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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Sweet Dry and Dry, by
+Christopher Morley and Bart Haley
+
+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: In the Sweet Dry and Dry
+
+Author: Christopher Morley
+        Bart Haley
+
+Posting Date: July 9, 2009 [EBook #4249]
+Release Date: July, 2003
+First Posted: December 19, 2001
+Last Updated: July 26, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE SWEET DRY AND DRY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IN THE SWEET DRY AND DRY
+
+
+BY
+
+CHRISTOPHER MORLEY AND BART HALEY
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY GLUYAS WILLIAMS
+
+
+DEDICATED TO G. K. CHESTERTON
+
+MOST DELIGHTFUL OF MODERN DECANTERBURY PILGRIMS
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+As far as this book is concerned, the public may Take It, or the public
+may Let It Alone. But the authors feel it their duty to say that no
+deductions as to their own private habits are to be made from the story
+here offered. With its composition they have beguiled the moments of
+the valley of the shadow.
+
+Acknowledgement should be made to the Evening Public Ledger of
+Philadelphia for permission to reprint the ditty included in Chapter VI.
+
+The public will forgive this being only a brief preface, for at the
+moment of writing the time is short. Wishing you a Merry Abstinence,
+and looking forward to meeting you some day in Europe,
+
+CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, BART HALEY.
+
+Philadelphia, Ten minutes before Midnight, June 30, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+    I. MYSTERY OF THE UNEXPECTED JULEP
+   II. THE HOUSE ON CARAWAY STREET
+  III. INCIDENT OF THE GOOSEBERRY BOMBS
+   IV. THE GREAT WAR BEGINS
+    V. THE TREACHERY OF MISS CHUFF
+   VI. DEPARTED SPIRITS
+  VII. THE DECANTERBURY PILGRIMS
+ VIII. WITH BENEFIT OF CLERGY
+   IX. THE ELECTION
+    X. E PLURIBUS UNUM!
+   XI. IT'S A LONG WORM THAT HAS NO TURNING
+
+
+
+
+IN THE SWEET DRY AND DRY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MYSTERY OF THE UNEXPECTED JULEP
+
+
+Dunraven Bleak, the managing editor of The Evening Balloon, sat at his
+desk in the center of the local-room, under a furious cone of electric
+light. It was six o'clock of a warm summer afternoon: he was filling
+his pipe and turning over the pages of the Final edition of the paper,
+which had just come up from the press-room. After the turmoil of the
+day the room had quieted, most of the reporters had left, and the
+shaded lamps shone upon empty tables and a floor strewn ankle-deep with
+papers. Nearby sat the city editor, checking over the list of
+assignments for the next morning. From an adjoining kennel issued
+occasional deep groans and a strong whiff of savage shag tobacco, blown
+outward by the droning gust of an electric fan. These proved that the
+cartoonist (a man whose sprightly drawings were born to an obbligato of
+vehement blasphemy) was at work within.
+
+Mr. Bleak was just beginning to recuperate from the incessant vigilance
+of the day's work. There was an unconscious pathos in his lean,
+desiccated figure as he rose and crossed the room to the green glass
+drinking-fountain. After the custom of experienced newspapermen, he
+rapidly twirled a makeshift cup out of a sheet of copy paper. He poured
+himself a draught of clear but rather tepid water, and drank it without
+noticeable relish. His lifted head betrayed only the automatic
+thankfulness of the domestic fowl. There had been a time when six
+o'clock meant something better than a paper goblet of lukewarm
+filtration.
+
+He sat down at his desk again. He had loaded his pipe sedulously with
+an extra fine blend which he kept in his desk drawer for smoking during
+rare moments of relaxation when he had leisure to savor it. As he
+reached for a match he was meditating a genial remark to the city
+editor, when he discovered that there was only one tandsticker in the
+box. He struck it, and the blazing head flew off upon the cream-colored
+thigh of his Palm Beach suit. His naturally placid temper, undermined
+by thirty years of newspaper work and two years of prohibition, flamed
+up also. With a loud scream of rage and a curse against Sweden, he
+leaped to his feet and shook the glowing cinder from his person. Facing
+him he found a stranger who had entered the room quietly and unobserved.
+
+This was a huge man, clad in a sober uniform of gray cloth, with silver
+buttons and silver braid. A Sam Browne belt of wide blue leather
+marched across his extensive diagonal in a gentle curve. The band of
+his vizored military cap showed the initials C.P.H. in silver
+embroidery. His face, broad and clean-shaven, shone with a lustre which
+was partly warmth and partly simple friendliness. Save for a certain
+humility of bearing, he might have been taken for the liveried door-man
+of a moving-picture theater or exclusive millinery shop.
+
+In one hand he carried a very large black leather suit-case.
+
+"Is this Mr. Bleak?" he asked politely.
+
+"Yes," said the editor, in surprise. His secret surmise was that some
+one had died and left him a legacy which would enable him to retire
+from newspaper work. (This is the unacknowledged dream that haunts many
+journalists.) Mr. Bleak was wondering whether this was the way in which
+legacies were announced.
+
+The man in the gray uniform set the bag down with great care on the
+large flat desk. He drew out a key and unlocked it. Before opening it
+he looked round the room. The city editor and three reporters were
+watching curiously. A shy gayety twinkled in his clear blue eyes.
+
+"Mr. Bleak," he said, "you and these other gentlemen present are men of
+discretion--?"
+
+Bleak made a gesture of reassurance.
+
+The other leaned over the suit-case and lifted the lid.
+
+The bag was divided into several compartments. In one, the startled
+editor beheld a nest of tall glasses; in another, a number of
+interesting flasks lying in a porcelain container among chipped ice. In
+the lid was an array of straws, napkins, a flat tray labeled CLOVES,
+and a bunch of what looked uncommonly like mint leaves. Mr. Bleak did
+not speak, but his pulse was disorderly.
+
+The man in gray drew out five tumblers and placed them on the desk.
+Rapidly several bottles caught the light: there was a gesture of
+pouring, a clink of ice, and beneath the spellbound gaze of the
+watchers the glasses fumed and bubbled with a volatile potion. A glass
+mixing rod tinkled in the thin crystal shells, and the man of mystery
+deftly thrust a clump of foliage into each. A well known fragrance
+exhaled upon the tobacco-thickened air.
+
+"Shades of the Grail!" cried Bleak. "Mint julep!"
+
+The visitor bowed and pushed the glasses forward. "With the compliments
+of the Corporation," he said.
+
+The city editor sprang to his feet. Sagely cynical, he suspected a ruse.
+
+"It's a plant!" he exclaimed. "Don't touch it! It's a trick on the part
+of the Department of Justice, trying to get us into trouble."
+
+Bleak gazed angrily at the stranger. If this was indeed a federal
+stratagem, what an intolerably cruel one! In front of him the glasses
+sparkled alluringly: a delicate mist gathered on their ice-chilled
+curves: a pungent sweetness wavered in his nostrils.
+
+"See here!" he blurted with shrill excitement. "Are you a damned
+government agent? If so, take your poison and get out."
+
+The tall stranger in his impressive uniform stood erect and unabashed.
+With affectionate care he gave the tumblers a final musical stir.
+
+"O ye of little faith!" he said calmly. The sadness of the
+misunderstood idealist grieved his features. "Have you forgotten the
+miracle of Cana?" From his pocket he took a card and laid it on the
+desk.
+
+Bleak seized it. It said:
+
+THE CORPORATION FOR THE PERPETUATION OF HAPPINESS
+
+1316 Caraway Street
+
+Virgil Quimbleton, Associate Director
+
+He stared at the pasteboard, stupefied, and handed it to the city
+editor.
+
+Meanwhile the three reporters had drawn near. Light-hearted and
+irresponsible souls, unoppressed by the embittered suspicion of their
+superiors, they nosed the floating aroma with candid hilarity.
+
+"The breath of Eden!" said one.
+
+"It's a warm evening," remarked another, with seeming irrelevance.
+
+The face of Virgil Quimbleton, the man in gray, relaxed again at these
+marks of honest appreciation. He waved an encouraging arm over the
+crystals. "With the compliments of the Corporation," he repeated.
+
+Bleak and the city editor looked again at the card, and at each other.
+They scanned the face of their mysterious benefactor. Bleak's hand went
+out to the nearest glass. He raised it to his lips. An almost-forgotten
+formula recurred to him. "Down the rat-hole!" he cried, and tilted his
+arm. The others followed suit, and the associate director watched them
+with a glow of perfect altruism.
