebud talcum. He donned a virgin union suit; a pair of
+socks, silk where it showed; ultra low shoes; white-flannel trousers,
+warm from the tailor's goose; a creamy silk shirt; an impeccable blue
+coat; a gala tie, perfect after five tyings; and then went forth into
+the spring-scented eventide to pay a call on Mrs. Blossom Gallup.
+
+He approached her new-art bungalow as one might a shrine, with diffident
+steps and hesitant heart, but with delicious tinglings radiating from
+his spinal cord. Only the ballast of a three-pound box of Choc-O-late
+Nutties under his arm kept him on earth. He was in love.
+
+To be in love for the first time at twenty is passably thrilling; but to
+be in love for the first time at thirty-six is exquisitely excruciating.
+
+Mr. Pottle found Mrs. Gallup in her living room, a basket of undarned
+stockings on her lap. With a pretty show of confusion and many
+embarrassed murmurings she thrust them behind the piano, he protesting
+that this intimate domesticity delighted him.
+
+She sank back with a little sigh into a gay-chintzed wicker chair, and
+the rosy light from a tall piano lamp fell gently on her high-piled
+golden hair, her surprised blue eyes, and the ripe, generous outlines of
+her figure. To Mr. Pottle she was a dream of loveliness, a poem, an
+idyl. He would have given worlds, solar systems to have been able to
+tell her so. But he couldn't. He couldn't find the words, for, like many
+another sterling character in the barbers' supply business, he was not
+eloquent; he did not speak with the fluent ease, the masterful flow that
+comes, one sees it often said, from twenty-one minutes a day of
+communion with the great minds of all time. His communings had been
+largely with boss barbers; with them he was cheery and chatty. But Mrs.
+Gallup and her intellectual interests were a world removed from things
+tonsorial; in her presence he was tongue-tied as an oyster.
+
+Mr. Pottle's worshiping eye roved from the lady to her library, and his
+good-hearted face showed tiny furrows of despair; an array of fat crisp
+books in shiny new bindings stared at him: Twenty-one Minutes' Daily
+Communion With the Master Minds; Capsule Chats on Poets, Philosophers,
+Painters, Novelists, Interior Decorators; Culture for the Busy Man, six
+volumes, half calf; How to Build Up a Background; Talk Tips; YOU, Too,
+Can Be Interesting; Sixty Square Feet of Self-Culture--and a score more.
+"Culture"--always that wretched word!
+
+"Are you fond of reading, Mr. Pottle?" asked Mrs. Gallup, popping a
+Choc-O-late Nuttie into her demure mouth with a daintiness almost
+ethereal.
+
+"Love it," he answered promptly.
+
+"Who is your favorite poet?"
+
+"S-Shakspere," he ventured desperately.
+
+"He's mine, too." Mr. Pottle breathed easier.
+
+"But," she added, "I think Longfellow is sweet, don't you?"
+
+"Very sweet," agreed Mr. Pottle.
+
+She smiled at him with a sad, shy confidence.
+
+"He did not understand," she said.
+
+She nodded her blonde head toward an enlarged picture of the late Mr.
+Gallup, in the full regalia of Past Grand Master of the Beneficent Order
+of Beavers.
+
+"Didn't he care for--er--literature?" asked Mr. Pottle.
+
+"He despised it," she replied. "He was wrapped up in the hay-and-feed
+business. He began to talk about oats and chicken gravel on our
+honeymoon."
+
+Mr. Pottle made a sympathetic noise.
+
+"In our six years of married life," she went on, "he talked of nothing
+but duck fodder, carload lots, trade discounts, selling points, bran,
+turnover----"
+
+How futile, how inadequate seem mere words in some situations. Mr.
+Pottle said nothing; timidly he took her hand in his; she did not draw
+it away.
+
+"And he only shaved on Saturday nights," she said.
+
+Mr. Pottle's free hand went to his own face, smooth as steel and art
+could make it.
+
+"Blossom," he began huskily, "have you ever thought of marrying again?"
+
+"I have," she answered, blushing--his hand on hers tightened--"and I
+haven't," she finished.
+
+"Oh, Blossom----" he began once more.
+
+"If I do marry again," she interrupted, "it will be a literary man."
+
+"A literary man?" His tone was aghast. "A writing fella?"
+
+"Oh, not necessarily a writer," she said. "They usually live in garrets,
+and I shouldn't like that. I mean a man who has read all sorts of
+books, and who can talk about all sorts of things."
+
+"Blossom"--Mr. Pottle's voice was humble--"I'm not what you might
+call----"
+
+There was a sound of clumping feet on the porch outside. Mrs. Gallup
+started up.
+
+"Oh, that must be him now!" she cried.
+
+"Him? Who?"
+
+"Why, Mr. Deeley."
+
+"Who's he?" queried Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Oh, I forgot to tell you! He said he might call to-night. Such a nice
+man! I met him over in Xenia last week. Such a brilliant
+conversationalist. I know you'll like each other."
+
+She hastened to answer the doorbell; Mr. Pottle sat moodily in his
+chair, not at all sure he'd like Mr. Deeley.
+
+The brilliant conversationalist burst into the room breezily,
+confidently. He was slightly smaller than a load of hay in his belted
+suit of ecru pongee; he wore a satisfied air and a pleased mustache.
+
+"Meet Mr. Pottle," said Mrs. Gallup.
+
+"What name?" asked Mr. Deeley. His voice was high, sweet and loud; his
+handshake was a knuckle pulverizer.
+
+"Pottle," said the owner of that name.
+
+"I beg pardon?" said Mr. Deeley.
+
+"Pottle," said Mr. Pottle more loudly.
+
+"Sorry," said Mr. Deeley affably, "but it sounds just like 'Pottle' to
+me."
+
+"That's what it is," said Mr. Pottle with dignity.
+
+Mr. Deeley laughed a loud tittering laugh.
+
+"Oh, well," he remarked genially, "you can't help that. We're born with
+our names, but"--he bestowed a dazzling smile on Mrs. Gallup--"we pick
+our own teeth."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Deeley," she cried, "you do say the most ridiculously witty
+things!"
+
+Mr. Pottle felt a concrete lump forming in his bosom.
+
+Mr. Deeley addressed him tolerantly. "What line are you in, Mr. Bottle?"
+he asked.
+
+"Barbers' supplies," admitted Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Ah, yes. Barbers' supplies. How interesting," said Mr. Deeley.
+"Climbing the lather of success, eh?"
+
+Mr. Pottle did not join in the merriment.
+
+"What line are you in?" he asked. He prayed that Mr. Deeley would say
+"Shoes," for by a happy inspiration he was prepared to counter with,
+"Ah, starting at the bottom," and thus split honors with the Xenian.
+
+But Mr. Deeley did not say "Shoes." He said "Literature." Mrs. Gallup
+beamed.
+
+"Oh, are you, Mr. Deeley? How perfectly thrilling!" she said
+rapturously. "I didn't know that."
+
+"Oh, yes indeed," said Mr. Deeley. He changed the subject by turning to
+Mr. Pottle. "By the way, Mr. Poodle, are you interested in Abyssinia?"
+he inquired.
+
+"Why, no--that is, not particularly," confessed Mr. Pottle. He looked
+toward her who had quickened his pulse, but her eyes were fastened on
+Mr. Deeley.
+
+"I'm surprised to hear you say that," said Mr. Deeley. "A most
+interesting place, Abyssinia--rather a specialty of mine."
+
+He threw one plump leg over the other and leaned back comfortably.
+
+"Abyssinia," he went on in his high voice, "is an inland country
+situated by the Red Sea between 5° and 15° north latitude, and 35° and
+42° east longitude. Its area is 351,019 square miles. Its population is
+4,501,477. It includes Shoa, Kaffa, Gallaland and Central Somaliland.
+Its towns include Adis-Ababa, Adowa, Adigrat, Aliu-Amber, Debra-Derhan
+and Bonger. It produces coffee, salt and gold. The inhabitants are
+morally very lax. Indeed, polygamy is a common practice, and----"
+
+"Polly Gammy?" cried Mrs. Gallup in imitation of Mr. Deeley's
+pronunciation. "Oh, what is that?"
+
+Mr. Deeley smiled blandly.
+
+"I think," he said, "that it is hardly the sort of thing I care to
+discuss in--er--mixed company."
+
+He helped himself to three of the Choc-O-late Nutties.
+
+"That reminds me," he said, "of abbreviations."
+
+"Abbreviations?" Mrs. Gallup looked her interest.
+
+"The world," observed Mr. Deeley, "is full of them. For example, Mr.
+Puttle, do you know what R. W. D. G. M. stands for?"
+
+"No," answered Mr. Pottle glumly.
+
+"It stands for Right Worshipful Deputy Grand Master," informed Mr.
+Deeley. "Do you know what N. U. T. stands for?"
+
+"I know what it spells," said Mr. Pottle pointedly.
+
+"You ought to," said Mr. Deeley, letting off his laugh. "But we were
+discussing abbreviations. Since you don't seem very well informed on
+this point"--he shot a smile at Mrs. Gallup--"I'll tell you that N. U.
+T. stands for National Union of Teachers, just as M. F. H. stands for
+Master of Fox Hounds, and M. I. C. E. stands for Member of Institute of
+Civil Engineers, and A. O. H. stands for----"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Deeley, how perfectly thrilling!" Mrs. Gallup spoke; Mr. Pottle
+writhed; Mr. Deeley smiled complacently, and went on.
+
+"I could go on indefinitely; abbreviations are rather a specialty of
+mine."
+
+It developed that Mr. Deeley had many specialties.
+
+"Are you aware," he asked, focusing his gaze on Mr. Pottle, "that there
+is acid in this cherry?" He held aloft a candied cherry which he had
+deftly exhumed from a Choc-O-late Nuttie.
+
+"My goodness!" cried Mrs. Gallup. "Will it poison us? I've eaten six."
+
+"My dear lady"--there was a world of tender reassurance in Mr. Deeley's
+tone--"only the uninformed regard all acids as poisonous. There are
+acids and acids. I've taken a rather special interest in them. Let's
+see--there are many kinds--acetic, benzoic, citric, gallic, lactic,
+malic, oxalic, palmitic, picric--but why go on?"
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Pottle; "why?"
+
+"Do not interrupt, Mr. Pottle, if you please," said Mrs. Gallup
+severely. "I'm sure what Mr. Deeley says interests me immensely. Go on,
+Mr. Deeley."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Gallup; thank you," said the brilliant
+conversationalist. "But don't you think alligators are more interesting
+than acids?"
+
+"You know about so many interesting things," she smiled. Mr. Pottle's
+very soul began to curdle.
+
+"Alligators are rather a specialty of mine," remarked Mr. Deeley.
+"Fascinating little brutes, I think. You know alligators, Mrs. Gallup?"
+
+"Stuffed," said the lady.
+
+"Ah, to be sure," he said. "Perhaps, then, you do not realize that the
+alligator is of the family _Crocodilidoe_ and the order _Eusuchia_."
+
+"No? You don't tell me?" Mrs. Gallup's tone was almost reverent.
+
+"Yes," continued Mr. Deeley, in the voice of a lecturer, "there are two
+kinds of alligators--the _lucius_, found in the Mississippi; and the
+_sinensis_, in the Yang-tse-Kiang. It differs from the _caiman_ by
+having a bony septum between its nostrils, and its ventral scutes are
+thinly, if at all, ossified. It is carnivorous and piscivorous----"
+
+"How fascinating!" Mrs. Gallup had edged her chair nearer the speaker.
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"It means," said Mr. Deeley, "that they eat corn and pigs."
+
+"The strong tail of the alligator," he flowed on easily, "by a lashing
+movement assists it in swimming, during which exercise it emits a loud
+bellowing."
+
+"Do alligators bellow?" asked Mr. Pottle with open skepticism.
+
+"I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard them bellow," answered
+Mr. Deeley pugnaciously. "Apparently, Mr. Puddle, you are not familiar
+with the works of Ahn."
+
+Mr. Pottle maintained a blank black silence.
+
+"Oh, who was he?" put in Mrs. Gallup.
+
+"Johann Franz Ahn, born 1796, died 1865, was an educationalist," said
+Mr. Deeley in the voice of authority. "His chief work, of which I am
+very fond, is a volume entitled, 'Praktischer Lehrgang zur Schnellen und
+Leichten Erlergung der Französischen Sprache.' You've read it, perhaps,
+Mr. Pobble?"
+
+"No," said Mr. Pottle miserably. "I can't say I ever have." He felt that
+his case grew worse with every minute. He rose. "I guess I'd better be
+going," he said. Mrs. Gallup made no attempt to detain him.
+
+As he left her presence with slow steps and a heart of lead he heard the
+high voice of Mr. Deeley saying, "Now, take alcohol: That's rather a
+specialty of mine. Alcohol is a term applied to a group of organic
+substances, including methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, amyl----"
+
+Back in his bachelor home the heartsick Mr. Pottle flung his new tie
+into a corner, slammed his ultra shoes on the floor, and tossed his
+trousers, heedless of rumpling, at a chair, sat down, head in hand, and
+thought of a watery grave.
+
+For that he could not hope to compete conversationally or otherwise with
+the literary Deeley of Xenia was all too apparent. Mrs. Gallup--he had
+called her Blossom but a few brief hours ago--said she wanted a literary
+man, and here was one literary to his manicured finger tips.
+
+He would not give up. Pottles are made of stern stuff. Reason told him
+his cause was hopeless, but his heart told him to fight to the last. He
+obeyed his heart.
+
+Arraying himself in his finest, three nights later he went to call on
+Mrs. Gallup, a five-pound box of Choc-O-late Nutties hugged nervously to
+his silk-shirted bosom.
+
+A maid admitted him. He heard in the living room a familiar high
+masculine voice that made his fists double up. It was saying,
+"Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, was born at Stagira in 384 B. C.
+and----"
+
+Mr. Deeley paused to greet Mr. Pottle casually; Mrs. Gallup took the
+candy with only conventional words of appreciation, and turned at once
+to listen, disciple-like, to the discourses of the sage from Xenia, who
+for the rest of the evening held the center of the stage, absorbed every
+beam of the calcium, and dispensed fact and fancy about a wide variety
+of things. He was a man with many and curious specialties. Mrs. Gallup
+was a willing, Mr. Pottle a most unwilling listener.
+
+At eleven Mr. Pottle went home, having uttered but two words all
+evening, and those monosyllables. He left Mr. Deeley holding forth in
+detail on the science of astronomy, with side glances at astrology and
+ancestor-worship.
+
+Mr. Pottle's heart was too full for sleep. Indeed, as he walked in the
+moonlight through Eastman Park, it was with the partially formed intent
+of flinging himself in among the swans that slept on the artificial
+lake.
+
+His mind went back to the conversation of Mr. Deeley in Mrs. Gallup's
+salon. She had been Blossom to him once, but now--this loudly learned
+stranger! Mr. Pottle stopped suddenly and sat down sharply on a park
+bench. The topics on which Mr. Deeley had conversed so fluently passed
+in an orderly array before his mind: Apes, acoustics, angels, Apollo,
+adders, albumen, auks, Alexander the Great, anarchy, adenoids----He had
+it! A light, bright as the sun at noon, dawned on Mr. Pottle.
+
+Next morning when the public library opened, Mr. Pottle was waiting at
+the door.
+
+A feverish week rushed by in Mr. Pottle's life.
+
+"We'll be having to charge that little man with the bashful grin, rent
+or storage or something," said Miss Merk, the seventh assistant
+librarian, to Miss Heaslip, the ninth assistant librarian.
+
+Sunday night firm determined steps took Mr. Pottle to the bungalow of
+Mrs. Gallup. He heard Mr. Deeley's sweet resonant voice in the living
+room. He smiled grimly.
+
+"I was just telling Blossom about a curious little animal I take rather
+a special interest in," began the man from Xenia, with a condescending
+nod to Mr. Pottle.
+
+Mr. Pottle checked the frown that had started to gather at "Blossom,"
+and asked politely, "And what is the beast's name?"
+
+"The aard-vark," replied Mr. Deeley. "He is----"
+
+"The Cape ant bear," finished Mr. Pottle, "or earth pig. He lives on
+ants, burrows rapidly, and can be easily killed by a smart blow on his
+sensitive snout."
+
+Mr. Deeley stared; Mrs. Gallup stared; Mr. Pottle sailed on serenely.
+
+"A very interesting beast, the aard-vark. But to my mind not so
+interesting as the long-nosed bandicoot. You know the long-nosed
+bandicoot, I presume, Mr. Deeley?"
+
+"Well, not under that name," retorted the Xenia sage. "You don't mean
+antelope?"
+
+"By no means," said Mr. Pottle with a superior smile. "I said
+bandicoot--B-a-n-d-i-coot. He is a _Peramelidoe_ of the Marsupial
+family, meaning he carries his young in a pouch like a kangaroo."
+
+"How cute!" murmured Mrs. Gallup.
+
+"There are bandicoots and bandicoots," pursued Mr. Pottle; "the
+_Peragale_, or rabbit bandicoot; the _Nasuta_, or long-nosed bandicoot;
+the _Mysouros_, or saddle-backed bandicoot; the _Choeropus_, or
+pig-footed bandicoot; and----"
+
+"Speaking of antelopes----" Mr. Deeley interrupted loudly.
+
+"By all means!" said Mr. Pottle still more loudly. "I've always taken a
+special interest in antelopes. Let's see now--the antelope family
+includes the gnus, elands, hartebeests, addax, klipspringers, chamois,
+gazelles, chirus, pallas, saigas, nilgais, koodoos--pretty name that,
+isn't it, Blossom--the blessboks, duikerboks, boneboks, gemsboks,
+steinboks----"
+
+He saw that the bright blue eyes of the lady of his dreams were fastened
+on him. He turned toward Mr. Deeley.
+
+"You're familiar with Bambara, aren't you?" he asked.
+
+"I beg pardon?" The brilliant conversationalist seemed a little
+confused. "Did you say Arabia? I should say I do know Arabia. Population
+5,078,441; area----"
+
+"One million, two hundred and twenty-two thousand square miles,"
+finished Mr. Pottle. "No, I did not say Arabia; I said Bambara.
+B-a-m-b-a-r-a."
+
+"Oh, Bambara," said Mr. Deeley feebly; his assurance seemed to crumple.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Gallup. "Do tell us about Bambara; such an intriguing
+name."
+
+"It is a country in Western Africa," Mr. Pottle tossed off grandly,
+"with a population of 2,004,737, made up of Negroes, Mandingoes and
+Foulahs. Its principal products are rice, maize, cotton, millet, yams,
+pistachio nuts, French beans, watermelons, onions, tobacco, indigo,
+tamarinds, lotuses, sheep, horses, alligators, pelicans, turtles,
+egrets, teals and Barbary ducks."
+
+"Oh, how interesting! Do go on, Mr. Pottle." It was the voice of Mrs.
+Gallup; to Mr. Pottle it seemed that there was a tender note in it.
+
+"Bambara reminds me of baboons," he went on loudly and rapidly, checking
+an incipient remark from Mr. Deeley. "Baboons, you know, are
+_Cynocephali_ or dog-headed monkeys; the species includes drills,
+mandrills, sphinx, chacma and hamadryas. Most baboons have ischial
+callosities----"
+
+"Oh, what do they do with them?" cried wide-eyed Mrs. Gallup.
+
+"They--er--sit on them," answered Mr. Pottle.
+
+"I don't believe it," Mr. Deeley challenged.
+
+Mr. Pottle froze him with a look. "Evidently," he said, "you, Mr.
+Deeley, are not familiar with the works of Dr. Oskar Baumann, author of
+'Afrikanische Skizzen.' Are you?"
+
+"I've glanced through it," said Mr. Deeley.
+
+"Then you don't remember what he says on Page 489?"
+
+"Can't say that I do," mumbled Mr. Deeley.
+
+"And you appear unfamiliar with the works of Hosea Ballou."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Hosea Ballou."
+
+"I doubt if there is such a person," said Mr. Deeley stiffly. He did not
+appear to be enjoying himself.
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" retorted Mr. Pottle. "Suppose you look him up in
+your encyclopedia--if," he added with crushing emphasis--"if you have
+one. You'll find that Hosea Ballou was born in 1771, founded the Trumpet
+Magazine, the Universalist Expositor, the Universalist Quarterly Review,
+and wrote Notes on the Parables."
+
+"What has that to do with baboons?" demanded Mr. Deeley.
+
+"A lot more than you think," was Mr. Pottle's cryptic answer. He turned
+from the Xenian with a shrug of dismissal, and smiled upon Mrs. Gallup.
+
+"Don't you think, Blossom," he said, "that Babylonia is a fascinating
+country?"
+
+"Oh, very," she smiled back at him. "I dote on Babylonia."
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Mr. Pottle, "Mr. Deeley will be good enough to tell
+us all about it."
+
+Mr. Deeley looked extremely uncomfortable.
+
+"Babylonia--let's see now--well, it just happens that Babylonia is not
+one of my specialties."
+
+"Well, tell us about Baluchistan, then," suggested Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Yes, do!" echoed Mrs. Gallup.
+
+"I've forgotten about it," answered the brilliant conversationalist
+sullenly.
+
+"Well, tell us about Beethoven, then," pursued Mr. Pottle relentlessly.
+
+"I never was there," growled Mr. Deeley. "Say, when does the next
+trolley leave for Xenia?"
+
+"In seven minutes," answered Mrs. Gallup coldly. "You've just got time
+to catch it."
+
+The bungalow's front door snapped at the heels of the departing sage
+from Xenia.
+
+Mr. Pottle hitched his chair close to the sofa where Mrs. Gallup sat.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Pottle," she said softly, "do talk some more! I just love to
+hear you. You surprised me. I didn't realize you were such a well-read
+man."
+
+Mr. Pottle looked into her wide blue eyes.
+
+"I'm not," he said. "I was bluffing."
+
+"Bluffing?"
+
+"Yes," he said; "and so was your friend from Xenia. He's no more in the
+literary line than I am. His job is selling a book called 'Hog
+Culture.'"
+
+"But he talks so well----" began Mrs. Gallup.
+
+"Only about things that begin with 'A,'" said Mr. Pottle. "He memorized
+everything in the encyclopedia under 'A.' I simply went him one better.
+I memorized all of 'A,' and all of 'B' too."
+
+"Oh, the deceitful wretch!"
+
+"I'm sorry, Blossom. Can you forgive me?" he pleaded. "I did it
+because----"
+
+She interrupted him gently.
+
+"I know," she said, smiling. "You did it for me. I wasn't calling you a
+wretch, Ambrose."
+
+He found himself on the sofa beside her, his arm about her.
+
+"What I really want," she confessed with a happy sigh, "is a good strong
+man to take care of me."
+
+"We'll go through the rest of the encyclopedia together, dearest," said
+Mr. Pottle.
+
+
+
+
+IV: _Mr. Pottle and the One Man Dog_
+
+
+"Ambrose! Ambrose dear!" The new Mrs. Pottle put down the book she was
+reading--Volume Dec to Erd of the encyclopedia.
+
+"Yes, Blossom dear." Mr. Pottle's tone was fraught with the tender
+solicitude of the recently wed. He looked up from his book--Volume Ode
+to Pay of the encyclopedia.
+
+"Ambrose, we must get a dog!"
+
+"A dog, darling?"
+
+His tone was still tender but a thought lacking in warmth. His smile, he
+hoped, conveyed the impression that while he utterly approved of
+Blossom, herself, personally, her current idea struck no responsive
+chord in his bosom.
+
+"Yes, a dog."
+
+She sighed as she gazed at a large framed steel-engraving of Landseer's
+St. Bernards that occupied a space on the wall until recently tenanted
+by a crayon enlargement of her first husband in his lodge regalia.
+
+"Such noble creatures," she sighed. "So intelligent. And so loyal."
+
+"In the books they are," murmured Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Oh, Ambrose," she protested with a pout. "How can you say such a thing?
+Just look at their big eyes, so full of soul. What magnificent animals!
+So full of understanding and fidelity and--and----"
+
+"Fleas?" suggested Mr. Pottle.
+
+Her glance was glacial.
+
+"Ambrose, you are positively cruel," she said, tiny, injured tears
+gathering in her wide blue eyes. He was instantly penitent.
+
+"Forgive me, dear," he begged. "I forgot. In the books they don't have
+'em, do they? You see, precious, I don't take as much stock in books as
+I used to. I've been fooled so often."
+
+"They're lovely books," said Mrs. Pottle, somewhat mollified. "You said
+yourself that you adore dog stories."
+
+"Sure I do, honey," said Mr. Pottle, "but a man can like stories about
+elephants without wanting to own one, can't he?"
+
+"A dog is not an elephant, Ambrose."
+
+He could not deny it.
+
+"Don't you remember," she pursued, rapturously, "that lovely book,
+'Hero, the Collie Beautiful,' where a kiddie finds a puppy in an ash
+barrel, and takes care of it, and later the collie grows up and rescues
+the kiddie from a fire; or was that the book where the collie flew at
+the throat of the man who came to murder the kiddie's father, and the
+father broke down and put his arms around the collie's neck because he
+had kicked the collie once and the collie used to follow him around with
+big, hurt eyes and yet when he was in danger Hero saved him because
+collies are so sensitive and so loyal?"
+
+"Uh huh," assented Mr. Pottle.
+
+"And that story we read, 'Almost Human'," she rippled on fluidly, "about
+the kiddie who was lost in a snow-storm in the mountains and the brave
+St. Bernard that came along with bottles of spirits around its neck--St.
+Bernards always carry them--and----"
+
+"Do the bottles come with the dogs?" asked Mr. Pottle, hopefully.
+
+She elevated disapproving eyebrows.
+
+"Ambrose," she said, sternly, "don't always be making jests about
+alcohol. It's so common. You know when I married you, you promised never
+even to think of it again."
+
+"Yes, Blossom," said Mr. Pottle, meekly.
+
+She beamed.
+
+"Well, dear, what kind of a dog shall we get?" she asked briskly. He
+felt that all was lost.
+
+"There are dogs and dogs," he said moodily. "And I don't know anything
+about any of them."
+
+"I'll read what it says here," she said. Mrs. Pottle was pursuing
+culture through the encyclopedia, and felt that she would overtake it on
+almost any page now.
+
+"Dog," she read, "is the English generic term for the quadruped of the
+domesticated variety of _canis_."
+
+"Well, I'll be darned!" exclaimed her husband. "Is that a fact?"
+
+"Be serious, Ambrose, please. The choice of a dog is no jesting matter,"
+she rebuked him, and then read on, "In the Old and New Testaments the
+dog is spoken of almost with abhorrence; indeed, it ranks among the
+unclean beasts----"
+
+"There, Blossom," cried Mr. Pottle, clutching at a straw, "what did I
+tell you? Would you fly in the face of the Good Book?"
+
+She did not deign to reply verbally; she looked refrigerators at him.
+
+"The Egyptians, on the other hand," she read, a note of triumph in her
+voice, "venerated the dog, and when a dog died they shaved their heads
+as a badge of mourning----"
+
+"The Egyptians did, hey?" remarked Mr. Pottle, open disgust on his apple
+of face. "Shaved their own heads, did they? No wonder they all turned to
+mummies. You can't tell me it's safe for a man to shave his own head;
+there ought to be a law against it."
+
+Mr. Pottle was in the barber business.
+
+Unheedful of this digression, Mrs. Pottle read on.
+
+"There are many sorts of dogs. I'll read the list so we can pick out
+ours. You needn't look cranky, Ambrose; we're going to have one. Let me
+see. Ah, yes. 'There are Great Danes, mastiffs, collies, dalmatians,
+chows, New Foundlands, poodles, setters, pointers, retrievers--Labrador
+and flat-coated--spaniels, beagles, dachshunds--I'll admit they are
+rather nasty; they're the only sort of dog I can't bear--whippets,
+otterhounds, terriers, including Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Skye and fox, and
+St. Bernards.' St. Bernards, it says, are the largest; 'their ears are
+small and their foreheads white and dome-shaped, giving them the well
+known expression of benignity and intelligence.' Oh, Ambrose"--her eyes
+were full of dreams--"Oh, Ambrose, wouldn't it be just too wonderful for
+words to have a great, big, beautiful dog like that?"
+
+"There isn't any too much room in this bungalow as it is," demurred Mr.
+Pottle. "Better get a chow."
+
+"You don't seem to realize, Ambrose Pottle," the lady replied with some
+severity, "that what I want a dog for is protection."
+
+"Protection, my angel? Can't I protect you?"
+
+"Not when you're away on the road selling your shaving cream. Then's
+when I need some big, loyal creature to protect me."
+
+"From what?"
+
+"Well, burglars."
+
+"Why should they come here?"
+
+"How about all our wedding silver? And then kidnapers might come."
+
+"Kidnapers? What could they kidnap?"
+
+"Me," said Mrs. Pottle. "How would you like to come home from Zanesville
+or Bucyrus some day and find me gone, Ambrose?" Her lip quivered at the
+thought.
+
+To Mr. Pottle, privately, this contingency seemed remote. His bride was
+not the sort of woman one might kidnap easily. She was a plentiful lady
+of a well developed maturity, whose clothes did not conceal her heroic
+mold, albeit they fitted her as tightly as if her modiste were a
+taxidermist. However, not for worlds would he have voiced this
+sacrilegious thought; he was in love; he preferred that she should think
+of herself as infinitely clinging and helpless; he fancied the rôle of
+sturdy oak.
+
+"All right, Blossom," he gave in, patting her cheek. "If my angel wants
+a dog, she shall have one. That reminds me, Charley Meacham, the boss
+barber of the Ohio House, has a nice litter. He offered me one or two or
+three if I wanted them. The mother is as fine a looking spotted coach
+dog as ever you laid an eye on and the pups----"
+
+"What was the father?" demanded Mrs. Pottle.
+
+"How should I know? There's a black pup, and a spotted pup, and a yellow
+pup, and a white pup and a----"
+
+Mrs. Pottle sniffed.
+
+"No mungles for me," she stated, flatly, "I hate mungles. I want a
+thoroughbred, or nothing. One with a pedigree, like that adorably
+handsome creature there."
+
+She nodded toward the engraving of the giant St. Bernards.
+
+"But, darling," objected Mr. Pottle, "pedigreed pups cost money. A dog
+can bark and bite whether he has a family tree or not, can't he? We
+can't afford one of these fancy, blue-blooded ones. I've got notes at
+the bank right now I don't know how the dooce I'm going to pay. My
+shaving stick needs capital. I can't be blowing in hard-earned dough on
+pups."
+
+"Oh, Ambrose, I actually believe
+you--don't--care--whether--I'm--kidnaped--or--not!" his wife began, a
+catch in her voice. A heart of wrought iron would have been melted by
+the pathos of her tone and face.
+
+"There, there, honey," said Mr. Pottle, hastily, with an appropriate
+amatory gesture, "you shall have your pup. But remember this, Blossom
+Pottle. He's yours. You are to have all the responsibility and care of
+him."
+
+"Oh, Ambrose, you're so good to me," she breathed.
+
+The next evening when Mr. Pottle came home he observed something brown
+and fuzzy nestling in his Sunday velour hat. With a smothered
+exclamation of the kind that has no place in a romance, he dumped the
+thing out and saw it waddle away on unsteady legs, leaving him sadly
+contemplating the strawberry silk lining of his best hat.
+
+"Isn't he a love? Isn't he just too sweet," cried Mrs. Pottle, emerging
+from the living room and catching the object up in her arms. "Come to
+mama, sweetie-pie. Did the nassy man frighten my precious Pershing?"
+
+"Your precious what?"
+
+"Pershing. I named him for a brave man and a fighter. I just know he'll
+be worthy of it, when he grows up, and starts to protect me."
+
+"In how many years?" inquired Mr. Pottle, cynically.
+
+"The man said he'd be big enough to be a watch dog in a very few months;
+they grow so fast."
+
+"What man said this?"
+
+"The kennel man. I bought Pershing at the Laddiebrook-Sunshine Kennels
+to-day." She paused to kiss the pink muzzle of the little animal; Mr.
+Pottle winced at this but she noted it not, and rushed on.
+
+"Such an interesting place, Ambrose. Nothing but dogs and dogs and dogs.
+All kinds, too. They even had one mean, sneaky-looking dachshund there;
+I just couldn't trust a dog like that. Ugh! Well, I looked at all the
+dogs. The minute I saw Pershing I knew he was my dog. His little eyes
+looked up at me as much as to say, 'I'll be yours, mistress, faithful to
+the death,' and he put out the dearest little pink tongue and licked my
+hand. The kennel man said, 'Now ain't that wonderful, lady, the way he's
+taken to you? Usually he growls at strangers. He's a one man dog, all
+right, all right'."
+
+"A one man dog?" said Mr. Pottle, blankly.
+
+"Yes. One that loves his owner, and nobody else. That's just the kind I
+want."
+
+"Where do I come in?" inquired Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Oh, he'll learn to tolerate you, I guess," she reassured him. Then she
+rippled on, "I just had to have him then. He was one of five, but he
+already had a little personality all his own, although he's only three
+weeks old. I saw his mother--a magnificent creature, Ambrose, big as a
+Shetland pony and twice as shaggy, and with the most wonderful
+appealing eyes, that looked at me as if it stabbed her to the heart to
+have her little ones taken from her. And such a pedigree! It covers
+pages. Her name is Gloria Audacious Indomitable; the Audacious
+Indomitables are a very celebrated family of St. Bernards, the kennel
+man said."
+
+"What about his father?" queried Mr. Pottle, poking the ball of pup with
+his finger.
+
+"I didn't see him," admitted Mrs. Pottle. "I believe they are not living
+together now."
+
+She snuggled the pup to her capacious bosom.
+
+"So," she said, "its whole name is Pershing Audacious Indomitable, isn't
+it, tweetums?"
+
+"It's a swell name," admitted Mr. Pottle. "Er--Blossom dear, how much
+did he cost?"
+
+She brought out the reply quickly, almost timidly.
+
+"Fifty dollars."
+
+"Fif----" his voice stuck in his larynx. "Great Cæsar's Ghost!"
+
+"But think of his pedigree," cried his wife.
+
+All he could say was:
+
+"Great Cæsar's Ghost! Fifty dollars! Great Cæsar's Ghost!"
+
+"Why, we can exhibit him at bench shows," she argued, "and win hundreds
+of dollars in prizes. And his pups will be worth fifty dollars per pup
+easily, with that pedigree."
+
+"Great Cæsar's Ghost," said Mr. Pottle, despondently. "Fifty dollars!
+And the shaving stick business all geflooey."
+
+"He'll be worth a thousand to me as a protector," she declared,
+defiantly. "You wait and see, Ambrose Pottle. Wait till he grows up to
+be a great, big, handsome, intelligent dog, winning prizes and
+protecting your wife. He'll be the best investment we ever made, you
+mark my words."
+
+Had Pershing encountered Mr. Pottle's eye at that moment the marrow of
+his small canine bones would have congealed.
+
+"All right, Blossom," said her spouse, gloomily. "He's yours. You take
+care of him. I wonder, I just wonder, that's all."
+
+"What do you wonder, Ambrose?"
+
+"If they'll let him visit us when we're in the poor house."
+
+To this his wife remarked, "Fiddlesticks," and began to feed Pershing
+from a nursing bottle.
+
+"Grade A milk, I suppose," groaned Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Cream," she corrected, calmly. "Pershing is no mungle. Remember that,
+Ambrose Pottle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a nippy, frosty night, and Mr. Pottle, after much chattering of
+teeth, had succeeded in getting a place warm in the family bed, and was
+floating peacefully into a dream in which he got a contract for ten
+carload lots of Pottle's Edible Shaving Cream. "Just Lather, Shave and
+Lick. That's All," when his wife's soft knuckles prodded him in the
+ribs.
+
+"Ambrose, Ambrose, do wake up. Do you hear that?"
+
+He sleepily opened a protesting eye. He heard faint, plaintive, peeping
+sounds somewhere in the house.
+
+"It's that wretched hound," he said crossly.
+
+"Pershing is not a hound, Ambrose Pottle."
+
+"Oh, all right, Blossom, ALL RIGHT. It's that noble creature, G'night."
+
+But the knuckles tattooed on his drowsy ribs again.
+
+"Ambrose, he's lonesome."
+
+No response.
+
+"Ambrose, little Pershing is lonesome."
+
+"Well, suppose you go and sing him to sleep."
+
+"Ambrose! And us married only a month!"
+
+Mr. Pottle sat up in bed.
+
+"Is he your pup," he demanded, oratorically, "or is he not your pup,
+Mrs. Pottle? And anyhow, why pamper him? He's all right. Didn't I walk
+six blocks in the cold to a grocery store to get a box for his bed?
+Didn't you line it with some of my best towels? Isn't it under a nice,
+warm stove? What more can a hound----"
+
+"Ambrose!"
+
+"----noble creature, expect?"
+
+He dived into his pillow as if it were oblivion.
+
+"Ambrose," said his wife, loudly and firmly, "Pershing is lonesome.
+Thoroughbreds have such sensitive natures. If he thought we were lying
+here neglecting him, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he died of a
+broken heart before morning. A pedigreed dog like Pershing has the
+feelings of a delicate child."
+
+Muffled words came from the Pottle pillow.
+
+"Well, whose one man dog is he?"
+
+Mrs. Pottle began to sniffle audibly.
+
+"I d-don't believe you'd c-care if I got up and c-caught my d-death of
+c-cold," she said. "You know how easily I c-chill, too. But I c-can't
+leave that poor motherless little fellow cry his heart out in that big,
+dark, lonely kitchen. I'll just have to get up and----"
+
+She stirred around as if she really intended to. The chivalrous Mr.
+Pottle heaved up from his pillow like an irate grampus from the depths
+of a tank.
+
+"I'll go," he grumbled, fumbling around with goose-fleshed limbs for his
+chilly slippers. "Shall I tell him about Little Red Riding Hood or
+Goody Two Shoes?"
+
+"Ambrose, if you speak roughly to Pershing, I shall never forgive you.
+And he won't either. No. Bring him in here."
+
+"Here?" His tone was aghast; barbers are aseptic souls.
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"In bed?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Oh, Blossom!"
+
+"We can't leave him in the cold, can we?"
+
+"But, Blossom, suppose he's--suppose he has----"
+
+The hiatus was expressive.
+
+"He hasn't." Her voice was one of indignant denial. "Pedigreed dogs
+don't. Why, the kennels were immaculate."
+
+"Humph," said Mr. Pottle dubiously. He strode into the kitchen and
+returned with Pershing in his arms; he plumped the small, bushy, whining
+animal in bed beside his wife.
+
+"I suppose, Mrs. Pottle," he said, "that you are prepared to take the
+consequences."
+
+She stroked the squirming thing, which emitted small, protesting bleats.
+
+"Don't you mind the nassy man, sweetie-pie," she cooed. "Casting
+'spersions on poor li'l lonesome doggie." Then, to her husband,
+"Ambrose, how can you suggest such a thing? Don't stand there in the
+cold."
+
+"Nevertheless," said Mr. Pottle, oracularly, as he prepared to seek
+slumber at a point as remote as possible in the bed from Pershing, "I'll
+bet a dollar to a doughnut that I'm right."
+
+Mr. Pottle won his doughnut. At three o'clock in the morning, with the
+mercury flirting with the freezing mark, he suddenly surged up from his
+pillow, made twitching motions with limbs and shoulders, and stalked out
+into the living room, where he finished the night on a hard-boiled army
+cot, used for guests.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the days hurried by, he had to admit that the kennel man's
+predictions about the rapid growth of the animal seemed likely of
+fulfillment. In a very few weeks the offspring of Gloria Audacious
+Indomitable had attained prodigious proportions.