+
+The glasses were still in air when the cartoonist emerged from his
+room. "Holy cat!" he cried in amazement. "What's going on?" He seized
+one of the empty vessels and sniffed it.
+
+"Treason!" he exclaimed. "Who's been robbing the mint?"
+
+"Maybe you can have one too," said Bleak, and turned to where
+Quimbleton had been standing. But the mysterious visitor had leff the
+room.
+
+"You're too late, Bill," said the city editor genially. "There was a
+kind of Messiah here, but he's gone. Tough luck."
+
+"Say, boss," suggested one of the reporters. "There's a story in this.
+May I interview that guy?"
+
+Bleak picked up the card and put it in his pocket. A heavenly warmth
+pervaded his mental fabric. "A story?" he said. "Forget it! This is no
+story. It's a legend of the dear dead past. I'll cover this assignment
+myself."
+
+He borrowed a match and lit his pipe. Then he put on his coat and hat
+and left the office.
+
+It was remarked by faithful readers of the Balloon that the next day's
+cartoon was one of the least successful in the history of that
+brilliant newspaper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE HOUSE ON CARAWAY STREET
+
+
+After telephoning to his wife that he would not be home for supper,
+Bleak set out for Caraway Street. He was in that exuberant mood
+discernible in commuters unexpectedly spending an evening in town.
+Instead of hurrying out to the suburbs on the 6:17 train, to mow the
+lawn and admire the fireflies, here he was watching the more dazzling
+fireflies of the city--the electric signs which were already bulbed
+wanly against the rich orange of the falling sun. He puffed his pipe
+lustily and with a jaunty condescension watched the crowds thronging
+the drugstores for their dram of ice-cream soda. In his bosom the
+secret julep tingled radiantly. At that hour of the evening the shining
+bustle of the central streets was drawing the life of the city to
+itself. In the residential by-ways through which his route took him the
+pavements were nearly deserted. A delicious sense of extravagant
+adventure possessed him. As a newspaper man, he did not feel at all
+sure that he was on the threshold of a printable "story"; but as a
+connoisseur of juleps he felt that very possibly he was on the
+threshold of another drink. Passing a line of billboards, he noticed a
+brightly colored poster advertising a brand of collars. In sheer
+light-heartedness he drew a soft pencil from his waistcoat and adorned
+the comely young man on the collar poster with a heavy mustache.
+
+Caraway Street, with which he had not previously been familiar, proved
+to be a quaint little channel of old brick houses, leading into the
+bonfire of the summer sunset. There was nothing to distinguish number
+1316 from its neighbors. He rang the bell, and there ensued a rapid
+clicking in the lock, indicating that the latch had been released by
+some one within. He pushed the door open, and entered.
+
+He had a curious sensation of having stepped into an old Flemish
+painting. The hall in which he stood was cool and rather dark, though a
+bright refraction of light tossed from some upper window upon a tall
+mirror filled the shadow with broken spangles. Through an open doorway
+at the rear was the green glimmer of a garden. In front of him was a
+mahogany sideboard. On its polished top lay two books, a box of cigars,
+and a cut glass decanter surrounded by several glasses. In the decanter
+was a pale yellow fluid which held a beam of light. The house was
+completely silent.
+
+Somewhat abashed, he removed his hat and stood irresolute, expecting
+some greeting. But nothing happened. On a rack against the wall he saw
+a gray uniform coat like that which Mr. Quimbleton had worn in the
+Balloon office, and a similar gray cap with the silver monogram. He
+glanced at the books. One was The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the other
+was a Bible, open at the second chapter of John. He was looking
+curiously at the decanter when a voice startled him.
+
+"Dandelion wine!" it said. "Will you have a glass?"
+
+He turned and saw an old gentleman with profuse white hair and beard
+tottering into the hall.
+
+"Glad to see you, Mr. Bleak," said the latter. "I was expecting you."
+
+"You are very kind," said the editor. "I fear you have the advantage of
+me--I was told that Walt Whitman died in 1892--"
+
+"Nonsense!" wheezed the other with a senile chuckle. He straightened,
+ripped off his silver fringes, and appeared as the stalwart Quimbleton
+himself.
+
+"Forgive my precautions," he said. "I am surrounded by spies. I have to
+be careful. Should some of my enemies learn that old Mr. Monkbones of
+Caraway Street is the same as Virgil Quimbleton of the Happiness
+Corporation, my life wouldn't be worth--well, a glass of gooseberry
+brandy. Speaking of that, have a little of the dandelion wine." He
+pointed to the decanter.
+
+Bleak poured himself a glass, and watched his host carefully resume the
+hoary wig and whiskers. They passed into the garden, a quiet green
+enclosure surrounded by brick walls and bright with hollyhocks and
+other flowers. It was overlooked by a quaint jumble of rear gables,
+tall chimneys and white-shuttered dormer windows.
+
+"Do you play croquet?" asked Quimbleton, showing a neat pattern of
+white hoops fixed in the shaven turf. "If so, we must have a game after
+supper. It's very agreeable as a quiet relaxation."
+
+Mr. Bleak was still trying to get his bearings. To see this robust
+creature gravely counterfeiting the posture of extreme old age was
+almost too much for his gravity. There was a bizarre absurdity in the
+solemn way Quimbleton beamed out from his frosty and fraudulent
+shrubbery. Something in the air of the garden, also, seemed to push
+Bleak toward laughter. He had that sensation which we have all
+experienced--an unaccountable desire to roar with mirth, for no very
+definite cause. He bit his lip, and sought rigorously for decorum.
+
+"Upon my soul," he said, "This is the most fragrant garden I ever
+smelt. What is that delicious odor in the air, that faint perfume--?"
+
+"That subtle sweetness?" said Quimbleton, with unexpected drollery.
+
+"Exactly," said Bleak. "That abounding and pervasive aroma--"
+
+"That delicate bouquet--?"
+
+"Quite so, that breath of myrrh--"
+
+"That balmy exhalation--?"
+
+Bleak wondered if this was a game. He tried valiantly to continue.
+"Precisely," he said, "That quintessence of--"
+
+He could coerce himself no longer, and burst into a yell of laughter.
+
+"Hush!" said Quimbleton, nervously. "Some one may be watching us. But
+the fragrance of the garden is something I am rather proud of. You see,
+I water the flowers with champagne."
+
+"With champagne!" echoed Bleak. "Good heavens, man, you'll get penal
+servitude."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Quimbleton. "The Eighteenth Amendment says that
+intoxicating liquors may not be manufactured, sold or transported FOR
+BEVERAGE PURPOSES. Nothing is said about using them to irrigate the
+garden. I have a friend who makes this champagne himself and gives me
+some of it for my rose-beds. If you spray the flowers with it, and then
+walk round and inhale them, you get quite a genial reaction. I do it
+principally to annoy Bishop Chuff. You see, he lives next door."
+
+"Bishop Chuff of the Pan-Antis?"
+
+"Yes," said Quimbleton--"but don't shout! His garden adjoins this. He
+has a periscope that overlooks my quarters. That's why I have to wear
+this disguise in the garden. I think he's getting a bit suspicious. I
+manage to cause him a good deal of suffering with the fizz fumes from
+my garden. Jolly idea, isn't it?"
+
+Bleak was aghast at the temerity of the man. Bishop Chuff, the
+fanatical leader of the Anti-Everything League--jocosely known as the
+Pan-Antis--was the most feared man in America. It was he whose untiring
+organization had forced prohibition through the legislatures of forty
+States--had closed the golf links on Sundays--had made it a misdemeanor
+to be found laughing in public. And here was this daring Quimbleton,
+living at the very sill of the lion's den.
+
+"By means of my disguise," whispered Quimbleton, "I was able to make a
+pleasant impression on the Bishop. One evening I went to call on him. I
+took the precaution to eat a green persimmon beforehand, which
+distorted my features into such a malignant contraction of pessimism
+and misanthropy that I quite won his heart. He accepted an invitation
+to play croquet with me. That afternoon I prepared the garden with a
+deluge of champagne. The golden drops sparkled on every rose-petal: the
+lawn was drenched with it. After playing one round the Bishop was
+gloriously inflamed. He had to be carried home, roaring the most
+unseemly ditties. Since then, as I say, he has grown (I fear) a trifle
+suspicious. But let us have a bite of supper."
+
+More than once, as they sat under a thickly leafy grape arbor in the
+quiet green enclosure, Bleak had to pinch himself to confirm the
+witness of his senses. A table was delicately spread with an agreeable
+repast of cold salmon, asparagus salad, fruits, jellies, and whipped
+creams. The flagon of dandelion vintage played its due part in the
+repast, and Mr. Bleak began to entertain a new respect for this common
+flower of which he had been unduly inappreciative. Although the trellis
+screened them from observation, Quimbleton seemed ill at ease. He kept
+an alert gaze roving about him, and spoke only in whispers. Once, when
+a bird lighted in the foliage behind them, causing a sudden stir among
+the leaves, his shaggy beard whirled round with every symptom of panic.
+Little by little this apprehension began to infect the journalist also.
+At first he had hardly restrained his mirth at the sight of this burly
+athlete framed in the bush of Santa Claus. Now he began to wonder
+whether his escapade had been consummated at too great a risk.
+
+That old-fashioned quarter of the city was incredibly still. As the
+light ebbed slowly, and broad blue shadows crept across the patch of
+turf, they sat in a silence broken only by the wiry cheep of sparrows
+and the distant moan of trolley cars. The arrows of the decumbent sun
+gilded the ripening grapes above them. Suddenly there were two loud
+bangs and a vicious whistle sang through the arbor. Broken twigs eddied
+down upon the table cloth.
+
+"Spotted mackerel!" cried Bleak. "Is some one shooting at us?"
+
+Quimbleton reappeared presently from under the table. "All serene," he
+said. "We're safe now. That was only Chuff. Every night about this time
+he comes out on his back gallery and enjoys a little sharp-shooting.
+He's a very good shot, and picks off the grapes that have ripened
+during the day. There were only two that were really purple this
+evening, so now we can go ahead. Unless he should send over a raiding
+party, we're all right."
+
+The editor solaced himself with another beaker of the dandelion wine
+and they finished their meal in thoughtful silence.
+
+"Mr. Bleak," said the other at last, "it was something more than mere
+desire to give you a pleasant surprise that led me to your office this
+afternoon. Have you leisure to listen? Good! Please try one of these
+cigars. If, while I am talking, you should hear any one moving in the
+garden, just tap quietly on the table. Tell me, have you, before
+to-day, ever heard of the Corporation for the Perpetuation of
+Happiness?"
+
+"Never," replied Bleak, kindling a magnifico of remarkably rich, mild
+flavor.
+
+"That is as I expected," rejoined Quimbleton. "We have campaigned
+incognito, partly by choice and partly (let me be candid) by necessity.
+But the time is come when we shall have to appear in the open. The last
+great struggle is on, and it can no longer be conducted in the dark. In
+the course of my remarks I may be tempted to forget our present perils.
+I beg of you, if you hear any sounds that seem suspicious, to notify me
+instantly."
+
+"Pardon me," said Bleak, a little uneasily; "it was my intention to
+catch the 9.30 train for Mandrake Park."
+
+The fantastic cascade of false white hair wagged gravely in the dusk.
+
+"My dear sir," said Quimbleton solemnly, "I fancy you are to be
+gratified by a far higher destiny than catching the 9.30. Do me the
+honor of filling your glass. But be careful not to clink the decanter
+against the tumbler. There is every probability that vigilant ears are
+on the alert."
+
+There was a brief silence, and Bleak wondered (a trifle wildly) if he
+were dreaming. The cigar on the opposite side of the little table
+glowed rosily several times, and then Quimbleton's voice resumed, in a
+deep undertone.
+
+"It is necessary to tell you," he said, "that the Corporation was
+founded a number of years ago, long before the events of the fatal year
+1919 and the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The incident of
+this afternoon may have caused you to think that what is vulgarly
+called booze is the chief preoccupation of our society. That is not so.
+We were organized at first simply to bring merriment and good cheer
+into the lives of those who have found the vexations of modern life too
+trying. In our early days we carried on an excellent (though
+unsystematic) guerilla warfare against human suffering.
+
+"In this (let me admit it frankly) we were to a great degree selfish.
+As you are aware, the essence of humor is surprise: we found a
+delicious humor in our campaign of surprising woebegone humanity in
+moments of crisis. For instance, we used to picket the railway
+terminals to console commuters who had just missed their trains. We
+found it uproariously funny to approach a perspiring suburbanite, who
+had missed the train (let us say) to Mandrake Park, and to press upon
+him, with the compliments of the Corporation, some consolatory
+souvenir--a box of cigars, perhaps, or a basket of rare fruit.
+Housewives, groaning over their endless routine of bathing the baby,
+ordering the meals, sweeping the floors and so on, would be amazed by
+the sudden appearance of one of our deputies, in the service uniform of
+gray and silver, equipped with vacuum cleaner and electric baby-washing
+machine, to take over the domestic chores for one day. The troubles of
+lovers were under our special care. We saw how much anguish is caused
+by the passion of jealousy. Many an engaged damsel, tempted to mild
+escapade in some perfumed conservatory, found her heart chilled by the
+stern eye of a uniformed C.P.H. agent lurking behind a potted
+hydrangea. We hired bands of urchins to make faces at evil old men who
+plate-glass themselves in the windows of clubs. Many a husband,
+wondering desperately which hat or which tie to select, has been
+surprised by the appearance of one of our staff at his elbow, tactfully
+pointing out which article would best harmonize with his complexion and
+station in life. Ladies who insisted on overpowdering their noses were
+quietly waylaid by one of our matrons, and the excess of rice-dust
+removed. A whole shipload of people who persisted in eating onions were
+gathered (without any publicity) into a concentration camp, and in
+company with several popular comedians, deported to a coral atoll. I
+could enumerate thousands of such instances. For several years we
+worked in this unassuming way, trying to add to the sum of human
+happiness."
+
+Quimbleton's white beard shone with a pinkish brightness as he inhaled
+heavily on his cigar.
+
+"Now, Mr. Bleak," he went on, "I come to you because we need your help.
+We can no longer maintain a light-hearted sniping campaign on the
+enemies of human happiness. This is a death struggle. You are aware
+that Chuff and his legions are planning a tremendous parade for
+to-morrow. You know that it will be the most startling demonstration of
+its kind ever arranged. One hundred thousand pan-antis will parade on
+the Boulevard, with a hundred brass bands, led by the Bishop himself on
+his coal black horse. Do you know the purpose of the parade?"
+
+"In a general way," said Bleak, "I suppose it is to give publicity to
+the prohibition cause."
+
+"They have kept their malign scheme entirely secret," said Quimbleton.
+"You, as a newspaper man, should know it. Does the (so-called) cause of
+prohibition require publicity? Nonsense! Prohibition is already in
+effect. The purpose of the parade is to undermine the splendid work our
+Corporation has been doing for the past two years. As soon as the fatal
+amendment was passed we set to work to teach people how to brew
+beverages of their own, in their own homes. As you know, very delicious
+wine may be made from almost every vegetable and fruit. Potatoes,
+tomatoes, rhubarb, currants, blackberries, gooseberries, raisins,
+apples--all these are susceptible of fermentation, transforming their
+juices into desirable vintages. We specialized on such beverages. We
+printed and distributed millions of recipes. Chuff countered by passing
+laws that no printed recipes could circulate through the mails. We had
+motion pictures filmed, showing the eager public how to perform these
+simple and cheering processes. Chuff thereupon had motion pictures
+banned. He would abolish the principle of fermentation itself if he
+could.
+
+"We composed a little song-recipe for dandelion wine, sending thousands
+of minstrels to sing it about the country until the people should
+memorize it. Now Chuff threatens to forbid singing and the memorizing
+of poetry. At this moment he has fifty thousand zealots working in the
+countryside collecting and burning dandelion seeds so as to reduce the
+crop next spring.
+
+"The purpose of his parade to-morrow is devastating in its simplicity.
+Having learned that wine may be made from gooseberries, he proposes (as
+a first step) to abolish them altogether. This is to be the Nineteenth
+Amendment to the Constitution. No gooseberries shall be grown upon the
+soil of the United States, or imported from abroad. Raisins too, since
+it is said that one raisin in a bottle of grape juice can cause it to
+bubble in illicit fashion, are to be put in the category of deadly
+weapons. Any one found carrying a concealed raisin will go before a
+firing squad. And Chuff threatens to abolish all vegetables of every
+kind if necessary."
+
+Bleak sat in horrified silence.
+
+"There is another aspect of the matter," said Quimbleton, "that touches
+your profession very closely. Bishop Chuff is greatly annoyed at the
+persistent use of the printing press to issue clandestine vinous
+recipes. He solemnly threatens, if this continues, to abolish the
+printing press. This is to be the Twentieth Amendment. No printing
+press shall be used in the territory of the United States. Any man
+found with a printing press concealed about his person shall be
+sentenced to life imprisonment. Even the Congressional Record is to be
+written entirely by hand."