+
+"But, Blossom," said Mr. Pottle, eyeing the animal as it gnawed
+industriously at the golden oak legs of the player piano, "isn't he
+growing in a sort of funny way?"
+
+"Funny way, Ambrose?"
+
+"Yes, dear; funny way. Look at his legs."
+
+She contemplated those members.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"They're kinda brief, aren't they, Blossom?"
+
+"Naturally. He's no giraffe, Ambrose. Young thoroughbreds have small
+legs. Just like babies."
+
+"But he seems so sorta long in proportion to his legs," said Mr. Pottle,
+critically. "He gets to look more like an overgrown caterpillar every
+day."
+
+"You said yourself, Ambrose, that you know nothing about dogs," his wife
+reminded him. "The legs always develop last. Give Pershing a chance to
+get his growth; then you'll see."
+
+Mr. Pottle shrugged, unconvinced.
+
+"It's time to take Pershing out for his airing," Mrs. Pottle observed.
+
+A fretwork of displeasure appeared on the normally bland brow of Mr.
+Pottle.
+
+"Lotta good that does," he grunted. "Besides, I'm getting tired of
+leading him around on a string. He's so darn funny looking; the boys are
+beginning to kid me about him."
+
+"Do you want me to go out," asked Mrs. Pottle, "with this heavy cold?"
+
+"Oh, all right," said Mr. Pottle blackly.
+
+"Now, Pershing precious, let mama put on your li'l blanket so you can go
+for a nice li'l walk with your papa."
+
+"I'm not his papa," growled Mr. Pottle, rebelliously. "I'm no relation
+of his."
+
+However, the neighbors along Garden Avenue presently spied a short,
+rotund man, progressing with reluctant step along the street, in his
+hand a leathern leash at the end of which ambled a pup whose physique
+was the occasion of some discussion among the dog-fanciers who beheld
+it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Blossom," said Mr. Pottle--it was after Pershing had outgrown two boxes
+and a large wash-basket--"you may say what you like but that dog of
+yours looks funny to me."
+
+"How can you say that?" she retorted. "Just look at that long heavy
+coat. Look at that big, handsome head. Look at those knowing eyes, as if
+he understood every word we're saying."
+
+"But his legs, Blossom, his legs!"
+
+"They are a wee, tiny bit short," she confessed. "But he's still in his
+infancy. Perhaps we don't feed him often enough."
+
+"No?" said Mr. Pottle with a rising inflection which had the perfume of
+sarcasm about it, "No? I suppose seven times a day, including once in
+the middle of the night isn't often enough?"
+
+"Honestly, Ambrose, you'd think you were an early Christian martyr being
+devoured by tigers to hear all the fuss you make about getting up just
+once for five or ten minutes in the night to feed poor, hungry little
+Pershing."
+
+"It hardly seems worth it," remarked Mr. Pottle, "with him turning out
+this way."
+
+"What way?"
+
+"Bandy-legged."
+
+"St. Bernards," she said with dignity, "do not run to legs. Mungles may
+be all leggy, but not full blooded St. Bernards. He's a baby, remember
+that, Ambrose Pottle."
+
+"He eats more than a full grown farm hand," said Mr. Pottle. "And steak
+at fifty cents a pound!"
+
+"You can't bring up a delicate dog like Pershing on liver," said Mrs.
+Pottle, crushingly. "Now run along, Ambrose, and take him for a good
+airing, while I get his evening broth ready."
+
+"They extended that note of mine at the Bank, Blossom," said Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Don't let him eat out of ash cans, and don't let him associate with
+mungles," said Mrs. Pottle.
+
+Mr. Pottle skulked along side-streets, now dragging, now being dragged
+by the muscular Pershing. It was Mr. Pottle's idea to escape the
+attention of his friends, of whom there were many in Granville, and who,
+of late, had shown a disposition to make remarks about his evening
+promenade that irked his proud spirit. But, as he rounded the corner of
+Cottage Row, he encountered Charlie Meacham, tonsorialist, dog-fancier,
+wit.
+
+"Evening, Ambrose."
+
+"Evening, Charlie."
+
+Mr. Pottle tried to ignore Pershing, to pretend that there was no
+connection between them, but Pershing reared up on stumpy hind legs and
+sought to embrace Mr. Meacham.
+
+"Where'd you get the pooch?" inquired Mr. Meacham, with some interest.
+
+"Wife's," said Mr. Pottle, briefly.
+
+"Where'd she find it?"
+
+"Didn't find him. Bought him at Laddiebrook-Sunshine Kennels."
+
+"Oho," whistled Mr. Meacham.
+
+"Pedigreed," confided Mr. Pottle.
+
+"You don't tell me!"
+
+"Yep. Name's Pershing."
+
+"Name's what?"
+
+"Pershing. In honor of the great general."
+
+Mr. Meacham leaned against a convenient lamp-post; he seemed of a sudden
+overcome by some powerful emotion.
+
+"What's the joke?" asked Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Pershing!" Mr. Meacham was just able to get out. "Oh, me, oh my. That's
+rich. That's a scream."
+
+"Pershing," said Mr. Pottle, stoutly, "Audacious Indomitable. You ought
+to see his pedigree."
+
+"I'd like to," said Mr. Meacham, "I certainly would like to."
+
+He was studying the architecture of Pershing with the cool appraising
+eye of the expert. His eye rested for a long time on the short legs and
+long body.
+
+"Pottle," he said, thoughtfully, "haven't they got a dachshund up at
+those there kennels?"
+
+Mr. Pottle knitted perplexed brows.
+
+"I believe they have," he said. "Why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing," replied Mr. Meacham, struggling to keep a grip on his
+emotions which threatened to choke him, "Oh, nothing." And he went off,
+with Mr. Pottle staring at his shoulder blades which titillated oddly as
+Mr. Meacham walked.
+
+Mr. Pottle, after a series of tugs-of-war, got his charge home. A worry
+wormed its way into his brain like an auger into a pine plank. The worry
+became a suspicion. The suspicion became a horrid certainty. Gallant man
+that he was, and lover, he did not mention it to Blossom.
+
+But after that the evening excursion with Pershing became his cross and
+his wormwood. He pleaded to be allowed to take Pershing out after dark;
+Blossom wouldn't hear of it; the night air might injure his pedigreed
+lungs. In vain did he offer to hire a man--at no matter what cost--to
+take his place as companion to the creature which daily grew more
+pronounced and remarkable as to shape. Blossom declared that she would
+entrust no stranger with her dog; a Pottle, and a Pottle only, could
+escort him. The nightly pilgrimage became almost unendurable after a
+total stranger, said to be a Dubuque traveling man, stopped Mr. Pottle
+on the street one evening and asked, gravely:
+
+"I beg pardon, sir, but isn't that animal a peagle?"
+
+"He is not a beagle," said Mr. Pottle, shortly.
+
+"I didn't say 'beagle'," the stranger smiled, "I said
+'peagle'--p-e-a-g-l-e."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A peagle," answered the stranger, "is a cross between a pony and a
+beagle." It took three men to stop the fight.
+
+Pershing, as Mr. Pottle perceived all too plainly, was growing more
+curious and ludicrous to the eye every day. He had the enormous head,
+the heavy body, the shaggy coat, and the benign, intellectual face of
+his mother; but alas, he had the bandy, caster-like legs of his putative
+father. He was an anti-climax. Everybody in Granville, save Blossom
+alone, seemed to realize the stark, the awful truth about Pershing's
+ancestry. Even he seemed to realize his own sad state; he wore a
+shamefaced look as he trotted by the side of Ambrose Pottle; Mr.
+Pottle's own features grew hang-dog. Despite her spouse's hints, Blossom
+never lost faith in Pershing.
+
+"Just you wait, Ambrose," she said. "One of these fine days you'll wake
+up and find he has developed a full grown set of limbs."
+
+"Like a tadpole, I suppose," he said grimly.
+
+"Joke all you like, Ambrose. But mark my words: you'll be proud of
+Pershing. Just look at him there, taking in every word we say. Why,
+already he can do everything but speak. I just know I could count on him
+if I was in danger from burglars or kidnapers or anything. I'll feel so
+much safer with him in the house when you take your trip East next
+month."
+
+"The burglar that came on him in the dark would be scared to death,"
+mumbled Mr. Pottle. She ignored this aside.
+
+"Now, Ambrose," she said, "take the comb and give him a good combing. I
+may enter him in a bench show next month."
+
+"You ought to," remarked Mr. Pottle, as he led Pershing away, "he looks
+like a bench."
+
+It was with a distinct sense of escape that Mr. Pottle some weeks later
+took a train for Washington where he hoped to have patented and
+trade-marked his edible shaving cream, a discovery he confidently
+expected to make his fortune.
+
+"Good-by, Ambrose," said Mrs. Pottle. "I'll write you every day how
+Pershing is getting along. At the rate he's growing you won't know him
+when you come back. You needn't worry about me. My one man dog will
+guard me, won't you, sweetie-pie? There now, give your paw to Papa
+Pottle."
+
+"I'm not his papa, I tell you," cried Mr. Pottle with some passion as he
+grabbed up his suit-case and crunched down the gravel path.
+
+In all, his business in Washington kept him away from his home for
+twenty-four days. While he missed the society of Blossom, somehow he
+experienced a delicious feeling of freedom from care, shame and
+responsibility as he took his evening stroll about the capital. His trip
+was a success; the patent was secured, the trade-mark duly registered.
+The patent lawyer, as he pocketed his fee, perhaps to salve his
+conscience for its size, produced from behind a law book a bottle of an
+ancient and once honorable fluid and pressed it on Mr. Pottle.
+
+"I promised the wife I'd stay on the sprinkling cart," demurred Mr.
+Pottle.
+
+"Oh, take it along," urged the patent lawyer. "You may need it for a
+cold one of these days."
+
+It occurred to Mr. Pottle that if there is one place in the world a man
+may catch his death of cold it is on a draughty railroad train, and
+wouldn't it be foolish of him with a fortune in his grasp, so to speak,
+not to take every precaution against a possibly fatal illness? Besides
+he knew that Blossom would never permit him to bring the bottle into
+their home. He preserved it in the only way possible under the
+circumstances. When the train reached Granville just after midnight, Mr.
+Pottle skipped blithely from the car, made a sweeping bow to a milk can,
+cocked his derby over his eye, which was uncommonly bright and playful,
+and started for home with the meticulous but precarious step of the
+tight-rope walker.
+
+It was his plan, carefully conceived, to steal softly as thistledown
+falling on velvet, into his bungalow without waking the sleeping
+Blossom, to spend the night on the guest cot, to spring up, fresh as a
+dewy daisy in the morn, and wake his wife with a smiling and coherent
+account of his trip.
+
+Very quietly he tip-toed along the lawn leading to his front door, his
+latch key out and ready. But as he was about to place a noiseless foot
+on his porch, something vast, low and dark barred his path, and a bass
+and hostile growl brought him to an abrupt halt.
+
+"Well, well, well, if it isn't li'l Pershin'," said Mr. Pottle,
+pleasantly, but remembering to pitch his voice in a low key. "Waiting on
+the porch to welcome Papa Pottle home! Nice li'l Pershin'."
+
+"Grrrrrrr Grrrrrrrrrr Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," replied Pershing. He continued
+to bar the path, to growl ominously, to bare strong white teeth in the
+moonlight. In Mr. Pottle's absence he had grown enormously in head and
+body; but not in leg.
+
+"Pershin'," said Mr. Pottle, plaintively, "can it be that you have
+forgotten Papa Pottle? Have you forgotten nice, kind mans that took you
+for pretty walks? That fed you pretty steaks? That gave you pretty
+baths? Nice li'l Pershin', nice li'l----"
+
+Mr. Pottle reached down to pat the shaggy head and drew back his hand
+with something that would pass as a curse in any language; Pershing had
+given his finger a whole-hearted nip.
+
+"You low-down, underslung brute," rasped Mr. Pottle. "Get out of my way
+or I'll kick the pedigree outa you."
+
+Pershing's growl grew louder and more menacing. Mr. Pottle hesitated; he
+feared Blossom more than Pershing. He tried cajolery.
+
+"Come, come, nice li'l St. Bernard. Great, big, noble St. Bernard. Come
+for li'l walk with Papa Pottle. Nice Pershin', nice Pershin', you dirty
+cur----"
+
+This last remark was due to the animal's earnest but only partially
+successful effort to fasten its teeth in Mr. Pottle's calf. Pershing
+gave out a sharp, disappointed yelp.
+
+A white, shrouded figure appeared at the window.
+
+"Burglar, go away," it said, shrilly, "or I'll sic my savage St. Bernard
+on you."
+
+"He's already sicced, Blottom," said a doleful voice. "It's me, Blottom.
+Your Ambrose."
+
+"Why, Ambrose! How queer your voice sounds! Why don't you come in."
+
+"Pershing won't let me," cried Mr. Pottle. "Call him in."
+
+"He won't come," she wailed, "and I'm afraid of him at night like this."
+
+"Coax him in."
+
+"He won't coax."
+
+"Bribe him with food."
+
+"You can't bribe a thoroughbred."
+
+Mr. Pottle put his hands on his hips, and standing in the exact center
+of his lawn, raised a high, sardonic voice.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said, "oh, dear me, yes, I'll live to be proud of
+Pershing. Oh, yes indeed. I'll live to love the noble creature. I'll be
+glad I got up on cold nights to pour warm milk into his dear little
+stummick. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, he'll be worth thousands to me. Here I go
+down to Washington, and work my head to the bone to keep a roof over us,
+and when I get back I can't get under it. If you ask me, Mrs. Blottom
+Pottle née Gallup, if you ask me, that precious animal of yours, that
+noble creature is the muttiest mutt that ever----"
+
+"Ambrose!" Her edged voice clipped his oration short. "You've been
+drinking!"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Pottle in a bellowing voice, "I guess a hound like that
+is enough to drive a person to drink. G'night, Blottom. I'm going to
+sleep in the flower bed. Frozen petunias will be my pillow. When I'm
+dead and gone, be kind to little Pershing for my sake."
+
+"Ambrose! Stop. Think of the neighbors. Think of your health. Come into
+the house this minute."
+
+He tried to obey her frantic command, but the low-lying, far-flung bulk
+of Pershing blocked the way, a growling, fanged, hairy wall. Mr. Pottle
+retreated to the flower bed.
+
+"What was it the Belgiums said?" he remarked. "They shall not pash."
+
+"Oh, what'll I do, what'll I do?" came from the window.
+
+"Send for the militia," suggested Mr. Pottle with savage facetiousness.
+
+"I know," cried his wife, inspired, "I'll send for a veterinarian. He'll
+know what to do."
+
+"A veterinarian!" he protested loudly. "Five bones a visit, and us the
+joke of Granville."
+
+But he could suggest nothing better and presently an automobile
+discharged a sleepy and disgusted dog-doctor at the Pottle homestead. It
+took the combined efforts of the two men and the woman to entice
+Pershing away from the door long enough for Mr. Pottle to slip into his
+house. During the course of Mrs. Pottle's subsequent remarks, Mr. Pottle
+said a number of times that he was sorry he hadn't stayed out among the
+petunias.
+
+In the morning Pershing greeted him with an innocent expression.
+
+"I hope, Mr. Pottle," said his wife, as he sipped black coffee, "that
+you are now convinced what a splendid watch dog Pershing is."
+
+"I wish I had that fifty back again," he answered. "The bank won't give
+me another extension on that note, Blossom."
+
+She tossed a bit of bacon to Pershing who muffed it and retrieved it
+with only slight damage to the pink roses on the rug.
+
+"I can't stand this much longer, Blossom," he burst out.
+
+"What?"
+
+"You used to love me."
+
+"I still do, Ambrose, despite all."
+
+"You conceal it well. That mutt takes all your time."
+
+"Mutt, Ambrose?"
+
+"Mutt," said Mr. Pottle.
+
+"See! He's heard you," she cried. "Look at that hurt expression in his
+face."
+
+"Bah," said Mr. Pottle. "When do we begin to get fifty dollars per pup.
+I could use the money. Isn't it about time this great hulking creature
+did something to earn his keep? He's got the appetite of a lion."
+
+"Don't mind the nassy mans, Pershing. We're not a mutt, are we,
+Pershing? Ambrose, please don't say such things in his presence. It
+hurts him dreadfully. Mutt, indeed. Just look at those big, gentle,
+knowing eyes."
+
+"Look at those legs, woman," said Mr. Pottle.
+
+He despondently sipped his black coffee.
+
+"Blossom," he said. "I'm going to Chicago to-night. Got to have a
+conference with the men who are dickering with me about manufacturing my
+shaving cream. I'll be gone three days and I'll be busy every second."
+
+"Yes, Ambrose. Pershing will protect me."
+
+"And when I come back," he went on sternly, "I want to be able to get
+into my own house, do you understand?"
+
+"I warned you Pershing was a one man dog," she replied. "You'd better
+come back at noon while he's at lunch. You needn't worry about us."
+
+"I shan't worry about Pershing," promised Mr. Pottle, reaching for his
+suit-case.
+
+He had not overstated how busy he would be in Chicago. His second day
+was crowded. After a trip to the factory, he was closeted at his hotel
+in solemn conference in the evening with the president, a vice-president
+or two, a couple of assistant vice-presidents and their assistants, and
+a collection of sales engineers, publicity engineers, production
+engineers, personnel engineers, employment engineers, and just plain
+engineers; for a certain large corporation scented profit in his shaving
+cream. They were putting him through a business third degree and he was
+enjoying it. They had even reached the point where they were discussing
+his share in the profits if they decided to manufacture his discovery.
+Mr. Pottle was expatiating on its merits.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "there are some forty million beards every morning
+in these United States, and forty million breakfasts to be eaten by men
+in a hurry. Now, my shaving cream being edible, combines----"
+
+"Telegram for Mr. Puddle, Mr. Puddle, Mr. Puddle," droned a bell hop,
+poking in a head.
+
+"Excuse me, gentlemen," said Mr. Pottle. He hoped they would think it an
+offer from a rival company. As he read the message his face grew white.
+Alarming words leaped from the yellow paper.
+
+"_Come home. Very serious accident. Blossom._"
+
+That was all, but to the recently mated Mr. Pottle it was enough. He
+crumpled the message with quivering fingers.
+
+"Sorry, gentlemen," he said, trying to smile bravely. "Bad news from
+home. We'll have to continue this discussion later."
+
+"You can just make the 10:10 train," said one of the engineers,
+sympathetically. "Hard lines, old man."
+
+Granville's lone, asthmatic taxi coughed up Mr. Pottle at the door of
+his house; it was dark; he did not dare look at the door-knob. His
+trembling hand twisted the key in the lock.
+
+"Who's that?" called a faint voice. It was Blossom's. He thanked God she
+was still alive.
+
+He was in her room in an instant, and had switched on the light. She lay
+in bed, her face, once rosy, now pale; her eyes, once placid, now
+red-lidded and tear-swollen. He bent over her with tremulous anxiety.
+
+"Honey, what's happened? Tell your Ambrose."
+
+She raised herself feebly in bed. He thanked God she could move.
+
+"Oh, it's too awful," she said with a sob. "Too dreadful for words."
+
+"What? Oh, what? Tell me, Blossom dearest. Tell me. I'll be brave,
+little woman. I'll try to bear it." He pressed her fevered hands in his.
+
+"I can hardly believe it," she sobbed. "I c-can hardly believe it."
+
+"Believe it? Believe what? Tell me, Blossom darling, in Heaven's name,
+tell me."
+
+"Pershing," she sobbed in a heart-broken crescendo, "Pershing has become
+a mother!"
+
+Her sobs shook her.
+
+"And they're all mungles," she cried, "all nine of them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thunderclouds festooned the usually mild forehead of Mr. Pottle next
+morning. He was inclined to be sarcastic.
+
+"Fifty dollars per pup, eh?" he said. "Fifty dollars per pup, eh?"
+
+"Don't, Ambrose," his wife begged. "I can't stand it. To think with eyes
+like that Pershing should deceive me."
+
+"Pershing?" snorted Mr. Pottle so violently the toast hopped from the
+toaster. "Pershing? Not now. Violet! Violet! Violet!"
+
+Mrs. Pottle looked meek.
+
+"The ash man said he'd take the pups away if I gave him two dollars,"
+she said.
+
+"Give him five," said Mr. Pottle, "and maybe he'll take Violet, too."
+
+"I will not, Ambrose Pottle," she returned. "I will not desert her now
+that she has gotten in trouble. How could she know, having been brought
+up so carefully? After all, dogs are only human."
+
+"You actually intend to keep that----"
+
+She did not allow him to pronounce the epithet that was forming on his
+lips, but checked it, with----
+
+"Certainly I'll keep her. She is still a one man dog. She can still
+protect me from kidnapers and burglars."
+
+He threw up his hands, a despairing gesture.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the days that followed hard on the heels of Violet's disgrace, Mr.
+Pottle had little time to think of dogs. More pressing cares weighed on
+him. The Chicago men, their enthusiasm cooling when no longer under the
+spell of Mr. Pottle's arguments, wrote that they guessed that at this
+time, things being as they were, and under the circumstances, they were
+forced to regret that they could not make his shaving cream, but might
+at some later date be interested, and they were his very truly. The bank
+sent him a frank little message saying that it had no desire to go into
+the barber business, but that it might find that step necessary if Mr.
+Pottle did not step round rather soon with a little donation for the
+loan department.
+
+It was thoughts of this cheerless nature that kept Mr. Pottle tossing
+uneasily in his share of the bed, and with wide-open, worried eyes doing
+sums on the moonlit ceiling. He waited the morrow with numb pessimism.
+For, though he had combed the town and borrowed every cent he could
+squeeze from friend or foe, though he had pawned his favorite case of
+razors, he was three hundred dollars short of the needed amount. Three
+hundred dollars is not much compared to all the money in the world, but
+to Mr. Pottle, on his bed of anxiety, it looked like the Great Wall of
+China.
+
+He heard the town clock boom a faint two. It occurred to him that there
+was something singular, odd, about the silence. It took him minutes to
+decide what it was. Then he puzzled it out. Violet née Pershing was not
+barking. It was her invariable custom to make harrowing sounds at the
+moon from ten in the evening till dawn. He had learned to sleep through
+them, eventually. He pointed out to Blossom that a dog that barks all
+the time is a dooce of a watch-dog, and she pointed out to him that a
+dog that barks all the time thus advertising its presence and its
+ferocity, would be certain to scare off midnight prowlers. He wondered
+why Violet was so silent. The thought skipped through his brain that
+perhaps she had run away, or been poisoned, and in all his worry, he
+permitted himself a faint smile of hope. No, he thought, I was born
+unlucky. There must be another reason. It was borne into his brain cells
+what this reason must be.
+
+Slipping from bed without disturbing the dormant Blossom, he crept on
+wary bare toes from the room and down stairs. Ever so faint chinking
+sounds came from the dining room. With infinite caution Mr. Pottle slid
+open the sliding door an inch. He caught his breath.
+
+There, in a patch of moonlight, squatted the chunky figure of a masked
+man, and he was engaged in industriously wrapping up the Pottle silver
+in bits of cloth. Now and then he paused in his labors to pat
+caressingly the head of Violet who stood beside him watching with
+fascinated interest, and wagging a pleased tail. Mr. Pottle was clamped
+to his observation post by a freezing fear. The busy burglar did not see
+him, but Violet did, and pointing her bushel of bushy head at him, she
+let slip a deep "Grrrrrrrrrrr." The burglar turned quickly, and a
+moonbeam rebounded from the polished steel of his revolver as he
+leveled it at a place where Mr. Pottle's heart would have been if it had
+not at that precise second been in his throat, a quarter of an inch
+south of his Adam's apple.
+
+"Keep 'em up," said the burglar, "or I'll drill you like you was an
+oil-well."
+
+Mr. Pottle's hands went up and his heart went down. The ultimate straw
+had been added; the wedding silver was neatly packed in the burglar's
+bag. Mr. Pottle cast an appealing look at Violet and breathed a prayer
+that in his dire emergency her blue-blood would tell and she would fling
+herself with one last heroic fling at the throat of the robber. Violet
+returned his look with a stony stare, and licked the free hand of the
+thief.
+
+A thought wave rippled over Mr. Pottle's brain.
+
+"You might as well take the dog with you, too," he said.
+
+"Your dog?" asked the burglar, gruffly.
+
+"Whose else would it be?"
+
+"Where'd you get her?"
+
+"Raised her from a pup up."
+
+"From a pup up?"
+
+"Yes, from a pup up."
+
+The robber appeared to be thinking.
+
+"She's some dog," he remarked. "I never seen one just like her."
+
+For the first time in the existence of either of them, Mr. Pottle felt a
+faint glow of pride in Violet.
+
+"She's the only one of her kind in the world," he said.
+
+"I believe you," said the burglar. "And I know a thing or two about
+dogs, too."
+
+"Really?" said Mr. Pottle, politely.
+
+"Yes, I do," said the burglar and a sad note had softened the gruffness
+of his voice. "I used to be a dog trainer."
+
+"You don't tell me?" said Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Yes," said the burglar, with a touch of pride, "I had the swellest dog
+and pony act in big time vaudeville once."
+
+"Where is it now?" Mr. Pottle was interested.
+
+"Mashed to bologny," said the burglar, sadly. "Train wreck. Lost every
+single animal. Like that." He snapped melancholy fingers to illustrate
+the sudden demise of his troupe. "That's why I took to this," he added.
+"I ain't a regular crook. Honest. I just want to get together enough
+capital to start another show. Another job or two and I'll have enough."
+
+Mr. Pottle looked his sympathy. The burglar was studying Violet with
+eyes that brightened visibly.
+
+"If," he said, slowly, "I only had a trick dog like her, I could start
+again. She's the funniest looking hound I ever seen, bar none. I can
+just hear the audiences roaring with laughter." He sighed reminiscently.
+
+"Take her," said Mr. Pottle, handsomely. "She's yours."
+
+The burglar impaled him with the gimlet eye of suspicion.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said. "I could get away with a dog like that, couldn't I?
+You couldn't put the cops on my trail if I had a dog like that with me,
+oh, no. Why, I could just as easy get away with Pike's Peak or a flock
+of Masonic Temples as with a dog as different looking as her. No,
+stranger, I wasn't born yesterday."
+
+"I won't have you pinched, I swear I won't," said Mr. Pottle earnestly.
+"Take her. She's yours."
+
+The burglar resumed the pose of thinker.
+
+"Look here, stranger," he said at length. "Tell you what I'll do. Just
+to make the whole thing fair and square and no questions asked, I'll buy
+that dog from you."
+
+"You'll what?" Mr. Pottle articulated.
+
+"I'll buy her," repeated the burglar.
+
+Mr. Pottle was incapable of replying.
+
+"Well," said the burglar, "will you take a hundred for her?"
+
+Mr. Pottle could not get out a syllable.
+
+"Two hundred, then?" said the burglar.
+
+"Make it three hundred and she's yours," said Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Sold!" said the burglar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When morning came to Granville, Mr. Pottle waked his wife by gently,
+playfully, fanning her pink and white cheek with three bills of a large
+denomination.
+
+"Blossom," he said, and the smile of his early courting days had come
+back, "you were right. Violet was a one man dog. I just found the man."
+
+
+
+
+V: _Mr. Pottle and Pageantry_
+
+
+§1
+
+"He wouldn't give a cent," announced Mrs. Pottle, blotting up the
+nucleus of a tear on her cheek with the tip of her gloved finger. "'Not
+one red cent,' was the way he put it."
+
+"What did you want a red cent for, honey?" inquired Mr. Pottle,
+absently, from out the depths of the sporting page. "Who wouldn't give
+you a red cent?"
+
+"Old Felix Winterbottom," she answered.
+
+Mr. Pottle put down his paper.
+
+"Do you mean to say you tackled old frosty-face Felix himself?" he
+demanded with interest and some awe.
+
+"I certainly did," replied his wife. "Right in his own office."
+
+Her spouse made no attempt to conceal his admiration.
+
+"What did you say; then what did he say; then what did you say?" he
+queried.
+
+"I was very polite," Mrs. Pottle answered, "and tactful. I said 'See
+here, now, Mr. Winterbottom, you are the richest man in the county, and
+yet you have the reputation of being the most careful with your
+money----'"
+
+"I'll bet that put him in a good humor," said Mr. Pottle in a murmured
+aside.
+
+"You know perfectly well, Ambrose, that old Felix Winterbottom is never
+in a good humor," said his wife. "After talking with him, I really
+believe the story that he has never smiled in his life. Well, anyhow, I
+said to him, 'See here now, Mr. Winterbottom, I'm going to give you a
+chance to show people your heart is in the right place, after all. The
+Day Nursery we ladies of the Browning-Tagore Club of Granville are
+starting needs just one thousand dollars. Won't you let me put you down
+for that amount?'"
+
+Mr. Pottle whistled.
+
+"Did he bite you?" he asked.
+
+"I thought for a minute he was going to," admitted Mrs. Pottle, "and
+then he said, 'Are the Gulicks interested in this?' I said, 'Of course,
+they are. Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick is Chairman of the Pink Contribution
+Team, and Mrs. Wendell Gulick is Chairman----' 'Stop,' said Mr.
+Winterbottom, giving me that fishy look of his, like a halibut in a cake
+of ice, 'in that case, I wouldn't give a cent, not one red cent.
+Good-day, Mrs. Pottle.' I went."
+
+Mr. Pottle wagged his head sententiously.
+
+"You'll never get a nickel out of him now," he declared. "Never. You
+might have known that Felix Winterbottom would not go into anything the
+Gulicks were in. And," added Mr. Pottle thoughtfully, "I can't say that
+I blame old Felix much."
+
+"Ambrose!" reproved Mrs. Pottle, but her rebuke lacked a certain
+whole-heartedness, "The Gulicks are nice people; the nicest people in
+Granville."
+
+"That's the trouble with them," retorted Mr. Pottle, "they never let you
+forget it. That's what ails this town; too much Gulicks. I'm not the
+only one who thinks so, either."
+
+She did not attempt rebuttal, beyond saying,
+
+"They're our oldest family."
+
+"Bah," said Mr. Pottle. He appeared to smolder, and then he flamed out,
+
+"Honest, Blossom, those Gulicks make me just a little bit sick to the
+stummick. Just because some ancestor of theirs came over in the
+Mayflower, and because some other ancestor happened to own the farm this
+town was built on, you'd think they were the Duke of Kackiack, or
+something. The town grew up and made 'em rich, but what did they ever do
+for the town?"
+
+"Well," began Mrs. Pottle, more for the sake of debate than from
+conviction, "there's Gulick Avenue, and Gulick Street, and Gulick
+Park----"
+
+"Oh, they give their name freely enough," said Mr. Pottle. "But what did
+they give to the Day Nursery fund?"
+
+"They did disappoint me," Mrs. Pottle admitted. "They only gave fifty
+dollars, which isn't much for the second wealthiest family in town, but
+Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick said we could put her name at the head of the
+list----"
+
+Mr. Pottle's affable features attained an almost sardonic look.
+
+"Oho," he said, pointedly. "Oho."
+
+He flamed up again,
+
+"That's exactly the amount those pirates added to the rent of my barber
+shop," he stated, and then, passion seething in his ordinarily amiable
+bosom, he went on, "A fine lot, they are, to be snubbing a self-made man
+like Felix Winterbottom, and turning up their thin, blue noses at Felix
+Winterbottom's tannery."
+
+"Ambrose," said his wife, with lifted blonde eyebrows, "please don't
+make suggestive jokes in my presence."
+
+"Honey swat key Molly pants," returned Mr. Pottle with a touch of
+bellicosity. "It's no worse than other tanneries; and it's the biggest
+in the state. Those Gulicks give me a pain, I tell you. You can't pick
+up a paper without reading, 'Mr. P. Bradley Gulick, one of our leading
+citizens, unveiled a tablet in the Gulick Hook and Ladder Company
+building yesterday in honor of his ancestor, Saul Gulick, one of the
+pioneers who hewed our great state out of the wilderness, and whose
+cider-press stood on the ground now occupied by the hook and ladder
+company.' Or 'Mrs. Wendell Gulick read a paper before the Society of
+Descendants of Officers Above the Rank of Captain on General
+Washington's Staff on the heroic part played by her ancestor, Major Noah
+Gulick, at the battle of Saratoga.' If it isn't that it's 'The Spinning
+Wheel Club met at Mrs. Gulick's palatial residence to observe the
+anniversary of the birth of Phineas Gulick, the first red-headed baby
+born in Massachusetts.' Bah, is what I say, Bah!"
+
+He seethed and bubbled and broke out again.
+
+"You'd think to hear them blow that the Gulicks discovered ancestors and
+had 'em patented. I guess the Pottles had an ancestor or two. Even Felix
+Winterbottom had ancestors."
+
+"Probably haddocks," said Mrs. Pottle coldly. "He can keep his old red
+cents."
+
+"He will, never fear," her husband assured her. "After the way he and
+his family have been treated by the Gulicks, I don't blame him."
+
+Mrs. Pottle pumped up a sigh from the depths of a deep bosom and sank
+tearfully to a divan.
+
+"And I'd set my heart on it," she sobbed.
+
+"What, dear?"
+
+"The Day Nursery. And it's to fail for want of a miserable thousand
+dollars."
+
+"Don't speak disrespectfully of a thousand dollars, Blossom," Mr. Pottle
+enjoined his spouse. "That's five thousand shaves. And don't expect me
+to give anything more. You know perfectly well the barber-business is
+not what it used to be. I can't give another red cent."
+
+Mrs. Pottle sniffed.
+
+"Who asked you for your red cents?" she inquired, with spirit. "I'll
+make the money myself."
+
+"You, Blossom?"
+
+"Yes. Me."
+
+"But how?"
+
+She rose majestically; determination was in her pose, and the light of
+inspiration was in her bright blue eyes.
+
+"We'll give a pageant," she announced.
+
+"A pageant?" Mr. Pottle showed some dismay. "A show, Blossom?"
+
+"Evidently," she said, "you have not read your encyclopedia under 'P.'"
+
+"I'm only as far as 'ostriches,'" he answered, humbly.
+
+"'A pageant,'" she quoted, "'is an elaborate exhibition or spectacle, a
+series of stately tableaux or living pictures, frequently historic, and
+often with poetic spoken interludes.'"
+
+"Ah," beamed Mr. Pottle, nodding understandingly, "a circus!"
+
+"Not in the least, Ambrose. Does your mind never soar? A pageant is a
+very beautiful and serious thing, with lots of lovely costumes, hundreds
+of people, horses, historic scenes----" she broke off suddenly. "When
+was Granville founded?"
+
+He told her. Her eyes sparkled.
+
+"Wonderful," she cried. "This year it will be two hundred years old.
+We'll give an historic pageant--the Growth of Civilization in
+Granville."
+
+"It sounds expensive," objected Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Don't be sordid, Ambrose," said his wife.
+
+"I'm not sordid, Blossom," he returned. "I'm a practical man. I know
+these kermesses and feats. My cousin Julia Onderdonk got up a pageant in
+Peoria once and now she hasn't a friend in the place. Besides it only
+netted fourteen dollars for the Bide-a-wee Home. Now, honey, why not
+give a good, old-fashioned chicken supper in the church hall, with
+perhaps a minstrel show afterward? That would get my money----"
+
+"Chicken supper! Minstrel show! Oh, Ambrose." His wife's snort was the
+acme of refinement. "Have you no soul? This pageant will be an inspiring
+thing. It will make for, I might almost say militate for, a community
+spirit. Other communities give pageant after pageant. Shall Granville
+lag behind? Here is a chance for a real community get-together. Here is
+a chance to give our young people the wonderful history of their native
+town----"
+
+"And also a chance for all the Gulick tribe to parade around in colonial
+clothes with spinning wheels under their arms," put in Mr. Pottle.
+
+"I'm afraid we can't avoid that," admitted his wife, ruefully. "After
+all, they are our oldest family."
+
+She meditated.
+
+"I suppose," she mused, "that Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick would have to be
+the Spirit of Progress----"
+
+"Progress shouldn't be fat and wall-eyed," interposed Mr. Pottle. She
+ignored this.
+
+"And I suppose that odious freckled daughter of hers would have to be
+the Spirit of Liberty or Civilization or something important, and I
+suppose that pompous Mr. Gulick would have to be the Pioneer
+Spirit--still, I think it could be managed. Now, you, Ambrose, can
+be----"
+
+"I don't want to be the spirit of anything," he declared. "Count me out,
+Blossom."
+
+Mrs. Pottle assumed a hurt pout.
+
+"For my sake?" she said.
+
+"I'm no actor," he stated.
+
+"Oh, I don't want you to act," she said. "You're to be treasurer."
+
+He wrinkled up his nose and brow into a frown.
+
+"The dirty work," he exclaimed. "That's the way the world over. Us
+Pottles do the dirty work and the Gulicks get the glory. No, Blossom,
+no, no, no."
+
+An appealing tear, and another, stole down her pink cheek.
+
+"Mr. Gallup wouldn't have treated me that way," she said. Mr. Gallup had
+been her first husband.
+
+Mr. Pottle knew resistance was futile.
+
+"Oh, all right. I'll be treasurer."
+
+She smiled. "Now one more tiny favor?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I want you to be the Spirit of History and read the historic epilogue."
+
+"Me? I'm no spirit. I'm a boss barber."
+
+"Well, if you don't take the job, I suppose I can get one of the
+Gulicks."
+
+He considered a second.
+
+"All right," he said. "I'll be the Spirit of History. But understand one
+thing, right here and now: I will not wear tights."
+
+She conceded him that point.
+
+"Say," he asked, struck by a thought, "how do you know what spirits are
+going to be in this? Who is going to write this thing, anyhow?"
+
+"I am," said Mrs. Pottle.
+
+
+§2
+
+"It's not decent," objected Mr. Pottle fervidly. "How can I keep the
+respect of the community if I go round like this?"
+
+He indicated his pink knees, which blushed like spring rosebuds beneath
+a somewhat nebulous toga of cheese-cloth.
+
+"If I can't wear pants, I don't want to be the Spirit of History," he
+added.
+
+"For the fifth and last time," said the tired and harassed voice of Mrs.
+Pottle, "you cannot wear pants. Spirits never do. That settles it. Not
+another word, Ambrose. Haven't I trouble enough without my own husband
+adding to it?"
+
+She pressed her brow as if it ached. Piles of costumes, mostly tinsel
+and cheese-cloth, shields, tomahawks, bridles and bits of scenery were
+strewn about the Pottle parlor. She sank into a Morris chair, and
+stitched fiercely at an angel's wing. Her eyes were the eyes of one at
+bay.
+
+"It's been one thing after another," she declaimed. "Those Gulicks are
+making my life miserable. And just now I had a note from Etta Runkle's
+mother saying that if in the Masque of the Fruits and Flowers of Botts
+County her little Etta has to be an onion while little Gertrude Crump is
+a violet, she won't lend us that white horse for the Paul Revere's Ride
+Scene. So I had to make that hateful stupid child of hers a violet and
+change Gertrude Crump to an onion and now Mrs. Crump is mad and won't
+let any of her children appear in the pageant."
+
+"Well," remarked Mr. Pottle, "I don't see why you had to have Paul
+Revere's Ride anyhow. He didn't ride all the way out here to Ohio, did
+he?"
+
+"I know he didn't," she replied, tartly, "I didn't want to put him in.