+
+The editor was unable to speak. He reached for the decanter, but found
+it empty.
+
+"Very well then," said Quimbleton. "The facts are before you. I suppose
+The Evening Balloon has made its customary enterprising preparations to
+report the big parade?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Bleak. "Three photographers and three of our most
+brilliant reporters have been assigned to cover the event. One of the
+stories, dealing with pathetic incidents of the procession, has already
+been written--cases of women swooning in the vast throng, and so on.
+The Balloon is always first," he added, by force of habit.
+
+"I want you to discard all your plans for describing the parade," said
+Quimbleton. "I am about to give you the greatest scoop in the history
+of journalism. The procession will break up in confusion. All that will
+be necessary to say can be said in half a dozen lines, which I will
+give you now. I suggest that you print them on your front page in the
+largest possible type."
+
+From his pocket he took a sheet of paper, neatly folded, and handed it
+across the table.
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" asked Bleak. "How can you know what will
+happen?"
+
+"The Corporation has spoken," said his host. "Let us go indoors, where
+you can read what I have written."
+
+In a small handsomely appointed library Bleak opened the paper. It was
+a sheet of official stationery and read as follows:--
+
+
+    THE CORPORATION FOR THE PERPETUATION OF HAPPINESS
+
+Cable Address: Hapcorp
+
+Virgil Quimbleton, Associate Director
+
+1316 Caraway Street
+
+Owing to the intoxication of Bishop Chuff, the projected parade of the
+Pan-Antis broke up in confusion. Federal Home for Inebriates at Cana,
+N.J., reopened after two years' vacation.
+
+
+"Is this straight stuff?" asked Bleak tremulously.
+
+"My right hand upon it," cried Quimbleton, tearing off his beard in his
+earnestness.
+
+"Then good-night!" said Bleak. "I must get back to the office."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+INCIDENT OF THE GOOSEBERRY BOMBS
+
+
+The day of the great parade dawned dazzling and clear, with every
+promise of heat. From the first blue of morning, while the streets were
+still cool and marble front steps moist from housemaids' sluicings,
+crowds of Bishop Chuff's marchers came pouring into the city. At the
+prearranged mobilization points, where bands were stationed to keep the
+throngs amused until the immense procession could be ranged in line,
+the press was terrific. Every trolley, every suburban train, every
+jitney, was crammed with the pan-antis, clad in white, carrying the
+buttons, ribbons and banners that had been prepared for this great
+occasion. DOWN WITH GOOSEBERRIES, THE NEW MENACE! was the terrifying
+legend printed on these emblems.
+
+The Boulevard had been roped off by the police by eight o'clock, and
+the pavements were swarming with citizens, many of whom had camped
+there all night in order to witness this tremendous spectacle. As the
+sun surged pitilessly higher, the temperature became painful. The
+asphalt streets grew soft under the twingeing feet of the Pan-Antis,
+and waves of heat radiation shimmered along the vista of the
+magnificent highway. To keep themselves cheerful the legions of Chuff
+sang their new Gooseberry Anthem, written by Miss Theodolinda Chuff
+(the Bishop's daughter) to the air of "Marching Through Georgia." The
+rousing strains rose in unison from thousands of earnest throats. The
+majesty of the song cannot be comprehended unless the reader will
+permit himself to hum to the familiar tune:--
+
+    Root up every gooseberry where Satan winks his eye--
+    We will make the sinful earth a credit by and by:
+    Europe may be stubborn, but we'll legislate her dry,
+    And then we'll tackle the planets.
+
+    Chorus:
+
+    Hurrah! Hurrah! We're anti-everything--
+    Hurrah! Hurrah! An end to joy we sing:
+    Come let's make life doleful and then death will lose its sting,
+             Happiness is only a habit!
+
+    Come then, all ye citizens, and join our stern Verein:
+    We're the ones that put the crimp in whiskey, beer and wine;
+    Booze is gone and soon we'll make tobacco fall in line,
+    And then we'll tackle the planets.
+
+    Chorus:
+
+    Hurrah! Hurrah! We're anti-everything--
+    Hurrah! Hurrah! An end to joy we sing:
+    Come let's make life doleful and then death will lose its sting,
+             Happiness is only a habit!
+
+    We'll abolish every fruit attempting to ferment--
+    We will alter Nature's laws and teach her to repent:
+    Let the fatal gooseberry proceed where cocktails went,
+      And then we'll tackle the planets.
+
+    Chorus as before.
+
+
+From the beginning of the day, however, it became apparent that there
+was a concerted movement under way to heckle the Pan-Antis. As the
+Gooseberry Anthem came to an end a number of men were observed on the
+skyline of a tall building, wig-wagging with flags. All eyes were
+turned aloft, and much speculation ensued among the waiting thousands
+as to the meaning of the signals. Then a cry of anger burst from one of
+the section leaders, who was acquainted with the Morse code. The flags
+were spelling WHAT A DAY FOR A DRINK! All down the Boulevard the white
+and gold banners tossed in anger. To those above, the mass of agitated
+chuffs looked like a field of daisies in a wind.
+
+Shortly afterward the familiar buzz of airplane motors was heard, and
+three silver-gray machines came coasting above the channel of the
+Boulevard. They flew low, and it was easy to read the initials C.P.H.
+painted on the nether surface of their wings. Over the front ranks of
+the parade (which was beginning to fall in line) they executed a series
+of fantastic twirls. Then, as though at a concerted signal, they
+dropped a cloud of paper slips which came eddying down through the
+sunlight. The chuffs scrambled for them, wondering. A sullen murmur
+rose when the messages were read. They ran thus:--
+
+    TO MAKE GOOSEBERRY WINE
+
+    (Paste This in Your Hat),
+
+    Ten quarts of gooseberries, thoroughly crushed;
+    Over these, five quarts of water are flushed.
+    Twice round the clock let the fluid remain,
+    Then through a sieve the blithe mixture you strain,
+    Adding some sugar (not less than ten pound)
+    And stirring it carefully, round and around.
+
+    To the pulp of the fruit that remains in the sieve
+    A gallon of pure filtered water you give:
+    This you let stand for a dozen of hours,
+    Then add to the other to strengthen its powers.
+    Shut up the whole for the space of a day
+    And it will ferment in a riotous way.
+
+    When you see by the froth that the fluid grows thicker
+    You, should skim it (with glee) for it's turning to liquor!
+    While it ferments, please continue to skim:
+    At the end, you may murmur the Bartender's Hymn.
+    This makes a booze that is potent enough--
+    Seal in a hogshead--and hide it from Chuff!
+
+    Corporation for the
+    Perpetuation of Happiness.
+
+
+The Pan-Antis were still muttering furiously over this daring act of
+defiance when a shrill bugle-call pealed down the avenue. Bishop Chuff
+rode out into the middle of the street on his famous coal-black
+charger, John Barleycorn. There was a long hush. Then, with a wave of
+his hand, he gave the signal. One hundred bands burst into the somber
+and clanging strains of "The Face on the Bar-Room Floor." The great
+parade had begun.
+
+From a house-top farther up the street Dunraven Bleak watched them
+come. He had taken Quimbleton's word seriously, and with his usual
+enterprise had rented a roof overlooking the Boulevard, on which
+several members of the Balloon staff were prepared to deal with any
+startling events that might occur. A battery of telephones had been
+installed on the house-top; Bleak himself sat with apparatus clamped to
+his head like an operator at central. Two reporters were busy with
+paper and pencil; the cartoonist sat on the cornice, with legs swinging
+above two hundred feet of space, sketching the prodigious scene. The
+young lady editor of the Woman's Page was there, with opera glasses,
+noting down the "among those present."
+
+It was an awe-inspiring spectacle. Between sidewalks jammed with silent
+and morose citizens, the Pan-Antis passed like a conquering army. The
+terrible Bishop, the man who had put military discipline into the ranks
+of his mighty organization, rode his horse as the Kaiser would have
+liked to ride entering Paris. His small, bitter, fanatical face wore a
+deeply carved sneer. His great black beard flapped in the breeze, and
+he sang as he rode. Behind him came huge floats depicting in startling
+tableaux the hideous menace of the gooseberry. Bands blared and
+crashed. Then, rank on rank, as far as eye could see, followed the
+zealots in their garments of white. Each one, it was noticed, carried a
+neat knapsack. Huge tractors rumbled along, groaning beneath a tonnage
+of tracts which were shot into the watching crowd by pneumatic guns.
+Banners whipped and fluttered.
+
+The sound of shrill chanting vibrated in the blazing air like a visible
+wave of power. These were conquerors of a nation, and they knew it. A
+former bartender, standing in the front of the crowd, caught Chuff's
+merciless gaze, wavered, and swooned. A retired distiller, sitting in
+the window of the Brass Rail Club, fell dead of apoplexy.
+
+Bleak trembled with nervousness. Had Quimbleton hoaxed him? What could
+halt this mighty pageant now? He was about to telephone to his city
+editor to go ahead with the one o'clock edition as originally
+planned....
+
+From the sky came a roar of engines that drowned for a moment the
+thundering echoes of the parade. The three gray planes, which had been
+circling far above, swooped down almost to a level with the tops of the
+buildings. One of these, a huge two-seated bomber, passed directly over
+Bleak's head. He craned upward, and caught a glimpse of what he thought
+at first was a white pennant trailing over the bulwark of the cockpit.
+A snowy shag of whiskers came tossing down through the air and fell in
+his lap. It was Quimbleton's beard, torn from its moorings by the tug
+of wind-pressure. Bleak thrust it quickly in his pocket. As the great
+plane passed over the head of the parade, flying dangerously low, every
+face save that of the iron-willed Bishop was turned upward. But even in
+their curiosity the rigid discipline of the Pan-Antis prevailed. Now
+they were singing, to the tune of "The Old Gray Mare."
+
+    Old John Barleycorn, he ain't what he used to be
+    AIN'T WHAT HE USED TO BE--
+    AIN'T WHAT HE USED TO BE!
+    Old John Barleycorn, he ain't what he used to be,
+    Many a year ago.
+
+The great volume of gusty sound, hurled aloft by these thousands of
+sky-pointing mouths, created an air-pocket in which the bombing plane
+tilted dangerously. For a moment, Bleak, who was watching the plane,
+thought it was going to careen into a tail-spin and crash down fatally.
+Then he saw Quimbleton, still recognizable by an adhering shred of
+whisker, lean over the side of the fuselage.
+
+A small dark object dropped through the air, fell with a loud POP on
+the street a few yards in front of the Bishop. A faint green vapor
+arose, misting for a moment the proud figures of Chuff and his horse.
+At the same instant the other two planes, throbbing down the line of
+the parade, discharged a rain of similar projectiles along the vacant
+strip of paving between the marching chuffs and the police-lined curb.
+An eddying emerald fume filled the street, drifting with the brisk air
+down through all the ranks of the procession. There were shouts and
+screams; the clanging bands squawked discordantly.
+
+"Holy cat!" shouted the cartoonist--"Poison gas!"
+
+"Nix!" said Bleak, revealing Quimbleton's secret in his excitement.
+"Gooseberry bombs. Every chuff that inhales it will be properly soused.
+Oh, boy, some story! Look at the Bish! He's got a snootful already--his
+face has turned black!"
+
+"The whole crowd has turned black," said the cartoonist, almost falling
+off his perch in a frantic effort to see more clearly through the olive
+haze that filled the street.
+
+It was true. Above the thousands of white figures, as they emerged from
+the intoxicating cloud-bank of gooseberry gas, grinned ghastly,
+inhuman, blackened faces, with staring goggle eyes. The Bishop was most
+frightful of all. His horse was prancing and swaying wildly, and the
+Bishop's transformed features were diabolic. His whole profile had
+altered, seemed black and shapeless as the face of a tadpole. The
+amazing truth burst upon Bleak. Chuff and his paraders were wearing
+gas-masks. These were what they had carried in their knapsacks.
+Indomitable Chuff, who had foreseen everything!
+
+"Poor Quimbleton," said Bleak. "This will break his heart!"
+
+"His neck too, I fancy," said one of the others, pointing to the sky,
+and indeed one of the three planes was seen falling tragically to earth
+behind the tower of the City Hall.
+
+The cloud of gas was rapidly drifting off down the Boulevard, and
+through the exhilarating and delicious fog the Pan-Antis waved their
+defiant banners unscathed. The progress of the parade, however, was
+halted by the behavior of the Bishop's horse, for which no mask had
+been provided. The noble animal, under this sudden and extraordinary
+stimulus, was almost human in its actions. At first it stood,
+whinneying sharply, and pawing the air with one forefoot--as though
+feeling for the brass rail, as one of Bleak's companions said. It
+raised its head proudly, with open mouth and expanded nostrils. Then,
+dashing off across the broad street, it seemed eager to climb a
+lamp-post, and only the fierce restraint of the Bishop held it in. One
+of the chuffs (perhaps only lukewarm in loyalty), ran up and offered to
+give his mask to the horse, but was sternly motioned back to the ranks
+by the infuriated leader, who was wildly wrestling to gain control of
+the exuberant animal. At last the horse solved the problem by lying
+down in the street, on top of the Bishop, and going to sleep. An
+ambulance, marked Federal Home for Inebriates, Cana, N.J., dashed up
+with shrilling gong. This had been arranged by Quimbleton, who had
+wired a requisition for an ambulance to remove one intoxicated bishop.
+As the Bishop was quite in command of his faculties, the horse, after
+some delay, was hoisted into the ambulance instead. The Bishop was
+given a dusting, and the parade proceeded. The self-control of the
+police alone averted prolonged and frightful disorder, for when the
+conduct of the horse was observed thousands of spectators fought
+desperately to get through the ropes and out into the fumes that still
+lingered in wisps and whorls of green vapor. Others tore off their
+coats and attempted to bag a few cubic inches of the gas in these
+garments. But the police, with a devotion to duty that was beyond
+praise, kept the mob in check and themselves bore the brunt of the
+lingering acid. Only one man, who leaped from an office-window with an
+improvised parachute, really succeeded in getting into the middle of
+the Boulevard, and he refused to be ejected on the ground that he was
+chief of the street-cleaning department. This department, by the way,
+was given a remarkable illustration of the fine public spirit of the
+citizens, for by three o'clock in the afternoon two hundred thousand
+applications had been received from those eager to act as volunteer
+street-cleaners and help scour the Boulevard after the passage of the
+great parade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GREAT WAR BEGINS
+
+
+As the echoes of the parade died away, public excitement was roused to
+fever by the discovery that evening of an infernal machine in the City
+Hall. Leaning against one of the great marble pillars in the lobby of
+the building, a gleaming object (looking very much like a four-inch
+shrapnel shell) was found by a vigilant patrolman. To his horror he
+found it to be one of the much-dreaded thermos bottles. Experts from
+the Bureau of Rumbustibles were summoned, and the bomb was carefully
+analyzed. Much to the disappointment of the chief inspector, the
+devilish ingredients of the explosive had been spoiled by immersion in
+a pail of water, so his examination was purely theoretical; but it was
+plain that the leading component of this hellish mixture had been
+nothing less than gin, animated by a fuse of lemon-peel. If the
+cylinder had exploded, unquestionably every occupant of the City Hall
+would have been intoxicated.
+
+The conduct of the municipal officials in this crisis was extremely
+courageous. No one knew whether other articles of this kind might not
+be concealed about the building, but the Mayor and councilmen refused
+to go home, and even assisted in the search for possible bombs. Secret
+service men were called from Washington, and went into consultation
+with Bishop Chuff. It was a night of uproar. A reign of terror was
+freely predicted, and many prominent citizens sat up until after
+midnight on the chance of discovering similar explosives concealed
+about their premises.
+
+The morning papers rallied rapidly to the cause of threatened
+civilization. The Daily Circumspect declared, editorially:--
+
+The alcoholsheviks have at last thrown down the gauntlet. The news that
+the ginarchists have placed a ginfernal machine in the very shrine of
+law and order is tantamount to a declaration of war upon sobriety as a
+whole. A canister of forbidden design, filled with the deadliest
+gingredients, was found in the corridor leading to the bureau of
+marriage licenses in the City Hall. There must have been something more
+than accident in its discovery just in this spot. Men of thoughtful
+temper will do well to heed the symbolism of this incident. Plainly not
+only the constitution of the United States is to be made a
+quaffing-stock, but the very sanctity of the marriage bond is assailed.
+To this form of terrorism there is but one answer.
+
+In the meantime, Quimbleton had disappeared. The house on Caraway
+Street was broken into by the police, but except for the grape arbor
+and a great quantity of empty bottles in the cellar, no clue was found.