+But Mrs. Gulick insisted. She said it was her ancestor, Elijah Gulick,
+who lent Paul Revere the horse. That's why I have to have Paul Revere
+stop in the middle of his ride and say,
+
+    "_Gallant stallion, swift and noble,
+    Lent me by my good friend Gulick,
+    Patriot, scholar, king of horsemen,
+    Speed ye, speed ye, speed ye onward!_"
+
+Mr. Pottle groaned.
+
+"Is there anything in American history the Gulicks didn't have a hand
+in?" he asked. "But say, Blossom, that horse of the Runkle's is no
+gallant stallion. She's the one Matt Runkle uses on his milk route.
+Every one in town knows Agnes."
+
+"I can't help it," said Mrs. Pottle wearily. "Wendell Gulick, Jr., who
+plays Paul Revere, insisted on having a white horse, and Agnes was the
+only one I could get."
+
+"They're the insistingest people I ever knew," observed Mr. Pottle.
+
+His wife gave out the saddest sound in the world, the short sob of
+thwarted authorship.
+
+"They've just about ruined my pageant," she said. "Mrs. Gulick insisted
+on having that battle between the settlers and the Indians just because
+a great, great uncle of hers was in it. I didn't want anything rough
+like that in my pageant. Besides it happened in the next county, and the
+true facts are that the Indians chased the settlers fourteen miles, and
+scalped three of them. Of course it wouldn't do to show a Gulick running
+from an Indian, so she insisted that I change history around and make
+the settlers win the battle. None of the nice young men were willing to
+be Indians and be chased, so I had to hire a tough young fellow named
+Brannigan--I believe they call him 'Beansy'--and nine other young
+fellows from the horseshoe works to play Indian at fifty cents apiece."
+
+Mr. Pottle looked anxious.
+
+"I know that Beansy Brannigan," he said. "How is that gang behaving?"
+
+"Oh, pretty well. But ten Indians at fifty cents an Indian is five
+dollars, and we c-can't afford it."
+
+She was tearful again.
+
+"Already the costumes have cost four hundred dollars and more. We'll be
+lucky to make expenses if the Gulicks keep on putting in expensive
+scenes," she moaned.
+
+She busied herself with the angel's wing, then paused to ask, "Ambrose,
+have you learned your historical epilogue?"
+
+For answer he sprang to his feet, wrapped his cheese-cloth toga about
+him, struck a Ciceronian attitude, and said loudly:
+
+    "_Who am I, oh list'ning peoples?
+    His'try's spirit, stern and truthful!
+    Come I here to tell you fully,
+    Of our Granville's thrilling story,
+    How Saul and other noble Gulicks,
+    And a few who shall be nameless,
+    Hewed a city from the forests,
+    Blazed the way for civ'lization._"
+
+"Stop," cried Mrs. Pottle. "I can't bear to hear another word about
+those Gulicks. You know it well enough."
+
+"There are a few things I wish I could have put in," remarked Mr.
+Pottle, wistfully.
+
+His tone made her look up with quick interest.
+
+"What do you mean?" she inquired.
+
+"Oh, I found out a thing or two," he replied, "when I was down at the
+capital last week. I happened to drop into the state historical
+society's library and run over some old records."
+
+He chuckled.
+
+"P. Bradley Gulick told me I didn't have to go down there to get the
+facts. He'd give them to me, he said. So he did. Some of them."
+
+"Ambrose, what do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. All I will say is this: I'm a patient man and can be
+pestered a lot, but just let one of these Gulicks pester me a little too
+much one of these days, and I'll rear up on my hind legs, that's all."
+
+There was a glint in his eye, and she saw it.
+
+"Ambrose," she said, "if you do anything to spoil my pageant, I'll never
+forgive you."
+
+He snorted.
+
+"Your pageant? It's just as I said it would be. We Pottles will do the
+dirty work and the Gulicks will grab the glory. They've behaved so
+piggish that everybody in town is sore at them, and I don't see how the
+pageant is going to come out on top. You'd probably have gotten that
+thousand from old Felix Winterbottom if it hadn't been for them. Then
+you wouldn't have to be losing a pound a day over this pageant. Now if
+you'd only gotten up a nice old-fashioned chicken supper, and a minstrel
+show----"
+
+"Ambrose! Go put on your trousers!"
+
+
+§3
+
+Despite Mr. Pottle's pessimistic predictions, there was not a vacant
+seat or an unused cubic foot of air in the Granville Opera House that
+clinging Spring night, when the asbestos curtain, tugged by tyro hands,
+jerkily ascended on the prologue of the Grand Historical Pageant of the
+Growth of Civilization in Granville for the Benefit of the
+Browning-Tagore Club's Day Nursery. Those who did not have relatives in
+the cast appeared to have been lured thither by a certain morbid
+curiosity as to what a pageant was. Their faces said plainly that they
+were prepared for anything.
+
+After the orchestra had raced through "Poet and Peasant," with the
+cornet winning by a comfortable margin, Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick, somewhat
+short of breath and rendered doubly wall-eyed by an inexpert make-up,
+appeared in red, white and blue cheese-cloth, and announced in a high
+voice that she was the Spirit of Progress and would look on with a
+kindly, encouraging eye while history's storied page was turned and
+spread before them, and, she added, in properly poetic language, she
+would tell them what it was all about. The audience gave her the
+applause due the dowager of the town's leading family, and not one
+hand-clap more. Mr. P. Bradley Gulick, bony but impressive, in a Grecian
+robe, appeared and proclaimed that he was the Spirit of Civilization. A
+Ballet of the Waters followed, and as a climax, Evelyn Gulick, age
+thirteen, in appropriate green gauze, announced:
+
+    "_Who am I, oh friends and neighbors?
+    I'm the Spirit of the Waters,
+    Lordly, swift, Monongahela;
+    Argosies float on my bosom----_"
+
+She tapped her narrow chest, and a look of horror crept into her face;
+her mind seemed to be groping for something. Tremulously she repeated,
+
+    "_Argosies float on my bosom._"
+
+The voice of Mrs. Pottle prompted from the wings,
+
+    "_And fleets of ships with treasures laden._"
+
+Evelyn clutched at the sound, but it slipped from her, and she wildly
+began,
+
+    "_Argosies float on my bosom_ (Slap, slap)
+    _And sheeps of flits--and sheeps of flits----_"
+
+She burst into tears, and turning a spiteful face toward one of the
+boxes, she cried,
+
+"You stop making faces at me, Jessie Winterbottom."
+
+Then she fled to the wings.
+
+This served to bring to the attention of the audience the fact that a
+strange thing had happened: Felix Winterbottom and his family had come
+to the pageant. He was there, concealed as far as possible by the red
+plush curtains of the box, defiant and forbidding. From the glance he
+now and then cast at the decolleté back of his wife, it was evident that
+he had not come voluntarily.
+
+Mrs. Pottle, in the wings, bit a newly manicured fingernail.
+
+"I begged Mrs. Gulick to make that dumb child of hers learn her part,"
+she whispered wrathfully to her husband.
+
+"Mrs. Gulick says it's your fault for not prompting loud enough," said
+Mr. Pottle.
+
+"She did, did she?" Mrs. Pottle assumed what is known in ring circles as
+a fighting face.
+
+"I can't stand much more of their pestering," said Mr. Pottle darkly.
+
+"Ssssh," said his wife. "The Paul Revere scene is going to start."
+
+In the wings, Wendell Gulick, Junior, was making ready to mount his
+charger. The charger, as he had specified, was white, peculiarly white,
+for it had been found necessary at the last moment to conceal some
+harness stains by powdering her liberally with crushed lilac talcum.
+Agnes looked resentful but resigned. Mr. Gulick, Junior, was a plump
+young man, with nose-glasses, and satisfied lips, who had the
+distinction of being the only person in Granville who had ever ridden to
+hounds. He cultivated a horsey atmosphere, wore a riding crop pin in his
+tie, and was admittedly the local authority on things equine. He looked
+most formidable in hip-high leathern boots, a continental garb, and a
+powdered wig. It was regretable that the steed did not measure up to her
+rider. Save for being approximately white, Agnes had little to
+recommend her for the rôle. She had one of those long, sad, philosophic
+faces, and she appeared to be considerably taller in the hips than in
+the shoulders. She had a habit of looking back over her shoulder with a
+surprised expression, as if she missed her milk wagon.
+
+Encouraged by a slap on the flank from a stage-hand, Agnes advanced to
+the center of the stage at a brisk, business-like trot, and there
+stopped, and nodded to the audience.
+
+"Whoa, Agnes," shouted some bad little boy in the gallery.
+
+Young Mr. Gulick, in the rôle of Paul Revere, affected to pat his
+mount's head, and in a voice of thunder, roared:
+
+    "_Gallant stallion, swift and noble,_"
+
+Agnes reached out a long neck and nibbled at the scenery.
+
+    "_Lent me by my good friend, Gulick,_"
+
+Agnes looked over her shoulder and smiled at her rider.
+
+    "_Patriot, scholar, king of horsemen,_"
+
+Agnes scratched herself heartily on a property rock.
+
+    "_Speed ye, speed ye, speed ye onward!_"
+
+The business of the scene called for a spirited exit by Paul Revere,
+waving his cocked hat. But Agnes had other plans. She liked the taste of
+scenery. She did not budge. In vain did the scion of the Gulicks beat
+with frantic heels upon her flat flanks.
+
+"Speed ye onward, or we'll be late," he improvised cleverly.
+
+She masticated a canvas leaf from a convenient shrub and did not speed
+onward.
+
+"Gid-ap, Agnes," shrilled the boy in the gallery. "The folks is waitin'
+for their milk."
+
+The audience grew indecorous.
+
+Even his ruddy make-up could not conceal the fact that Mr. Wendell
+Gulick, Junior, was very red in the face, and that his lips were forming
+words not in that, or any other pageant. His leathern heels boomed
+hollowly on Agnes's barrel of body. To ring down the curtain was
+impossible; Agnes had taken her place directly beneath it.
+
+Paul Revere turned a passionate face to the wings,
+
+"Hey, Pottle," he bellowed, "why don't you do something instead of
+standing there grinning like a baboon?"
+
+Thus charged, Mr. Pottle's toga-clad figure came nimbly from the wings,
+to great applause, and seized Agnes by the bridle. Pottle tugged
+lustily. Agnes smiled and did not give way an inch.
+
+"Send for Matt Runkle," hissed Mr. Gulick, Junior.
+
+"Send for Matt Runkle," echoed Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Send for Matt Runkle," cried voices in the audience.
+
+"He's home in bed," wailed Mrs. Pottle from the wings.
+
+"Get one of the Runkle kids," shouted Mr. Pottle, seeking to arouse
+Agnes with kicks of his sandal-shod feet.
+
+Little Etta Runkle, partly clad in the tinsel and cheese-cloth of a
+violet, and partly in her everyday underwear, was fetched from a
+dressing room. She was a bright child and sensed the situation as soon
+as it had been explained to her twice.
+
+"Oh," she said, "Pa always says Agnes won't start unless you clink two
+milk bottles together."
+
+The audience was calling forth suggestions to Paul Revere, astride, and
+Pottle, on foot. They included a bonfire beneath Agnes, and dynamite.
+Even the rock-bound face of old Felix Winterbottom, in the depths of the
+box, showed the vestige of a crease that might, with a little
+imagination, be considered the start of a smile.
+
+A fevered search back stage netted two bottles, dusty and smelling of
+turpentine and gin, respectively. Mr. Pottle grasped their necks and
+clinked them together with resounding clinks. The effect on Agnes was
+electrical. From utter immobility she started with a startled hop. The
+unready Mr. Gulick, Junior, after one mad grasp at her mane, rolled
+ignominiously from her broad back, and landed on the stage in a position
+that was undignified for a Revere and positively painful for a Gulick.
+Agnes bolted to the wings. The curtain darted down.
+
+The audience seemed to take this occurrence in a spirit of levity, but
+not so Mrs. Pottle. Hot tears gathered in her eyes.
+
+"That wretch would have a white horse," she said. "They would put Paul
+Revere's Ride in. Now look. Now look!"
+
+"There, there, honey," said Mr. Pottle, between sympathetic teeth.
+"We'll fix 'em."
+
+The pageant pursued its more or less majestic way, but as the history of
+Granville was unfolded, scene upon scene, it became all too apparent to
+Mrs. Pottle that her poetic opus could not recapture the first serious
+mood of the audience. It positively jeered when Miss Eltruda Gulick
+announced that she was the Spirit of the Bogardus Canal. But it grew
+more interested as the curtain slid up on the battle scene. This, Mrs.
+Pottle felt, was her dramatic masterpiece. There lay the peaceful
+pioneer settlement--artfully fashioned from paste-board--while the
+simple but virile settlers strolled up and down the embryo Main Street
+and exchanged couplets. The chief settler, an adipose young man with a
+lisp, was Mr. Gurnee Gulick, until then noted as the most adept
+practitioner of the modern dance-steps in that part of Ohio. Through a
+beard, he announced, falsetto,
+
+    "_I give thee greeting, neighbor Gulick,
+    Upon this blossom-burgeoning morning,
+    I trust 'tis not the wily red-skin
+    I just heard whooping in the forest._"
+
+His trust was misplaced. It was, indeed, the wily red-skin in the
+persons of Mr. Edward Brannigan--known to intimates as "Beansy," and
+nine of his fellow horseshoe makers who had been hired to impersonate
+red-men, in rather loose-fitting brown cotton skins. Mr. Brannigan and
+fellow red-skins had done their part dutifully at rehearsals, and had
+permitted themselves to be knocked down, cuffed about a bit, and finally
+put to inglorious rout by the settlers. But on the fateful night of the
+pageant, while waiting for their turn to appear, they had passed the
+moments with a jug of cider that was standing with reluctant feet at
+that high point in its career where it has ceased to be sweet and has
+not yet become vinegar. That was no reason why they should not do their
+part, for it was not an intricate one. They were to rush on, with
+whoops, be annihilated, and retire in confusion.
+
+They did rush on with whoops that left nothing to be desired from the
+standpoint of realism. Mrs. Pottle, tense in the wings, was
+congratulating herself that one scene at least had dramatic strength. It
+was at this moment that Mr. Brannigan, as Chief Winipasuki, sachem of
+the Algonquins, encountered Mr. Gulick, the principal settler. In his
+enthusiasm, Mr. Gulick over-acted his part. He smote the red-skin
+warrior so earnestly on the ear that Mr. Brannigan described a parabola
+and dented a papier-mache rock with his hundred and seventy pounds of
+muscular body. His part called for him to lie there, prone and impotent,
+while the settlers drove off his band.
+
+It may have been a sudden rebellion of a proud spirit. It may have been
+the wraith of history in protest; it may have been an inherently
+perverse nature; or it may have been the cider. In any event, Chief
+Winipasuki got to his feet, war-whooped, and knocked the principal
+settler through the paste-board wall of the block-house. Those in the
+audience who were fond of realism enjoyed what ensued immensely. The
+settlers of the town, who were the nice young men, and the Indians, who
+were not so nice but were strong and willing, had at one another, and
+although they had only nature's weapons, the battle, as it waged up and
+down and back and through the shattered scenery, was stirring enough.
+When the curtain was at last brought down, Chief Winipasuki had a
+half-nelson on Settler Gulick, who was calling in a loud penetrating
+voice for the police.
+
+In all the hub-bub and confusion, in all the delirium of the audience,
+Mr. Pottle remained calm enough to note that a miracle had taken place;
+Mr. Felix Winterbottom was chuckling. It was a dry, unpracticed chuckle
+at best, but it was a chuckle, nevertheless. Mr. Pottle was observing
+the phenomenon with wide eyes when he felt his elbow angrily plucked.
+
+"You're to blame for this, Pottle," rasped a voice. It was Gurnee
+Gulick's irate father.
+
+"Me?" sputtered Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Yes. You. You knew those ruffians had been drinking."
+
+"I did not."
+
+"Don't contradict me, you miserable little hair-cutting fool."
+
+"What? How dare you----" began Mr. Pottle.
+
+"Bah. You wart!" said Mr. Gulick, and turned his square yard of fat back
+on the incensed little man.
+
+Mr. Pottle was taking a step after him as if he intended to leap up and
+sink his teeth into the back of Mr. Gulick's overflowing neck, when
+another hand clutched him. It was his wife.
+
+Her face was white and tear-stained, her lip quivering.
+
+"They've ruined it, they've ruined it," she exclaimed. "I warned that
+simpleton Gurnee Gulick not to be rough with those horseshoe boys. Oh,
+dear, oh, dear." She pillowed her brimming eyes in his toga-draped
+shoulder.
+
+"You've got to go out, now," she sobbed, "and give the historical
+epilogue."
+
+"Never," said Mr. Pottle. "A thousand nevers."
+
+"Please, Ambrose. We've got to end it, somehow."
+
+"Very well," announced Mr. Pottle. "I'll go. But mind you, Blossom
+Pottle, I won't be responsible for what I say."
+
+"Neither will I," sobbed his spouse.
+
+Mr. Pottle hitched his toga about him, and strode out on the stage.
+There was some applause, but more titters. He held up his hand for
+silence, as orators do, and glared so fiercely at his audience that the
+theater grew comparatively quiet. At the top of his voice, he began,
+
+    "_Who am I, oh list'ning peoples?_"
+
+"Pottle the barber," answered a voice in the gallery.
+
+Mr. Pottle paused, fastened an awful eye on the owner of the voice, and,
+stepping out of character, remarked, succinctly:
+
+"If you interrupt me again, Charlie Meacham, I'll come up there and
+knock your block off." He swept the house with a ferocious glance. "And
+that goes for the rest of you," he added. The intimidated audience went
+"ssssssh" at each other; Pottle was popular in Granville. He launched
+himself again.
+
+    "_Who am I, oh list'ning peoples?
+    Hist'ry's spirit, stern and truthful!
+    Come I here to give you an earful,
+    Of our city's inside history,
+    How the Gulicks grabbed the real estate,
+    By foreclosing poor folk's mortgages._"
+
+He did not have to ask for silence now. The hush of death was on the
+house, and the audience bent its ears toward him; even old Felix
+Winterbottom, on the edge of his chair, cupped a gnarled, attentive ear.
+Mr. Pottle went on,
+
+    "_You have heard the Gulick's blowing,
+    Of their wonderful relations._
+
+    _Lend an ear, and I will slip you,
+    What the real, true, red-hot dope is._"
+
+He gave his toga a hitch, advanced to the foot-lights, and continued,
+
+    "_Old Saul Gulick was a drinker,
+    Always full of home-made liquor,
+    And he got the town of Granville,
+    From the Indians, by cheating,
+    Got 'em drunk, the records tell us,
+    Got 'em boiled and stewed and glassy;
+    Ere they sobered up, they sold him,
+    All the land in this fair county,
+    For a dollar and a quarter,
+    Which, my friends, he never paid them._"
+
+The audience held its breath; Felix Winterbottom cupped both ears.
+Pottle hurried on,
+
+    "_Now we come to 'Lijah Gulick,
+    Him that lent the noble stallion
+    To Revere, the midnight rider.
+    Honest, folks, you'll bust out laughing,
+    When I tell you 'Lijah stole him.
+    For Elijah was a horsethief,
+    And, as such, was hanged near Boston.
+    "Patriot, scholar, king of horsemen"--
+    Honest, folks, that makes me snicker.
+    Yes, he let Paul ride his stallion--
+    And charged him seven bucks an hour!
+    If you think that I am lying,
+    You will find all this in writing,
+    In the library in the state house._"
+
+Sensation! Gasps in the audience. Commotion in the wings. Felix
+Winterbottom made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was chuckling.
+Pottle drew in a deep breath, and spoke again.
+
+    "_Then you've heard of Noah Gulick,
+    Him that won the Revolution.
+    If he ever was a major,
+    George J. Washington never knew it.
+    When they charged at Saratoga,
+    He was hiding in a cellar.
+    Was he on the staff of Washington?
+    Sure he was--but in the kitchen.
+    I'll admit he made good coffee--
+    But a soldier? Quit your kidding.
+    Now I'll take up Nathan Gulick,
+    His descendants never mention
+    That he spent a month in prison
+    More than once, for stealing chickens----_"
+
+Here Mr. Pottle abruptly stopped. The curtain had been dropped with a
+crashing bang by unseen hands in the wings.
+
+As it fell, there was a curious, cackling noise in one of the boxes, the
+like of which had never before been heard in Granville. It was Felix
+Winterbottom laughing as if he were being paid a dollar a guffaw.
+
+
+§4
+
+Mr. Pottle sat beside the bedside of Mrs. Pottle, sadly going over a
+column of figures, as she lay there, wan, weak, tear-marred, sipping
+pale tea.
+
+He cleared his throat.
+
+"As retiring treasurer of the Granville Pageant," he announced, "I
+regret to report as follows:
+
+    Receipts from tickets            $1,250.00
+    Expenses, including rent, music,
+    scenery, costumes, and damages,  $1,249.17
+
+"This leaves a total net profit of eighty-three cents."
+
+Mrs. Pottle wept softly into her pillow. A whistle outside caused her to
+lift a woeful head.
+
+"There's the postman," she said, feebly. "Another bill, I suppose. We
+won't even make eighty-three cents."
+
+Mr. Pottle returned with the letter; he opened it; he read it; he
+whistled; he read it again; then he read it aloud.
+
+
+    "Dear Mrs. Pottle:
+
+     "I never laughed at anything in my life till I saw your
+     pageant. I pay for what I get.
+
+                                          "Yours,
+
+                                    "FELIX WINTERBOTTOM.
+
+    "P. S. Inclosed is my check for one thousand dollars
+    for the Day Nursery."
+
+Mrs. Pottle sat up in bed. She smiled.
+
+
+
+
+VI: _The Cage Man_
+
+
+All day long they kept Horace Nimms in a steel-barred cage. For
+twenty-one years he had perched on a tall stool in that cage, while
+various persons at various times poked things at him through a hole
+about big enough to admit an adult guinea pig.
+
+Every evening round five-thirty they let Horace out and permitted him to
+go over to his half of a double-barreled house in Flatbush to sleep. At
+eight-thirty the next morning he returned to his cage, hung his
+two-dollar-and-eighty-nine-cent approximately Panama hat on a peg and
+changed his blue-serge-suit coat for a still more shiny alpaca. Then he
+sharpened two pencils to needle-point sharpness, tested his pen by
+writing "H. Nimms, Esq.," in a small precise hand, gave his adding
+machine a few preparatory pokes and was ready for the day's work.
+
+Horace was proud, in his mild way, of being shut up in the cage with all
+that money. It carried the suggestion that he was a dangerous man of a
+possibly predatory nature. He wasn't. A more patient and docile five
+feet and two inches of cashier was not to be found between Spuyten
+Duyvil and Tottenville, Staten Island. Cashiers are mostly crabbed. It
+sours them somehow to hand out all that money and retain so little for
+their own personal use. But Horace was not of this ilk.
+
+The timidest stenographer did not hesitate to take the pettiest
+petty-cash slip to his little window and twitter, according to custom:
+"Forty cents for carbon paper, and let me have it in large bills,
+please, Uncle Horace."
+
+He would peer at the slip, pretend it was for forty dollars, smile a
+friendly smile that made little ripples round his eyes and--according to
+custom--reply: "Here you be. Now don't be buying yourself a flivver with
+it."
+
+When the office force in a large corporation calls the office cashier
+"uncle" it is a pretty good indication of the sort of man he is.
+
+For the rest, Horace Nimms was slightly bald, wore convict
+eye-glasses--the sort you shackle to your head with a chain--kept his
+cuffs up with lavender sleeve garters, carried a change purse, kept a
+small red pocket expense book, thought his company the greatest in the
+world and its president, Oren Hammer, the greatest man, was devoted to a
+wife and two growing daughters, dreamed of a cottage on Long Island with
+a few square yards of beets and beans and, finally, earned forty dollars
+a week.
+
+Horace Nimms had a figuring mind. Those ten little Arabic symbols and
+their combinations and permutations held a fascination for him. To his
+ears six times six is thirty-six was as perfect a poem as ever a master
+bard penned. When on muggy Flatbush nights he tossed in his brass bed he
+lulled himself to sleep by dividing 695,481,239 by 433. At other and
+more wakeful moments he amused himself by planning an elaborate
+cost-accounting system for his firm, the Amalgamated Soap Corporation,
+known to the ends of the earth as the Suds Trust. Sometimes he went so
+far as to play the entertaining game of imaginary conversations. He
+pictured himself sitting in one of the fat chairs in the office of
+President Hammer and saying between puffs on one of the presidential
+perfectos: "Now, looky here, Mr. Hammer. My plan for a cost-accounting
+system is----"
+
+And he limned on his mental canvas that great man, spellbound,
+enthralled, as he, Horace Nimms, dazzled him with an array of figures,
+beginning: "Now, let's see, Mr. Hammer. Last year the Western works at
+Purity City, Iowa, made 9,576,491 cakes of Pink Petal Toilet and
+6,571,233 cakes of Lily White Laundry at a manufacturing cost of 3.25571
+cents a cake, unboxed; now the selling cost a cake was"--and so on. The
+interview always ended with vigorous hand-shakings on the part of Mr.
+Hammer and more salary for Mr. Nimms. But actually the interview never
+took place.
+
+It wasn't that Horace didn't have confidence in his system. He did. But
+he didn't have an equal amount in Horace Nimms. So he worked on in his
+little cage and enjoyed a fair measure of contentment there, because to
+him it was a temple of figures, a shrine of subtraction, an altar of
+addition. Figures swarmed in his head as naturally as bees swarm about a
+locust tree. He could tell you off-hand how many cakes of Grade-B soap
+the Southern Works at Spotless, Louisiana, made in the month of May,
+1914. He simply devoured statistics. When the door of the cage clanged
+shut in the morning he felt soothed, at home; he immersed his own small
+worries in a bath of digits and decimal points. He ate of the lotus
+leaves of mathematics. He could forget, while juggling with millions of
+cakes of soap and thousands of dollars, that his rent was due next week;
+that Polly, his wife, needed a new dress; and that on forty a week one
+must live largely on beef liver and hope.
+
+He sometimes thought, while Subwaying to his office, that if he could
+only get the ear of Oren Hammer some day and tell him about that
+cost-accounting system he might get his salary raised to forty-five. But
+President Hammer, whose office was on the floor above the cage, was as
+remote from Horace as the Pleiades. To get to see him one had to run a
+gantlet of superior, inquisitive secretaries. Besides Mr. Hammer was
+reputed to be the busiest man in New York City.
+
+"I wash the faces of forty million people every morning," was the way he
+put it himself.
+
+But the chief reason why Horace Nimms did not approach Mr. Hammer was
+that Horace held him in genuine awe. The president was so big, so
+masterful, so decisive. His invariable cutaway intimidated Horace; the
+magnificence of his top hat dazzled the little cashier and benumbed his
+faculties of speech. Once in a while Horace rode down in the same
+elevator with him and--unobserved--admired his firm profile, the
+concentration of his brow and the jutting jaw that some one had once
+said was worth fifty thousand a year in itself, merely as a symbol of
+determination. Horace would sooner have slapped General Pershing on the
+back or asked President Wilson to dinner in Flatbush than have addressed
+Oren Hammer. An uncommendable attitude? Yes. But after all those years
+behind bars, perhaps subconsciously his spirit had become a little
+caged.
+
+One cool September morning Horace entered the cage humming "Annie
+Rooney." Coming over in the Subway he had straightened out a little
+quirk in his cost-accounting system that would save the company
+one-ninety-fifth of a cent a cake. He took off his worn serge coat, was
+momentarily concerned at the prospect of having to make it last another
+season and then with a hitch on his lavender sleeve garters he slipped
+into his alpaca office coat and added up a few numbers on the adding
+machine for the sheer joy of it.
+
+He had not been sitting on his high stool long when he became aware that
+a man, a stranger, was regarding him fixedly through the steel screen.
+The man had calmly placed a chair just outside the cage and was
+examining the little cashier with the scrutinizing eye of an
+ornithologist studying a newly discovered species of emu.
+
+Horace was a bit disconcerted. He knew his accounts were in order and
+accurate to the last penny. He had nothing to fear on that score.
+Nevertheless, he didn't like the way the man stared at him.
+
+"If he has something to say to me," thought Horace, "why does he say it
+with glowers?"
+
+He would have asked the starer what the devil he was looking at, but
+Horace was incapable of incivility. He began nervously to total up a
+column of figures and was not a little upset to find that under the cold
+gaze he had made his first mistake in addition since the spring of '98.
+He cast a furtive glance or two through the steel netting at the
+stranger outside, who continued to focus a pair of prominent blue eyes
+on the self-conscious cashier. Horace couldn't have explained why those
+particular eyes rattled him; some mysterious power--black art perhaps.
+
+The staring man was quite bald, and his head, shaped like a pineapple
+cheese, had been polished until it seemed almost to glitter in the
+September sun. The eyes, light blue and bulgy, reminded Horace of
+poached eggs left out in the cold for a week. They had also a certain
+fishy quality; impassive, yet hungry, like a shark's. Without being
+actually fat, the mysterious starer had the appearance of being plump
+and soft; perhaps it was the way he clasped two small, perfectly
+manicured hands over a perceptible rotundity at his middle, an
+unexpected protuberance, as if he were attempting to conceal a honeydew
+melon under his vest.
+
+Horace Nimms did his best to concentrate on the little columns of
+figures he was so fond of drilling and parading, but his glance strayed,
+almost against his will, to the bald-headed man with the fishy blue
+eyes, who continued to fasten on Horace the glance a python aims at a
+rabbit before he bolts him.
+
+At length, after half an hour, Horace could stand it no longer. He
+addressed the stranger politely.
+
+"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Horace with his avuncular
+smile.
+
+The starer, without once taking his eyes off Horace, rose, advanced to
+the little window and thrust through it an oversized card.
+
+"You may go on with your work," he said, "just as if you were not under
+observation. I am here under Mr. Hammer's orders."
+
+His voice was peculiar--a nasal purr.
+
+The caged cashier glanced at the card. It read:
+
+                           S. WALMSLEY COWAN
+                    EFFICIENCY EXPERT EXTRAORDINARY
+                AUTHOR OF "PEP, PERSONALITY, PERSONNEL,"
+                       "HOW TO ENTHUSE EMPLOYEES"
+
+Horace Nimms had a disquieting sensation. He had heard rumors of a man
+prowling about in the company, subjecting random employees to strange
+tests, firing some, moving others to different jobs, but he had always
+felt that twenty-one years of service and the steel bars of his cage
+protected him. And now here was the man, and he, Horace Nimms, was under
+observation. He had always associated the phrase with reports of lunacy
+cases in the newspapers. Mr. Cowan returned to his seat near the cage
+and resumed his silent watch on its inmate. Horace tried to do his work,
+but he couldn't remember when he had had such a poor day. The figures
+would come wrong and his hand would tremble a little no matter how hard
+he tried to forget the vigilant Mr. Cowan who sat watching him.
+
+At the end of a trying day Horace dismounted from his high stool,
+hitched up his lavender sleeve garters and inserted himself into his
+worn blue serge coat. He would be glad to get back to Flatbush. Polly
+would have some fried beef liver and a bread pudding for supper, and
+they would discuss for the hundredth time just what the ground-floor
+plan of that cottage would be--if it ever was.
+
+But Mr. Cowan was waiting for him.
+
+"Step this way, will you--ple-e-ese," said the expert.
+
+Horace never remembered when he had heard a word that retained so little
+of its original meaning as Mr. Cowan's "ple-e-ese." Clearly it was
+tossed in as a sop to the hypersensitive. His "ple-e-ese" could have
+been translated as "you worm."
+
+Horace, with a worried brow, followed Mr. Cowan into one of those
+goldfish-bowl offices affected by large companies with many executives
+and a limited amount of office space. It contained only a plain table
+and two stiff chairs.
+
+"Sit down," said Mr. Cowan, "ple-e-ese."
+
+It is a difficult linguistic feat to purr and snap at the same time, but
+Mr. Cowan achieved it.
+
+Horace sat down and Mr. Cowan sat opposite him, with his unwinking blue
+eyes but two feet from Horace's mild brown ones and with no charitable
+steel screen between them.
+
+"I am going to put you to the test," said Mr. Cowan.
+
+Horace wildly thought of thumbscrews. He sat bolt upright while Mr.
+Cowan whipped from his pocket a tape measure and, bending over, measured
+the breadth of Horace Nimms' brow. With an ominous clucking noise the
+expert set down the measurement on a chart in front of him. Then he
+carefully measured each of Horace's ears. The measurements appeared to
+shock him. He wrote them down. He applied his tape to Horace's nose and
+measured that organ. He surveyed Horace's forehead from several
+different angles. He measured the circumference of Horace's head. The
+result caused Mr. Cowan acute distress, for he set it down on his
+elaborate chart and glowered at it a full minute.
+
+Then he transferred his attention and tape to Horace's stubby hands. He
+measured them, counted the fingers, contemplated the thumb gravely and
+wrote several hundred words on the chart. Horace thought he recognized
+one of the words as "mechanical."
+
+"Now," said Mr. Cowan solemnly, "we will test your mental reactions."
+
+He said this more to himself than to Horace Nimms, on whose brow tiny
+pearls of perspiration were appearing. Mr. Cowan drew forth a stop watch
+and spread another chart on the table before him.
+
+"Fill this out--ple-e-ese," he said, pushing the chart toward Horace.
+"You have just five minutes to do it."
+
+Horace Nimms, dismayed, almost dazed, seized the paper and started to
+work at it with feverish confusion. He boggled through a maze full of
+pitfalls for a tired, rattled man:
+
+If George Washington discovered America, write the capital of Nebraska
+in this space.........But if he was called the Father of His Country,
+how much is 49 × 7?........Now name three presidents of the United
+States in alphabetical order, including Jefferson, but do not do so if
+ice is warm.........If Adam was the first man, dot all the "i's" in
+"eleemosynary" and write your last name backward.........Omit the next
+three questions with the exception of the last two: How much is 6 × 9 =
+54?........What is the capital of Omaha?........How many "e's" are there
+in the sentence, "Tell me, pretty maiden, are there any more at home
+like you?"........Put a cross over all the consonants in the foregoing
+sentence. Now fill in the missing words in the following sentences:
+"While picking........I was stung in the........by a........." "Don't
+bite the........that feeds you."
+
+How old are you? Multiply your age by the year you were born in. Erase
+your answer. If a pound of steel is heavier than a pound of oyster
+crackers, don't write anything in this space.........Otherwise write
+three words that rhyme with "icicle." Now write your name, and then
+cross out all the consonants.
+
+Name three common garden vegetables.........
+
+It seemed to Horace Nimms that he had floundered along for less than a
+minute when Mr. Cowan said briskly, "Time," and took the paper from
+Horace.
+
+"Now the association test," said Mr. Cowan, drawing forth still another
+chart, very much as a magician draws forth a rabbit from a hat.
+
+"I'll say a word," he went on, seeming to grow progressively more
+affable as Horace grew more discomfited, "and you will say the word it
+suggests immediately after--ple-e-ese," he added as an afterthought.
+
+Horace Nimms moistened his dry lips. Mr. Cowan pulled out his stop
+watch.
+
+"Oyster?" said Mr. Cowan.
+
+"S-stew!" quavered Horace.
+
+"Flat?"
+
+"Bush!"
+
+"Hammer?"
+
+"President!"
+
+"Soap?"
+
+"Cakes!"
+
+"Money?"
+
+"Forty-five!"
+
+"Up?"
+
+"Down!"
+
+"Man?"
+
+"Cage!"
+
+"Most peculiar," muttered Mr. Cowan as he noted down the answers. "We'll
+have to look into this."
+
+Horace could not suppress a shudder.
+
+"That's all," said Mr. Cowan.
+
+When Horace arrived at his Flatbush flat, late for supper, he did not
+enjoy the bread pudding, though it was a particularly good one--with
+raisins. Nor did he go to sleep quickly, no matter how many numbers he
+multiplied. He was thinking what it would mean to him at his age if Mr.
+Cowan should have him put out of his cage. His dreams were haunted by a
+pair of eyes like those of a frozen owl.
+
+The next afternoon Horace Nimms, busy in his cage, received a notice
+that there would be an organization meeting at the end of the day. He
+went. The meeting had been called by S. Walmsley Cowan, who in his talks
+to large groups adopted the benevolent big-brother manner and turned on
+and off a beaming smile.
+
+"My friends," he began, "it is no secret to some of you that Mr. Hammer
+has not been pleased with the way things are going in the company. He
+has felt that there has been a great deal of waste of time and money;
+that neither the volume of business nor the profits on it are what they
+should be. He has commissioned me to find out what is wrong in the
+company and to put pep, efficiency, enthusiasm into our organization."
+
+He smiled a modest smile.
+
+"I rather fancy," he continued, "that I'll succeed. I have been
+conducting the tests with which you are all doubtless familiar through
+reading my books, 'Pep, Personality, Personnel,' and 'How to Enthuse
+Employees.' I have made a most interesting and startling discovery. Most
+of you are in the wrong jobs!"
+
+He paused. The men and women looked at each other uneasily. Then he went
+on.
+
+"I'll cite just one instance. Yesterday I tested the mentality of one of
+you. I found that he was of the cage, or solitary, type of worker. See
+Page 239 of my book on Getting Into Men's Brains. But he was already
+working in a cage! Here was a problem. Could it be that that was where
+he would do best? No! Then a happy solution struck me. He was in the
+wrong cage. So I am going to transfer him from a mathematical cage to a
+mechanical cage. I am going to transfer him to be an elevator operator.
+This may surprise you, my friends, but science is always surprising.
+Just fancy! This man has been working with figures for more than twenty
+years, and I discover by measuring that his thumbs are of the purely
+mechanical type, and all that time he would have been much happier
+running an elevator. Now by an odd coincidence I found that one of the
+elevator operators has a pure type of mathematical ear, so I am
+transferring him to the cashier's cage. He may seem a bit awkward there
+at first, but we shall see, we shall see."
+
+He turned on his smile. But the eyes of the employees had turned
+sympathetically to the pale face of Horace Nimms. How old and tired
+Uncle Horace looked, they thought. In a nightmare Horace heard his doom
+pronounced. After twenty-one years! His temple of figures!
+
+S. Walmsley Cowan unconcernedly began one of his celebrated
+pep-and-punch talks calculated to send morale up as a candle sends up
+the mercury in a thermometer.
+
+"Friends," he said, thumping the table before him, "when Opportunity
+comes to knock be on the front porch! Don't hold back! He who hesitates
+is lost. It may be that the humble will inherit the earth, but that will
+be when all the bold have died. Don't hide your light under a basket;
+don't keep your ideas locked up in your skulls. Bring 'em out! Let's
+have a look at them. You wouldn't wear a diamond ring inside your shirt,
+would you? Be sure you're right, then holler your head off. Get what is
+coming to you! Nobody will bring it on a platter; you've got to step up
+and grab it. When you have an impulse, think it over. If it looks like
+the real goods, obey it. Get me? Obey it! Nobody will bite you. Think
+all you like, but for heaven's sake, act!"
+
+It was for such talks that Mr. Cowan was famous. Even Horace Nimms
+forgot his impending fall as the efficiency expert extraordinary
+declaimed the gospel of action and boldness.
+
+But when the meeting was over, silent misery came into the heart of the
+little cashier and like an automaton he stumbled into the Subway. He ate
+his bread pudding without tasting it and tried to talk to Polly about
+the proposed living room in the Long Island cottage. He hadn't the
+courage to tell her what had happened; indeed he hardly realized what
+had happened himself.
+
+In the morning he tried to pretend to himself that it was all a joke;
+surely Mr. Cowan couldn't have meant it. But when he reached his cage he
+saw another figure already in that temple of addition and subtraction.