+Apparently, however, the vanished ginarchist (for so Chuff called him)
+had been writing poetry before his departure. The following rather
+inscrutable doggerel was found scrawled on a piece of paper:--
+
+    When Death doth reap
+    And Chuff is sickled,
+    He will not keep:
+    He was never pickled.
+
+    For Bishop Chuff
+    This is ill cheer:
+    That Time will force him
+    To the bier.
+
+    And when he stands
+    On his last legs
+    Then Death will drain him
+    To the dregs.
+
+    So when Chuff croaks
+    Bury him on a high hill--
+    For he's a hoax
+    Et praeterea nihil!
+
+But Bishop Chuff was not the man to take these insults tamely. His
+first act was to call together the legislature of the State in special
+session, and the following act was rushed through:
+
+
+AN ACT
+
+Severing relations with Nature, and amending the principles and
+processes of the same in so far as they contravene the Constitution of
+the United States and the tenets of the Pan-Antis:
+
+WHEREAS, in accordance with the Declaration of Gindependence, it may
+become necessary for a people to dissolve the alcoholic bands which
+have connected them with one another and to assume among the powers of
+the earth the sobriety to which the laws of pessimism entitle them, a
+decent disrespect to the opinions of drinkers requires that they should
+declare the causes which impel them to drouth.
+
+WHEREAS we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
+created sober, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, such as
+Life, Grievances, and the Pursuit of Other People's Happiness. Whenever
+any form of amusement becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
+right of the Pan-Antis to abolish it. Prudence, indeed, will dictate
+that beverages long established should not be abolished for light and
+transient causes. But when it is evident that Nature herself is in
+conspiracy against the Constitution of the United States, and that
+millions of so-called human beings have found in forbidden tipples a
+cause for mirth and merriment, it is time to call a halt to malt, and
+have no parley with barley.
+
+WHEREAS it has frequently and regrettably been evidenced that Nature is
+a sot at heart, by reason of her deplorably lax morals. Painful as it
+is to make the admission, there are many of her apparently innocent
+fruits and plants that are susceptible, by the unlawful processes of
+fermentation and effervescence, of transformation into alcoholic
+liquid. Science tells us that this abominable form of activity to which
+Nature is privy is in reality a form of decomposition or putrefaction;
+but willful men will hardly be restrained by science in their illicit
+pursuit of frivolity.
+
+WHEREAS Nature (hereinafter referred to as The Enemy) has been guilty
+of repeated ruptures of the Constitution of the United States, having
+permitted the juice of apples to ferment into cider, having encouraged
+seditious effervescence on the part of gooseberries, currants, raisins,
+grapes and similar conspirators; having fomented outrageous yeastiness
+in hops, malt, rye, barley and other grains and fodders,
+
+THEREFORE be it enacted, and it hereby is, that all relations with the
+Enemy are hereby and henceforward suspended; and any citizen of the
+United States having commerce with Nature, or giving her aid and
+comfort or encouragement in her atrocious alcoholshevik designs on
+human dignity, be, and hereby is, guilty of treason and lese-sobriety.
+
+BE IT ALSO enacted, and it hereby is, that the principle of
+fermentation is forbidden in the territory of the United States; and
+all plants, herbs, legumes, vegetables, fruits and foliage showing
+themselves capable of producing effervescent juices or liquids in which
+bubbles and gases rise to the top be, and hereby are, confiscated,
+eradicated and removed from the surface of the soil. And all the laws
+of Nature inconsistent with the principle of this Act be and hereby are
+repealed and rendered null and inconclusive.
+
+IT IS HOPED that this suspension of relations with Nature will operate
+as a sharp rebuke, and bring her to reason. It is not the sense of this
+Act to withhold from the Enemy all hope of a future reconciliation,
+should she cast off the habits that have made her a menace. We have no
+quarrel with Nature as a whole. But there is a certain misguided
+clique, the dandelions and gooseberries and other irresponsible plants,
+which must be humiliated. We do not presume to suggest to Nature any
+alteration or modification of her necessary institutions. But who can
+claim that the principle of fermentation, which she has arrogated to
+herself, is necessary to her health and happiness? This Intolerable
+Thing, of which Nature has shown us the ugly mug, this menace of
+combined intrigue and force, must be crushed, with proud punctilio.
+
+AND FOR THE strict enforcement of this Act, the Pan-Antis are
+authorized and empowered to organize expeditionary forces, by
+recruitment or (if necessary) by conscription and draft, to proceed
+into the territory of the enemy, lay waste and ravage all dandelions,
+gooseberries and other unlawful plants. Until this is accomplished
+Nature shall be and hereby is declared a barred zone, in which
+civilians and non-combatants pass at their own peril; and all citizens
+not serving with the expeditionary forces shall remain within city and
+village limits until the territory of Nature is made safe for sobriety.
+
+
+This document, having been signed by the Governor, became law, and
+thousands of people who were about to leave town for their vacation
+were held up at the railway stations. Nature was declared under martial
+law. There were many who held that the Act, while admirable in
+principle, did not go far enough in practice. For instance, it was
+argued, the detestable principle of fermentation was due in great part
+to the influence of the sun upon vegetable matter; and it was suggested
+that this heavenly body should be abolished. Others, pointing out that
+this was a matter that would take some time, advanced the theory that
+large tracts of open country should be shielded from the sun's rays by
+vast tents or awnings. Bishop Chuff, with his customary perspicacity,
+made it plain that one of the chief causes of temptation was hot
+weather, which causes immoderate thirst. In order to lessen the amount
+of thirst in the population he suggested that it might be feasible to
+shift the axis of the earth, so that the climate of the United States
+would become perceptibly cooler and the torrid zone would be
+transferred to the area of the North Pole. This would have the supreme
+advantage of melting all the northern ice-cap and providing the
+temperate belts with a new supply of fresh water. It would be quite
+easy (the Bishop insisted) to tilt the earth on its axis if everything
+heavy on the surface of the United States were moved up to Hudson's
+Bay. Accordingly he began to make arrangements to have the complete
+files of the Congressional Record moved to the far north in endless
+freight trains.
+
+Dunraven Bleak, a good deal exhausted by his efforts to keep all these
+matters carefully reported in the columns of the Evening Balloon, was
+ready to take his vacation. As a newspaper man he was able to get a
+passport to go into the country, on the pretext of observing the
+movements of the troops of the Pan-Antis, who were vigorously attacking
+the dandelion fields and gooseberry vineyards. He had already sent his
+wife and children down to the seashore, in the last refugee train which
+had left the city before Nature was declared outlaw.
+
+It was a hot morning, and having wound up his work at the office he was
+sitting in a small lunchroom having a shrimp salad sandwich and a glass
+of milk. The street outside was thronged with great motor ambulances
+rumbling in from the suburbs, carrying the wilted remains of berries
+and fruits which had been dug up by the furious legions of Chuff. These
+were hastily transported to the municipal cannery where they were made
+into jams and preserves with all possible speed, before fermentation
+could set in. Bleak saw them pass with saddened eyes.
+
+A beautiful gray motor car drew up at the curb, and honked vigorously.
+The proprietor of the lunchroom, thinking that possibly the chauffeur
+wanted some sandwiches, left the cash register and crossed the pavement
+eagerly. Every eye in the restaurant was turned upon the glittering
+limousine, whose panels of dove-throat gray shone with a steely lustre.
+In a moment the proprietor returned with a large basket and a small
+folded paper, looking puzzled. He glanced about the room, and
+approached Bleak.
+
+"I guess you're the guy," he said, and handed the editor a note on
+which was scrawled in pencil
+
+TO THE MAN WITH A PENETRATING GAZE WHO HAS JUST SPILLED SOME SHRIMP
+SALAD ON HIS PALM BEACH TROUSERS
+
+
+Bleak, after removing the shrimp, opened the paper. Inside he read
+
+PLEASE BRING TWO DOZEN RYE-TONGUE SANDWICHES AND AS MUCH SHRIMP SALAD
+AS THE BASKET WILL HOLD. AM FAMISHED.
+
+QUIMBLETON.
+
+
+He looked at the restaurateur in surprise.
+
+"The lady said you were to get the grub and put it in this basket,"
+said the latter.
+
+"The lady?" inquired Bleak.
+
+"The dame in the car," said Isidor, owner of the Busy Wasp Lunchroom.
+
+Bleak obeyed orders. He filled the basket with tongue sandwiches and a
+huge platter of shrimp salad, paid the check, and carried the burden to
+the door of the motor.