+He rattled the wire door timidly. The figure turned.
+
+"Wadda yah want?" it asked bellicosely.
+
+Horace Nimms recognized the bluish jaw of Gus, one of the elevator men.
+
+Sick at heart, Horace turned away. In the blur of his thoughts was the
+one that he must keep his job, some job, any job. One can't save much on
+forty a week in Flatbush. And that he should work for any one but the
+Amalgamated Soap Corporation was unthinkable. So without knowing exactly
+how it happened, he found himself in a blue-and-gray uniform clumsily
+trying to vindicate his mechanical hands and attempting to stop his car
+within six inches of the floors. All morning he patiently escorted his
+car up and down the elevator shaft--twenty stories up, twenty stories
+down, twenty stories up, twenty stories down. He thought of the Song of
+the Shirt.
+
+At noon he stopped his car at the eighteenth floor and two passengers
+got on. Horace recognized them. One was Jim Wright, assistant to
+President Hammer; the other was Mr. Perrine, Western sales manager. They
+were in animated conversation.
+
+"That fellow has the crust of a mud turtle and the tact of a
+rattlesnake," Mr. Perrine was saying.
+
+"Remember," Jim Wright reminded him, "he is an efficiency expert
+extraordinary. The big boss seems to have confidence in him."
+
+"He won't have quite so much," said Mr. Perrine, "when he hears that he
+put an elevator man in as cashier. I hear he walked off with six hundred
+dollars before he'd been on the job an hour."
+
+Horace pricked up his ears. He made the car go as slowly as possible.
+
+"He did?" Jim Wright was excited. "And this is one of the boss' bad days
+too! Just before I left him he was saying, 'The Amalgamated has about as
+much system as a piece of cheese. Why, these high-salaried executives
+can't tell me how much it costs them to make and sell a cake of soap!'"
+
+Then Horace reluctantly let them out of the elevator at the street
+floor.
+
+All that afternoon he struggled with an impulse. The words of Mr.
+Cowan's oration of the night before began to come back to him. If only
+he had obeyed his impulses----
+
+As he was a new man, they gave him the late shift. At one minute to six
+the indicator in his car gave two short, sharp, peremptory buzzes.
+Horace, who was mastering the elements of elevator operating, shot up to
+the eighteenth floor. A single passenger got on. With a little gasp
+Horace recognized the cutaway coat and top hat of the president of the
+Amalgamated.
+
+Horace set his teeth. His small frame grew tense. He turned the lever
+and the car started to glide downward. Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen,
+fourteen, thirteen, twelve! Then with a quick twist of his wrist Horace
+stalled the car between the twelfth and eleventh floors and slipped the
+controlling key into his pocket. Then he turned and faced the big
+president.
+
+"You don't know a hell of a lot about running an elevator," remarked
+Oren Hammer.
+
+"No, I don't," said Horace Nimms in a strange, loud voice that he didn't
+recognize. "But I do know how much it costs a cake to make Pink Petal
+Toilet."
+
+"What's that? Who the devil are you?" The great man was more surprised
+than angry.
+
+"Nimms," said Horace briefly. "Office cashier on seventeenth floor
+twenty-one years. Elevator operator one day. Mr. Cowan's orders."
+
+Mr. Hammer's brow contracted.
+
+"So you think you can tell me how much Pink Petal costs a cake to make,
+eh?" he said.
+
+He had the reputation of never overlooking an opportunity.
+
+The imaginary conversations that Horace had been having crowded back
+into his mind.
+
+"Now, looky here, Mr. Hammer," he began. "The Western works made
+9,576,491 cakes of Pink Petal Toilet last year. Now the cost a cake
+was--" and so on. Horace was on familiar ground now. Figures and
+statistics tripped from his tongue; the details he had bottled up inside
+him so long came pouring forth. He knew the business of the Amalgamated
+down to the last stamp and rubber band. Oren Hammer, listening with
+keen interest, now and then put in a short, direct question. Horace
+Nimms snapped back short, direct answers. Once launched, he forgot all
+about the cutaway coat and the dazzling top hat and even about the
+big-jawed man who washed the faces of forty million people every
+morning. Horace was talking to get back into his cage and words came
+with a new-found eloquence.
+
+"By George," exclaimed President Hammer, "you know more about the
+business than I do myself! And Cowan told you you didn't have a figuring
+mind, did he? I want you to report at my office the first thing
+to-morrow morning."
+
+Horace Nimms, in the black suit he saved for funerals and weddings, and
+a new tie, was ushered into the big office of President Hammer the next
+morning. Outwardly, it was his hope, he was calm; inwardly, he knew, he
+was quaking.
+
+"Have a cigar, Nimms," said Oren Hammer, passing Horace one of the
+presidential perfectos of his dreams. Then he summoned a secretary.
+
+"Ask Mr. Cowan to come in, will you?" he said.
+
+The efficiency expert extraordinary entered, beaming affably.
+
+"Good morning to you, Mr. Hammer," he called out in a cheery voice. Then
+he stopped short as he recognized Horace.
+
+"Oh, come here, Cowan," said President Hammer genially. "Before you go I
+want you to meet Mr. Nimms. He is going to install a new cost-accounting
+system for us. Just step down to the cashier's cage with him, will you,
+and get your salary to date."
+
+
+
+
+VII: _Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?_
+
+
+"One, two, three, bend! One, two, three, bend!" So barked the physical
+instructor, a bulgy man with muscles popping out all over him as if his
+skin had been stuffed with hard-boiled eggs.
+
+Little Peter Mullaney oned, twoed, threed and bent with such earnest and
+whole-hearted violence that his blue eyes seemed likely to be jostled
+from their sockets and the freckles to be jarred loose from his thin,
+wiry arms. Though breathless, and not a little sinew-sore from the stiff
+setting-up exercises, his small, sharp-jawed face wore a beatified look,
+the look that bespeaks the rare, ecstatic thrill that comes to mortals
+so seldom in this life of taxes, prohibitions and denied ambitions. Such
+a look might a hero-worshiping boy wear if seen by his gang in the
+company of Jack Dempsey, or a writer if caught in the act of taking tea
+with Shaw. Peter Mullaney was standing at the very door of his life's
+ambition; he was about to be taken "on the cops."
+
+To be taken "on the cops"--the phrase is departmental argot and is in
+common use by those who enjoy that distinction--this had been the ideal
+of Peter Mullaney since the days when he, an undersized infant, had
+tottered around his Christopher Street back-yard, an improvised
+broom-stick billy in his hand, solemnly arresting and incarcerating his
+small companions. To wear that spruce, brass-button studded blue
+uniform, and that glittering silver shield, to twirl a well-trained
+night-stick on its cord, to eye the layman with the cold, impassive eye
+of authority, to whisper mysterious messages into red iron signal boxes
+on street-corners, to succor the held-up citizen and pursue the crook to
+his underworld lair, to be addressed as "Officer"--he had lived for this
+dream.
+
+And here he was, the last man on a row of thirty panting, perspiring
+probationary patrolmen, ranged, according to height, across the
+gymnasium of the police training school. From big Dan Mack, six feet
+four in his socks, they graded down as gently as a ramp to little Peter
+on the end of the line a scant, a bare five feet five and seven-eighths
+inches tall including the defiant bristle of his red pompadour.
+
+Peter was happy, and with reason. It was by no generous margin that
+Peter had gained admission to the school that was to prepare him for his
+career. By the sheerest luck he had escaped being cast into the exterior
+darkness; by the slimmest degree he had wiggled into the school, and
+whether he could attain the goal on which he had kept his eye for twenty
+years--or ever since he was four--was still decidedly in doubt. The law
+said in plain, inexorable black and white that the minimum height a
+policeman can be is five feet and six inches. Peter Mullaney lacked that
+stature by the distance between a bumble-bee's eyes; and this, despite
+the fact that for years he had sought most strenuously, by exercise,
+diet and even torture to stretch out his body to the required five feet
+six. When he was eighteen and it seemed certain that an unsympathetic
+fate had meant him to be a short man, his father found him one day in
+the attic, lashed to a beam, with a box full of window-weights tied to
+his feet, and his face gray with pain.
+
+"Shure, me bye," remarked old man Mullaney as he cut Peter down, "are ye
+after thinkin' that the Mullaneys is made of Injy rubber? Don't it say
+in the Bible, 'What man by takin' thought can add a Cupid to his
+statue?'"
+
+Peter, in hot and anguished rebellion against this all too evident law
+of nature had sought relief by going straight out of the house and
+licking the first boy he met who was twice as big as he was, in a fight
+that is still remembered in the Second Ward. But stretching and wishing
+and even eating unpleasant and expensive tablets, alleged by their
+makers to be made from giraffes' glands, did not bring Peter up to a
+full and unquestionable five feet six.
+
+When Peter came up for a preliminary examination which was to determine
+whether he possessed the material from which policemen are made,
+Commissioner Kondorman, as coldly scientific as his steel scales and
+measures, surveyed the stricken Peter, as he stood there on the scales,
+his freckles in high relief on his skin, for he was pale all over at the
+thought that he might be rejected.
+
+"Candidate Mullaney," said the Commissioner, "you're too short."
+
+Peter felt marble lumps swelling in his throat.
+
+"If you'd only give me a chance, Commissioner," he was able to gulp out,
+"I'd----"
+
+Commissioner Kondorman, who had been studying the records spread on his
+desk, cut the supplicant short with:
+
+"Your marks in the other tests are pretty good, though you seem a little
+weak in general education. But your strength test is unusually high for
+a small man. However, regulations are regulations and I believe in
+sticking to them. Next candidate!"
+
+Peter did not go.
+
+"Commissioner," he began urgently, "all I ask is a chance----"
+
+His eyes were tense and pleading.
+
+The Chief Inspector, grizzled Matthew McCabe, plucked at the
+Commissioner's coat-sleeve.
+
+"Well, Chief?" inquired Commissioner Kondorman, a little impatiently.
+
+"He's a good lad," put in the Chief Inspector, "and well spoke of in the
+Second Ward."
+
+"He's under height," said the Commissioner, briefly.
+
+"But he knows how to handle his fists," argued the old Chief Inspector.
+
+"Does he?" said the Commissioner, skeptically. "He looks rather small."
+He examined Peter through his eye-glasses; beneath that chill and
+critical gaze Peter felt that he had shrunk to the size of a bantam
+rooster; the lumps in his throat were almost choking him; in an agony of
+desperation, he cried,
+
+"Bring in the biggest man you got. I'll fight him."
+
+The Commissioner's face was set in hard, and one would have thought,
+immovable lines, yet he achieved the feat of turning up, ever so
+slightly, the corners of his lips in an expression which might pass as
+the germ of a smile, as he gazed at the small, nude, freckled figure
+before him with its vivid shaving-brush hair, its intense eyes and its
+clenched fists posed in approved prize-ring form. Again the official
+bent over the records and studied them.
+
+"Character recommendations seem pretty good," he mused. "Never has used
+tobacco or liquor----"
+
+"'Fraid it might stunt me," muttered Peter, "so I couldn't get on the
+cops."
+
+The commissioner stared at him with one degree more of interest.
+
+"Give the lad a chance," urged the Chief Inspector. "He only lacks a
+fraction of an inch. He may grow."
+
+"Now, Chief," said the Commissioner turning to the official by his side,
+"you know I'm a stickler for the rules. What's the good of saying
+officers must be five feet six and then taking men who are shorter?"
+
+"You know how badly we need men," shrugged the Chief Inspector, "and
+Mullaney here strikes me as having the making of a good cop. It will do
+no harm to try him out."
+
+The Commissioner considered for a moment. Then he wheeled round and faced
+Peter Mullaney.
+
+"You've asked for a chance," he shot out. "You'll get it. You can attend
+police training school for three months. I'll waive the fact that you're
+below the required height, for the time being. But if in your final
+examinations you don't get excellent marks in every branch, by the Lord
+Harry, you get no shield from me. Do you understand? One slip, and
+good-by to you. Next candidate!"
+
+They had to guide Peter Mullaney back to his clothes; he was in a dazed
+blur of happiness.
+
+Next day, with the strut of a conqueror and with pride shining from
+every freckle, little Peter Mullaney entered the police training school.
+To fit himself physically for the task of being a limb of the law, he
+oned, twoed, threed and bent by the hour, twisted the toes of two
+hundred pound fellow students in frantic jiu jitsu, and lugged other
+ponderous probationers about on his shoulders in the practice of first
+aid to the injured. This physical side of his schooling Peter enjoyed,
+and, despite his lack of inches, did extremely well, for he was quick,
+tough and determined. But it was the book-work that made him pucker his
+brow and press his head with his hands as if to keep it from bursting
+with the facts he had to jam into it.
+
+It was the boast of Commissioner Kondorman that he was making his police
+force the most intelligent in the world. Give him time, he was fond of
+saying, and there would not be a man on it who could not be called
+well-informed. He intended to see to it that from chief inspector down
+to the greenest patrolman they could answer, off-hand, not only
+questions about routine police matters, but about the whole range of the
+encyclopedia.
+
+"I want well-informed men, intelligent men," he said. "Men who can tell
+you the capital of Patagonia, where copra comes from, and who discovered
+the cotton-gin. I want men who have used their brains, have read and
+thought a bit. The only way I can find that out is by asking questions,
+isn't it?"
+
+The anti-administration press, with intent to slight, called the
+policemen "Kondorman's Encyclopedias bound in blue," but he was not in
+the least perturbed; he made his next examination a bit stiffer.
+
+Peter Mullaney, handicapped by the fact that his span of elementary
+schooling had been abbreviated by the necessity of earning his own
+living, struggled valiantly with weighty tomes packed with statutes,
+ordinances, and regulations--what a police officer can and cannot do
+about mayhem, snow on the sidewalks, arson, dead horses in the street,
+kidnaping, extricating intoxicated gentlemen from man-holes, smoking
+automobiles, stray goats, fires, earthquakes, lost children, blizzards,
+disorderly conduct and riots. He prepared himself, by no small exertion,
+to tell an inquiring public where Bedford street is, if traffic can go
+both ways on Commerce street, what car to take to get from Hudson street
+to Chatham Square, how to get to the nearest branch library, quick
+lunch, public bath, zoo, dispensary and garage, how to get to the Old
+Slip Station, Flower Hospital, the St. Regis, Coney Island, Duluth and
+Grant's Tomb. He stuffed himself with these pertinent facts; he wanted
+to be a good cop. He could not see exactly how it would help him to know
+in addition to an appalling amount of local geography and history, the
+name of the present ruler of Bulgaria, what a zebu is, and who wrote
+"Home, Sweet Home." But since questions of this sort were quite sure to
+bob up on the examination he toiled through many volumes with a zeal
+that made his head ache.
+
+When he had been working diligently in the training school for three
+months lacking a day, the great moment came when he was given a chance
+to put theory into practice, by being sent forth, in a uniform slightly
+too large for him, to patrol a beat in the company of a veteran officer,
+so that he might observe, at first hand, how an expert handled the many
+and varied duties of the police job. Except that he had no shield, no
+night stick, and no revolver, Peter looked exactly like any of the other
+guardians of law. He trudged by the side of the big Officer Gaffney,
+trying to look stern, and finding it hard to keep his joy from breaking
+out in a smile. If Judy McNulty could only see him now! They were to be
+married as soon as he got his shield.
+
+But joy is never without its alloy. Even as Peter strode importantly
+through the streets of the upper West Side, housing delicious thrills in
+every corpuscle from the top of his blue cap to the thick soles and
+rubber heels of his shiningly new police shoes, a worry kept plucking at
+his mind. On the morrow he was to take his final examination in general
+education, and that was no small obstacle between him and his shield. He
+had labored to be ready, but he was afraid.
+
+That worry grew as he paced along, trying to remember whether the Amazon
+is longer than the Ganges and who Gambetta was. He did not even pay
+close attention to his mentor, although on most occasions those five
+blue service stripes on Officer Gaffney's sleeve, representing a quarter
+of a century on the force, would have caused Peter to listen with rapt
+interest to Officer Gaffney's genial flow of reminiscence and advice.
+Dimly he heard the old policeman rumbling:
+
+"When I was took on the cops, Pether, all they expected of a cop was two
+fists and a cool head. But sthyles in cops changes like sthyles in hats,
+I guess. I've seen a dozen commissioners come and go, and they all had
+their own ideas. The prisint comish is the queerest duck of the lot, wid
+his "Who was Pernambuco and what the divil ailed him, and who invinted
+the gin rickey and who discovered the Gowanus Canal." Not that I'm agin
+a cop bein' a learned man. Divil a bit. Learnin' won't hurt him none if
+he has two fists and a clear head."
+
+He paused to take nourishment from some tabloid tobacco in his
+hip-pocket, and rumbled on,
+
+"Whin I was took on the cops, as I say, they was no graduatin' exercises
+like a young ladies' siminary. The comish--it was auld Malachi
+Bannon--looked ye square in the eye and said, 'Young fella, ye're about
+to go forth and riprisint the majesty of the law. Whin on juty be clane
+and sober and raisonably honest. Keep a civil tongue in your head for
+ivrybody, even Republicans. Get to know your precinct like a book. Don't
+borrow trouble. But above all, rimimber this: a cop can do a lot of
+queer things and square himself wid me afterward, but there's one sin no
+cop can square--the sin of runnin' away whin needed. Go to your post.'"
+
+Little Peter nodded his head.
+
+They paced along in silence for a time. Then Peter asked,
+
+"Jawn----"
+
+"What, Pether?"
+
+"Jawn, where is the Tropic of Capricorn?"
+
+Officer Gaffney wrinkled his grey eyebrows quizzically.
+
+"The Tropic of Whichicorn?" he inquired.
+
+"The Tropic of Capricorn," repeated Peter.
+
+"Pether," said Officer Gaffney, dubiously, scratching his head with the
+tip of his night-stick, "I disrimimber but I think--I think, mind ye,
+it's in the Bronx."
+
+They continued their leisurely progress.
+
+"'Tis a quiet beat, this," observed Officer Gaffney. "Quiet but
+responsible. Rich folks lives in these houses, Pether, and that draws
+crooks, sometimes. But mostly it's as quiet as a Sunday in Dooleyville."
+He laughed deep in his chest.
+
+"It makes me think," he said, "of Tommie Toohy, him that's a lieutinant
+now over in Canarsie. 'Tis a lesson ye'd do well to mind, Pether."
+
+Peter signified that he was all ears.
+
+"He had the cop bug worse than you, even, Pether," said the veteran.
+
+Peter flushed beneath his freckles.
+
+"Yis, he had it bad, this Tommie Toohy," pursued Officer Gaffney. "He
+was crazy to be a cop as soon as he could walk. I never seen a happier
+man in me life than Toohy the day he swaggers out of the station-house
+to go on post up in the twenty-ninth precinct. In thim days there was
+nawthin' up there but rows of little cottages wid stoops on thim;
+nawthin but dacint, respictable folks lived there and they always give
+that beat to a recruity because it was so quiet. Well, Toohy goes on
+juty at six o'clock in the evenin', puffed up wid importance and
+polishing his shield every minute or two. 'Tis a short beat--up one side
+of Garden Avenue and down on the other side. Toohy paces up and down,
+swingin' his night-stick and lookin' hard and suspicious at every man,
+woman or child that passes him. He was just bustin' to show his
+authority. But nawthin' happened. Toohy paced up and back, up and back,
+up and back. It gets to be eight o'clock. Nawthin happens. Toohy can
+stand it no longer. He spies an auld man sittin' on his stoop,
+peacefully smokin' his evenin' pipe. Toohy goes up to the old fellow and
+glares at him.
+
+"'What are you doin' there?' says Toohy.
+
+"'Nawthin,' says the auld man.
+
+"'Well,' says Toohy, wid a stern scowl, shakin' his night-stick at the
+scared auld gazabo, 'You go in the house.'"
+
+Peter chuckled.
+
+"But Toohy lived to make a good cop for all that," finished the veteran.
+"Wid all his recruity monkey-shines, he never ran away whin needed."
+
+"I wonder could he bound Bolivia," said Peter Mullaney.
+
+"I'll bet he could," said Officer Gaffney, "if it was in his precinct."
+
+Late next afternoon, Peter sat gnawing his knuckles in a corner of the
+police schoolroom. All morning he had battled with the examination in
+general education. It had not been as hard as he had feared, but he was
+worried nevertheless. So much was at stake.
+
+He was quivering all over when he was summoned to the office of the
+Commissioner, and his quivering grew as he saw the rigid face of
+Commissioner Kondorman, and read no ray of hope there. Papers were
+strewn over the official desk. Kondorman looked up, frowned.
+
+"Mullaney," he said, bluntly, "you've failed."
+
+"F-failed?" quavered Peter.
+
+"Yes. In general education. I told you if you made excellent marks we'd
+overlook your deficiency in height. Your paper"--he tapped it with his
+finger--"isn't bad. But it isn't good. You fell down hard on question
+seventeen."
+
+"Question seventeen?"
+
+"Yes. The question is, 'Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?' And your
+answer is"--the Commissioner paused before he pronounced the damning
+words--"'The Tropic of Capricon is in the Bronx.'"
+
+Peter gulped, blinked, opened and shut his fists, twisted his cap in his
+hands, a picture of abject misery. The Commissioner's voice was crisp
+and final.
+
+"That's all, Mullaney. Sorry. Turn in your uniform at once. Well?"
+
+Peter had started away, had stopped and was facing the commissioner.
+
+"Commissioner," he begged----
+
+"That will do," snapped the Commissioner. "I gave you your chance; you
+understood the conditions."
+
+"It--it isn't that," fumbled out Peter Mullaney, "but--but wouldn't you
+please let me go out on post once more with Officer Gaffney?"
+
+"I don't see what good that would do," said Commissioner Kondorman,
+gruffly.
+
+Tears were in Peter's eyes.
+
+"You see--you see----" he got out with an effort, "it
+would be my last chance to wear the uniform--and
+I--wanted--somebody--to--see--me--in--it--just--once."
+
+The Commissioner stroked his chin reflectively.
+
+"Were you scheduled to go out on post for instruction," he asked, "if
+you passed your examination?"
+
+"Yes, sir. From eight to eleven."
+
+The Commissioner thought a moment.
+
+"Well," he said, "I'll let you go. It won't alter the case any, of
+course. You're through, here. Turn in your uniform by eleven thirty,
+sure."
+
+Peter mumbled his thanks, and went out of the office with shoulders that
+drooped as if he were carrying a safe on them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was with heavy steps and a heavier heart that little Peter Mullaney,
+by the side of his mentor, passed the corner where Judy McNulty stood
+proudly waiting for him. He saluted her gravely with two fingers to his
+visor--police officers never bow--and kept his eyes straight ahead. He
+did not have the heart to stop, to speak to her, to tell her what had
+happened to him. He hadn't even told Officer Gaffney. He stalked along
+in bitter silence; his eyes were fixed on his shoes, the stout, shiny
+police shoes he had bought to wear at his graduation, the shoes he was
+to have worn when he stepped up to the Commissioner and received his
+shield, with head erect and a high heart. His empty hands hung heavily
+at his sides; there was no baton of authority in them; there never would
+be. Beneath the place his silver shield would never cover now was a cold
+numbness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Damn the Tropic of Capricorn," came from between clenched teeth, "Damn
+the Tropic of Capricorn."
+
+Gaffney's quick ears heard him.
+
+"Still thinkin' about the Tropic of Capricorn?" he asked, not knowing
+that the words made Peter wince. "Well, me bye, 'twill do no harm to
+know where it is. I'm not denyin' that it's a gran' thing for a cop to
+be a scholar. But just the same 'tis me firm belief that a man may be
+able to tell the difference bechune a begonia and a petunia, he may be
+able to tell where the--now--Tropic of Unicorn is, he may know who wrote
+"In the Sweet Bye and Bye," and who invented the sprinklin' cart, he may
+be able to tell the population of Peking and Pann Yann, but he ain't a
+cop at all if he iver runs away whin needed. Ye can stake your shield on
+that, me bye."
+
+His shield? Peter dug his nails into the palm of his hand. Blind hate
+against the Commissioner, against the whole department, flared up in
+him. He'd strip the uniform off on the spot, he'd hurl it into the
+gutter, he'd----
+
+Officer Gaffney had stopped short. A woman was coming through the night,
+running. As she panted up to them in the quiet, deserted street, the two
+men saw that she was a middle-aged woman in a wrapper, and that she was
+white with fright.
+
+"Burglars," she gasped.
+
+"Where?" rapped out Officer Gaffney.
+
+"Number 97."
+
+"Be calm, ma'am. What makes ye think they're burglars?"
+
+"I heard them.... Moving around.... In the drawing room.... Upstairs."
+
+"Who are you?" asked the old policeman, imperturbably.
+
+"Mrs. Finn--caretaker. The family is away."
+
+"Pether," said Officer Gaffney, "you stay here and mind the beat like a
+good bucko, while I stroll down to ninety-sivin wid Mrs. Finn."
+
+"Let me come too, Jawn," cried Peter.
+
+Gaffney laid his big hand on little Peter's chest.
+
+"'Tis probably a cat movin' around," he said softly so that Mrs. Finn
+could not hear. "Lonely wimmin is always hearin' things. Besides me
+ambitious but diminootive frind, if they was yeggs what good could ye do
+wid no stick and no gun? You stay here on the corner like I'm tellin'
+you and I'll be back in ten minutes by the clock."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Peter Mullaney waited on the corner. He saw the bulky figure of Officer
+Gaffney proceed at a dignified but rapid waddle down the block, followed
+by the smaller, more agitated figure of the woman. He saw Officer
+Gaffney go into the basement entrance, and he saw Mrs. Finn hesitate,
+then timidly follow. He waited. A long minute passed. Another. Another.
+Then the scream of a woman hit his ears. He saw Mrs. Finn dart from the
+house, wringing her hands, screaming. He sprinted down to her.
+
+"They've kilt him," screamed the woman. "Oh, they've kilt the officer."
+
+"Who? Tell me. Quick!"
+
+"The yeggs," she wailed. "There's two of them. The officer went
+upstairs. They shot him. He rolled down. Don't go in. They'll shoot you.
+Send for help."
+
+Peter stood still. He was not thinking of the yeggs, or of Gaffney. He
+was hearing Kondorman ask, "Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?" He was
+hearing Kondorman say, "You've failed." Something had him tight.
+Something was asking him, "Why go in that house? Why risk your life?
+You're not a cop. You'll never be a cop. They threw you out. They made a
+fool of you for a trifle."
+
+Peter started back from the open door; he looked down; the street light
+fell on the brass buttons of his uniform; the words of the old policeman
+darted across his brain: "A cop never runs away when needed."
+
+He caught his breath and plunged into the house. At the foot of the
+stairs leading up to the second floor he saw by the street light that
+came through the opened door, the sprawling form of a big man; the light
+glanced from the silver badge on his broad chest. Peter bent over
+hastily.
+
+"Is it you, Pether?" breathed Gaffney, with difficulty. "They got me.
+Got me good. Wan of thim knocked me gun from me hand and the other
+plugged me. Through the chist. I'm done for, Pether. I can't breathe.
+Stop, Pether, stop!"
+
+The veteran tried to struggle to his feet, but sank back, holding
+fiercely to Peter's leg.
+
+"Let me go, Jawn. Let me go," whispered Peter hoarsely.
+
+"They'll murder you, Pether. It's two men to wan,--and they're armed."
+
+"Let me go in, I tell you, Jawn. Let me go. A good cop never runs--you
+said it yourself--let me go----"
+
+Slowly the grip on Peter's leg relaxed; the dimming eyes of the wounded
+man had suddenly grown very bright.
+
+"Ye're right, me little bucko," he said faintly. "Ye'll be a credit to
+the foorce, Pether." And then the light died out of his eyes and the
+hand that had grasped Peter fell limp to the floor.
+
+Peter was up the stairs that led to the second floor in three swift,
+wary jumps. He heard a skurry of footsteps in the back of the house.
+Dashing a potted fern from its slender wooden stand, he grasped the end
+of the stand, and swinging it like a baseball bat, he pushed through
+velvet curtains into a large room. There was enough light there from the
+moon for him to see two black figures prying desperately at a door. They
+wheeled as he entered. Bending low he hurled himself at them as he had
+done when playing football on a back lot. There was a flash so near that
+it burned his face; he felt a sharp fork of pain cross his head as if
+his scalp had been slashed by a red-hot knife. With all the force in his
+taut body he swung the stand at the nearest man; it caught the man
+across the face and he went down with a broken, guttural cry. A second
+and a third shot from the revolver of the other man roared in Peter's
+ears. Still crouching, Peter dived through the darkness at the knees of
+the man with the gun; together they went to the floor in a cursing,
+grunting tangle.
+
+The burglar struggled to jab down the butt of his revolver on the head
+of the small man who had fastened himself to him with the death grip of
+a mongoose on a cobra. They thrashed about the room. Peter had gotten a
+hold on the man's pistol wrist and he held to it while the man with his
+free hand rained blow after blow on the defenseless face and bleeding
+head of the little man. As they fought in the darkness, the burglar with
+a sudden violent wrench tore loose the clinging Peter, and hurled him
+against a table, which crashed to the floor with the impact of Peter's
+one hundred and thirty pounds of muscle and bone.
+
+As Peter hurtled back, his arms shot out mechanically to break his fall;
+one groping hand closed on a heavy iron candle-stick that had stood on
+the table. He was up in a flash, the candle-stick in his hand. His eyes
+were blinded by the blood from his wound; he dashed the blood away with
+his coat-sleeve. With a short, sharp motion he hurled the candle-stick
+at his opponent's head, outlined against a window, not six feet away. At
+the moment the missile flew from Peter's hand, the yegg steadied himself
+and fired. Then he reeled to the floor as the candle-stick's heavy base
+struck him between the eyes.
+
+For the ghost of a second, Peter Mullaney stood swaying; then his hands
+clawed at the place on his chest where his shield might have been as if
+his heart had caught fire and he wished to tear it out of himself; then,
+quite gently, he crumpled to the floor, and there was the quiet of night
+in the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As little Peter Mullaney lay in the hospital trying to see through his
+bandages the flowers Judy McNulty had brought him, he heard the voice of
+the doctor saying:
+
+"Here he is. Nasty chest wound. We almost lost him. He didn't seem to
+care much whether he pulled through or not. Was delirious for hours.
+Kept muttering something about the Tropic of Capricorn. But I think
+he'll come through all right now. You just can't kill one of these tough
+little micks."
+
+Peering through his bandages, Peter Mullaney saw the square shoulders
+and stern face of Commissioner Kondorman.
+
+"Good morning, Mullaney," the Commissioner said, in his formal official
+voice. "I'm glad to hear that you're going to get better."
+
+"Thank you, Commissioner," murmured Peter, watching him with wondering
+eyes.
+
+Commissioner Kondorman felt round in an inside pocket and brought out a
+small box from which he carefully took something that glittered in the
+morning sunlight. Bending over the bed, he pinned it on the night-shirt
+of Peter Mullaney. Peter felt it; stopped breathing; felt it again;
+slowly pulled it out so that he could look at it.
+
+"It was Officer John Gaffney's," said the Commissioner, and his voice
+was trying hard to be official and formal, but it was getting husky. "He
+was a brave officer. I wanted another brave officer to have his shield."
+
+"But, Commissioner," cried Peter, winking very hard with both eyes, for
+they were blurring, "haven't you made a mistake? You must have got the
+wrong man. Don't you remember? I'm the one that said the Tropic of
+Capricorn is in the Bronx!"
+
+"Officer Mullaney," said Commissioner Kondorman in an odd voice, "if a
+cop like you says the Tropic of Capricorn is in the Bronx, then, by the
+lord Harry, that's where the Tropic of Capricorn is."
+
+
+
+
+VIII: _Mr. Braddy's Bottle_
+
+
+§1
+
+"This," said Mr. William Lum solemnly, "is the very las' bottle of this
+stuff in these United States!"
+
+It was a dramatic moment. He held it aloft with the pride and tender
+care of a recent parent exhibiting a first-born child. Mr. Hugh Braddy
+emitted a long, low whistle, expressive of the awe due the occasion.
+
+"You don't tell me!" he said.
+
+"Yes, siree! There ain't another bottle of this wonderful old hooch left
+anywhere. Not anywhere. A man couldn't get one like it for love nor
+money. Not for love nor money." He paused to regard the bottle fondly.
+"Nor anything else," he added suddenly.
+
+Mr. Braddy beamed fatly. His moon face--like a
+two-hundred-and-twenty-pound Kewpie's--wore a look of pride and
+responsibility. It was his bottle.
+
+"You don't tell me!" he said.
+
+"Yes, siree. Must be all of thirty years old, if it's a day. Mebbe
+forty. Mebbe fifty. Why, that stuff is worth a dollar a sniff, if it's
+worth a jit. And you not a drinking man! Wadda pity! Wadda pity!"
+
+There was a shade of envy in Mr. Lum's tone, for Mr. Lum was, or had
+been, a drinking man; yet Fate, ever perverse, had decreed that Mr.
+Braddy, teetotaler, should find the ancient bottle while poking about in
+the cellar of his very modest new house--rented--in that part of Long
+Island City where small, wooden cottages break out in clusters, here and
+there, in a species of municipal measles.
+
+Mr. Braddy, on finding the treasure, had immediately summoned Mr. Lum
+from his larger and more pretentious house near by, as one who would be
+able to appraise the find, and he and Mr. Lum now stood on the very spot
+in the cellar where, beneath a pile of old window blinds, the venerable
+liquor had been found. Mr. Braddy, it was plain, thought very highly of
+Mr. Lum's opinions, and that great man was good-naturedly tolerant of
+the more placid and adipose Mr. Braddy, who was known--behind his
+back--in the rug department of the Great Store as "Ole Hippopotamus."
+Not that he would have resented it, had the veriest cash boy called him
+by this uncomplimentary but descriptive nickname to his face, for Mr.
+Braddy was the sort of person who never resents anything.
+
+"Y'know, Mr. Lum," he remarked, crinkling his pink brow in philosophic
+thought, "sometimes I wish I had been a drinking man. I never minded if
+a man took a drink. Not that I had any patience with these here booze
+fighters. No. Enough is enough, I always say. But if a fella wanted to
+take a drink, outside of business hours, of course, or go off on a spree
+once in a while--well, I never saw no harm in it. I often wished I could
+do it myself."
+
+"Well, why the dooce didn't you?" inquired Mr. Lum.
+
+"As a matter of solid fact, I was scared to. That's the truth. I was
+always scared I'd get pinched or fall down a manhole or something. You
+see, I never did have much nerve." This was an unusual burst of
+confidence on the part of Mr. Braddy, who, since he had moved into Mr.
+Lum's neighborhood a month before, had played a listening rôle in his
+conferences with Mr. Lum, who was a thin, waspy man of forty-four, in
+ambush behind a fierce pair of mustachios. Mr. Braddy, essence of
+diffidence that he was, had confined his remarks to "You don't tell me!"
+or, occasionally, "Ain't it the truth?" in the manner of a Greek chorus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now inspired, perhaps, by the discovery that he was the owner of a
+priceless bottle of spirits, he unbosomed himself to Mr. Lum. Mr. Lum
+made answer.
+
+"Scared to drink? Scared of anything? Bosh! Tommyrot! Everybody's got
+nerve. Only some don't use it," said Mr. Lum, who owned a book called
+"The Power House in Man's Mind," and who subscribed for, and quoted
+from, a pamphlet for successful men, called "I Can and I Will."
+
+"Mebbe," said Mr. Braddy. "But the first and only time I took a drink I
+got a bad scare. When I was a young feller, just starting in the rugs in
+the Great Store, I went out with the gang one night, and, just to be
+smart, I orders beer. Them was the days when beer was a nickel for a
+stein a foot tall. The minute I taste the stuff I feel uncomfortable. I
+don't dare not drink it, for fear the gang would give me the laugh. So I
+ups and drinks it, every drop, although it tastes worse and worse. Well,
+sir, that beer made me sicker than a dog. I haven't tried any drink
+stronger than malted milk since. And that was all of twenty years ago.
+It wasn't that I thought a little drinking a sin. I was just scared;
+that's all. Some of the other fellows in the rugs drank--till they
+passed a law against it. Why, I once seen Charley Freedman sell a party
+a genuine, expensive Bergamo rug for two dollars and a half when he was
+pickled. But when he was sober there wasn't a better salesman in the
+rugs."
+
+Mr. Lum offered no comment; he was weighing the cob-webbed bottle in his
+hand, and holding it to the light in a vain attempt to peer through the
+golden-brown fluid. Mr. Braddy went on:
+
+"I guess I was born timid. I dunno. I wanted to join a lodge, but I was
+scared of the 'nitiation. I wanted to move out to Jersey, but I didn't.
+Why, all by life I've wanted to take a Turkish bath; but somehow, every
+time I got to the door of the place I got cold feet and backed out. I
+wanted a raise, too, and by golly, between us, I believe they'd give it
+to me; but I keep putting off asking for it and putting off and putting
+off----"
+
+"I was like that--once," put in Mr. Lum. "But it don't pay. I'd still be
+selling shoes in the Great Store--and looking at thousands of feet every
+day and saying thousands of times, 'Yes, madam, this is a three-A, and
+very smart, too,' when it is really a six-D and looks like hell on her.
+No wonder I took a drink or two in those days."
+
+He set down the bottle and flared up with a sudden, fierce bristling of
+his mustaches.
+
+"And now they have to come along and take a man's liquor away from
+him--drat 'em! What did our boys fight for? Liberty, I say. And then,
+after being mowed down in France, they come home to find the country
+dry! It ain't fair, I say. Of course, don't think for a minute that I
+mind losing the licker. Not me. I always could take it or leave it
+alone. But what I hate is having them say a man can't drink this and he
+can't drink that. They'll be getting after our smokes, next. I read in
+the paper last night a piece that asked something that's been on my mind
+a long time: 'Whither are we drifting?'"
+
+"I dunno," said Mr. Braddy.
+
+"You'd think," went on Mr. Lum, not heeding, as a sense of oppression
+and injustice surged through him, "that liquor harmed men. As if it
+harmed anybody but the drunkards! Liquor never hurt a successful man;
+no, siree. Look at me!"
+
+Mr. Braddy looked. He had heard Mr. Lum make the speech that customarily
+followed this remark a number of times, but it never failed to interest
+him.
+
+"Look at me!" said Mr. Lum, slapping his chest. "Buyer in the shoes in
+the Great Store, and that ain't so worse, if I do say it myself. That's
+what nerve did. What if I did used to get a snootful now and then? I had
+the self-confidence, and that did the trick. When old man Briggs
+croaked, I heard that the big boss was looking around outside the store
+for a man to take his place as buyer in the shoes. So I goes right to
+the boss, and I says, 'Look here, Mr. Berger, I been in the shoes
+eighteen years, and I know shoes from A to Z, and back again. I can fill
+Briggs' shoes,' I says. And that gets him laughing, although I didn't
+mean it that way, for I don't think humor has any place in business.
+
+"'Well,' he says, 'you certainly got confidence in yourself. I'll see
+what you can do in Briggs' job. It will pay forty a week.' I knew old
+Briggs was getting more than forty, and I could see that Berger needed
+me, so I spins on him and I laughs in his face. 'Forty popcorn balls!' I
+says to him. 'Sixty is the least that job's worth, and you know it.'
+Well, to make a long story short, he comes through with sixty!"
+
+This story never failed to fascinate Mr. Braddy, for two reasons. First,
+he liked to be taken into the confidence of a man who made so princely a
+salary; and, second, it reminded him of the tormenting idea that he was
+worth more than the thirty dollars he found every Friday in his
+envelope, and it bolstered up his spirit. He felt that with the
+glittering example of Mr. Lum and the constant harassings by his wife,
+who had and expressed strong views on the subject, he would some day
+conquer his qualms and demand the raise he felt to be due him.