+
+At the wheel sat a damsel of extraordinary beauty. The massive
+proportions of the enormous car only accentuated the perfection of her
+streamline figure. Her chassis was admirable; she was upholstered in a
+sports suit of fawn-colored whipcord; and her sherry-brown eyes were
+unmodified by any dimming devices. Before Bleak could say anything she
+cried eagerly, "Get in, Mr. Bleak! I've been looking for you
+everywhere. What a happy moment this is!"
+
+Bleak handed in the basket. "Quimbleton--" he began.
+
+"I know," she said. "I'm taking you to him. Poor fellow, he is in great
+peril. Get in, please."
+
+By the time Bleak was in the seat beside her, the car was already in
+motion.
+
+"You have your passport?" she said, steering through the tangled
+traffic.
+
+"Yes," he said. He could not help stealing a sidelong glance at this
+bewitching creature. Her dainty and vivacious face, just now a trifle
+sunburnt, was fixed resolutely upon the vehicles ahead. On the rim of
+the big steering wheel her small gloved hands gave an impression of
+great capability. Bleak thought that her profile seemed oddly familiar.
+
+"Haven't I seen you before?" he said.
+
+"Very possibly. Your newspaper printed my picture the other day, with
+some rather uncomplimentary remarks."
+
+Bleak was nonplussed.
+
+"Very stupid of me," he said, "but I don't seem to recall--"
+
+"I am Miss Chuff," she said calmly.
+
+The editor's brain staggered.
+
+"Miss Theodolinda Chuff?" he said, in amazement. He recalled some
+satirical editorials the Balloon had printed concerning the activities
+of the Chuffs, and wondered if he were being kidnaped for court-martial
+by the Pan-Antis. Evidently the use of Quimbleton's name had been a
+ruse.
+
+"It was unfair of you to make use of Quimbleton's name to get me into
+your hands," he said angrily.
+
+Miss Chuff turned a momentary gaze of amusement upon him, as they
+passed a large tractor drawing several truckloads of gooseberry plants.
+
+"You don't understand," she said demurely. "You may remember that Mr.
+Quimbleton's card gave his name as associate director of the Happiness
+Corporation?"
+
+"Yes," said Bleak.
+
+"I am the Director," she said.
+
+"YOU? But how can that be? Why, your father--"
+
+"That's just why. Any one who had to live with Father would be sure to
+take the opposite side. He's a Pan-Anti. I'm a Pan-Pro. Those poems I
+have written for him were merely a form of camouflage. Besides, they
+were so absurd they were sure to do harm to the cause. That's why I
+wrote them. I'll explain it all to you a little later."
+
+At this moment they were held up by an armed guard of chuffs, stationed
+at the city limits. These saluted respectfully on seeing the Bishop's
+daughter, but examined Bleak's passport with care. Then the car passed
+on into the suburbs.
+
+As they neared the fields of actual battle, Bleak was able to see
+something of the embittered nature of the conflict. In the hot white
+sunlight of the summer morning platoons of Pan-Antis could be seen
+marching across the fields, going up from the rest centers to the
+firing line. In one place a shallow trench had been dug, from which the
+chuffs were firing upon a blackberry hedge at long range. One by one
+the unprincipled berries were being picked off by expert marksmen. The
+dusty highway was stained with ghastly rivulets and dribbles of scarlet
+juices. At a crossroads they came upon a group of chuffs who had shown
+themselves to be conscientious objectors: these were being escorted to
+an internment camp where they would be horribly punished by confinement
+to lecture rooms with Chautauqua lecturers. War is always cruel, and
+even non-combatants did not escape. In the heat of combat, the
+neutrality of an orchard of plum trees had been violated, and
+wagonloads of the innocent fruit were being carried away into slavery
+and worse than death. A young apple tree was standing in front of a
+firing squad, and Bleak closed his eyes rather than watch the tragic
+spectacle. The apples were all green, and too young to ferment, but the
+chuffs were ruthless once their passions were roused.
+
+They passed through the battle zone, and into a strip of country where
+pine woods flourished on a sandy soil. The fragrant breath of
+sun-warmed balsam came down about them, and Miss Chuff let out the
+motor as though to escape from the scene of carnage they had just
+witnessed.
+
+"Whither are we bound?" asked the editor, with pardonable curiosity, as
+their tires hummed over a smooth road.
+
+"Cana, New Jersey," said Miss Chuff, "where poor Quimbleton is in
+hiding. He is in very sore straits. He narrowly escaped capture after
+the parade the other day. I managed to get him smuggled out of the city
+in the same ambulance that carried Father's horse. The horse was drunk
+and Quim was sober. Wasn't that an irony of fate? But I promised to
+tell you how I became associated with the Happiness Corporation."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE TREACHERY OF MISS CHUFF
+
+
+"My story," said Miss Chuff, as the car slid along the road, "is rich
+in pathos. My father, as you can imagine, is an impossible man to live
+with. My poor mother was taken to an asylum years ago. Her malady takes
+a curious form: she is never violent, but spends all her time in poring
+over books, magazines and papers. Every time she finds the word HUSBAND
+in print she crosses it out with blue pencil.
+
+"From my earliest days I was accustomed to hear very little else but
+talk about liquor. The fairy tales that most children are allowed to
+enjoy merely as stories were explained to me by my father as allegories
+bearing upon the sinister seductions of drink. Little Red Riding Hood
+and the Wolf, for instance, became a symbol of young womanhood pursued
+by the devouring Bronx cocktail. The princess from whose mouth came
+toads and snakes was (of course) a princess under the influence of
+creme de menthe. Cinderella was a young girl who had been brought low
+by taking a dash of brandy in her soup. Every dragon, with which good
+fairy tales are liberally provided, was the Demon Rum. It is really
+amazing what stirring prohibition propaganda fairy tales contain if you
+know how to interpret them.
+
+"All this kind of palaver naturally roused my childish curiosity as to
+the subject of intoxicants. But, like a docile daughter, I fell into
+the career marked out for me by my father. I became a militant for the
+Pan-Antis. I distributed tracts by the million; I wrote a little poem
+on the idea that the gates of hell are swinging doors with slats. I can
+honestly say that I never felt any real hankering for liquor until it
+was prohibited altogether. That is a curious feature of human nature,
+that as soon as you forbid a thing it becomes irresistibly alluring.
+You remember the story of Mrs. Bluebeard.
+
+"It occurred to me, after booze had gone, that it was a sad thing that
+I, Bishop Chuff's daughter, who was devoting my life to the prohibition
+cause, should have not the slightest knowledge of the nature of this
+hideous evil we had been pursuing. I brooded over this a great deal,
+and fell into a melancholy state. The thought came to me, there must be
+some virtue in drink, or why would so many people have stubbornly
+contested its abolition? It would be too long a story to tell you all
+the details, but it was at that time that I first became aware of my
+psychic gift."
+
+"Your psychic gift?" queried Bleak, wondering.
+
+She turned her bright beer-brown eyes upon him gravely. "Yes," she
+said, "I am an alcoholic medium. It is the latest and most superior
+form of spiritualism. By gazing upon crystal--particularly upon an
+empty tumbler--I am able to throw myself into a trance in which I can
+communicate with departed spirits. A good drink does not die, you know:
+its soul hovers radiantly on the twentieth plane, and through the
+occult power of a medium those who loved it in life can get in touch
+with it once more. Through these trances of mine I have been privileged
+to put many bereaved ones in communication with their dear departed
+spirits. To hear the table-rappings and the shouts of ecstasy you would
+perceive that a great deal of the anguish of separation is assuaged."
+
+"Do you often have these trances?" said Bleak, with a certain
+wistfulness.
+
+"They are not hard to induce," she said. "All that is necessary for a
+seance is a round table, preferably of some highly polished brown wood,
+a brass rail for the worshipers to put their feet on, and an empty
+tumbler to concentrate the power of yearning. If those present all wish
+hard enough there is sure to be a successful reunion with the Beyond."
+
+"But surely," said the fascinated editor, "surely not any--well, actual
+MATERIALIZATION?"
+
+"Oh, no; but the communion of souls produces quite sufficient results.
+You see, so many fine spirits passed over at once, suddenly, on that
+First of July, that the twentieth plane is quite thronged with them,
+and they are just as eager to come back as their friends could be to
+welcome them. One good yearn deserves another, as we say. The only time
+when these seances fail is when some inharmonious soul is present--some
+personality not completely EN RAPPORT with the spirit of the gathering.