+
+"I wish I had your crust," he said to Mr. Lum in tones of frank
+admiration.
+
+"You have," rejoined Mr. Lum. "I didn't know that I had, for a long,
+long time, and then it struck me one day, as I was trying an
+Oxford-brogue style K6 on a dame, 'How did Schwab get where he is? How
+did Rockefeller? How did this here Vanderlip? Was it by being humble?
+Was it by setting still?' You bet your sweet boots it wasn't. I just
+been reading an article in 'I Can and I Will,' called 'Big Bugs--And How
+They Got That Way,' and it tells all about those fellows and how most of
+them wasn't nothing but newspaper reporters and puddlers--whatever that
+is--until one day they said, 'I'm going to do something decisive!' And
+they did it. That's the idea. Do something decisive. That's what I did,
+and look at me! Braddy, why the devil don't you do something decisive?"
+
+"What?" asked Mr. Braddy meekly.
+
+"Anything. Take a plunge. Why, I bet you never took a chance in your
+life. You got good stuff in you, Braddy, too. There ain't a better
+salesman in the rugs. Why, only the other day I overheard Berger say,
+'That fellow Braddy knows more about rugs than the Mayor of Bagdad
+himself. Too bad he hasn't more push in him.'"
+
+"I guess mebbe he's right," said Mr. Braddy.
+
+"Right? Of course, he's right about you being a crack salesman. Why, you
+could sell corkscrews in Kansas," said Mr. Lum. "You got the stuff, all
+right. But the trouble is you can sell everything but yourself. Get
+busy! Act! Do something! Make a decision! Take a step!"
+
+Mr. Braddy said nothing. Little lines furrowed his vast brow; he half
+closed his small eyes; his round face took on an intent, scowling look.
+He was thinking. Silence filled the cellar. Then, with the air of a man
+whose mind is made up, Hugh Braddy said a decisive and remarkable thing.
+
+"Mr. Bill Lum," he said, "I'm going to get drunk!"
+
+"What? You? Hugh Braddy? Drunk? My God!" The idea was too much even for
+the mind of Mr. Lum.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Braddy, in a hollow voice, like Cæsar's at the Rubicon,
+"I'm going to drink what's in that bottle this very night."
+
+"Not all of it?" Mr. Lum, as an expert in such things, registered
+dismay.
+
+"As much as is necessary," was the firm response. Mr. Lum brightened
+considerably at this.
+
+"Better let me help you. There's enough for both of us. Plenty," he
+suggested.
+
+"Are you sure?" asked Mr. Braddy anxiously.
+
+"Sure," said Mr. Lum.
+
+
+§2
+
+And he was right. There was more than enough. It was nine o'clock that
+night when the cellar door of Mr. Braddy's small house opened
+cautiously, and Mr. Braddy followed his stub nose into the moonlight.
+Mr. Lum, unsteady but gay, followed.
+
+Mr. Braddy, whose customary pace was a slow, dignified waddle,
+immediately broke into a brisk trot.
+
+"Doan' go so fas', Hoo," called Mr. Lum, for they had long since reached
+the first-name stage.
+
+"Gotta get to city, N'Yawk, b'fore it's too late," explained Mr. Braddy,
+reining down to a walk.
+
+"Too late for what, Hoo?" inquired Mr. Lum.
+
+"I dunno," said Mr. Braddy.
+
+They made their way, by a series of skirmishes and flank movements, to
+the subway station, and caught a train for Manhattan. Their action in
+doing this was purely automatic.
+
+Once aboard, they began a duet, which they plucked out of the dim past:
+
+"Oh, dem golden slippers! Oh, dem golden slippers!"
+
+This, unfortunately, was all they could remember of it, but it was
+enough to supply them with a theme and variations that lasted until they
+arrived in the catacombs far below the Grand Central Station. There they
+were shooed out by a vigilant subway guard.
+
+They proceeded along the brightly lighted streets. Mr. Braddy's step was
+that of a man walking a tight-rope. Mr. Lum's method of progression was
+a series of short spurts. Between the Grand Central and Times Square
+they passed some one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine persons, of
+whom one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine remarked, "Where did
+they get it?"
+
+On Broadway they saw a crowd gathered in front of a building.
+
+"Fight," said Mr. Braddy hopefully.
+
+"'Naccident," thought Mr. Lum. At least a hundred men and women were
+industriously elbowing each other and craning necks in the hope of
+seeing the center of attraction. Mr. Braddy, ordinarily the most timid
+of innocent bystanders, was now a lion in point of courage.
+
+"Gangway," he called. "We're 'tectives," he added bellicosely to those
+who protested, as he and Mr. Lum shoved and lunged their way through the
+rapidly growing crowd. The thing which had caused so many people to
+stop, to crane necks, to push, was a small newsboy who had dropped a
+dime down through an iron grating and who was fishing for it with a
+piece of chewing gum tied on the end of a string.
+
+They spent twenty minutes giving advice and suggestions to the fisher,
+such as:
+
+"A leetle to the left, now. Naw, naw. To the right. Now you got it.
+Shucks! You missed it. Try again." At length they were rewarded by
+seeing the boy retrieve the dime, just before the crowd had grown to
+such proportions that it blocked the traffic.
+
+The two adventurers continued on their way, pausing once to buy four
+frankfurters, which they ate noisily, one in each hand.
+
+Suddenly the veteran drinker, Mr. Lum, was struck by a disquieting
+thought.
+
+"Hoo, I gotta go home. My wife'll be back from the movies by eleven, and
+if I ain't home and in bed when she gets there, she'll skin me alive;
+that's what she'll do."
+
+Mr. Braddy was struck by the application of this to his own case.
+
+"Waddabout me, hey? Waddabout me, B'lum?" he asked plaintively.
+"Angelica will just about kill me."
+
+Mr. Lum, leaning against the Automat, darkly considered this
+eventuality. At length he spoke.
+
+"You go getta Turkish bath. Tell 'Gellica y' hadda stay in store all
+night to take inventory. Turkish bath'll make you fresh as a daisy.
+Fresh as a li'l' daisy--fresh as a li'l' daisy----" Saying which Mr. Lum
+disappeared into the eddying crowd and was gone. Mr. Braddy was alone in
+the great city.
+
+But he was not dismayed. While disposing of the ancient liquor, he and
+Mr. Lum had discussed philosophies of life, and Mr. Braddy had decided
+that his was, "A man can do what he is a-mind to." And Mr. Braddy was
+very much a-mind to take a Turkish bath. To him it represented the last
+stroke that cut the shackles of timidity. "I can and I will," he said a
+bit thickly, in imitation of Mr. Lum's heroes.
+
+
+§3
+
+There was a line of men, mostly paunchy, waiting to be assigned dressing
+rooms when Mr. Braddy entered the Turkish bath, egged sternly on by his
+new philosophy. He did not shuffle meekly into the lowest place and wait
+the fulfillment of the biblical promise that some one would say,
+"Friend, go up higher." Not he. "I can and I will," he remarked to the
+man at the end of the line, and, forthwith, with a majestic, if rolling,
+gait, advanced to the window where a rabbit of a man, with nose glasses
+chained to his head, was sleepily dealing out keys and taking in
+valuables. The other men in line were too surprised to protest. Mr.
+Braddy took off his huge derby hat and rapped briskly on the counter.
+
+"Service, here. Li'l' service!"
+
+The Rabbit with the nose glasses blinked mildly.
+
+"Wotja want?" he inquired.
+
+"Want t' be made fresh as a li'l' daisy," said Mr. Braddy.
+
+"Awright," said the Rabbit, yawning. "Here's a key for locker number
+thirty-six. Got any valuables? One dollar, please."
+
+Mr. Braddy, after some fumbling, produced the dollar, a dog-eared
+wallet, a tin watch, a patent cigar cutter, a pocket piece from a pickle
+exhibit at the World's Fair in Chicago, and some cigar coupons.
+
+The Rabbit handed him a large key on a rubber band.
+
+"Put it on your ankle. Next," he yawned.
+
+And then Mr. Braddy stepped through the white door that, to him, led
+into the land of adventure and achievement.
+
+He found himself in a brightly lighted corridor pervaded by an aroma not
+unlike the sort a Chinese hand laundry has. There were rows of little,
+white doors, with numbers painted on them. Mr. Braddy began at once a
+search for his own dressing room, No. 36; but after investigating the
+main street and numerous side alleys, in a somewhat confused but
+resolute frame of mind, he discovered that he was lost in a rabbit
+warren of white woodwork. He found Nos. 96, 66, 46, and 6, but he could
+not find No. 36. He tried entering one of the booths at random, but was
+greeted with a not-too-cordial, "Hey, bo; wrong stall. Back out!" from
+an ample gentleman made up as grandpa in the advertisements of Non-Skid
+underwear. He tried bawling, "Service, li'l' service," and rapping on
+the woodwork with his derby, but nothing happened, so he replaced his
+hat on his head and resumed his search. He came to a door with no number
+on it, pushed it open, and stepped boldly into the next room.
+
+Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat--it was the shower bath
+on Mr. Braddy's hat.
+
+"'Srainin'," he remarked affably.
+
+An attendant, clad in short, white running pants, spied him and came
+bounding through the spray.
+
+"Hey, mister, why don't you take your clothes off?"
+
+"Can't find it," replied Mr. Braddy.
+
+"Can't find what?" the attendant demanded.
+
+"Thirry-sizz."
+
+"Thirry sizz?"
+
+"Yep, thirry-sizz."
+
+"Aw, he means room number thoity-six," said a voice from under one of
+the showers.
+
+The attendant conducted Mr. Braddy up and down the white rabbit warren,
+across an avenue, through a lane, and paused at last before No. 36. Mr.
+Braddy went in, and the attendant followed.
+
+"Undress you, mister?"
+
+The Mr. Braddy of yesterday would have been too weak-willed to protest,
+but the new Mr. Braddy was the master of his fate, the captain of his
+soul, and he replied with some heat:
+
+"Say, wadda you take me for? Can undress m'self." He did so, muttering
+the while: "Undress me? Wadda they take me for? Wadda they take me for?"
+
+Then he strode, a bit uncertainly, out into the corridor, pink,
+enormous, his key dangling from his ankle like a ball and chain. The man
+in the white running pants piloted Mr. Braddy into the hot room. Mr.
+Braddy was delighted, intrigued by it. On steamer chairs reclined other
+large men, stripped to their diamond rings, which glittered faintly in
+the dim-lit room. They made guttural noises, as little rivulets glided
+down the salmon-pink mounds of flesh, and every now and then they drank
+water from large tin cups. Mr. Braddy seated himself in the hot room,
+and tried to read a very damp copy of an evening paper, which he decided
+was in a foreign language, until he discovered he was holding it upside
+down.
+
+An attendant approached and offered him a cup of water. The temptation
+was to do the easy thing--to take the proffered cup; but Mr. Braddy
+didn't want a drink of anything just then, so he waved it away,
+remarking lightly, "Never drink water," and was rewarded by a battery of
+bass titters from the pink mountains about him, who, it developed from
+their conversation, were all very important persons, indeed, in the
+world of finance. But in time Mr. Braddy began to feel unhappy. The heat
+was making him ooze slowly away. Hell, he thought, must be like this. He
+must act. He stood up.
+
+"I doan like this," he bellowed. An attendant came in response to the
+roar.
+
+"What, you still in the hot room? Say, mister, it's a wonder you ain't
+been melted to a puddle of gravy. Here, come with me. I'll send you
+through the steam room to Gawge, and Gawge will give you a good rub."
+
+He led Mr. Braddy to the door of the steam room, full of dense, white
+steam.
+
+"Hey, Gawge," he shouted.
+
+"Hello, Al, wotja want?" came a voice faintly from the room beyond the
+steam room.
+
+"Oh, Gawge, catch thoity-six when he comes through," shouted Al.
+
+He gave Mr. Braddy a little push and closed the door. Mr. Braddy found
+himself surrounded by steam which seemed to be boiling and scalding his
+very soul. He attempted to cry "Help," and got a mouthful of rich steam
+that made him splutter. He started to make a dash in the direction of
+Gawge's door, and ran full tilt into another mountain of avoirdupois,
+which cried indignantly, "Hey, watch where you're going, will you? You
+ain't back at dear old Yale, playing football." Mr. Braddy had a touch
+of panic. This was serious. To be lost in a labyrinth of dressing rooms
+was distressing enough, but here he was slowly but certainly being
+steamed to death, with Gawge and safety waiting for him but a few feet
+away. An idea! Firemen, trapped in burning buildings, he had read in the
+newspapers, always crawl on their hands and knees, because the lower air
+is purer. Laboriously he lowered himself to his hands and knees, and,
+like a flabby pink bear, with all sense of direction gone, he started
+through the steam.
+
+"Hey!"
+
+"Lay off me, guy!"
+
+"Ouch, me ankle!"
+
+"Wot's the big idea? This ain't no circus."
+
+"Leggo me shin."
+
+"Ouf!"
+
+The "ouf" came from Mr. Braddy, who had been soundly kicked in the
+mid-riff by an angry dweller in the steam room, whose ankle he had
+grabbed as he careered madly but futilely around the room. Then,
+success! The door! He opened it.
+
+"Where's Gawge?" he demanded faintly.
+
+"Well, I'll be damned! It's thoity-six back again!"
+
+It was Al's voice; not Gawge. Mr. Braddy had come back to the same door
+he started from!
+
+He was unceremoniously thrust by Al back into the steaming hell from
+which he had just escaped, and once more Al shouted across, "Hey, Gawge,
+catch thoity-six when he comes through."
+
+Mr. Braddy, on his hands and knees, steered as straight a course as he
+could for the door that opened to Gawge and fresh air, but the
+bewildering steam once again closed round him, and he butted the tumid
+calves of one of the Moes and was roundly cursed. Veering to the left,
+he bumped into the legs of another Moe so hard that this Moe went down
+as if he had been submarined, a tangle of plump legs, arms, and
+profanity. Mr. Braddy, in the confusion, reached the door and pushed it
+open.
+
+"Holy jumpin' mackerel! Thoity-six again! Say, you ain't supposed to
+come back here. You're supposed to keep going straight across the steam
+room to Gawge." It was Al, enraged.
+
+Once more Mr. Braddy was launched into the steam room. How many times he
+tried to traverse it--bear fashion--he never could remember, but it must
+have been at least six times that he reappeared at the long-suffering
+Al's door, and was returned, too steamed, now, to protest. Mr. Braddy's
+new-found persistence was not to be denied, however, and ultimately he
+reached the right door, to find waiting for him a large, genial soul who
+was none other than Gawge, and who asked, with untimely facetiousness,
+Mr. Braddy thought:
+
+"Didja enjoy the trip?"
+
+Gawge placed Mr. Braddy on a marble slab and scrubbed him with a large
+and very rough brush, which made Mr. Braddy scream with laughter,
+particularly when the rough bristles titillated the soles of his feet.
+
+"Wot's the joke?" inquired Gawge.
+
+"You ticker me," gasped Mr. Braddy.
+
+He was rather enjoying himself now. It made him feel important to have
+so much attention. But he groaned and gurgled a little when Gawge
+attacked him with cupped hands and beat a tattoo up and down his spine
+and all over his palpitating body. Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop,
+wop wop went Gawge's hands.
+
+Then he rolled Mr. Braddy from the slab, like jelly from a mold. Mr.
+Braddy jelled properly and was stood in a corner.
+
+"All over?" he asked. Zizzzzzz! A stream of icy water struck him between
+his shoulder blades.
+
+"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" he cried. The stream, as if in response to his
+outcries, immediately became boiling hot. First one, then the other
+played on him. Then they stopped. An attendant appeared and dried Mr.
+Braddy vigorously with a great, shaggy towel, and then led him to a
+dormitory, where, on white cots, rows of Moes puffed and wheezed and
+snored and dreamed dreams of great profits.
+
+Mr. Braddy tumbled happily into his cot, boiled but triumphant. He had
+taken a Turkish bath! The world was at his feet! He had made a decision!
+He had acted on it! He had met the demon Timidity in fair fight and
+downed him. He had been drunk, indubitably drunk, for the first and
+last time. He assured himself that he never wanted to taste the stuff
+again. But he couldn't help but feel that his one jamboree had made a
+new man of him, opening new lands of adventure, showing him that "he
+could if he would." As he buried his head in the pillow, he rehearsed
+the speech he would make to Mr. Berger, the manager, in the morning.
+Should he begin, "Mr. Berger, if you think I'm worth it, will you please
+raise my pay five dollars a week?" No, by Heaven, a thousand noes! He
+was worth it, and he would say so. Should he begin, "See here, Mr.
+Berger, the time has come for you to raise my salary ten dollars?" No,
+he'd better ask for twenty dollars while he was about it, and compromise
+on ten dollars as a favor to his employers. But then, again, why stop at
+twenty dollars? His sales in the rugs warranted much more. "I can have
+thirty dollars, and I will," he said a number of times to the pillow.
+Carefully he rehearsed his speech: "Now, see here, Berger----" and then
+he was whirled away into a dream in which he saw a great hand take down
+the big sign from the front of the Great Store, and put up in its place
+a still larger sign, reading:
+
+                         BRADDY'S GREATER STORE
+                       Dry Goods and Turkish Baths
+                         Hugh Braddy, Sole Prop.
+
+
+§4
+
+He woke feeling very strange, and not exactly as fresh as a daisy. He
+felt much more like a cauliflower cooled after boiling. His head buzzed
+a bit, with a sort of gay giddiness, but for all that he knew that he
+was not the same Hugh Braddy that had been catapulted from bed by an
+alarm clock in his Long Island City home the morning before.
+
+"A man can do what he's a mind to," he said to himself in a slightly
+husky voice. His first move was to get breakfast. The old Hugh Braddy
+would have gone humbly to a one-armed beanery for one black coffee and
+one doughnut--price, one dime. The new Hugh Braddy considered this
+breakfast, and dismissed it as beneath a man of his importance. Instead,
+he went to the Mortimore Grill and had a substantial club breakfast. He
+called up Angelica, his wife, and cut short her lecture
+with--"Unavoidable, m'dear. Inventory at the store." His tone, somehow,
+made her hesitate to question him further. "It'll be all right about
+that raise," he added grandly. "Have a good supper to-night. G'by."
+
+He bought himself an eleven-cent cigar, instead of his accustomed
+six-center, and, puffing it in calm defiance of a store rule, strode
+into the employees' entrance of the Great Store a little after nine.
+Without wavering, he marched straight to the office of Mr. Berger, who
+looked up from his morning mail in surprise.
+
+"Well, Mr. Braddy?"
+
+Mr. Braddy blew a smoke ring, playfully stuck his finger through it, and
+said:
+
+"Mr. Berger, I'm thinking of going with another concern. A fellow was in
+to see me the other day, and he says to me, 'Braddy, you are the best
+rug man in this town.' And he hinted that if I'd come over with his
+concern they'd double my salary. Now, I've been with the Great Store
+more than twenty years, and I like the place, Mr. Berger, and I know the
+ropes, so naturally I don't want to change. But, of course, I must go
+where the most money is. I owe that to Mrs. B. But I'm going to do the
+square thing. I'm going to give you a chance to meet the ante. Sixty's
+the figure."
+
+He waved his cigar, signifying the utter inconsequence of whether Mr.
+Berger met the ante or not. Before the amazed manager could frame a
+reply, Mr. Braddy continued:
+
+"You needn't make up your mind right away, Mr. Berger. I don't have to
+give my final decision until to-night. You can think it over. I suggest
+you look up my sales record for last year before you reach any
+decision." And he was gone.
+
+All that day Mr. Braddy did his best not to think of what he had done.
+Even the new Mr. Braddy--philosophy and all--could not entirely banish
+the vision of Angelica if he had to break the news that he had issued an
+ultimatum for twice his salary and had been escorted to the exit.
+
+He threw himself into the work of selling rugs so vigorously that his
+fellow salesmen whispered to each other, "What ails the Ole
+Hippopotamus?" He even got rid of a rug that had been in the department
+for uncounted years--showing a dark-red lion browsing on a field of rich
+pink roses--by pointing out to the woman who bought it that it would
+amuse the children.
+
+At four o'clock a flip office boy tapped him on the shoulder and said,
+"Mr. Boiger wants to see you." Mr. Braddy, whose head felt as if a hive
+of bees were establishing a home there, but whose philosophy still
+burned clear and bright, let Mr. Berger wait a full ten minutes, and
+then, with dignified tread that gave no hint of his inward qualms,
+entered the office of the manager.
+
+It seemed an age before Mr. Berger spoke.
+
+"I've been giving your proposition careful consideration, Mr. Braddy,"
+he said. "I have decided that we'd like to keep you in the rugs. We'll
+meet that ante."
+
+
+
+
+IX: _Gretna Greenhorns_
+
+
+§1
+
+The brown eyes of Chester Arthur Jessup, Jr., were fixed on the maroon
+banner of the Clintonia High School which adorned his bedroom wall, but
+they did not see that vivid emblem of the institution in whose academic
+halls he was a senior. Rather, they appeared to look through it, beyond
+it, into some far-away land. Bright but unseeing, they proclaimed that
+their owner was in that state of mild hypnosis known as
+"turkey-dreaming." His lips were parted in a slight smile, and the shoe
+which he had been in the act of removing as he sat on his bed was poised
+in mid-air above the floor, for reverie had overcome him in the very
+midst of preparations for an evening call.
+
+The object of his pensive musings was at that moment eating her evening
+meal some blocks away in the home of her parents. Fondly, with that
+inward eye which is alleged to be the bliss of solitude, Chester
+followed the process. It had only been lately that he could bring
+himself to admit that she ate at all. She was so dainty, so ethereal.
+And yet reason, and the course he was taking in physiology, told him
+that she, even she, must sometimes give way to the unworthy promptings
+of necessity, and eat. But that she should eat as ordinary mortals do,
+was unthinkable. It was not the first time that Chester, in reverie,
+had permitted her a slight refection. The menu of her meals never
+varied. To-night, as on other occasions, it consisted of watercress
+salad, a mere nibble of it; a delicate dab of ice-cream, no bigger than
+a thimble; a small cup of tea, and, perhaps, a lady-finger. The
+lady-finger was a concession. On the occasion of his last call, Mildred
+had confessed that she could die eating lady-fingers. Of course, later
+in the evening she might have a candy or two, but then candy can hardly
+be considered food.
+
+A mundane clatter of dishes in the kitchen below caused Chester to start
+from his dream, and drop the shoe. He leaped up and began to make
+elaborate and excited preparations for dressing.
+
+From an ancient, battered chest of drawers he carefully took a
+tissue-paper package containing a Union Forever Suit, whose label
+proclaimed that "From Factory to You, No Human Hand Touches It." With
+brow puckered in abstract thought, Chester broke the seal and laid the
+crisp, immaculate garment on the bed. With intense seriousness, he
+regarded it for a moment; apparently it passed his searching
+examination, for he turned again to the chest of drawers and drew forth
+a smaller package, from which he extracted new socks of lustrous blue.
+These he placed on the bed. From beneath the bed he drew a pair of low
+shoes, which gleamed in the gaslight from arduous polishing. On their
+toes, fanciful artisans had pricked curves and loops and butterfly
+designs. Chester gave them a few final rubs with the shirt he had just
+discarded and placed them on the bed. At this point there was a hiatus
+in the wardrobe. He went out into the hall and shouted down the back
+stairs.
+
+"Oh, Ma. Oh, Ma!"
+
+"Well?" came his mother's voice from the regions below.
+
+"Are my trousers pressed yet?"
+
+"My goodness, Chester," she called, "I haven't had time yet. It's only a
+little after six. Do come down and eat some supper."
+
+"But I don't want any supper," protested Chester.
+
+"There's apple pudding with cream," she announced.
+
+"Oh, well," said Chester, reluctantly, "I suppose I'd better. Can I have
+a dish of it on the back stairs? I'm not dressed."
+
+"Yes. But you have plenty of time. You know you shouldn't make an
+evening call before eight-fifteen at the very earliest," said Mrs.
+Jessup.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After he had disposed of two helpings of apple pudding, Chester returned
+to his room and spent some moments analyzing the comparative merits of a
+dozen neckties hanging in an imitation brass stirrup. He had eliminated
+all but two, a black one and a red one, when his mother's voice floated
+up the back stairs.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Chester, do be careful of that bathtub. It's
+running over again. How many times do I have to tell you to watch it?"
+
+Chester bounded to the bathroom and shut off the water. It had, indeed,
+started to overflow the tub, and Chester, accepting the Archimedian
+principle without ever having heard of it, perceived that he must let
+some of the water out before he could put himself in. Accordingly he
+pulled out the plug and returned to his own room to wait for a little of
+the water to run off.
+
+He made the most of this idle moment. Throwing off his multi-hued Navajo
+bathrobe, he surveyed the reflection of his torso in the mirror. He
+contracted his biceps and eyed the resulting egg-like bulges with some
+satisfaction. Suddenly, his ordinarily amiable face took on a fierce,
+dark scowl. He crouched until he was bent almost double. He lowered at
+the mirror. His left fist was extended and his right drawn back in the
+most approved scientific style of the prize-ring.
+
+"You will, will you?" came from between his clenched teeth, and his left
+fist darted out rapidly, three, four, five times, and then he shot out
+his right fist with such violence that he all but shattered the mirror.
+
+This last blow seemed to have a cataclysmic effect on Chester's
+opponent, for the victorious Chester backed off and waited, still
+crouching and lowering, for his victim to rise.
+
+The opponent apparently was a tough one, and not the man to succumb
+easily. Chester waited for him to regain his feet and then they were at
+it again. Chester let loose a shower of savage uppercuts. From the way
+he leaped six inches into the air to deliver his blows it was evident
+that his opponent was considerably bigger than he. At length, when all
+but breathless from his exertions, Chester with one prodigious punch, a
+_coup de grâce_ that there was no withstanding, knocked all the fight
+out of his foe. But, seemingly, he was not satisfied with flooring his
+giant opponent; with stern, set face, Chester walked to the corner where
+the fellow was sprawling, seized him by his collar, and dragged him
+across the room. Then, shaking him fiercely, Chester hissed:
+
+"Now, you cad, apologize to this lady for daring to offer her an affront
+by passing remarks about her."
+
+The apology would, no doubt, have been forthcoming had not Chester at
+that moment heard an unmistakable sound from the bathroom. He abandoned
+his prostrate foe and rushed in just in time to see the last of his
+bath-water go gargling and gurgling out of the tub.
+
+Chester sat moodily on the edge of the tub until enough hot water had
+bubbled into it for him to perform ablutions of appalling thoroughness.
+He was red almost to rawness from his efforts with the bath brush, and
+was redolent of scented soap and talcum powder when he again returned to
+his bedroom.
+
+He dressed with a sort of feverish calmness, now and again pausing to
+sigh gently and gaze for a moment into nothingness. By now she had
+finished her lady-finger--
+
+His mother had laid his freshly pressed trousers on the bed, and he ran
+an appreciative eye along their razor-blade crease. From the chest of
+drawers he brought forth a snowy shirt, which, from the piece of
+cardboard shoved down its throat and the numerous pins which Chester
+extracted impatiently, one could surmise was fresh from the laundry.
+When he came to the collar-and-tie stage, he was halted for a time.
+Three collars of various shapes were tried and deemed unworthy, and
+then, at the last minute, yielding to a sudden wild impulse, he
+discarded the black tie in favor of the red one. He slipped on a blue
+serge coat, the cut of which endeavored to promote his waist-line to his
+shoulder blades, and was all dressed but for the crowning task--to comb
+his hair.
+
+By dint of many dismal experiences, Chester knew that this would be
+trying, for his hair was abundant but untamed. He tried first to induce
+it to part while it was still dry, but the results of this operation, as
+he had feared, were negligible. He then attempted to achieve a part
+with his hair slightly moistened with witch hazel. For fully five
+seconds it looked like a success, but, as Chester started to leave, one
+parting look told him that little spikes and wisps were rearing
+rebellious heads and quite ruining the perfection of his handiwork. With
+a sigh he fell back upon his last resort, the liberal application of a
+sticky, jelly-like substance derived from petroleum, which imparted to
+his brown hair an unwonted shine. But the part held as if it had been
+carved in marble. Arranging his white silk handkerchief so that it
+protruded a modish eighth of an inch from his breast pocket, Chester
+Arthur Jessup, Jr., sallied forth to make his call.
+
+On the front porch was his family, and Chester would have avoided their
+critical eyes if he could. However, the gantlet had to be run, so he
+emerged into the family group with a saunter that he hoped might be
+described as "nonchalant." In the privacy of his room he often practiced
+that saunter; he had seen in the papers that a certain celebrated
+criminal had "sauntered nonchalantly into the court-room," and the
+phrase had fascinated him.
+
+"What in the name of thunder have you been doing to your hair?" demanded
+his father, looking up from his pipe and paper.
+
+"Combing it," replied Chester, coldly.
+
+"With axle grease?" inquired Jessup senior, genially.
+
+"And it does look so nice when it's dry and wavy," put in his mother.
+
+Chester emitted a faint groan.
+
+"Oh, Ma, you never seem to realize that I'm grown up," he protested.
+"Wavy hair!" He groaned again.
+
+"Well," remarked the father, "I suppose it's better that way than not
+combed at all. Seems to me that last summer you didn't care much
+whether it was combed, or cut either, for that matter."
+
+"A woman has come into his life," explained his twenty-two year-old
+sister, from behind her novel.
+
+"You just be careful who you go callin' a woman," exclaimed Chester,
+turning on her, with some warmth.
+
+"Don't you consider Mildred Wrigley a woman?" asked Hilda, mildly.
+
+"Not in the sense you mean it."
+
+"By the way," said Hilda, "I saw her last night."
+
+Chester's manner instantly became eager and conciliatory. "Did you?
+Where?"
+
+"At the Mill Street Baptist Church supper," said Hilda.
+
+"At the supper?" Chester's tone suggested incredulity.
+
+"Yes. And goodness me, I never saw a girl eat so much in my life.
+She----"
+
+"Hilda Jessup, how dare you!"
+
+Chester's voice cracked with the emotion he felt at so damnable an
+imputation.
+
+"There, there, Hilda, stop your teasing," said Mrs. Jessup. "What if she
+did? A big, healthy girl like that----"
+
+"Mother----" Chester's tone was anguished.
+
+"Come, Nell," said Mr. Jessup, "leave him to his illusions. It's a bad
+day for romance when a man discovers that his goddess likes a second
+helping of corned beef."
+
+"Father, how can you say such things! I will not stay here and listen to
+you say such things about one who I----"
+
+"One whom," interrupted Hilda.
+
+Chester flounced down the front steps and slammed the gate after him,
+in a manner that could not possibly be described as "nonchalant."
+
+
+§2
+
+The Wrigley home was four blocks away, and Chester, once out of sight of
+his own home, became meditative. He stopped, and after looking about to
+see that he was not observed, drew from his inside pocket an envelope,
+and for the twelfth time that day counted its contents. Ninety-four
+dollars! The savings of a lifetime! It had originally been saved for the
+purchase of a motor-cycle, but that was before Mildred Wrigley had
+smiled at him one day across the senior study-hall. That seemed but
+yesterday, and yet it must have been fully seven weeks before! He
+replaced the money and continued on his way.
+
+Chester paused at the Greek Candy Kitchen on Main Street to buy a box of
+candy, richly bedight with purple silk, and by carefully gauging his
+saunter, contrived to arrive at the Wrigley residence at fourteen
+minutes after eight. He gave his tie a final adjustment, his hair a last
+frantic smoothing, licked his dry lips--and rang the bell.
+
+"Oh, good evening, Chester."
+
+Mildred Wrigley had a small, birdlike voice. She was looking not so much
+at Chester as at the beribboned purple box he held. They went into the
+parlor.
+
+"Oh, Chester," cried Mildred, as she opened the purple box, "how sweet
+of you to bring me such heavenly candy. I just adore chocolate-covered
+cherries. I could just DIE eating them."
+
+She popped two of them into her mouth, and sighed ecstatically. They
+discussed, with great thoroughness, the weather of the day, the weather
+of the day before and the probable weather of the near future. Then
+Mildred moved her chair a quarter of an inch nearer Chester's.
+
+"There, now," she said, with her dimpling smile, "let's be real comfy."
+A glow enveloped Chester.
+
+"I had the most heavenly supper to-night," confided Mildred.
+
+"I hardly ate at all," said Chester.
+
+"Oh, you poor, poor boy," said Mildred. "Do pass me another candy."
+
+They discussed school affairs, and the approaching examinations.
+
+"I'm so worried," confessed Mildred. "Horrid old geometry. Stupid
+physics. What do I care why apples fall off trees? I'm going to go on
+the stage. That miserable old wretch, Miss Shufelt, has been writing
+nasty notes to Dad, saying I don't study enough."
+
+Her lip trembled; she looked so small, so weak. "Look here," said
+Chester, hoarsely, "we've known each other for a long time now, haven't
+we?"
+
+"Yes, ever so long," said Mildred, taking another chocolate-covered
+cherry. "Months and months."
+
+"Do you think one person ought to be frank with another person?"
+
+"Of course I do, Chester, if they know each other well enough."
+
+"I mean very frank."
+
+"Well," said Mildred, "if they know each other very, very well, I think
+they ought to be very frank."
+
+"How long do you think one person ought to know another person before
+he, or for that matter she, ought to be very frank with that person."
+
+"Oh, months and months," answered Mildred.
+
+Chester passed his white silk handkerchief over his damp brow.
+
+"When I say very frank, I mean very frank," he said.
+
+"That's what I mean, too." She took another chocolate-covered cherry.
+
+Chester went on, speaking rapidly.
+
+"For example, if one person should tell another person that he liked
+that person and he didn't really mean like at all but another word like
+like, only meaning something much more than like--don't you think he
+ought to tell that person what he really meant? I mean, of course,
+providing that he had known that person months and months and knew her
+very well and----"
+
+"I guess he should," she said, taking a sudden keen interest in the toe
+of her slipper. Chester plunged on.
+
+"But suppose you were the person that another person had said they
+liked, only they really didn't mean like but another word that begins
+with 'l,' do you think that person ought to be very frank and tell you
+that the way he regarded you did not begin 'li' but began 'lo'?"
+
+"I guess so," she said, without abandoning the minute scrutiny of her
+toe.
+
+"Well," said Chester, "that's how I regard you, not with an 'li' but
+with an 'lo.'"
+
+Mildred did not look up.
+
+"Oh, Chester," she murmured. He hitched his chair an inch nearer hers,
+and with a quick, uncertain movement, took hold of her hand. A loud slam
+of the front door caused them both to start.
+
+"It's Dad," whispered Mildred. "And he's mad about something."
+
+Her father, large and red-faced, entered the room.
+
+"Good evening," he said, nodding briefly at Chester.
+
+"Mildred, come into my study a minute, will you. There's something I
+want to talk to you about."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The folding doors closed on father and daughter, and Chester was left
+balancing himself on the edge of a chair.
+
+Mildred's father had a rumbling voice that now and then penetrated the
+folding doors and Chester caught the words "whippersnapper" and
+"callow." He heard, too, Mildred's small, high voice, protesting. She
+was in tears.
+
+Presently Mildred reappeared, lacrimose. "Oh, that nasty, horrid Miss
+Shufelt," she burst out.
+
+"What has she done?" asked Chester.
+
+"The nasty old cat asked Dad to stop in to see her to-night on his way
+home from the office, and she told him the awfulest things about me."
+
+"She did?" Chester's voice was rich with loathing. "I just wish I had
+her here, that's all I wish," he added fiercely.
+
+"She said," went on Mildred, with fresh sobs, "she
+said--I--was--boy--c-c-crazy. And--I--never--studied--and----"
+
+"Darn that woman!" cried Chester.
+
+"And Dad's--going--to--send--me--to--S-Simpson Hall!"
+
+The idea stunned Chester.
+
+"Simpson Hall? Why, that's a boarding school in Massachusetts, miles and
+miles from here," he gasped.
+
+"I know it," said Mildred. "I know a girl who went there. It's a nasty,
+horrid place." A fresh attack of sobs seized her.
+
+"They'll--make--me--do--c-calisthenics,
+and--they--won't--give--me--anything--to--eat--but--b-beans."
+
+Nothing but beans! Mildred eat beans! It was an outrage, a sacrilege.
+
+"He's already written to Simpson Hall," wailed Mildred. "And I have to
+go, Monday."
+
+"Monday? Not Monday? Why, to-day's Friday!" Chester's face became
+resolute; he felt in his inside pocket where his envelope was.
+
+"You _sha'n't_ go," he declared. "You and I will elope to-morrow
+morning."
+
+
+§3
+
+Chester met Mildred aboard the 8:48 train for New York City the next
+morning.
+
+Mildred, clasping a small straw suit-case, had misgivings. But Chester
+reassured her.
+
+"Don't worry, Mildred, please don't worry," he pleaded. "My cousin, Phil
+Snyder, who is at Princeton and knows all about such things, says it's a
+cinch to get married in New York. All you do is walk up to a window, pay
+a dollar, and you're married. And if we can't get married there, we can
+go to Hoboken. Anybody, anybody at all, can get married in Hoboken, Phil
+told me so."
+
+She smiled at him.
+
+"Our wedding day," she said, softly.
+
+"Why are you so pensive?" he asked, after a while.
+
+"I haven't had my breakfast," she said. "I always feel sort of weak and
+funny till I've had my breakfast."
+
+Chester bought several large slabs of nut-studded chocolate from the
+train boy. When they passed Harmon, at Mildred's suggestion he bought a
+package of butter-scotch. Her flagging spirits were revived by these
+repasts. "I could just DIE eating butter-scotch," she said, dimpling.
+
+"We'll always keep some in the house, little woman," Chester promised
+her, mentally adding butter-scotch to the menu of watercress salad, tea,
+ice-cream and an occasional lady-finger.
+
+The human torrent in the Grand Central station whirled the elopers with
+it along the ramp and out under the zodiac dome of the great, busy hall.
+They stood there, wide-eyed. "New York," said Mildred.
+
+"Our New York," said Chester.
+
+He steered a roundabout course for the subway, for he wanted to reach
+the Municipal Building as soon as possible. He had fears, the worldly
+Phil Snyder to the contrary notwithstanding, that he might encounter
+difficulties in getting a marriage license there. And he and Mildred
+would then have to go to Hoboken. He had only a sketchy idea of where
+Hoboken was. And it was then nearly eleven.
+
+But Mildred was not to be hurried.
+
+"Couldn't we have just one little fudge sundae first?" she asked. "I
+haven't had my regular breakfast, you know. And I do feel so sort of
+weak and funny when I haven't had my regular breakfast."
+
+To Schuyler's they went, and consumed precious minutes and two fudge
+sundaes. On the way out, Mildred stopped short.
+
+"Oh, look," she exclaimed, "real New Orleans pralines. I just adore
+them. And you can't get them in Clintonia."
+
+Chester looked at her a little nervously.
+
+"It's getting sort of late," he suggested.
+
+"All right, Mr. Hurry," Mildred pouted, "just you go on to the horrid
+old City Hall by your lonesome. I'm going to stop and have a praline."
+
+Chester capitulated, contritely, so Mildred had two.
+
+They started for the subway which was to take them far down-town to the
+Municipal Building. On Forty-second Street they passed a shiny, white
+edifice in the window of which an artist in immaculate white duck was
+deftly tossing griddle cakes into the air so that they described a
+graceful parabola and flopped on a soapstone griddle where they sizzled
+brownly and crisply. A faint but provoking aroma floated through the
+open door. Mildred's footsteps slackened, then she paused, then she came
+to a dead stop.
+
+"Ummm-mmm! What a heavenly smell!" she said. "Don't you just adore
+griddle cakes?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Chester, a little desperately. "Let's have some for
+lunch. It's twenty-five minutes to twelve. Let's hurry."
+
+"Why, Chester Jessup, you know I haven't had my regular breakfast yet. I
+just couldn't go away down to that old City Hall and get married and
+everything without having had some nourishment. It won't take a minute
+to have a little breakfast."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Chester.
+
+The griddle cakes tasted like rubber to Chester. Mildred ate hers with
+great relish and insisted on having them decorated with country sausage.
+
+"It's so nourishing," she explained. "I could just die eating sausage."
+
+Chester paid the check and forgot to take the change from a two-dollar
+bill.
+
+"I could just die eating sausage. I could just die eating sausage." The
+wheels of the subway train seemed to click to this refrain as it sped
+down-town.
+
+It was nearly one o'clock when the elopers at last reached the Municipal
+Building. They found a sign which read, "MARRIAGE LICENSES. KEEP TO THE
+RIGHT."
+
+With his heart just under his collar button and his dollar grasped
+tightly in his hand, Chester knocked timidly. The door was opened by a
+stout minor politician with a cap on the back of his head.
+
+"I want a marriage license, please," said Chester. He dropped his voice
+a full octave below his normal speaking-tone.
+
+The minor politician blinked at Chester and Mildred. Then he guffawed,
+hoarsely.
+
+"Say," he said, "in the foist place, you'll have to get a little more
+age on yuh, and in the second place, this is Satiddy and this joint
+closes at noon. Come back Thoisday between ten and four about eight
+years from now." He closed the door.
+
+Chester turned miserably to Mildred.
+
+"That means Hoboken," he said.
+
+"I don't care," she said, "as long as I'm with you."
+
+They went out into the canyons of lower Manhattan, in search of the way
+to Hoboken. Their wanderings took them past a restaurant whose windows
+were adorned with vicious-looking, green, live lobsters, scrambling
+about pugnaciously on cakes of ice.
+
+"Oh, LOBSTERS," cried Mildred, her eye brightening. "I've only had
+lobster once in my life. Couldn't you just DIE eating lobster?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Chester, gloomily.
+
+"Couldn't we stop in and have a teeny, weeny bit of lunch?" she asked,
+eyeing the lobsters wistfully. "It makes me feel sort of queer to go on
+long trips without food."
+
+"I'm not hungry," said Chester.
+
+"But I am," said Mildred. They went in.
+
+A superior waiter handed Mildred a large menu card. "May I order just
+anything I want?" she asked eagerly.
+
+"Wouldn't you like some nice watercress salad and some tea and
+lady-fingers?" Chester asked, hopefully.
+
+"Pooh! Why, there's no nourishment in that at all!" Mildred was studying
+the menu card. "I want a great big lobster, and some asparagus. And then
+I want some nice chicken salad with mayonnaise. And then some pistache
+ice-cream. And, oh, yes, a piece of huckleberry pie."
+
+To Chester that lunch seemed the longest experience of his life. It
+seemed to him that no lobster ever looked redder, no mayonnaise
+yellower, no pistache ice-cream greener and no huckleberry pie purpler.
+Mildred ate steadily. Now and then she made little joyful noises of
+approbation.
+
+When lunch was over at last, they started for Hoboken.
+
+"It's a nice pleasant trip by ferry-boat," a policeman told them.
+
+"I don't think I'd care for a boat trip," said Mildred.
+
+"But we have to go to Hoboken," Chester expostulated.
+
+"Couldn't we walk?" she asked.
+
+"No, no, of course we couldn't. It's across the river."
+
+"I feel sort of queer, somehow," said Mildred, faintly.
+
+The North River was choppy from darting tugs and gliding barges as the
+ferry-boat bore the elopers toward the Jersey side. Leaning on the rail,
+Chester gazed morosely at the retreating metropolitan sky-line. Mildred
+plucked at his coat sleeve. He turned and looked at her. Her face was
+pale. "Oh, Chester, I want to go back. I want to go home," she said,
+tearfully.
+
+"Why, Mildred," exclaimed Chester, and for the first time there was
+impatience in his voice, "what's the matter?"
+
+"I'm going to be sick," she said.
+
+She was.
+
+
+§4
+
+"I hate you, Chester Jessup. I hate, hate, HATE you. And I'm going to go
+back," she said, tearfully.
+
+The elopers had never reached Hoboken. Mildred refused to leave the
+ferry-boat and Chester did not urge her. It bore them back to the New
+York side. Their flight to Gretna Green was a failure.
+
+"You take me right home, do you hear?" cried Mildred.
+
+"We can get the 3:59 from the Grand Central," said Chester in an icy
+voice. "That will get you home in time for supper."
+
+"Chester Jessup, you're a nasty, heartless boy to mention supper to me
+when I'm in this condition," said Mildred.
+
+They made the trip from New York back to Clintonia in silence. Chester,
+watching the scenery flow by, was thinking deeply. He was wondering at
+what age young men are admitted to monasteries. He left Mildred at her
+house.
+
+"Good night, Mr. Jessup," she said, coolly.
+
+"Good night, Miss Wrigley," said Chester, and stalked home.
+
+"Where have you been all day?" demanded his mother.
+
+"Oh, just around," said Chester.
+
+"Why weren't you home for lunch?"
+
+"I wasn't hungry," said Chester.
+
+"And we had the best things, too. Just what you like--chicken salad with
+mayonnaise, and deep-dish huckleberry pie."
+
+Chester shivered. "I don't think I'll take any supper to-night," he
+said.
+
+"Why, what ails you, anyhow?" asked his mother, solicitously. "We're
+going to have such a nice supper. Your father brought home a couple of
+lobsters. And afterward we're going to have pistache ice-cream, and
+lady-fingers."
+
+"Good Heavens, Mother, I guess I know when I'm not hungry. There are
+other things in life besides food, aren't there?"
+
+"Like being in love, for example?" suggested his sister Hilda.
+
+"I'm not in love," declared Chester, vehemently.
+
+"How would you like to have me tell Mildred Wrigley you said that?"
+asked Hilda.
+
+"I just wish you would," said Chester, "I just wish you would."
+
+"By the way," remarked Mr. Jessup, "I met Tom Wrigley to-day and he said
+he was sending that girl of his off to boarding school at Simpson Hall."
+
+"Oh, is he?" said Mrs. Jessup. "Chester, did you hear what your father
+said?"
+
+"Yes, I did," said Chester, "and all I can say is that I hope she gets
+enough to eat."
+
+
+
+
+X: _Terrible Epps_
+
+
+§1
+
+The blue prints and specifications in the case of Tidbury Epps follow:
+
+Age: the early thirties.
+
+Status: bachelor.
+
+Habitat: Mrs. Kelty's Refined Boarding House, Brooklyn.
+
+Occupation: a lesser clerk in the wholesale selling department of
+Spingle & Blatter, Nifty Straw Hattings. See Advts.
+
+Appearance: that of a lesser clerk. Weight: feather. Nose: stub. Eyes:
+apologetic. Teeth: obvious. Figure: brief. Manner: diffident. Nature:
+kind. Disposition: amiable but subdued.
+
+Conspicuous vices: none.
+
+Conspicuous virtues: none.
+
+Distinguishing marks: none.
+
+Tidbury was no Napoleon. He was aware of this, and so was everybody in
+the hat company, including, unfortunately, Titus Spingle, the president,
+who felt that he knew a thing or two about Bonapartes because he had
+once been referred to in a straw-hat trade paper as the Napoleon of
+Hatdom.
+
+Mildly, as he did everything else in life, Tidbury admired, indeed
+almost envied Mr. Spingle's silk shirts, which customarily suggested an
+explosion in a paint factory. But such sartorial grandeur, Tidbury
+felt, was not for him. He stuck to plain white shirts, dark blue ties
+and pepper-and-salt suits. The pepper-and-salt suit was invented for
+Tidbury Epps.
+
+Tidbury worked diligently and even cheerfully on a high stool and a low
+salary, copying neat little black figures into big black books. The
+salary and the stool were the same Tidbury had been given when he first
+came to New York from Calais, Maine, ten years before.
+
+It probably never entered his head, as he bent over his columns of
+digits that crisp fall morning, that in their sanctum of real mahogany
+and Spanish leather his employers were discussing him.
+
+"Whitaker has quit," announced Mr. Blatter, who acted as sales manager.
+
+Mr. Spingle's acre of face, pink and dimpled from much good living,
+showed concern.
+
+"How come you can't keep an assistant, Otto?" he inquired.
+
+"After they've been with me for six months," explained Mr. Blatter
+modestly, "they get so good that they simply have to get better jobs."
+
+"Well, got any candidates for the place?" queried the president.
+
+"Burdette?" suggested Mr. Blatter.
+
+Mr. Spingle eliminated Burdette with a flick of his finger.
+
+"Too young," he said.
+
+"Wetsel?"
+
+"Too old."
+
+"Fitch?"
+
+"Too careless."
+
+"Hydeman?"
+
+"Too inexperienced."
+
+"Well," ventured Mr. Blatter, "what about Tidbury Epps?"
+
+Mr. Spingle's shrug included his shoulders, face and entire body.
+
+"He's neither too old, too young, too careless nor too inexperienced,"
+advanced Mr. Blatter.
+
+"You're not serious, Otto?"
+
+"Sure I am. Epps has been with us ten years and he's worked hard. I
+believe in giving our old employees a chance."
+
+"So do I," rejoined the Napoleon of Hatdom; "but you know perfectly
+well, Otto, that Tidbury Epps is a dud."
+
+"He's as conscientious as a Pilgrim father," remarked Mr. Blatter.
+
+"That's the trouble with him," snorted Mr. Spingle.
+
+"He spends so much time being conscientious that he hasn't time to be
+anything else. Not that I object to a man having a conscience,
+y'understand. But Epps hasn't anything else. You know how it is in the
+hat trade, Otto; you've got to be a good fellow."
+
+Mr. Spingle paused to pat his silken bosom, in hue reminiscent of sunset
+in the Grand Cañon. That he was a good fellow, a _bon vivant_, even, was
+generally admitted in the hat trade.
+
+"You see," went on the Napoleon of Hatdom, "your assistant has to be
+nice to the trade. That's almost his chief job. Remember the motto of
+our house is, 'Our business friends are our personal friends.' That's
+meant a lot to us, Otto. Now and then you've simply got to take a big
+buyer out and show him a good time--buy him a meal and take him to the
+Winter Garden. You and I are mostly too busy to do it, but your
+assistant isn't. Whitaker made us a lot of good friends, and good
+customers, too, because he was a regular fella and knew the ropes. But
+can you imagine old Epps giving a party?"
+
+Mr. Blatter was forced to admit that he couldn't.
+
+"But he's so willing," he argued.
+
+"Oh, sure," agreed Mr. Spingle; "and sober and industrious and stands
+without hitching and all that. But he's too much of a hermit. No more
+personality than a parsnip. No spirit. No nerve. No fire. No zip. Sorry
+I can't jump him up; he may be a good man, but he's not a good fellow."
+
+"I suppose it will have to be Hydeman, then," remarked Mr. Blatter,
+rising. "He's a little too slick and flip to suit me, and we don't know
+much about him, but I suppose he'd know how to show a buyer Broadway."
+
+"I'll bet he would," said Mr. Spingle. "Try him out. But watch his
+expense account, Otto."
+
+So Tidbury Epps continued to enjoy his high stool and his low salary and
+to copy endless little figures into big black books. His shoulders
+drooped a little when he heard of Hydeman's quick promotion, but he said
+nothing.
+
+Messrs. Spingle and Blatter, being interested solely in what went on
+outside men's heads, did not attempt to find out what was wrong with
+Tidbury Epps. But had a psychoanalyst peered darkly into the interior of
+Tidbury's small round cranium he would have instantly noted that Mr.
+Epps was suffering from a bad case of inferiority complex, complicated
+by an acute attack of Puritanical complex.
+
+If anybody was to blame for this it was not Tidbury himself but his Aunt
+Elvira, who, with the aid of a patented cat-o'-nine-tails she had sent
+all the way to Chicago for, willow switches from her own back yard, and
+an edged tongue that cut worse than either, had confined his juvenile
+steps to a very straight and exceedingly narrow path by the simple
+process of lambasting him roundly whenever he so much as glanced to the
+right or to the left.
+
+Aunt Elvira was a lean woman with no digestion to speak of, and the
+chief tenet of her philosophy was that whatever is enjoyable is sinful.
+She impressed this creed on young Tidbury with her thin but sinewy arm,
+until one day while castigating him violently for laughing at a comic
+supplement that the groceries had come in she succumbed to an excess of
+virtue and a broken blood vessel.
+
+Tidbury promptly came to New York with two suits of flannel underwear
+and many suppressed desires, and went soberly to work in the hat
+company. His subsequent life was as empty of adventure, variety, sin or
+success as the life of a Hubbard squash. His job wholly absorbed him.
+The little figures in the big books became his only world. He had never
+learned to play.
+
+Yet people liked Tidbury, even while they thought him kin to the snail.
+He had a quiet twinkle in his eye and he took over mean jobs and night
+work without a peep of protest. It was his willingness to take on
+overtime work, and his quiet competence that first attracted the
+approving eye of Mr. Blatter. But Mr. Blatter had to admit that Mr.
+Spingle had diagnosed the case of Tidbury Epps all too accurately;
+Tidbury was indubitably, incurably a dud; and that is worse than being a
+dub. If any latent fire lurked beneath that pepper-and-salt bosom no one
+had ever glimpsed so much as a spark of it. Tidbury never lived up to
+that twinkle in his eye.
+
+One would have said that Tidbury was as inconspicuous as an oyster in a
+fifteen-cent stew, and yet love, mysterious, ubiquitous love, found him
+out and laid him violently by the heels.
+
+It was the round black eyes of Martha Ritter, the new girl at the
+information desk, and the way she cocked her head on one side when she
+smiled, that first brought to Tidbury the alarming realization that his
+heart was something more than a pump.
+
+She was an alert little thing who would have been teaching school in her
+native Ohio village of Granville had not the glittering metropolitan
+magnet drawn her to it as every year it draws ten thousand Martha
+Ritters from ten thousand Granvilles.
+
+She smiled at Tidbury one day as he registered his punctual arrival on
+the time clock, and a sudden strange warmth was kindled under his
+pepper-and-salt coat. Tidbury knew that it was wicked to feel so good,
+but he couldn't help it. Love laughs at complexes.
+
+He saw her home; he called on her; he brought her salted peanuts; he
+took her to a concert in Central Park; he kept her picture on his
+washstand. But, characteristically, Tidbury as a lover was no volcano of
+imperious emotion. He was no aggressive bark, battling fiercely against
+wind and wave; he was a chip, floating with the tide. Matrimony, with
+Martha, was a desirable but distant shore; he would drift there in time.
+But Martha Ritter, who had more than a dash of romance in her, did not
+think much of this sort of courting.
+
+The last time he had been with her--they had gone to the Aquarium to
+view the fishes--pent-up protest had burst from her, and she had
+exclaimed, "Oh, Tidbury, you are so--so quiet!"
+
+The words had jolted him; he had said them over to himself uncounted
+times, and had pondered over them; indeed he was trying to keep from
+thinking of them as he bent over his task the day they made Hydeman
+assistant to the sales manager. Tidbury had noticed lately that Martha
+talked about Mr. Hydeman a great deal; she had mentioned his polished
+finger-nails; she had suggested that Tidbury would do well to get one of
+those high-lapeled, snug-waisted suits that Mr. Hydeman affected; she
+had quoted some of Mr. Hydeman's witticisms, and had retailed some
+incidents from his highly colored life. In short, she appeared to have
+taken a sudden acute interest in Mr. Hydeman.
+
+Tidbury Epps could not drive from his mind the disquieting thought that
+Mr. Hydeman as a rival would be dangerous. In the washroom Mr. Hydeman
+made no secret of his finesse as a Don Juan. He was everything that
+Tidbury was not--dashing, worldly, confident. There was something about
+his smooth black hair, held in place by a shiny gummy substance,
+something about the angle at which he tilted his short-brimmed hat,
+something about the way his tight little knot of brilliant tie fitted
+into his modishly low collar, something about the way he filliped the
+ash from his cigarette so that one could see the diamond twinkle on his
+finger--that carried a subtle suggestion of sophistication and an
+adventurous nature.
+
+That morning they had entered together--Tidbury and Mr. Hydeman--and
+Tidbury, with icy fingers gripping his heart, had noted that Martha
+bestowed on Mr. Hydeman a smile with a lingering personal note in it,
+while her greeting to Tidbury was a curt formal nod. His bitter cup was
+full, and for the first time in his life he gave way to the pangs of
+jealousy when, at noontime, he saw Mr. Hydeman take her to lunch.
+Tidbury came upon them, talking and laughing together, and Martha made
+not the slightest attempt to conceal her interest in the suave new
+assistant to the sales manager; she was open, even brazen about it.
+
+Tidbury was moodily copying figures and trying not to heed the fact that
+the green-eyed monster was clutching him with torturing talons when Mr.
+Hydeman came up to his desk and prodded him playfully in the ribs.
+
+"Well, old Tid," remarked Mr. Hydeman, "I'll bet you wish you were going
+to be in my shoes to-night."
+
+Tidbury looked up from his work.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+For answer Mr. Hydeman thrust two tickets beneath Tidbury's stub of
+nose. With only a vague comprehension Tidbury glanced at what was
+printed on them.
+
+                            ADMIT ONE
+
+                          THE PAGAN ROUT
+
+                ALL GREENWICH VILLAGE WILL BE THERE
+
+                           WEBBER HALL
+
+           ONLY PERSONS IN COSTUME ADMITTED. DON'T MISS
+               THE DARING GARDEN OF EDEN BALLET AND
+                        MASQUE AT FOUR A.M.
+
+"Are you a Greenwich Villager?" asked Tidbury.
+
+Mr. Hydeman smiled at the note of horror in Tidbury's voice.
+
+"Oh, I hang out down there," he admitted airily.
+
+"And you're going to the Pagan Rout?"
+
+Even into the seclusion of Calais, Maine, and Mrs. Kelty's, rumors of
+that revel had filtered.
+
+"I never miss one," replied Mr. Hydeman grandly. "And say, I've a
+costume this year that's a knockout."
+
+"You have?"
+
+"Yes. I've got a preacher's outfit. Can you imagine me a parson?"
+
+Weakly Tidbury said he couldn't.
+
+"And say," went on Mr. Hydeman, lowering his voice to a confidential
+whisper, "I'll have a flask of hip oil on me."
+
+"Hip oil?"
+
+"Sure. Diamond juice."
+
+"Diamond juice?"
+
+"Aw, hooch. For me and the gal."
+
+"The girl?" quavered Tidbury.
+
+"Say," demanded Mr. Hydeman, "did you think I was going to take a
+hippopotamus with me?"
+
+Tidbury's small face was pathetic.
+
+"You don't know what you're missing, Tid," Mr. Hydeman rattled on. "It's
+a real naughty party. Those costumes! Oh, bebe." Mr. Hydeman rolled his
+eyes toward the roof and blew thither a kiss. "Last year there was a
+Cleopatra there and she didn't have a thing on her but a pair of----"
+
+"The cashier's waiting for these figures," mumbled Mr. Epps. "I've got
+to go to him."
+
+He heard Hydeman's sniggle of laughter behind him.
+
+That evening the desperate Tidbury met Martha Ritter as she was leaving
+the hat company's building.
+
+"May I come to see you to-night?" he asked, trying not to stammer, and
+hoping his ears were not as red as they felt. "There's a nice band
+concert in Prospect Park and I thought----"
+
+Martha Ritter cocked her head to one side and smiled mysteriously.
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Epps," she said coolly, "but I have an engagement."
+
+"You--have--an--engagement?" He repeated the words as if they were a
+prison sentence.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Oh, it's a masquerade." She smiled, her head on one side.
+
+"Whom are you going with?" he blurted; he was trembling.
+
+"That would be telling," she laughed. "Well, good night, Mr. Epps. I
+must hurry home and get my costume on. I'm going as a gypsy."
+
+And she disappeared into the maw of the Subway.
+
+A masquerade! In gypsy costume! Tidbury was struck by the lightning of
+complete realization; he understood Hydeman's leer now. Feebly he leaned
+against a lamp-post until his numbed brain could recover from the
+impact. Then he committed a sin. Deliberately he kicked the lamp-post a
+vicious kick.
+
+"Darn it all," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Yes, gosh darn it
+all!"
+
+Then he went wearily to his boarding house. Morosely he ate of Mrs.
+Kelty's boiled beef and bread pudding; morosely he sat in his lonely
+stall of a bedroom and glowered at a hole in the red carpet.
+
+"I'm too quiet. Too darn quiet," he kept saying to himself in a sort of
+litany. "Yes, too gosh darn quiet."
+
+And when he thought of Martha, sweet simple Martha, and so short a time
+ago his Martha, at the Pagan Rout with Hydeman, surrounded by indecorous
+and no doubt inebriate denizens of Greenwich Village, his head all but
+burst. That she was lost, and, most poignant thought of all, lost to
+him, kept beating in upon his brain. He moaned.
+
+Suddenly his spine straightened with a terrible resolve. His small
+guileless face was set in lines of stern decision. He leaped from his
+chair, dived under his brass bed, rummaged in his trunk and fished up
+twenty-five hard-saved dollars in a sock.
+
+Clapping his hat on his head in emulation of the tilt of Mr. Hydeman's
+hat Tidbury issued forth. In the hall he passed Mrs. Kelty, who regarded
+him with some surprise.
+
+"You're not going out, Mr. Epps?" she asked. "Why, it's after nine!"
+
+"I am going out, Mrs. Kelty," announced Tidbury Epps.
+
+"Back soon?"
+
+"I may never come back," he answered hollowly.
+
+"Sakes alive! Where are you going?"
+
+"I am going," said Tidbury Epps firmly, "to the devil."
+
+And he strode into the night.
+
+
+§2
+
+Never having gone to the devil before, Mr. Epps was somewhat perplexed
+in mind as to the direction he should take. But a moment's reflection
+convinced him that Greenwich Village was the most promising place for
+such a pilgrimage. He had never been there before; he had been afraid to
+go there. Startling stories of the gay profligacy rampant in that angle
+of old New York had reached his ears. He believed firmly that if the
+devil has any headquarters in New York they are somewhere below
+Fourteenth Street and west of Washington Square.
+
+Mr. Epps debouched from a bus in Washington Square and started westward
+along West Fourth Street with the cautious but determined tread of an
+explorer penetrating a trackless and cannibal-infested jungle. He
+glanced apprehensively to right and left, his eyes wide for the sight of
+painted sirens, his ears agape for gusts of ribald merriment. At each
+corner he paused expectantly, anticipating that he might come upon a
+delirious party of art students gamboling about a model. He traversed
+two blocks without seeing so much as a smock; what he did see was an
+ancient man of Italian derivation carrying a bag of charcoal on his
+head, and a stout woman wheeling twins stuffed uncomfortably into a
+single-seater gocart, and a number of nondescript humans who from their
+sedate air might well have been Brooklyn funeral directors. He owned,
+after a bit, to a certain sense of disappointment. Going to the devil
+was more of a chore than he had fancied.
+
+As he trekked ever westward a sound at length smote his dilated ears and
+made him catch his breath. It was issuing from a dim-lit basement, and
+was filtering through batik curtains stenciled with strange, smeary
+beasts. He had heard the wild, dissipated notes of a mechanical piano. A
+lurid but somewhat inexpertly lettered sign above the basement door
+read,
+
+                            YE AMIABLE OYSTER
+
+                         REFRESHMINTS AT ALL HRS.
+
+With a newborn boldness Tidbury Epps thrust open the door and entered.
+No shower of confetti, no popping of corks, no rousing stein song
+greeted him. Save for the industrious piano the place seemed empty.
+However, by the feeble beams that came from the lights, bandaged in
+batik like so many sore thumbs, he discerned a mountainous matron behind
+a cash register, engaged in tatting.
+
+"Where's everybody?" he asked of her.
+
+"Oh, things will liven up after a bit," she yawned.
+
+Tidbury sat at a small bright blue table and scanned a card affixed to
+the wall.
+
+    Angel's Ambrosia ........ $0.50
+    Horse's Neck ............   .60
+    Devil's Delight .........   .70
+    Dry Martini .............   .50
+    Very dry Martini ........   .60
+    Very, very dry Martini ..   .90
+    Champagne Sizzle ........   .75
+
+A sleepy waiter with a soup-stained vest came from the inner room
+presently.
+
+"Gimme a Devil's Delight," ordered Tidbury Epps recklessly.
+
+He had heard that Greenwich Village, the untrammeled, laughs openly in
+the teeth of the Eighteenth Amendment. He had never in his life tasted
+an alcoholic drink, but to-night he was stopping at nothing. The Devil's
+Delight came, and Tidbury as he sipped its pink saccharinity found
+himself feeling that the devil is rather easily delighted. He had
+expected the potion to make his head buzz; but it did not. Instead it
+distinctly suggested rather weak and not very superior strawberry sirup
+and carbonated water. He crooked a summoning finger at the waiter.
+
+"Horse's Neck," he commanded.
+
+The Horse's Neck made its appearance, an insipid-looking amber fluid
+with a wan piece of lemon peel floating shamefacedly on its surface.
+
+"Tastes just like ginger ale to me," remarked Mr. Epps. "Wadjuh expeck
+in a Horse's Neck?" queried the waiter bellicosely. "Chloride of lime?"
+
+"I can't feel it at all," complained Mr. Epps.
+
+"Feel it?" The waiter raised his brows. "Say, what do you think this
+joint is? A dump? We ain't bootleggers, mister."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Epps.
+
+He was about to go elsewhere, when a babel of excited voices outside the
+door made him sink back into his chair; evidently the promise of the
+tatting matron was to be made good, and Ye Amiable Oyster was about to
+liven up.
+
+The first thing that entered the door was an animal--a full-size, shaggy
+anthropoid ape, big as a man. Mr. Epps was too alarmed to bolt. But as
+the creature careened into the light Mr. Epps observed that his face was
+human and slightly Hibernian. Behind him came a girl, rather sketchily
+dressed for autumn in a pair of bead portieres, a girdle or two, and a
+gilt plaster bird, which was bound firmly to her head. Mr. Epps had seen
+things like her on cigarette boxes. A second couple followed, hilarious.
+The man wore a tight velvet suit, a sombrero several yards around, black
+mustaches of prodigious length and bristle that did not match the red of
+his hair, and earrings the size of cantaloupes; it was not clear whether
+he was intended to be a pirate or an organ grinder or a compromise
+between the two; but it was clear that he was in a state where it did
+not matter, to him, in the least. His companion wore a precarious
+garment of dry grass, and her arms were stained brown; at intervals she
+conveyed the information to the general atmosphere that she was a bimbo
+from a bamboo isle.
+
+The four, after an impromptu ring-around-a-rosie, collapsed into chairs
+near the wide-eyed Epps. Fascinated he stared at them--the first
+authentic natives of Greenwich Village on whom his cloistered eye had
+ever rested.
+
+"Ginger ale," bawled the ape.
+
+It was brought. The ape dipping into a fold in his anatomy brought to
+light a capacious flask, kissed it solemnly, and poured its contents
+into the glasses of the others.
+
+"Jake, that sure is the real old stuff," said the girl in the grass
+dress.
+
+"Made it m'sef," said the ape proudly. "Y'see, I took dozen apricots,
+and ten pounds sugar, and some yeast and some raisins, and mixed 'em in
+a jug, and added water and----"
+
+"That's nine times we heard all about that," interrupted the pirate or
+organ grinder. "Better be careful, anyhow. Mebbe that guy is a revnoo
+officer."
+
+They all turned to stare at Mr. Epps.
+
+"Of course he ain't 'nofficer, Ed," protested the ape, surveying Tidbury
+with care. "He's got too kind a face. You ain't 'nofficer, are you?"
+
+"No," said Tidbury.
+
+"What did I tell yuh?" cried the ape, triumphantly, to his companions.
+"Shove up your chair, old sport, and have a drink with us. You look like
+a live one. I like your face."
+
+Thus bidden, Tidbury, with an air of abandon, joined the group. The ape
+named Jake tilted his flask over Tidbury's spiritless Horse's Neck with
+such vehement good-fellowship that a gush of pungent brown fluid spurted
+from the container. Tidbury downed the mixture at a gulp; it made tears
+start to his eyes and a conflagration flame up in his brain.
+
+"Howzit?" demanded Jake the ape.
+
+"'Sgoo'," answered Tidbury warmly.
+
+"Have 'nuther. Got plenty," said Jake, producing a second flask from
+another recess in his shaggy skin. "I like your face."
+
+"Don't care if I do," said Tidbury nonchalantly.
+
+The lights in the near-café were very bright, the voices very high, the
+conversation exquisitely witty, the mechanical piano a symphonic
+rhapsody, and the heart of Tidbury Epps was pumping with wild, unwonted
+pumps; he smiled to himself. He was going to the devil at a great rate.
+He waxed loquacious. He told them anecdotes; he even sang a little.
+
+He beamed upon Jake, and playfully plucked a tuft of hair from his
+costume.
+
+"Nice li'l' monkey," he said affably.
+
+"Not a monkey!" denied Jake indignantly.
+
+"Wad are you? S-s-schimpaz-z-ze-e-e?"
+
+"Nope. Not a S-s-schimpaz-z-ze-e-e."
+
+"Ran-tan?"
+
+"Nope. Not a ran-tan."
+
+"Bamboo?"
+
+"Nope. Not a bamboo."
+
+"Well, wad are you?"
+
+Jake thumped his hairy chest proudly.
+
+"I'm a griller," he explained.
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Epps, satisfied. "A griller. Of course! Is it hard work?"
+
+"Work?" cried Jake. "Say, this ain't my real skin. It's a 'sguise."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Epps. "So you're 'sguised? Wad did you do?"
+
+"Careful, Jake," the organ grinder or pirate warned. "He may be a revnoo
+officer."
+
+The gorilla turned on him angrily.
+
+"Lookahere, Ed Peterson, how dare you pass remarks like that about my
+ole friend, Mr. ---- What is your name, anyhow? Of course he ain't no
+revnofficer? Are you?"
+
+"I'll fight anybody who says I am," declared Tidbury Epps, glaring
+fiercely around at the empty chairs and tables.
+
+"You a fighter?" inquired the gorilla, in a voice in which awe,
+admiration and alcohol mingled.
+
+Mr. Epps contracted his brow and narrowed his eyes.
+
+"Yep," he said impressively. "I'm Terrible Battling Epps. I'd rather
+fight than eat." He turned sternly to the gorilla. "Why are you
+'sguised? Wad did you do?"
+
+"Why, you poor nut," put in the girl in the beads, "we're going to the
+Pagan Rout."
+
+"Sure, that's it," chimed in Jake. "Goin' to the Pagan Row. Come on
+along, Terrible."
+
+"Aw, I'm tired of Pagan Routs," said Mr. Epps loftily. But the
+suggestion speeded up the pumpings of his heart.
+
+"Oh, do come!" urged the girl in the beads.
+
+"Ain't got no 'sguise," said Mr. Epps. He was wavering.
+
+"Aw, come on!" cried the gorilla, clapping him on the shoulder till his
+teeth rattled. "Proud to have you with us, Terrible. I know a live one
+when I see one. Come on along. You'll see a lot of your friends there."
+
+His friends? Tidbury thought of Martha.
+
+"If I only had a 'sguise----" he began.
+
+"You can get one round at Steinbock's, on Seventh Avenue," promptly
+informed the organ grinder-pirate. "That is," he added with sudden
+suspicion, "if you ain't one of these here revnofficers."
+
+"S-s-s-s-sh, Ed," cautioned Jake, the gorilla. "Do you want Terrible
+Battling Epps to take a poke at you?"
+
+Tidbury had made up his mind.
+
+"I'll go," he announced.
+
+"Good!" exclaimed the gorilla delightedly. "Atta boy! Glad to have a
+real N'Yawk sport with us. Meet you at Webber Hall, Terrible."
+
+"Webber Hall? Wherezat?" inquired Tidbury as he sought to negotiate the
+door.
+
+"Well," confessed the gorilla, "I dunno 'zactly m'sef. Y'see, I'm from
+Kansas City m'sef. In the lid game, I am. Biggest firm west of the
+Mizzizippi. Last year we sold----"
+
+"Aw, stop selling and tell Terrible how to get to Webber Hall," put in
+the girl in the beads; she appeared to be the gorilla's wife.
+
+"Well," said Jake, thoughtfully rubbing his fuzzy head, "far as I
+remember, you go out to the square and you go straight along till you
+get to the L and you turn to the right----"
+
+"Left!" interjected the organ grinder-pirate.
+
+"Right," repeated the gorilla firmly. "And then you turn down another
+street--no, you don't--you go straight on till you see a dentist's sign,
+a big gold tooth, with 'Gee, it didn't hurt a bit at Dr. B. Schmuck's
+Parlors,' painted on it, and you turn to your right----"
+
+"Left," corrected the pirate-organ grinder sternly.
+
+"Waz difference?" went on the gorilla blandly. "Well, as I was saying,
+you turn to the right or left and then you go along three or four
+blocks, and then you turn to your left----"
+
+"Right, I tell you!" roared the man in velvet.
+
+"Oh, well, you go along until you come to a corner and you turn it and
+go down a little bit, and there you are!"
+
+"Where am I?" Mr. Epps, posing against the door, asked.
+
+"Webber Hall," said Jake. "Pagan Row."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Epps.
+
+"Didn't you follow me?"
+
+"Of course I followed you."
+
+"Good. See you at the party, Terrible. You're hot stuff."
+
+"I'll be there. G'night."
+
+"G'night, Terrible, old scout."
+
+
+§3
+
+Mr. Epps emerged from Ye Amiable Oyster, walking with elaborate but
+difficult dignity. He had only a remote idea where he was, but he knew
+where he wanted to go--Steinbock's on Seventh Avenue. So with a temerity
+quite foreign to him he stepped up briskly to the first passing
+pedestrian and asked, "Say, frien', where's Sebble Abloo?"
+
+The man accosted puckered a puzzled brow.
+
+"I don't get you, frien'," he said.
+
+"Sebble Abloo!" repeated Mr. Epps loudly, thinking the stranger's
+hearing might be defective.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Sebble Abloo!" roared Mr. Epps.
+
+The man shook his head as one giving up a conundrum.
+
+"Sebble Abloo," repeated Mr. Epps at the top of his voice "Look." He
+held up his fingers and counted them off. "One, two, sree, four, fi',
+sizz, sebble. Sebble Abloo!"
+
+"Oh, Seventh Avenue. Why didn't you say so in the first place?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"I'm going that way. I'll show you."
+
+The stranger steered Tidbury through a rabbit warren of streets--the
+Greenwich Village streets never have made up their minds where they are
+going--and started him, with a gentle push, up Seventh Avenue.
+
+Presently by some miracle Tidbury stumbled upon Steinbock's, and pushed
+his way into a jumble of masks, wigs, helmets and assorted junk, till he
+approached a patriarch in a skullcap, hidden behind a Niagara of white
+beard.
+
+"'Lo, ole fel'," said Mr. Epps affably. "What are you 'sguised as? Sandy
+Claws or a cough drop?"
+
+"Did you wish something?" inquired the patriarch coldly.
+
+"Sure," said Tidbury. "Gimme 'sguise for Pagon Row."
+
+"Cash in advance," said the patriarch. "What sort of costume?"
+
+Tidbury considered.
+
+"Wadjuh got?"
+
+The venerable Steinbock enumerated rapidly, "Bear, bandit, policeman,
+Turk, golliwog, ballet girl, kewpie, pantaloon, Uncle Sam, tramp, diver,
+Lord Fauntleroy, devil----"
+
+The ears of Mr. Epps twitched at the last word.
+
+"Devil?"
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Steinbock; "a swell rig; nice red suit; hasn't been worn
+a dozen times." He leaned forward toward Tidbury and whispered, "And
+I'll throw in a brand-new pair of horns and a tail!"
+
+"I'll take it!" cried Tidbury. "Where can I hang my pants?"
+
+After an interval there emerged from the depths of the Steinbock
+establishment a small uncertain figure muffled in an old raincoat. The
+coat was short and from beneath it protruded bright red legs and a
+generous length of red tail, with a spike on the end of it that gave
+forth sharp metallic sounds as it bumped along the pavement. A derby hat
+concealed one horn, but the other was visible; the face was
+Mephistophelian in its general character, but softened and rounded--the
+countenance of a rather amiable minor devil.
+
+Tidbury Epps paused on a street corner to get his bearings. He had read
+somewhere that woodsmen, lost in the forest, can find the points of the
+compass because moss always grows on the north side of trees. He was
+carefully investigating a lamp-post for a trace of moss when a
+beady-eyed urchin approached him with outthrust hand.
+
+"Give us one, mister?"
+
+"One what?"
+
+"A sample."
+
+"Sample of what?"
+
+"Ain't you advertising something?"
+
+Tidbury drew himself up.
+
+"No," he said with dignity. "How do I get to Wazzington Square?"
+
+"Aw, chee," the urchin said in disgust, "you're one of them artist guys!
+Washington Square is two blocks south and three blocks west."
+
+With every corpuscle in his small frame aglow with an excitement he had
+never before experienced Tidbury Epps started in determined search of
+the Pagan Rout. A grim purpose had been forming in his brain. So Martha
+Ritter thought he was quiet, eh? Hydeman had sniggered at him, had he?
+Just wait till Terrible Battling Epps reached the ball and discovered
+the well-fed person of Mr. Hydeman in clerical garb. There would be
+fireworks, he promised himself. No one was going to steal the girl of
+Terrible Epps and get away with it.
+
+These, and thoughts of a similar trend, reeled through the brain of
+Tidbury as he hurried with a series of skips and now and then a short
+sprint along the curbstone.
+
+So busy did he become planning a dramatic descent on Hydeman that he
+forgot the directions of the urchin, and soon found himself hopelessly
+astray in an eel tangle of streets, as he repeated, "Two blocks wes' and
+three blocks souse. Or was it three blocks souse and two blocks wes'?"
+
+Gripping his tail firmly in his hand he tried both plans. Passers-by
+eyed him with the blasé curiosity of New Yorkers, as he passed at a dog
+trot.
+
+Sometimes they nudged each other and remarked, "Artist. Goin' to this
+here Pagan Rout. Pretty snootful, too. Lucky stiff."
+
+No one ventured to impede his slightly erratic progress; after half an
+hour of wandering he stopped, mopped his brow and observed, "Ought to be
+there by now."
+
+As he said this he saw two figures across the street, two ladies of
+mature mold, picking their way along. It was their garb which made him
+give a shout of triumph and follow them. For one, who was fat, was
+dressed as a colonial dame with powdered hair, and the other, who was
+fatter, was a forty-year-old edition of Little Red Riding Hood; her hair
+was in pigtails, but she was discreetly skirted to the ankle bones. He
+followed these masqueraders with the wary steps of an Indian stalking a
+moose, until they turned into the basement of a towering building of
+brick, from which issued the melodic scraping of fiddles and the
+pleasing bleating of horns. His heart skipped a beat. The Pagan Rout!
+The devil's doorway.
+
+Tidbury Epps shucked off his raincoat and derby hat, tossed them at a
+fire hydrant, put on his mask, dropped his tail, squared his red
+shoulders, knotted up his small fists, drew in a deep breath and plunged
+into the hall. So engrossed was he in these preparations that he failed
+to note a home-made poster nailed outside the door. It read:
+
+                          COME ONE, COME ALL
+                 THE LADIES' AID SOCIETY WILL GIVE A
+                            COSTUME PARTY
+                               IN THE
+                       CHURCH BASEMENT TO-NIGHT
+
+With a rolling gait Tidbury Epps entered the hall. Figures eddied about
+him in a dance, and, somewhat surprised, Tidbury noted that it was very
+like the old-fashioned waltzes he had seen in Calais, Maine. The
+waltzers evidently regarded dancing as a business of the utmost
+seriousness; their lips, beneath their dominoes, were rigid and severe,
+save when they counted softly but audibly, "One, two, three, turn. One,
+two, three, turn." In vain Tidbury searched the room for Jake the
+gorilla, the beaded lady, the organ-grinding pirate and the bimbo from
+the bamboo isle. He concluded that Jake's flasks had been too much for
+them. And he saw no gypsy or Hydeman. Indeed, as he watched the
+restrained and sober waltzers he could not escape the conviction that
+the Pagan Rout, for an institution so widely known for impropriety, was
+singularly decent in the matter of costume. There were Priscillas in
+ample skirts, farmerettes in baggy overalls, milkmaids in Mother
+Hubbards, Pilgrim fathers, sailors, and Chinese in voluminous kimonos.
+Tidbury, a little dazed in a corner, began to think that he had
+overestimated the glamour of sin.
+
+He perceived that the obese Red Riding Hood was standing at his elbow,
+gazing at him with some curiosity.
+
+He lurched toward her, and administered a slap of good-fellowship on her
+plump shoulder.
+
+"'Lo, cutie," he remarked in accents slightly blurred. "Where's
+Cleopotter?"
+
+The lady gave vent to a squeal of surprise.
+
+"Sir," she said, "I do not know Miss Potter."
+
+She sniffed the atmosphere in the vicinity of Mr. Epps, gave a little
+cluck of horror, and scurried away like a duck from a hawk.
+
+The eyes of Mr. Epps followed her flight and he saw that she headed
+straight for a man who sat in a distant corner of the hall; the man was
+masked, but Tidbury felt every muscle in his five feet three inches of
+body stiffen as he saw that the man in the corner wore the garb of the
+clergy. Hydeman!
+
+Red Riding Hood whispered in his ear and pointed an accusing finger
+toward Tidbury; the man in the corner gazed earnestly at the diminutive
+red devil teetering on red hoofs. By now Tidbury had spied another
+figure, sitting next to the masked preacher. She was a gypsy. And as she
+gazed at her companion she cocked her head to one side.
+
+With tail bouncing along the floor after him Tidbury started briskly in
+their direction at a lope. Within a yard of them he reined himself down,
+and stood, with a hand on either hip, glaring at the cleric and the
+gypsy.
+
+Hydeman stood up. He seemed larger, rounder than the assistant to the
+sales manager known to Tidbury in business hours, but the fierce fire of
+jealousy burned within Mr. Epps--and he was not to be daunted by size.
+
+"So it's you, is it?" he remarked with biting emphasis.
+
+"Naturally," said the man. "Whom did you expect it to be?"
+
+His voice had a soft sweet note in it, not at all like the sharp
+staccato of Hydeman's crisp business New Yorkese.
+
+"He's making fun of me," said Tidbury, and the spirit of Terrible
+Battling Epps wholly possessed him.
+
+"You thought I was a dead one, eh?" remarked Mr. Epps. "Well, I'm going
+to show you that sometimes the quiet ones come to life and----"
+
+The other eyed him sternly.
+
+"Young man," he said, "I fear that you are er--a bit--er--under the
+weather. I fear you are not one of us."
+
+"Not one of you?" roared Tidbury with passion mounting. "You're darn
+right I'm not one of you--you low, immoral Greenwich Villagers, leading
+innocent girls astray." He waved a thin red arm toward the gypsy.
+
+The music had stopped in the midst of a bar; the masqueraders were
+crowding about. The accused ecclesiastic glared down at the small devil
+before him.
+
+"How dare you say such a thing of me?" he demanded. "Who are you?"
+
+"You know well enough who I am, Milt Hydeman," cried Tidbury, breathing
+jerkily. "I'm Terrible Battling Epps, and----"
+
+"Leave our hall at once!" the other returned. "You are plainly under the
+influence of----"
+
+He stretched out a hand to grasp Tidbury Epps by the shoulder, and as he
+did so Tidbury brought a small but angry fist into swift contact with
+the clerical waist-line.
+
+"Oof!" grunted the man.
+
+"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" screamed the Red Riding Hood. "The devil has
+struck the Reverend Doctor Bewley. Help! Help!"
+
+But Tidbury, deaf to all things but battle, had buried his other fist so
+violently in his opponent's soft center that the mask popped from the
+man's face. It was the round, pink, frightened face of a total stranger.
+
+With a yelp of dismay Tidbury turned to flee, but the outraged
+parishioners had pounced on him, torn off his mask, and were proving, at
+his expense, that there is still such a thing as militant, muscular
+Christianity in the world. As they bore him, kicking and struggling, to
+the door, he saw in all the blur of excited faces one face with staring,
+unbelieving eyes. The gypsy had removed her mask, and she was Martha
+Ritter. In all the babble of voices hers was the only one he heard.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Epps! Oh, Mr. Epps!" she was sobbing. "I didn't think it of
+you! I didn't think it of you!"
+
+From the gutter in front of the church Tidbury after a while picked
+himself, felt tenderly of his red-clad limbs, found them whole but
+painful, applied a bit of cold paving brick to his swelling eye, and
+started slowly and thoughtfully down the street, his tail, broken in the
+fracas, hanging limply between his legs. Despite all, the potent
+stimulus of Jake's concoction lingered with him, and there was a
+comforting buzzing in his head which all but offset the feeling of dank
+despair that was crowding in upon him. He had lost Martha. That was
+sure. He--he was a failure. He couldn't even go to the devil.
+
+How he got back to his own room in Mrs. Kelty's boarding house he never
+knew, but that was where the brazen voice of the alarm clock summoned
+him sharply from deep slumber. His head felt like a bass drum full of
+bumblebees. But it was his heart, as he buttoned his pepper-and-salt
+vest over it, that hurt him most. He tried to drive from him the aching
+thoughts of the lost Martha, but the only thought he could substitute
+was the scarcely more cheerful one that he'd probably be cast
+incontinently from the hat company when news of his brawl reached the
+alert ears of Messrs. Spingle and Blatter.
+
+Spurning breakfast he hurried to his office, and before Martha or the
+rest arrived he had climbed wearily to the pinnacle of his high stool,
+and had hunched himself over his figures. He was struggling to
+distinguish between the dancing nines and sixes when he heard a
+voice--an oddly familiar voice--booming out from the doorway that led to
+the presidential sanctum.
+
+"Well," said the voice, "it looks to me just now, Spingle, as if we
+could use about ten thousand dozen of your Number 1A hats out in Kansas
+City this year. Of course I'll have to shop around a bit to see what
+the others can offer----"
+
+"Of course, Jake, of course," replied Mr. Spingle, in the satin voice
+Tidbury knew he reserved for the very largest buyers. "But say, Jake,
+wouldn't you and your wife like to be our guests at a little party
+to-night? Dinner and then the Winter Garden? Our Mr. Hydeman will be
+delighted to take you out."
+
+The person addressed as Jake lowered his voice, but not so low that the
+avid ears of Tidbury Epps missed a syllable.
+
+"Between you and me, Spingle," said Jake, "I wouldn't care to at all."
+
+"Why, Jake," expostulated Mr. Spingle, "I thought you and the wife
+always liked to whoop it up a bit when you came to the big town."
+
+"So we do," admitted Jake, "but not with him."
+
+"What's wrong with Hydeman?" demanded the Napoleon of Hatdom, and
+Tidbury read anxiety in his tone.
+
+"Everything," replied Jake succinctly.
+
+"You know him, then?"
+
+"Yep, ran into him last night at the Pagan Rout," said Jake. "He didn't
+make much of a hit with me or the missus. Too fresh. Treated us as if we
+were rubes. Out in Kansas City we know a good fellow when we see
+one----Why, what the devil----"
+
+Jake had chopped his sentence off short, and with a whoop of joy had
+bounded across the room.
+
+"Well, if it isn't Terrible Epps!" he bellowed heartily. "How's the
+head, old sport? Say, Terrible, why didn't you join us at the Pagan
+Rout?"
+
+"I--I couldn't find you there," said Tidbury, trembling.
+
+"Oh, yes," remarked Jake thoughtfully. "You must have got there after
+they put us out."
+
+"They put me out too," said Tidbury.
+
+Jake's roar of laughter made the straw hats quiver on the heads of the
+dummies in the show cases. He turned a beaming face to Mr. Spingle.
+
+"Say, Spingle," he cried, "what do you mean by trying to palm off a
+tin-horn like Hydeman on me when you've got the best little fellow, the
+warmest little entertainer east of the Mississippi, right here?"
+
+To this Mr. Spingle was totally unable to make any reply. But after a
+minute his brain functioned sufficiently for him to say, "About that
+order of yours, Jake----"
+
+"Oh," said Jake reassuringly. "I'll talk to Terrible Epps about it at
+dinner to-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And to think," repeated Mr. Spingle for the third or fourth time to Mr.
+Blatter, "that Tidbury is a man-about-town who goes to Pagan Routs and
+everything! You'll give him Hydeman's job, won't you, Otto?"
+
+"I already have," said Mr. Blatter.
+
+"Good!" exclaimed the Napoleon of Hatdom. "Didn't I always say that
+Tidbury Epps was a live one, underneath?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The round cheek of Martha Ritter was in immediate contact with the
+pepper-and-salt shoulder of Tidbury Epps.
+
+"And you tried to make me think," he repeated in a tone of wonder, "that
+you liked Hydeman and were going to the Pagan Rout with him? Oh, Martha
+dear, why did you do it?"
+
+She hid her eyes from his.
+
+"I did it," she murmured, "because I wanted to make you jealous."
+
+The clock ticked many ticks.
+
+"But, Tidbury, if I marry you," she said anxiously, "you'll reform,
+won't you? You'll promise me you'll give up Greenwich Village and
+drinking, won't you, Tidbury?"
+
+"If you'll help me, dearest," promised Tidbury Epps, "I'll try."
+
+
+
+
+XI: _Honor Among Sportsmen_
+
+
+Each with his favorite hunting pig on a stout string, a band of the
+leading citizens of Montpont moved in dignified procession down the Rue
+Victor Hugo in the direction of the hunting preserve.
+
+It was a mild, delicious Sunday, cool and tranquil as a pool in a
+woodland glade. To Perigord alone come such days. Peace was in the air,
+and the murmur of voices of men intent on a mission of moment. The men
+of Montpont were going forth to hunt truffles.
+
+As Brillat-Savarin points out in his "Physiology of Taste"--"All France
+is inordinately truffliferous, and the province of Perigord particularly
+so." On week-days the hunting of that succulent subterranean fungus was
+a business, indeed, a vast commercial enterprise, for were there not
+thousands of Perigord pies to be made, and uncounted tins of _pâté de
+foie gras_ to be given the last exquisite touch by the addition of a bit
+of truffle?
+
+But on Sunday it became a sport, the chief, the only sport of the
+citizens of Montpont. A preserve, rich in beech, oak and chestnut trees
+in whose shade the shy truffle thrives, had been set apart and here the
+truffle was never hunted for mercenary motives but for sport and sport
+alone. On week-days truffle hunting was confined to professionals; on
+Sunday, after church, all Montpont hunted truffles. Even the sub-prefect
+maintained a stable of notable pigs for the purpose. For the pig is as
+necessary to truffle-hunting as the beagle is to beagling.
+
+A pig, by dint of patient training, can be taught to scent the buried
+truffle with his sensitive snout, and to point to its hiding place, as
+immobile as a cast-iron setter on a profiteer's lawn, until its proud
+owner exhumes the prize. An experienced pointing pig, with a creditable
+record, brings an enormous price in the markets of Montpont.
+
+At the head of the procession that kindly Sunday marched Monsieur
+Bonticu and Monsieur Pantan, with the decisive but leisurely tread of
+men of affairs. They spoke to each other with an elaborate, ceremonial
+politeness, for on this day, at least, they were rivals. On other days
+they were bosom friends. To-day was the last of the fall hunting season,
+and they were tied, with a score of some two hundred truffles each, for
+the championship of Montpont, an honor beside which winning the Derby is
+nothing and the _Grand Prix de Rome_ a mere bauble in the eyes of all
+Perigord. To-day was to tell whether the laurels would rest on the round
+pink brow of Monsieur Bonticu or the oval olive brow of Monsieur Pantan.
+
+Monsieur Bonticu was the leading undertaker of Montpont, and in his
+stately appearance he satisfied the traditions of his calling. He was a
+large man of forty or so, and in his special hunting suit of jade-hued
+cloth he looked, from a distance, to be an enormous green pepper. His
+face was vast and many chinned and his eyes had been set at the bottom
+of wells sunk deep in his pink face; it was said that even on a bright
+noon he could see the stars, as ordinary folk can by peering up from
+the bottom of a mine-shaft. They were small and cunning, his eyes, and a
+little diffident. In Montpont, he was popular. Even had his heart not
+been as large as it undoubtedly was, his prowess as a hunter of truffles
+and his complete devotion to that art--he insisted it was an art--would
+have endeared him to all right-thinking Montpontians. He was a bachelor,
+and said, more than once, as he sipped his old Anjou in the Café de
+l'Univers, "I marry? Bonticu marry? That is a cause of laughter, my
+friends. I have my little house, a good cook, and my Anastasie. What
+more could mortal ask? Certainly not an Eve in his paradise. I marry? I
+be dad to a collection of squealing, wiggling cabbages? I laugh at the
+idea."
+
+Anastasie was his pig, a prodigy at detecting truffles, and his most
+priceless treasure. He once said, at a truffle-hunters' dinner, "I have
+but two passions, my comrades. The pursuit of the truffle and the flight
+from the female."
+
+Monsieur Pantan had applauded this sentiment heartily. He, too, was a
+bachelor. He combined, lucratively, the offices of town veterinarian and
+apothecary, and had written an authoritative book, "The Science of
+Truffle Hunting." To him it was a science, the first of sciences. He was
+a fierce-looking little man, with bellicose eyes and bristling
+moustachio, and quick, nervous hands that always seemed to be rolling
+endless thousands of pills. He was given to fits of temper, but that is
+rather expected of a man in the south of France. His devotion to his
+pig, Clotilde, atoned, in the eyes of Montpont, for a slightly irascible
+nature.
+
+The party, by now, had reached the hunting preserve, and with eager,
+serious faces, they lengthened the leashes on their pigs, and urged them
+to their task. By the laws of the chase, the choicest area had been left
+for Monsieur Bonticu and Monsieur Pantan, and excited galleries followed
+each of the two leading contestants. Bets were freely made.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a scant nine minutes by the watch, Anastasie was seen to freeze and
+point. Monsieur Bonticu plunged to his plump knees, whipped out his
+trowel, dug like a badger, and in another minute brought to light a
+handsome truffle, the size of a small potato, blackish-gray as the best
+truffles are, and studded with warts. With a gesture of triumph, he
+exhibited it to the umpire, and popped it into his bag. He rewarded
+Anastasie with a bit of cheese, and urged her to new conquests. But a
+few seconds later, Monsieur Pantan gave a short hop, skip and jump, and
+all eyes were fastened on Clotilde, who had grown motionless, save for
+the tip of her snout which quivered gently. Monsieur Pantan dug
+feverishly and soon brandished aloft a well-developed truffle. So the
+battle waged.
+
+At one time, by a series of successes, Monsieur Bonticu was three up on
+his rival, but Clotilde, by a bit of brilliant work beneath a chestnut
+tree, brought to light a nest of four truffles and sent the Pantan
+colors to the van.
+
+The sun was setting; time was nearly up. The other hunters had long
+since stopped and were clustered about the two chief contestants, who,
+pale but collected, bent all their skill to the hunt. Practically every
+square inch of ground had been covered. But one propitious spot
+remained, the shadow of a giant oak, and, moved by a common impulse, the
+stout Bonticu and the slender Pantan simultaneously directed their pigs
+toward it. But a little minute of time now remained. The gallery held
+its breath. Then a great shout made the leaves shake and rustle. Like
+two perfectly synchronized machines, Anastasie and Clotilde had frozen
+and were pointing. They were pointing to the same spot.
+
+Monsieur Pantan, more active than his rival, had darted to his knees,
+his trowel poised for action. But a large hand was laid on his shoulder,
+politely, and the silky voice of Monsieur Bonticu said, "If Monsieur
+will pardon me, may I have the honor of informing him that this is my
+find?"
+
+Monsieur Pantan, trowel in mid-air, bowed as best a kneeling man can.
+
+"I trust," he said, coolly, "that Monsieur will not consider it an
+impertinence if I continue to dig up what my Clotilde has, beyond
+peradventure, discovered, and I hope Monsieur will not take it amiss if
+I suggest that he step out of the light as his shadow is not exactly
+that of a sapling."
+
+Monsieur Bonticu was trembling, but controlled.
+
+"With profoundest respect," he said from deep in his chest, "I beg to be
+allowed to inform Monsieur that he is, if I may say so, in error. I must
+ask Monsieur, as a sportsman, to step back and permit me to take what is
+justly mine."
+
+Monsieur Pantan's face was terrible to see, but his voice was icily
+formal.
+
+"I regret," he said, "that I cannot admit Monsieur's contention. In the
+name of sport, and his own honor, I call upon Monsieur to retire from
+his position."
+
+"That," said Monsieur Bonticu, "I will never do."
+
+They both turned faces of appeal to the umpire. That official was
+bewildered.
+
+"It is not in the rules, Messieurs," he got out, confusedly. "In my
+forty years as an umpire, such a thing has not happened. It is a matter
+to be settled between you, personally."
+
+As he said the words, Monsieur Pantan commenced to dig furiously.
+Monsieur Bonticu dropped to his knees and also dug, like some great,
+green, panic-stricken beaver. Mounds of dirt flew up. At the same second
+they spied the truffle, a monster of its tribe. At the same second the
+plump fingers of Monsieur Bonticu and the thin fingers of Monsieur
+Pantan closed on it. Cries of dismay rose from the gallery.
+
+"It is the largest of truffles," called voices. "Don't break it. Broken
+ones don't count." But it was too late. Monsieur Bonticu tugged
+violently; as violently tugged Monsieur Pantan. The truffle, indeed a
+giant of its species, burst asunder. The two men stood, each with his
+half, each glaring.
+
+"I trust," said Monsieur Bonticu, in his hollowest death-room voice,
+"that Monsieur is satisfied. I have my opinion of Monsieur as a
+sportsman, a gentleman and a Frenchman."
+
+"For my part," returned Monsieur Pantan, with rising passion, "it is
+impossible for me to consider Monsieur as any of the three."
+
+"What's that you say?" cried Monsieur Bonticu, his big face suddenly
+flamingly red.
+
+"Monsieur, in addition to the defects in his sense of honor is not also
+deficient in his sense of hearing," returned the smoldering Pantan.
+
+"Monsieur is insulting."
+
+"That is his hope."
+
+Monsieur Bonticu was aflame with a great, seething wrath, but he had
+sufficient control of his sense of insult to jerk at the leash of
+Anastasie and say, in a tone all Montpont could hear:
+
+"Come, Anastasie. I once did Monsieur Pantan the honor of considering
+him your equal. I must revise my estimate. He is not your sort of pig at
+all."
+
+Monsieur Pantan's eyes were blazing dangerously, but he retained a
+slipping grip on his emotions long enough to say:
+
+"Come, Clotilde. Do not demean yourself by breathing the same air as
+Monsieur and Madame Bonticu."
+
+The eyes of Monsieur Bonticu, ordinarily so peaceful, now shot forth
+sparks. Turning a livid face to his antagonist, he cried aloud:
+
+"Monsieur Pantan, in my opinion you are a puff-ball!"
+
+This was too much. For to call a truffle-hunter a puff-ball is to call
+him a thing unspeakably vile. In the eyes of a true lover of truffles a
+puff-ball is a noisome, obscene thing; it is a false truffle. In
+truffledom it is a fighting word. With a scream of rage Monsieur Pantan
+advanced on the bulky Bonticu.
+
+"By the thumbs of St. Front," he cried, "you shall pay for that,
+Monsieur Aristide Gontran Louis Bonticu. Here and now, before all
+Montpont, before all Perigord, before all France, I challenge you to a
+duel to the death."
+
+Words rattled and jostled in his throat, so great was his anger.
+Monsieur Bonticu stood motionless; his full-moon face had gone white;
+the half of truffle slipped from his fingers. For he knew, as they all
+knew, that the dueling code of Perigord is inexorable. It is seldom
+nowadays that the Perigordians, even in their hottest moments, say the
+fighting word, for once a challenge has passed, retirement is
+impossible, and a duel is a most serious matter. By rigid rule, the
+challenger and challenged must meet at daybreak in mortal combat. At
+twenty paces they must each discharge two horse-pistols; then they must
+close on each other with sabers; should these fail to settle the issue,
+each man is provided with a poniard for the most intimate stages of the
+combat. Such duels are seldom bloodless. Monsieur Bonticu's lips formed
+some syllables. They were:
+
+"You are aware of the consequences of your words, Monsieur Pantan?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"You do not wish to withdraw them?" Monsieur Bonticu despite himself
+injected a hopeful note into his query.
+
+"I withdraw? Never in this life. On the contrary, not only do I not
+withdraw, I reiterate," bridled Monsieur Pantan.
+
+In a _requiescat in pace_ voice, Monsieur Bonticu said:
+
+"So be it. You have sealed your own doom, Monsieur. I shall prepare to
+attend you first in the capacity of an opponent, and shortly thereafter
+in my professional capacity."
+
+Monsieur Pantan sneered openly.
+
+"Monsieur the undertaker had better consider in his remaining hours
+whether it is feasible to embalm himself or have a stranger do it."
+
+With this thunderbolt of defiance, the little man turned on his heel,
+and stumped from the field.
+
+Monsieur Bonticu followed at last. But he walked as one whose knees have
+turned to _meringue glace_. He went slowly to his little shop and sat
+down among the coffins. For the first time in his life their presence
+made him uneasy. A big new one had just come from the factory. For a
+long time he gazed at it; then he surveyed his own full-blown physique
+with a measuring eye. He shuddered. The light fell on the silver plate
+on the lid, and his eyes seemed to see engraved there:
+
+                 MONSIEUR ARISTIDE GONTRAN LOUIS BONTICU
+
+     Died in the forty-first year of his life on the field of honor.
+
+            "_He was without peer as a hunter of truffles_."
+
+                          MAY HE REST IN PEACE.
+
+With almost a smile, he reflected that this inscription would make
+Monsieur Pantan very angry; yes, he would insist on it. He looked down
+at his fat fists and sighed profoundly, and shook his big head. They had
+never pulled a trigger or gripped a sword-hilt; the knife, the peaceful
+table knife, the fork, and the leash of Anastasie--those had occupied
+them. Anastasie! A globular tear rose slowly from the wells in which his
+eyes were set, and unchecked, wandered gently down the folds of his
+face. Who would care for Anastasie? With another sigh that seemed to
+start in the caverns of his soul, he reached out and took a dusty book
+from a case, and bent over it. It contained the time-honored dueling
+code of ancient Perigord. Suddenly, as he read, his eyes brightened, and
+he ceased to sigh. He snapped the book shut, took from a peg his best
+hat, dusted it with his elbow, and stepped out into the starry Perigord
+night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At high noon, three days later, as duly decreed by the dueling code,
+Monsieur Pantan, in full evening dress, appeared at the shop of
+Monsieur Bonticu, accompanied by two solemn-visaged seconds, to make
+final arrangements for the affair of honor. They found Monsieur Bonticu
+sitting comfortably among his coffins. He greeted them with a serene
+smile. Monsieur Pantan frowned portentously.
+
+"We have come," announced the chief second, Monsieur Duffon, the town
+butcher, "as the representatives of this grossly insulted gentleman to
+demand satisfaction. The weapons and conditions are, of course, fixed by
+the code. It remains only to set the date. Would Friday at dawn in the
+truffle preserve be entirely convenient for Monsieur?"
+
+Monsieur Bonticu's shrug contained more regret than a hundred words
+could convey.
+
+"Alas, it will be impossible, Messieurs," he said, with a deep bow.
+
+"Impossible?"
+
+"But yes. I assure Messieurs that nothing would give me more exquisite
+pleasure than to grant this gentleman"--he stressed this word--"the
+satisfaction that his honor"--he also stressed this word--"appears to
+demand. However, it is impossible."
+
+The seconds and Monsieur Pantan looked at Monsieur Bonticu and at each
+other.
+
+"But this is monstrous," exclaimed the chief second. "Is it that
+Monsieur refuses to fight?"
+
+Monsieur Bonticu's slowly shaken head indicated most poignant regret.
+
+"But no, Messieurs," he said. "I do not refuse. Is it not a question of
+honor? Am I not a sportsman? But, alas, I am forbidden to fight."
+
+"Forbidden."
+
+"Alas, yes."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because," said Monsieur Bonticu, "I am a married man."
+
+The eyes of the three men widened; they appeared stunned by surprise.
+Monsieur Pantan spoke first.
+
+"You married?" he demanded.
+
+"But certainly."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Only yesterday."
+
+"To whom? I demand proof."
+
+"To Madame Aubison of Barbaste."
+
+"The widow of Sergeant Aubison?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"I do not believe it," declared Monsieur Pantan.
+
+Monsieur Bonticu smiled, raised his voice and called.
+
+"Angelique! Angelique, my dove. Will you come here a little moment?"
+
+"What? And leave the lentil soup to burn?" came an undoubtedly feminine
+voice from the depths of the house.
+
+"Yes, my treasure."
+
+"What a pest you are, Aristide," said the voice, and its owner, an ample
+woman of perhaps thirty, appeared in the doorway. Monsieur Bonticu waved
+a fat hand toward her.
+
+"My wife, Messieurs," he said.
+
+She bowed stiffly. The three men bowed. They said nothing. They gaped at
+her. She spoke to her husband.
+
+"Is it that you take me for a Punch and Judy show, Aristide?"
+
+"Ah, never, my rosebud," cried Monsieur Bonticu, with a placating smile.
+"You see, my own, these gentlemen wished----"
+
+"There!" she interrupted. "The lentil soup! It burns." She hurried back
+to the kitchen.
+
+The three men--Monsieur Pantan and his seconds--consulted together.
+
+"Beyond question," said Monsieur Duffon, "Monsieur Bonticu cannot accept
+the challenge. He is married; you are not. The code says plainly:
+'Opponents must be on terms of absolute equality in family
+responsibility.' Thus, a single man cannot fight a married one, and so
+forth. See. Here it is in black and white."
+
+Monsieur Pantan was boiling as he faced the calm Bonticu.
+
+"To think," stormed the little man, "that truffles may be hunted--yes,
+even eaten, by such a man! I see through you, Monsieur. But think not
+that a Pantan can be flouted. I have my opinion of you, Monsieur the
+undertaker."
+
+Monsieur Bonticu shrugged.
+
+"Your opinions do not interest me," he said, "and only my devotion to
+the cause of free speech makes me concede that you are entitled to an
+opinion at all. Good morning, Messieurs, good morning." He bowed them
+down a lane of caskets and out into the afternoon sunshine. The face of
+Monsieur Pantan was black.
+
+Time went by in Perigord. Other truffle-hunting seasons came and went,
+but Messieurs Bonticu and Pantan entered no more competitions. They
+hunted, of course, the one with Anastasie, the other with Clotilde, but
+they hunted in solitary state, and studiously avoided each other. Then
+one day Monsieur Pantan's hairy countenance, stern and determined,
+appeared like a genie at the door of Monsieur Bonticu's shop. The rivals
+exchanged profound bows.
+
+"I have the honor," said Monsieur Pantan, in his most formal manner, "to
+announce to Monsieur that the impediment to our meeting on the field of
+honor has been at last removed, and that I am now in a position to send
+my seconds to him to arrange that meeting. May they call to-morrow at
+high noon?"
+
+"I do not understand," said Monsieur Bonticu, arching his eyebrows. "I
+am still married."
+
+"I too," said Monsieur Pantan, with a grim smile, "am married."
+
+"You? Pantan? Monsieur jests."
+
+"If Monsieur will look in the newspaper of to-day," said Monsieur
+Pantan, dryly, "he will see an announcement of my marriage yesterday to
+Madame Marselet of Pergieux."
+
+There was astonishment and alarm in the face of the undertaker. Then
+reverie seemed to wrap him round. The scurrying of footsteps, the bumble
+of voices, in the rooms over the shop aroused him. His face was tranquil
+again as he spoke.
+
+"Will Monsieur and his seconds do me the honor of calling on me day
+after to-morrow?" he asked.
+
+"As you wish," replied Monsieur Pantan, a gleam of satisfaction in his
+eye.
+
+Punctual to the second, Monsieur Pantan and his friends presented
+themselves at the shop of Monsieur Bonticu. His face, they observed, was
+first worried, then smiling, then worried again.
+
+"Will to-morrow at dawn be convenient for Monsieur?" inquired the
+butcher, Duffon.
+
+Monsieur Bonticu gestured regret with his shoulders, and said:
+
+"I am desolated with chagrin, Messieurs, believe me, but it is
+impossible."
+
+"Impossible. It cannot be," cried Monsieur Pantan. "Monsieur has one
+wife. I have one wife. Our responsibilities are equal. Is it that
+Monsieur is prepared to swallow his word of insult?"
+
+"Never," declared Monsieur Bonticu. "I yearn to encounter Monsieur in
+mortal combat. But, alas, it is not I, but Nature that intervenes. I
+have, only this morning, become a father, Messieurs."
+
+As if in confirmation there came from the room above the treble wail of
+a new infant.
+
+"Behold!" exclaimed Monsieur Bonticu, with a wave of his hand.
+
+Monsieur Pantan's face was purple.
+
+"This is too much," he raged. "But wait, Monsieur. But wait." He clapped
+his high hat on his head and stamped out of the shop.
+
+Truffles were hunted and the days flowed by and Monsieur Pantan and his
+seconds one high noon again called upon Monsieur Bonticu, who greeted
+them urbanely, albeit he appeared to have lost weight and tiny
+worry-wrinkles were visible in his face.
+
+"Monsieur," began the chief second, "may I have the honor----"
+
+"I'll speak for myself," interrupted Monsieur Pantan. "With my own voice
+I wish to inform Monsieur that nothing can now prevent our meeting, at
+dawn to-morrow. To-day, Monsieur the undertaker, I, too, became a
+father!"
+
+The news seemed to interest but not to stagger Monsieur Bonticu. His
+smile was sad as he said:
+
+"You are too late, Monsieur the apothecary and veterinarian. Two days
+ago I, also, became a father again."
+
+Monsieur Pantan appeared to be about to burst, so terrible was his rage.
+
+"But wait," he screamed, "but wait." And he rushed out.
+
+Next day Monsieur Pantan and his seconds returned. The moustachios of
+the little man were on end with excitement and his eye was triumphant.
+
+"We meet to-morrow at daybreak," he announced.
+
+"Ah, that it were possible," sighed Monsieur Bonticu. "But the code
+forbids. As I said yesterday, Monsieur has a wife and a child, while I
+have a wife and children. I regret our inequality, but I cannot deny
+it."
+
+"Spare your regrets, Monsieur," rejoined the small man. "I, too, have
+two children now."
+
+"You?" Monsieur Bonticu stared, puzzled. "Yesterday you had but one. It
+cannot be, Monsieur."
+
+"It can be," cried Monsieur Pantan. "Yesterday I adopted one!"
+
+The peony face of Monsieur Bonticu did not blanch at this intelligence.
+Again he smiled with an infinite sadness.
+
+"I appreciate," he said, "Monsieur Pantan's courtesy in affording me
+this opportunity, but, alas, he has not been in possession of the facts.
+By an almost unpardonable oversight I neglected to inform Monsieur that
+I had become the father not of one child, but of two. Twins, Messieurs.
+Would you care to inspect them?"
+
+Monsieur Pantan's face was contorted with a wrath shocking to witness.
+He bit his lip; he clenched his fist.
+
+"The end is not yet," he shouted. "No, no, Monsieur. By the thumbs of
+St. Front, I shall adopt another child."
+
+At high noon next day three men in grave parade went down the Rue Victor
+Hugo and entered the shop of Monsieur Bonticu. Monsieur Pantan spoke.
+
+"The adoption has been made," he announced. "Here are the papers. I,
+too, have a wife and three children. Shall we meet at dawn to-morrow?"
+
+Monsieur Bonticu looked up from his account books with a rueful smile.
+
+"Ah, if it could be," he said. "But it cannot be."
+
+"It cannot be?" echoed Monsieur Pantan.
+
+"No," said Monsieur Bonticu, sadly. "Last night my aged father-in-law
+came to live with me. He is a new, and weighty responsibility,
+Monsieur."
+
+Monsieur Pantan appeared numbed for a moment; then, with a glare of
+concentrated fury, he rasped.
+
+"I, too, have an aged father-in-law."
+
+He slammed the shop door after him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night when Monsieur Bonticu went to the immaculate little stye back
+of his shop to see if the pride of his heart, Anastasie, was
+comfortable, to chat with her a moment, and to present her with a morsel
+of truffle to keep up her interest in the chase, he found her lying on
+her side moaning faintly. Between moans she breathed with a labored
+wheeze, and in her gentle blue eyes stood the tears of suffering. She
+looked up feebly, piteously, at Monsieur Bonticu. With a cry of horror
+and alarm he bent over her.
+
+"Anastasie! My Anastasie! What is it? What ails my brave one?" She
+grunted softly, short, stifled grunts of anguish. He made a swift
+examination. Expert in all matters pertaining to the pig, he perceived
+that she had contracted an acute case of that rare and terrible disease,
+known locally as Perigord pip, and he knew, only too well, that her
+demise was but a question of hours. His Anastasie would never track down
+another truffle unless---- He leaned weakly against the wall and clasped
+his warm brow. There was but one man in all the world who could cure
+her. And that man was Pantan, the veterinarian. His "Elixir Pantan," a
+secret specific, was the only known cure for the dread malady.
+
+Pride and love wrestled within the torn soul of the stricken Bonticu. To
+humble himself before his rival--it was unthinkable. He could see the
+sneer on Monsieur Pantan's olive face; he could hear his cutting words
+of refusal. The dew of conflicting emotions dampened the brow of
+Monsieur Bonticu. Anastasie whimpered in pain. He could not stand it. He
+struck his chest a resounding blow of decision. He reached for his hat.
+
+Monsieur Bonticu knocked timidly at the door of the
+apothecary-veterinarian's house. A head appeared at a window.
+
+"Who is it?" demanded a shrill, cross, female voice.
+
+"It is I. Bonticu. I wish to speak with Monsieur Pantan."
+
+"Nice time to come," complained the lady. She shouted into the darkness
+of the room: "Pantan! Pantan, you sleepy lout. Wake up. There's a great
+oaf of a man outside wanting to speak to you."
+
+"Patience, my dear Rosalie, patience," came the voice of Monsieur
+Pantan; it was strangely meek. Presently the head of Monsieur Pantan,
+all nightcap and moustachios, was protruded from the window.
+
+"You have come to fight?" he asked.
+
+"But no."
+
+"Bah! Then why wake me up this cold night?"
+
+"It is a family matter, Monsieur," said the shivering Bonticu. "A matter
+the most pressing."
+
+"Is it that Monsieur has adopted an orphanage," inquired Pantan. "Or
+brought nine old aunts to live with him?"
+
+"No, no, Monsieur. It is most serious. It is Anastasie. She--is--dying."
+
+"A thousand regrets, but I cannot act as pall-bearer," returned Monsieur
+Pantan, preparing to shut the window. "Good-night."
+
+"I beg Monsieur to attend a little second," cried Monsieur Bonticu. "You
+can save her."
+
+"I save her?" Monsieur Pantan's tone suggested that the idea was
+deliciously absurd.
+
+"Yes, yes, yes," cried Bonticu, catching at a straw. "You alone. She has
+the Perigord pip, Monsieur."
+
+"Ah, indeed."
+
+"Yes, one cannot doubt it."
+
+"Most amusing."
+
+"You are cruel, Monsieur," cried Bonticu. "She suffers, ah, how she
+suffers."
+
+"She will not suffer long," said Pantan, coldly.
+
+There was a sob in Bonticu's voice as he said:
+
+"I entreat Monsieur to save her. I entreat him as a sportsman."
+
+In the window Monsieur Pantan seemed to be thinking deeply.
+
+"I entreat him as a doctor. The ethics of his profession demand----"
+
+"You have used me abominably, Monsieur," came the voice of Pantan, "but
+when you appeal to me as a sportsman and a doctor I cannot refuse.
+Wait."
+
+The window banged down and in a second or so Monsieur Pantan, in
+hastily donned attire, joined his rival and silently they walked through
+the night to the bedside of the dying Anastasie. Once there, Monsieur
+Pantan's manner became professional, intense, impersonal.
+
+"Warm water. Buckets of it," he ordered.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Olive oil and cotton."
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+With trembling hands Monsieur Bonticu brought the things desired, and
+hovered about, speaking gently to Anastasie, calling her pet names,
+soothing her. The apothecary-veterinarian was busy. He forced the
+contents of a huge black bottle down her throat. He anointed her with
+oil, water and unknown substances. He ordered his rival about briskly.
+
+"Rub her belly."
+
+Bonticu rubbed violently.
+
+"Pull her tail."
+
+Bonticu pulled.
+
+"Massage her limbs."
+
+Bonticu massaged till he was gasping for breath.
+
+The light began to come back to the eyes of Anastasie, the rose hue to
+her pale snout; she stopped whimpering. Monsieur Pantan rose with a
+smile.
+
+"The crisis is passed," he announced. "She will live. What in the name
+of all the devils----"
+
+This last ejaculation was blurred and smothered, for the overjoyed
+Bonticu, with the impulsiveness of his warm Southern nature, had thrown
+his arms about the little man and planted loud kisses on both hairy
+cheeks. They stood facing each other, oddly shy.
+
+"If Monsieur would do me the honor," began Monsieur Bonticu, a little
+thickly, "I have some ancient port. A glass or two after that walk in
+the cold would be good for Monsieur, perhaps."
+
+"If Monsieur insists," murmured Pantan.
+
+Monsieur Bonticu vanished and reappeared with a cob-webbed bottle. They
+drank. Pantan smacked his lips. Timidly, Monsieur Bonticu said:
+
+"I can never sufficiently repay Monsieur for his kindness."
+
+He glanced at Anastasie who slept tranquilly. "She is very dear to me."
+
+"Do I not know?" replied Monsieur Pantan. "Have I not Clotilde?"
+
+"I trust she is in excellent health, Monsieur."
+
+"She was never better," replied Monsieur Pantan. He finished his glass,
+and it was promptly refilled. Only the sound of Anastasie's regular
+breathing could be heard. Monsieur Pantan put down his glass. In a
+manner that tried to be casual he remarked,
+
+"I will not attempt to conceal from Monsieur that his devotion to his
+Anastasie has touched me. Believe me, Monsieur Bonticu, I am not unaware
+of the sacrifice you made in coming to me for her sake."
+
+Monsieur Bonticu, deeply moved, bowed.
+
+"Monsieur would have done the same for his Clotilde," he said. "Monsieur
+has demonstrated himself to be a thorough sportsman. I am grateful to
+him. I'd have missed Anastasie."
+
+"But naturally."
+
+"Ah, yes," went on Monsieur Bonticu. "When my wife scolds and the
+children scream, it is to her I go for a little talk. She never argues."
+
+Monsieur Pantan looked up from a long draught.
+
+"Does your wife scold and your children scream?" he asked.
+
+"Alas, but too often," answered Monsieur Bonticu.
+
+"You should hear my Rosalie," sighed Monsieur Pantan. "I too seek
+consolation as you do. I talk with my Clotilde."
+
+Monsieur Bonticu nodded, sympathetically.
+
+"My wife is always nagging me for more money," he said with a sudden
+burst of confidence. "And the undertaking business, my dear Pantan, is
+not what it was."
+
+"Do I not know?" said Pantan. "When folks are well we both suffer."
+
+"I stagger beneath my load," sighed Bonticu.
+
+"My load is no less light," remarked Pantan.
+
+"If my family responsibilities should increase," observed Bonticu, "it
+would be little short of a calamity."
+
+"If mine did," said Pantan, "it would be a tragedy."
+
+"And yet," mused Bonticu, "our responsibilities seem to go on
+increasing."
+
+"Alas, it is but too true."
+
+"The statesmen are talking of limiting armaments," remarked Bonticu.
+
+"An excellent idea," said Pantan, warmly.
+
+"Can it be that they are more astute than two veteran truffle-hunters?"
+
+"They could not possibly be, my dear Bonticu."
+
+There was a pregnant pause. Monsieur Bonticu broke the silence.
+
+"In the heat of the chase," he said, "one does things and says things
+one afterwards regrets."
+
+"Yes. That is true."
+
+"In his excitement one might even so far forget himself as to call a
+fellow sportsman--a really excellent fellow--a puff-ball."
+
+"That is true. One might."
+
+Suddenly Monsieur Bonticu thrust his fat hand toward Monsieur Pantan.
+
+"You are not a puff-ball, Armand," he said. "You never were a
+puff-ball!"
+
+Tears leaped to the little man's eyes. He seized the extended hand in
+both of his and pressed it.
+
+"Aristide!" was all he could say. "Aristide!"
+
+"We shall drink," cried Bonticu, "to the art of truffle-hunting."
+
+"The science--" corrected Pantan, gently.
+
+"To the art-science of truffle-hunting," cried Bonticu, raising his
+glass.
+
+The moon smiled down on Perigord. On the ancient, twisted streets of
+Montpont it smiled with particular brightness. Down the Rue Victor Hugo,
+in the middle of the street, went two men, a very stout big man and a
+very thin little man, arm in arm, and singing, for all Montpont, and all
+the world, to hear, a snatch of an old song from some forgotten revue.
+
+    "_Oh, Gaby, darling Gaby.
+          Bam! Bam! Bam!
+    Why don't you come to me?
+          Bam! Bam! Bam!
+    And jump in the arms of your own true love,
+    While the wind blows chilly and cold?
+          Bam! Bam! Bam!_"
+
+
+
+
+XII: _The $25,000 Jaw_
+
+
+"Rather thirsty this morning, eh, Mr. Addicks?" inquired Cowdin, the
+chief purchasing agent. The "Mister" was said with a long, hissing "s"
+and was distinctly not meant as a title of respect.
+
+Cowdin, as he spoke, rested his two square hairy hands on Croly Addicks'
+desk, and this enabled him to lean forward and thrust his well-razored
+knob of blue-black jaw within a few inches of Croly Addicks' face.
+
+"Too bad, Mr. Addicks, too bad," said Cowdin in a high, sharp voice. "Do
+you realize, Mr. Addicks, that every time you go up to the water cooler
+you waste fifteen seconds of the firm's time? I might use a stronger
+word than 'waste,' but I'll spare your delicate feelings. Do you think
+you can control your thirst until you take your lunch at the
+Waldorf-Astoria, or shall I have your desk piped with ice water, Mr.
+Addicks?"
+
+Croly Addicks drew his convex face as far away as he could from the
+concave features of the chief purchasing agent and muttered, "Had
+kippered herring for breakfast."
+
+A couple of the stenographers tittered. Croly's ears reddened and his
+hands played nervously with his blue-and-white polka-dot necktie. Cowdin
+eyed him for a contemptuous half second, then rotated on his rubber heel
+and prowled back to his big desk in the corner of the room.
+
+Croly Addicks, inwardly full of red revolution, outwardly merely
+flustered and intimidated, rustled among the piles of invoices and forms
+on his desk, and tried desperately to concentrate on his task as
+assistant to the assistant purchasing agent of the Pierian Piano
+Company, a vast far-flung enterprise that boasted, with only slight
+exaggeration, "We bring melody to a million homes." He hated Cowdin at
+all times, and particularly when he called him "Mr. Addicks." That
+"Mister" hurt worse than a slap on a sunburned shoulder. What made the
+hate almost beyond bearing was the realization on Croly's part that it
+was impotent.
+
+"Gawsh," murmured the blond stenographer from the corner of her mouth,
+after the manner of convicts, "Old Grizzly's pickin' on the chinless
+wonder again. I don't see how Croly stands it. I wouldn't if I was him."
+
+"Aw, wadda yuh expeck of Chinless?" returned the brunette stenographer
+disdainfully as she crackled paper to conceal her breach of the office
+rules against conversation. "Feller with ingrown jaws was made to pick
+on."
+
+At noon Croly went out to his lunch, not to the big hotel, as Cowdin had
+suggested, but to a crowded basement full of the jangle and clatter of
+cutlery and crockery, and the smell and sputter of frying liver. The
+name of this cave was the Help Yourself Buffet. Its habitués, mostly
+clerks like Croly, pronounced "buffet" to rhyme with "rough it," which
+was incorrect but apt.
+
+The place was, as its patrons never tired of reminding one another as
+they tried with practiced eye and hand to capture the largest
+sandwiches, a conscience beanery. As a matter of fact, one's conscience
+had a string tied to it by a cynical management.
+
+The system is simple. There are piles of food everywhere, with prominent
+price tags. The hungry patron seizes and devours what he wishes. He then
+passes down a runway and reports, to the best of his mathematical and
+ethical ability, the amount his meal has cost--usually, for reasons
+unknown, forty-five cents. The report is made to a small automaton of a
+boy, with a blasé eye and a brassy voice. He hands the patron a ticket
+marked 45 and at the same instant screams in a sirenic and incredulous
+voice, "Fawty-fi'." Then the patron passes on down the alley and pays
+the cashier at the exit. The purpose of the boy's violent outcry is to
+signal the spotter, who roves among the foods, a derby hat cocked over
+one eye and an untasted sandwich in his hand, so that persons deficient
+in conscience may not basely report their total as forty-five when
+actually they have eaten ninety cents' worth.
+
+On this day, when Croly Addicks had finished his modest lunch, the
+spotter was lurking near the exit. Several husky-looking young men
+passed him, and brazenly reported totals of twenty cents, when it was
+obvious that persons of their brawn would not be content with a lunch
+costing less than seventy-five; but the spotter noting their bull necks
+and bellicose air let them pass. But when Croly approached the desk and
+reported forty-five the spotter pounced on him. Experience had taught
+the spotter the type of man one may pounce on without fear of sharp
+words or resentful blows.
+
+"Pahdun me a minute, frien'," said the spotter. "Ain't you made a little
+mistake?"
+
+"Me?" quavered Croly. He was startled and he looked guilty, as only the
+innocent can look.
+
+"Yes, you," said the spotter, scowling at the weak outlines of Croly's
+countenance.
+
+"No," jerked out Croly. "Forty-five's correct." He tried to move along
+toward the cashier, but the spotter's bulk blocked the exit alley.
+
+"Ain't you the guy I seen layin' away a double portion of strawb'ry
+shortcake wit' cream?" asked the spotter sternly.
+
+Croly hoped that it was not apparent that his upper lip was trembling;
+his hands went up to his polka-dot tie and fidgeted with it. He had
+paused yearningly over the strawberry shortcake; but he had decided he
+couldn't afford it.
+
+"Didn't have shortcake," he said huskily.
+
+"Oh, no!" rejoined the spotter sarcastically, appealing to the ring of
+interested faces that had now crowded about. "I s'pose that white stuff
+on your upper lip ain't whipped cream?"
+
+"It's milk," mumbled Croly. "All I had was milk and oatmeal crackers and
+apple pie. Honest."
+
+The spotter snorted dubiously.
+
+"Some guy," he declared loudly, "tucked away a double order of strawb'ry
+shortcake and a hamboiger steak, and it wasn't me. So come awn, young
+feller, you owe the house ninety cents, so cut out the arggament."
+
+"I--I----" began Croly, incoherently rebellious; but it was clear that
+the crowd believed him guilty of the conscienceless swindle; so he
+quailed before the spotter's accusing eye, and said, "Oh, well, have it
+your own way. You got me wrong, but I guess you have to pick on little
+fellows to keep your job." He handed over ninety cents to the cashier.
+
+"You'll never see my face in this dump again," muttered Croly savagely
+over his shoulder.
+
+"That won't make me bust out cryin', Chinless," called the spotter
+derisively.
+
+Croly stumbled up the steps, his eyes moist, his heart pumping fast.
+Chinless! The old epithet. The old curse. It blistered his soul.
+
+Moodily he sought out a bench in Madison Square, hunched himself down
+and considered his case. To-day, he felt, was the critical day of his
+life; it was his thirtieth birthday.
+
+His mind flashed back, as you've seen it done in the movies, to a scene
+the night before, in which he had had a leading rôle.
+
+"Emily," he had said to the loveliest girl in the world, "will you marry
+me?"
+
+Plainly Emily Mackie had expected something of the sort, and after the
+fashion of the modern business girl had given the question calm and
+clear-visioned consideration.
+
+"Croly," she said softly, "I like you. You are a true friend. You are
+kind and honest and you work hard. But oh, Croly dear, we couldn't live
+on twenty-two dollars and fifty cents a week; now could we?"
+
+That was Croly's present salary after eleven years with the Pierian
+Piano Company, and he had to admit that Emily was right; they could not
+live on it.
+
+"But, dearest Emily," he argued, "to-morrow they appoint a new assistant
+purchasing agent, and I'm in line for the job. It pays fifty a week."
+
+"But are you sure you'll get it?"
+
+His face fell.
+
+"N-no," he admitted, "but I deserve it. I know the job about ten times
+better than any of the others, and I've been there longest."
+
+"You thought they'd promote you last year, you know," she reminded him.
+
+"And so they should have," he replied, flushing. "If it hadn't been for
+old Grizzly Cowdin! He thinks I couldn't make good because I haven't one
+of those underslung jaws like his."
+
+"He's a brute!" cried Emily. "You know more about the piano business
+than he does."
+
+"I think I do," said Croly, "but he doesn't. And he's the boss."
+
+"Oh, Croly, if you'd only assert yourself----"
+
+"I guess I never learned how," said Croly sadly.
+
+As he sat there on the park bench, plagued by the demon of
+introspection, he had to admit that he was not the pugnacious type, the
+go-getter sort that Cowdin spoke of often and admiringly. He knew his
+job; he could say that of himself in all fairness, for he had spent many
+a night studying it; some day, he told himself, they'd be surprised, the
+big chiefs and all of them, to find out how much he did know about the
+piano business. But would they ever find out?
+
+Nobody, reflected Croly, ever listened when he talked. There was nothing
+about him that carried conviction. It had always been like that since
+his very first day in school when the boys had jeeringly noted his
+rather marked resemblance to a haddock, and had called out, "Chinless,
+Chinless, stop tryin' to swallow your face."
+
+Around his chinlessness his character had developed; no one had ever
+taken him seriously, so quite naturally he found it hard to take himself
+seriously. It was inevitable that his character should become as
+chinless as his face.
+
+His apprenticeship under the thumb and chin of the domineering Cowdin
+had not tended to decrease his youthful timidity. Cowdin, with a jut of
+jaw like a paving block, had bullied Croly for years. More than once
+Croly had yearned burningly to plant his fist squarely on that
+blue-black prong of chin, and he had even practiced up on a secondhand
+punching bag with this end in view. But always he weakened at the
+crucial instant. He let his resentment escape through the safety valve
+of intense application to the business of his firm. It comforted him
+somewhat to think that even the big-jawed president, Mr. Flagstead,
+probably didn't have a better grasp of the business as a whole than he,
+chinless Croly Addicks, assistant to the assistant purchasing agent.
+But--and he groaned aloud at the thought--his light was hidden under a
+bushel of chinlessness.
+
+Someone had left a crumpled morning edition of an evening paper on the
+bench, and Croly glanced idly at it. From out the pages stared the
+determined incisive features of a young man very liberally endowed with
+jaw. Enviously Croly read the caption beneath the picture, "The fighting
+face of Kid McNulty, the Chelsea Bearcat, who boxes Leonard." With a
+sigh Croly tossed the paper away.
+
+He glanced up at the Metropolitan Tower clock and decided that he had
+just time enough for a cooling beaker of soda. He reached the soda
+fountain just ahead of three other thirsty men. By every right he should
+have been served first. But the clerk, a lofty youth with the air of a
+grand duke, after one swift appraising glance at the place where Croly's
+chin should have been, disregarded the murmured "Pineapple phosphate,
+please," and turned to serve the others. Of them he inquired
+solicitously enough, "What's yourn?" But when he came to Croly he shot
+him an impatient look and asked sharply, "Well, speak up, can't yuh?"
+The cool drink turned to galling acid as Croly drank it.
+
+He sprinted for his office, trying to cling to a glimmering hope that
+Cowdin, despite his waspishness of the morning, had given him the
+promotion. He reached his desk a minute late.
+
+Cowdin prowled past and remarked with a cutting geniality, harder to
+bear than a curse, "Well, Mr. Addicks, you dallied too long over your
+lobster and quail, didn't you?"
+
+Under his desk Croly's fists knotted tightly. He made no reply.
+To-morrow, probably, he'd have an office of his own, and be almost free
+from Cowdin's ill-natured raillery. At this thought he bent almost
+cheerfully over his stack of work.
+
+A girl rustled by and thumb-tacked a small notice on the bulletin board.
+Croly's heart ascended to a point immediately below his Adam's apple and
+stuck there, for the girl was Cowdin's secretary, and Croly knew what
+announcement that notice contained. He knew it was against the Spartan
+code of office etiquette to consult the board during working hours, but
+he thought of Emily, and what the announcement meant to him, and he rose
+and with quick steps crossed the room and read the notice.
+
+     Ellis G. Baldwin has this day been promoted to assistant
+     purchasing agent.
+
+                            (Signed) SAMUEL COWDIN C. P. A.
+
+Croly Addicks had to steady himself against the board; the black letters
+on the white card jigged before his eyes; his stomach felt cold and
+empty. Baldwin promoted over his head! Blatant Baldwin, who was never
+sure of his facts, but was always sure of himself. Cocksure incompetent
+Baldwin! But--but--he had a bulldog jaw.
+
+Croly Addicks, feeling old and broken, turned around slowly, to find
+Cowdin standing behind him, a wry smile on his lips, his pin-point eyes
+fastened on Croly's stricken face.
+
+"Well, Mr. Addicks," purred the chief purchasing agent, "are you
+thinking of going out for a spin in your limousine or do you intend to
+favor us with a little work to-day?" He tilted his jaw toward Croly.
+
+"I--I thought I was to get that job," began Croly Addicks, fingering his
+necktie.
+
+Cowdin produced a rasping sound by rubbing his chin with his finger.
+
+"Oh, did you, indeed?" he asked. "And what made you think that, Mr.
+Addicks?"
+
+"I've been here longest," faltered Croly, "and I want to get married,
+and I know the job best, and I've been doing the work ever since Sebring
+quit, Mr. Cowdin."
+
+For a long time Cowdin did not reply, but stood rubbing his chin and
+smiling pityingly at Croly Addicks, until Croly, his nerves tense,
+wanted to scream. Then Cowdin measuring his words spoke loud enough for
+the others in the room to hear.
+
+"Mr. Addicks," he said, "that job needs a man with a punch. And you
+haven't a punch, Mr. Addicks. Mr. Addicks, that job requires a fighter.
+And you're not a fighter, Mr. Addicks. Mr. Addicks, that job requires a
+man with a jaw on him. And you haven't any jaw on you, Mr. Addicks. Get
+me?" He thrust out his own peninsula of chin.
+
+It was then that Croly Addicks erupted like a long suppressed volcano.
+All the hate of eleven bullied years was concentrated in his knotted
+hand as he swung it swishingly from his hip and landed it flush on the
+outpointing chin.
+
+An ox might have withstood that punch, but Cowdin was no ox. He rolled
+among the waste-paper baskets. Snorting furiously he scrambled to his
+feet and made a bull-like rush at Croly. Trembling in every nerve Croly
+Addicks swung at the blue-black mark again, and Cowdin reeled against a
+desk. As he fell his thick fingers closed on a cast-iron paperweight
+that lay on the desk.
+
+Croly Addicks had a blurred split-second vision of something black
+shooting straight at his face; then he felt a sharp brain-jarring shock;
+then utter darkness.
+
+When the light came back to him again it was in Bellevue Hospital. His
+face felt queer, numb and enormous; he raised his hand feebly to it; it
+appeared to be covered with concrete bandages.
+
+"Don't touch it," cautioned the nurse. "It's in a cast, and is setting."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It took long weeks for it to set; they were black weeks for Croly,
+brightened only by a visit or two from Emily Mackie. At last the nurse
+removed the final bandage and he was discharged from the hospital.
+
+Outside the hospital gate Croly paused in the sunlight. Not many blocks
+away he saw the shimmer of the East River, and he faced toward it. He
+could bury his catastrophe there, and forget his smashed-up life, his
+lost job and his shattered chances of ever marrying. Who would have him
+now? At best it meant the long weary climb up from the very bottom, and
+he was past thirty. He took a half step in the direction of the river.
+He stopped; he felt a hand plucking timidly at his coat sleeve.
+
+The person who plucked at his sleeve was a limp youth with a limp
+cigarette and vociferous checked clothes and cap. There was no mistaking
+the awe in his tone as he spoke.
+
+"Say," said the limp youth, "ain't you Kid McNulty, de Chelsea Bearcat?"
+
+He? Croly Addicks? Taken for Kid McNulty, the prize fighter? A wave of
+pleasure swept over the despondent Croly. Life seemed suddenly worth
+living. He had been mistaken for a prize fighter!
+
+He hardened his voice.
+
+"That's me," he said.
+
+"Gee," said the limp youth, "I seen yuh box Leonard. Gee, that was a
+battle! Say, next time yuh meet him you'll knock him for a row of circus
+tents, won't yuh?"
+
+"I'll knock him for a row of aquariums," promised Croly. And he jauntily
+faced about and strolled away from the river and toward Madison Square,
+followed by the admiring glances of the limp youth.
+
+He felt the need of refreshment and pushed into a familiar soda shop.
+The same lofty grand duke was on duty behind the marble counter, and was
+taking advantage of a lull by imparting a high polish to his finger
+nails, and consequently he did not observe the unobtrusive entrance of
+Croly Addicks.
+
+Croly tapped timidly with his dime on the counter; the grand duke looked
+up.
+
+"Pineapple phosphate, please," said Croly in a voice still weak from his
+hospital days.
+
+The grand duke shot from his reclining position as if attached to a
+spring.
+
+"Yessir, yessir, right away," he smiled, and hustled about his task.
+
+Shortly he placed the beverage before the surprised Croly.
+
+"Is it all right? Want a little more sirup?" inquired the grand duke
+anxiously.
+
+Croly, almost bewildered by this change of demeanor, raised the glass to
+his lips. As he did so he saw the reflection of a face in the glistening
+mirror opposite. He winced, and set down the glass, untasted.
+
+He stared, fascinated, overwhelmed; it must surely be his face, since
+his body was attached to it, but how could it be? The eyes were the mild
+blue eyes of Croly Addicks, but the face was the face of a stranger--and
+a startling-looking stranger, at that!
+
+Croly knew of course that it had been necessary to rebuild his face,
+shattered by the missile hurled by Cowdin, but in the hospital they had
+kept mirrors from him, and he had discovered, but only by sense of
+touch, that his countenance had been considerably altered. But he had
+never dreamed that the transformation would be so radical.
+
+In the clear light he contemplated himself, and understood why he had
+been mistaken for the Chelsea Bearcat. Kid McNulty had a large amount of
+jaw, but he never had a jaw like the stranger with Croly Addicks' eyes
+who stared back, horrified, at Croly from the soda-fountain mirror. The
+plastic surgeons had done their work well; there was scarcely any scar.
+But they had built from Croly's crushed bones a chin that protruded like
+the prow of a battleship.
+
+The mariners of mythology whom the sorceress changed into pigs could
+hardly have been more perplexed and alarmed than Croly Addicks. He had,
+in his thirty years, grown accustomed to his meek apologetic face. The
+face that looked back at him was not meek or apologetic. It was
+distinctly a hard face; it was a determined, forbidding face; it was
+almost sinister.
+
+Croly had the uncanny sensation of having had his soul slipped into the
+body of another man, an utter stranger. Inside he was the same timorous
+young assistant to the assistant purchasing agent--out of work; outside
+he was a fearsome being, a dangerous-looking man, who made autocratic
+soda dispensers jump.
+
+To him came a sinking, lost feeling; a cold emptiness; the feeling of a
+gentle Doctor Jekyll who wakes to find himself in the shell of a fierce
+Mr. Hyde. For a second or two Croly Addicks regretted that he had not
+gone on to the river.
+
+The voice of the soda clerk brought him back to the world.
+
+"If your drink isn't the way you like it, sir," said the grand duke
+amiably, "just say the word and I'll mix you up another."
+
+Croly started up.
+
+"'Sall right," he murmured, and fumbled his way out to Madison Square.
+
+He decided to live a while longer, face and all. It was something to be
+deferred to by soda clerks.
+
+He sank down on a bench and considered what he should do. At the twitter
+of familiar voices he looked up and saw the blond stenographer and the
+brunette stenographer from his former company passing on the way to
+lunch.
+
+He rose, advanced a step toward them, tipped his hat and said, "Hello."
+
+The blond stenographer drew herself up regally, as she had seen some one
+do in the movies, and chilled Croly with an icy stare.
+
+"Don't get so fresh!" she said coldly. "To whom do you think you're
+speaking to?"
+
+"You gotta crust," observed the brunette, outdoing her companion in
+crushing hauteur. "Just take yourself and your baby scarer away, Mister
+Masher, and get yourself a job posing for animal crackers."
+
+They swept on as majestically as tight skirts and French heels would
+permit, and Croly, confused, subsided back on his bench again. Into his
+brain, buzzing now from the impact of so many new sensations, came a
+still stronger impression that he was not Croly Addicks at all, but an
+entirely different and fresh-born being, unrecognized by his old
+associates. He pondered on the trick fate had played on him until hunger
+beckoned him to the Help Yourself Buffet. He was inside before he
+realized what he was doing, and before he recalled his vow never to
+enter there again. The same spotter was moving in and out among the
+patrons, the same derby cocked over one eye, and an untasted sandwich,
+doubtless the same one, in his hand. He paid no special heed to the
+renovated Croly Addicks.
+
+Croly was hungry and under the spotter's very nose he helped himself to
+hamburger steak and a double order of strawberry shortcake with thick
+cream. Satisfied, he started toward the blasé check boy with the brassy
+voice; as he went his hand felt casually in his change pocket, and he
+stopped short, gripped by horror. The coins he counted there amounted to
+exactly forty-five cents and his meal totaled a dollar at least.
+Furthermore, that was his last cent in the world. He cast a quick
+frightened glance around him. The spotter was lounging against the check
+desk, and his beady eye seemed focused on Croly Addicks. Croly knew that
+his only chance lay in bluffing; he drew in a deep breath, thrust
+forward his new chin, and said to the boy, "Forty-five." "Fawty-fi',"
+screamed the boy. The spotter pricked up his ears.
+
+"Pahdun me a minute, frien'," said the spotter. "Ain't you made a little
+mistake?"
+
+Summoning every ounce of nerve he could Croly looked straight back into
+the spotter's eyes.
+
+"No," said Croly loudly.
+
+For the briefest part of a second the spotter wavered between duty and
+discretion. Then the beady eyes dropped and he murmured, "Oh, I beg
+pahdun. I thought you was the guy that just got outside of a raft of
+strawb'ry shortcake and hamboiger. Guess I made a little mistake
+myself."
+
+With the brisk firm step of a conqueror Croly Addicks strode into the
+air, away from the scene he had once left so humiliated.
+
+Again, for many reflective minutes he occupied one of those chairs of
+philosophy, a park bench, and revolved in his mind the problem, "Where
+do I go from here?" The vacuum in his pockets warned him that his need
+of a job was imperative. Suddenly he released his thoughtful clutch on
+his new jaw, and his eyes brightened and his spine straightened with a
+startling idea that at once fascinated and frightened him. He would try
+to get his old job back again.
+
+Inside him the old shrinking Croly fought it out with the new Croly.
+
+"Don't be foolish!" bleated the old Croly. "You haven't the nerve to
+face Cowdin again."
+
+"Buck up!" argued back the new Croly. "You made that soda clerk hop, and
+that spotter quail. The worst Cowdin can say is 'No!'"
+
+"You haven't a chance in the piano company, anyhow," demurred the old
+Croly. "They know you too well; your old reputation is against you. The
+spineless jellyfish class at twenty-two-fifty per is your limit there."
+
+"Nonsense," declared the new Croly masterfully. "It's the one job you
+know. Ten to one they need you this minute. You've invested eleven years
+of training in it. Make that experience count."
+
+"But--but Cowdin may take a wallop at me," protested the old Croly.
+
+"Not while you have a face like Kid McNulty, the Chelsea Bearcat,"
+flashed back the new Croly. The new Croly won.
+
+Ten minutes later Samuel Cowdin swiveled round in his chair to face a
+young man with a pale, grim face and an oversized jaw.
+
+"Well?" demanded Cowdin.
+
+"Mr. Cowdin," said Croly Addicks, holding his tremors in check by a
+great effort of will, "I understand you need a man in the purchasing
+department. I want the job."
+
+Cowdin shot him a puzzled look. The chief purchasing agent's countenance
+wore the expression of one who says "Where have I seen that face
+before?"
+
+"We do need a man," Cowdin admitted, staring hard at Croly, "though I
+don't know how you knew it. Who are you?"
+
+"I'm Addicks," said Croly, thrusting out his new chin.
+
+Cowdin started. His brow wrinkled in perplexity; he stared even more
+intently at the firm-visaged man, and then shook his head as if giving
+up a problem.
+
+"That's odd," he muttered, reminiscently stroking his chin. "There was a
+young fellow by that name here. Croly was his first name. You're not
+related to him, I suppose?"
+
+Croly, the unrecognized, straightened up in his chair as if he had sat
+on a hornet. With difficulty he gained control over his breathing, and
+managed to growl, "No, I'm not related to him."
+
+Cowdin obviously was relieved.
+
+"Didn't think you were," he remarked, almost amiably. "You're not the
+same type of man at all."
+
+"Do I get that job?" asked Croly. In his own ears his voice sounded
+hard.
+
+"What experience have you had?" questioned Cowdin briskly.
+
+"Eleven years," replied Croly.
+
+"With what company?"
+
+"With this company," answered Croly evenly.
+
+"With this company?" Cowdin's voice jumped a full octave higher to an
+incredulous treble.
+
+"Yes," said Croly. "You asked me if I was related to Croly Addicks. I
+said 'No.' That's true. I'm not related to him--because I am Croly
+Addicks."
+
+With a gasp of alarm Cowdin jumped to his feet and prepared to defend
+himself from instant onslaught.
+
+"The devil you are!" he cried.
+
+"Sit down, please," said Croly, quietly.
+
+Cowdin in a daze sank back into his chair and sat staring, hypnotized,
+at the man opposite him as one might stare who found a young pink
+elephant in his bed.
+
+"I'll forget what happened if you will," said Croly. "Let's talk about
+the future. Do I get the job?"
+
+"Eh? What's that?" Cowdin began to realize that he was not dreaming.
+
+"Do I get the job?" Croly repeated.
+
+A measure of his accustomed self-possession had returned to the chief
+purchasing agent and he answered with as much of his old manner as he
+could muster, "I'll give you another chance if you think you can behave
+yourself."
+
+"Thanks," said Croly, and inside his new self sniggered at his old self.
+
+The chief purchasing agent was master of himself by now, and he rapped
+out in the voice that Croly knew only too well, "Get right to work. Same
+desk. Same salary. And remember, no more monkey business, Mr. Addicks,
+because if----"
+
+He stopped short. There was something in the face of Croly Addicks that
+told him to stop. The big new jaw was pointing straight at him as if it
+were a pistol.
+
+"You said, just now," said Croly, and his voice was hoarse, "that I
+wasn't the same type of man as the Croly Addicks who worked here before.
+I'm not. I'm no longer the sort of man it's safe to ride. Please don't
+call me Mister unless you mean it."
+
+Cowdin's eyes strayed from the snapping eyes of Croly Addicks to the
+taut jaw; he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Report to Baldwin," was all he said.
+
+As Croly turned away, his back hid from Cowdin the smile that had come
+to his new face.
+
+The reincarnated Croly had been back at his old job for ten days, or,
+more accurately, ten days and nights, for it had taken that long to
+straighten out the snarl in which Baldwin, not quite so sure of himself
+now, had been immersed to the eyebrows. Baldwin was watching, a species
+of awe in his eye, while Croly swiftly and expertly checked off a
+complicated price list. Croly looked up.
+
+"Baldwin," he said, laying down the work, "I'm going to make a
+suggestion to you. It's for your own good."
+
+"Shoot!" said the assistant purchasing agent warily.
+
+"You're not cut out for this game," said Croly Addicks.
+
+"Wha-a-at?" sputtered Baldwin.
+
+Croly leveled his chin at him. Baldwin listened as the new Addicks
+continued: "You're not the buying type, Baldwin. You're the selling
+type. Take my advice and get transferred to the selling end. You'll be
+happier--and you'll get farther."
+
+"Say," began Baldwin truculently, "you've got a nerve. I've a good
+notion to----"
+
+Abruptly he stopped. Croly's chin was set at an ominous angle.
+
+"Better think it over," said Croly Addicks, taking up the price list
+again.
+
+Baldwin gazed for a full minute or more at the remade jaw of his
+assistant. Then he conceded, "Maybe I will."
+
+A week later Baldwin announced that he had taken Croly's advice. The old
+Addicks would have waited, with anxious nerves on edge, for the
+announcement of Baldwin's successor; the new Addicks went straight to
+the chief purchasing agent.
+
+"Mr. Cowdin," said Croly, as calmly as a bumping heart would permit,
+"shall I take over Baldwin's work?"
+
+The chief purchasing agent crinkled his brow petulantly.
+
+"I had Heaton in mind for the job," he said shortly without looking up.
+
+"I want it," said Croly Addicks, and his jaw snapped. His tone made
+Cowdin look up. "Heaton isn't ripe for the work," said Croly. "I am."
+
+Cowdin could not see that inside Croly was quivering; he could not see
+that the new Croly was struggling with the old and was exerting every
+ounce of will power he possessed to wring out the words. All Cowdin
+could see was the big jaw, bulging and threatening.
+
+He cautiously poked back his office chair so that it rolled on its
+casters out of range of the man with the dangerous face.
+
+"I told you once before, Addicks," began the chief purchasing agent----
+
+"You told me once before," interrupted Croly Addicks sternly, "that the
+job required a man with a jaw. What do you call this?"
+
+He tapped his own remodeled prow. Cowdin found it impossible not to rest
+his gaze on the spot indicated by Croly's forefinger. Unconsciously,
+perhaps, his beads of eyes roved over his desk in search of a convenient
+paperweight or other weapon. Finding none the chief purchasing agent
+affected to consider the merits of Croly's demand.
+
+"Well," he said with a judicial air, "I've a notion to give you a
+month's trial at the job."
+
+"Good," said Croly; and inside he buzzed and tingled warmly.
+
+Cowdin wheeled his office chair back within range again.
+
+A month after Croly Addicks had taken up his duties as assistant
+purchasing agent he was sitting late one afternoon in serious conference
+with the chief purchasing agent. The day was an anxious one for all the
+employees of the great piano company. It was the day when the directors
+met in solemn and awful conclave, and the ancient and acidulous chairman
+of the board, Cephas Langdon, who owned most of the stock, emerged,
+woodchucklike, from his hole, to conduct his annual much-dreaded
+inquisition into the corporation's affairs, and to demand, with many
+searching queries, why in blue thunder the company was not making more
+money. On this day dignified and confident executives wriggled and
+wilted like tardy schoolboys under his grilling, and official heads were
+lopped off with a few sharp words.
+
+As frightened secretaries slipped in and out of the mahogany-doored
+board room information seeped out, and breaths were held and tiptoes
+walked on as the reports flashed about from office to office.
+
+"Old Langdon's on a rampage."
+
+"He's raking the sales manager over the coals."
+
+"He's fired Sherman, the advertising manager."
+
+"He's fired the whole advertising department too."
+
+"He's asking what in blue thunder is the matter with the purchasing
+department."
+
+When this last ringside bulletin reached Cowdin he scowled, muttered,
+and reached for his hat.
+
+"If anybody should come looking for me," he said to Croly, "tell 'em I
+went home sick."
+
+"But," protested Croly, who knew well the habits of the exigent chairman
+of the board, "Mr. Langdon may send down here any minute for an
+explanation of the purchasing department's report."
+
+Cowdin smiled sardonically.
+
+"So he may, so he may," he said, clapping his hat firmly on his head.
+"Perhaps you'd be so good as to tell him what he wants to know."
+
+And still smiling the chief purchasing agent hurried to the freight
+elevator and made his timely and prudent exit.
+
+"Gawsh," said the blond stenographer, "Grizzly Cowdin's ducked again
+this year."
+
+"Gee," said the brunette stenographer, "here's where poor Mr. Addicks
+gets it where Nellie wore the beads."
+
+Croly knew what they were saying; he knew that he had been left to be a
+scapegoat. He looked around for his own hat. But as he did so he caught
+the reflection of his new face in the plate-glass top of his desk. The
+image of his big impressive jaw heartened him. He smiled grimly and
+waited.
+
+He did not have long to wait. The door was thrust open and President
+Flagstead's head was thrust in.
+
+"Where's Cowdin?" he demanded nervously. Tiny worried pearls of dew on
+the presidential brow bore evidence that even he had not escaped the
+grill.
+
+"Home," said Croly. "Sick."
+
+Mr. Flagstead frowned. The furrows of worry in his face deepened.
+
+"Mr. Langdon is furious at the purchasing department," he said. "He
+wants some things in the report explained, and he won't wait. Confound
+Cowdin!"
+
+Croly's eyes rested for a moment on the reflection of his chin in the
+glass on his desk; then he raised them to the president's.
+
+"Mr. Cowdin left me in charge," he said, hoping that his voice wouldn't
+break. "I'll see if I can answer Mr. Langdon's questions."
+
+The president fired a swift look at Croly; at first it was dubious;
+then, as it appraised Croly's set face, it grew relieved.
+
+"Who are you?" asked the president.
+
+"Addicks, assistant purchasing agent," said Croly.
+
+"Oh, the new man. I've noticed you around," said the president. "Meant
+to introduce myself. How long have you been here?"
+
+"Eleven years," said Croly.
+
+"Eleven years?" The president was unbelieving. "You couldn't have been.
+I certainly would have noticed your face." He paused a bit awkwardly.
+Just then they reached the mahogany door of the board room.
+
+Croly Addicks, outwardly a picture of determination, inwardly quaking,
+followed the president. Old Cephas Langdon was squatting in his chair,
+his face red from his efforts, his eyes, beneath their tufts of brow,
+irate. When he spoke, his words exploded in bunches like packs of
+firecrackers.
+
+"Well, well?" he snapped. "Where's Cowdin? Why didn't Cowdin come? I
+sent for Cowdin, didn't I? I wanted to see the chief purchasing agent.
+Where's Cowdin anyhow? Who are you?"
+
+"Cowdin's sick. I'm Addicks," said Croly.
+
+His voice trembled, and his hands went up to play with his necktie. They
+came in contact with the point of his new chin, and fresh courage came
+back to him. He plunged his hands into his coat pockets, pushed the chin
+forward.
+
+He felt the eyes under the bushy brows surveying his chin.
+
+"Cowdin sick, eh?" inquired Cephas Langdon acidly. "Seems to me he's
+always sick when I want to find out what in blue thunder ails his
+department." He held up a report. "I installed a purchasing system in
+1913," he said, slapping the report angrily, "and look here how it has
+been foozled." He slammed the report down on the table. "What I want to
+know, young man," he exploded, "is why material in the Syracuse
+factories cost 29 per cent more for the past three months than for the
+same period last year. Why? Why? Why?"
+
+He glared at Croly Addicks as if he held him personally responsible.
+Croly did not drop his eyes before the glare; instead he stuck his chin
+out another notch. His jaw muscles knotted. His breathing was difficult.
+The chance he'd been working for, praying for, had come.
+
+"Your purchasing system is all wrong, Mr. Langdon," he said, in a voice
+so loud that it made them all jump.
+
+For a second it seemed as if Cephas Langdon would uncoil and leap at the
+presumptuous underling with the big chin. But he didn't. Instead, with a
+smile in which there was a lot of irony, and some interest, he asked,
+"Oh, indeed? Perhaps, young man, you'll be so good as to tell me what's
+wrong with it? You appear to think you know a thing or two."
+
+Croly told him. Eleven years of work and study were behind what he said,
+and he emphasized each point with a thrust of his jaw that would have
+carried conviction even had his analysis of the system been less logical
+and concise than it was. Old Cephas Langdon leaning on the directors'
+table turned up his ear trumpet so that he wouldn't miss a word.
+
+"Well? Well? And what would you suggest instead of the old way?" he
+interjected frequently.
+
+Croly had the answer ready every time. Darkness and dinnertime had come
+before Croly had finished.
+
+"Flagstead," said Old Cephas Langdon, turning to the president, "haven't
+I always told you that what we needed in the purchasing department was a
+man with a chin on him? Just drop a note to Cowdin to-morrow, will you,
+and tell him he needn't come back?"
+
+He turned toward Croly and twisted his leathery old face into what
+passed for a smile.
+
+"Young man," he said, "don't let anything happen to that jaw of yours.
+One of these bright days it's going to be worth twenty-five thousand
+dollars a year to you."
+
+That night a young man with a prodigious jaw sat very near a young woman
+named Emily Mackie, who from time to time looked from his face to the
+ring finger of her left hand.
+
+"Oh, Croly dear," she said softly, "how did you do it?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Guess I just tried to live up to my jaw."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+Punctuation and formatting markup have been normalized.
+
+Apparent printer's errors have been retained, unless stated below.
+
+Page 134, "this" changed to "his". (Horace tried to do his work, but he
+couldn't remember when he had had such a poor day)
+
+Page 195, "gaging" changed to "gauging". (Chester paused at the Greek
+Candy Kitchen on Main Street to buy a box of candy, richly bedight with
+purple silk, and by carefully gauging his saunter, contrived to arrive
+at the Wrigley residence at fourteen minutes after eight.)
+
+Page 247, "much" changed to "must". (At twenty paces they must each
+discharge two horse-pistols;)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon, by Richard Connell
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