+I remember, for instance, an occasion when a gentleman from Kentucky
+had most ardently desired to get into communication with the astrals of
+some mint juleps he had loved very deeply in life. Everything seemed
+propitious, but though I struggled hard I simply could not get the
+julep spirit to descend to our mortal plane. Finally I made inquiry and
+found that one of the guests was a root-beer manufacturer. Of course
+you may say that was petty jealousy on the side of the departed, but
+even these vanished spirits have their human phases."
+
+She was silent for a moment.
+
+"You can imagine," she said, "what a perplexity I was in when I
+discovered these hitherto unsuspected powers in myself. Was I justified
+in putting them to use, for the good of humanity? And wasn't there a
+certain pathetic significance in the fact that I, the daughter of the
+man who had done so much to put these poor lonely spirits into the
+Beyond, should be made their sole channel of reunion with their
+bereaved and sorrowing adorers? In all his harangues, I had never heard
+my Father attack anything but the actual DRINKING of liquor. This form
+of communication seemed to me to solve so many problems. And it was in
+this way that I first met Virgil."
+
+"Virgil?" said Bleak, absent-mindedly, for he was wondering whether he
+might be privileged to attend one of these seances.
+
+"Virgil Quimbleton," she said. "In the early days of my trances I was
+much haunted by the spirit of a certain cocktail--blended, I believe,
+of champagne and angostura--which insisted that it would be
+inconsolable until it could get in contact with Quimbleton and reassure
+him as to the certainty of its existence beyond mortal bars. The deep
+affection and old comradeship evidently cherished between Quimbleton
+and this cocktail was very touching, and I was more than happy to be
+able to effect their reunion. It was for this reason that Quimbleton,
+under a careful disguise, came to live next door to us on Caraway
+Street. I would go out into the garden and have a trance; Quimbleton,
+poor bereaved fellow, would sit by me in the dusk and revel with the
+spirit of his dear comrade. This common bond soon ripened into Jove,
+and we became betrothed."
+
+She stripped off one of her gloves and showed Bleak a beautiful
+amethyst ring.
+
+"This is my engagement ring," she said. "It's a very precious symbol,
+for Quimbleton explained to me that the amethyst is a talisman against
+drunkenness. I looked it up in the dictionary, and found that he was
+right. As long as I wear this ring the departed spirits have no ill
+effect upon me. But I sometimes wonder," she added with a sigh,
+"whether Virgil really loves me for myself, or only as a kind of
+swinging door into the spirit world."
+
+The car was now approaching an open belt of country. Behind them lay
+the dark line of pine woods; far off, across a wide shimmer of sun and
+sandy fields sweetened by purple clover; and flowering grasses, was a
+blue ribbon of sea. But even in this remote shelf of New Jersey the
+implacable hand of Chuff was at work. From a meadow near by they saw an
+observation balloon going up and the windlass unwinding its cable. A
+huge paraboloid breath-detector (or breathoscope) was stationed on a
+low ridge. This terribly ingenious machine, which had just been
+invented by the pan-antis, records the vibrations of any alcoholic
+breath within five miles, and indicates on a sensitive dial the exact
+direction and distance of the breath. It was only too evident that the
+search for Quimbleton was going forward with fierce system. In the
+shelter of an old barn they heard a cork-popping machine-gun going off
+rapidly. This was one of the most atrocious ruses employed by the
+chuffs in their search for conscientious drinkers. The gun fires no
+projectile, but produces a pleasant detonation like the swift and
+repeated drawing of corks. Set up in the neighborhood of any
+bottle-habited man, it will invariably lure him into an approach. Near
+it was an ice-tinkling device, used for the same purposes of stratagem.
+
+"Poor Virgil!" said Miss Chuff with a sigh. "I'm afraid he has had a
+grievous ordeal. We must run carefully now, so as not to give him away."
+
+Fortunately Miss Chuff's presence at the wheel, and Bleak's credentials
+as war correspondent, enabled them to pass several scouting parties of
+chuff uhlans without suspicion. In this way they neared the extensive
+grounds surrounding the Federal Home for Inebriates, Cana, N. J. This
+magnificent Gothic building, already showing some signs of decay from
+two years of vacancy, stands on a slight eminence among what the real
+estate agents call "old shade," with a fine and carefully calculated
+view over one of the largest bodies of undrinkable fluid known to man,
+the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+The car turned into a narrow sandy road skirting one side of the walled
+park. This byway was completely screened from outside observation by
+the high bulwark of the Home and by thick masses of rhododendron
+shrubbery. At a bend in the road Miss Chuff halted the motor, and
+motioned Bleak to descend.
+
+"Now we will look for the persecuted patriot," she said.
+
+Bleak took charge of the basket of food, and Miss Chuff drew a small
+rope ladder from a locker under the driver's seat. This she threw
+deftly up to the top of the wall, hooking it upon the iron spikes.
+Bleak politely ascended first, and they scaled the wall, dropping down
+into a tangle of underbrush.
+
+"I left him in here somewhere," said the girl, as they set off along a
+narrow path. "This was obviously the best place to hide, as, except for
+Father's horse, the Home hasn't had an inmate for two years. There was
+some talk of Father making this the headquarters of the Great General
+Strafe in this campaign, but I don't believe they have done so yet."
+
+"Hush!" said Bleak. "What is that I hear?"
+
+A dull, regular, recurrent sound, a sort of rasping sigh, stole through
+the thickets. They both listened in some agitation.
+
+"Sounds a little like an airplane, with one engine missing," said Bleak.
+
+"Can it be the sea, the surf breaking on the sand?" asked Miss Chuff.
+
+This seemed probable, and they accepted it as such; but as they pushed
+on through the tangle of saplings and bushes the sound seemed to
+localize itself on their left. Bleak peeped cautiously through a leafy
+screen, and then beckoned the girl to his side. They looked down into a
+warm sandy hollow, overgrown and sheltered by a large rhododendron with
+knotted branches and dry, shiny leaves. Curled up on the sand bank, in
+the unconsciously pathetic posture of sheer exhaustion, lay Quimbleton,
+asleep. A droning snore buzzed heavily from where he lay.
+
+"Poor Virgil!" said Miss Chuff. "How tired he looks."
+
+He did, indeed. The gray and silver uniform was ragged and
+soil-stained; his boots were white with dust; his face was unshaved,
+though a razor lay beside him, and it seemed that he had been trying to
+strop it on his Sam Browne belt. His pipe, filled but unlit, had fallen
+from his weary fingers; beside him was an empty match-box and tragic
+evidence of a number of unsuccessful attempts to get fire from a
+Swedish tandsticker. Crumpled under the elbow of the indomitable
+idealist was a much-thumbed copy of The Bartender's Benefactor, or How
+to Mix 1001 Drinks, in which he had been seeking imaginary solace when
+he fell asleep. Near his head ticked a pocket alarm clock, which they
+found set to gong at two o'clock.
+
+"It seems a shame to wake him," said Theodolinda. Her brown eyes
+liquefied and effervesced with tenderness, until (as Bleak thought to
+himself) they were quite the color of brandy and soda, without too much
+soda.
+
+The sleeper stirred, and a radiant smile passed over his unconscious
+features--a smile of pure and heavenly beatitude.
+
+"Say when, Jerry," he murmured.
+
+"He's dreaming!" cried Theodolinda. "See, his soul is far away!"
+
+"Two years away," said Bleak enviously. "Let him go to it while we
+reconnoiter. I believe in the Prevention of Cruelty to Sleep. He didn't
+intend to wake up just yet, you can see by the alarm clock."
+
+"That's a good idea," she agreed. "I'd like to find out whether we're
+in any immediate danger of pursuit."
+
+They set the basket of food beside Quimbleton, and carefully moved on
+through the strip of young trees until they neared the broad lawns that
+surround the Home for Inebriates. Miss Chuff, spying delicately through
+a leafy chink, gave a cry of alarm.
+
+"Heavens!" she said. "The place is full of people!"
+
+To their amazement, they saw the white banner of the Pan-Antis floating
+on one of the towers of the building, and the grounds about the Home
+blackened with a moving throng. Though they were too far distant to
+discern any details of the crowd, it was plain (from the curious
+to-and-fro of the gathering, like the seething of an ant-hill) that its
+units were imbued with some strong emotion. At that distance it might
+have been anger, or fear, or (more appropriate to the surroundings)
+drink.
+
+They hurried back to Quimbleton's hiding place, and found him already
+sitting up and attacking the shrimp salad. Bleak courteously averted
+his eyes from the affectionate embrace of the lovers.
+
+"Bless your heart for this grub," said Quimbleton to Bleak. "As soon as
+I smelt that shrimp salad I woke up. Do you know, I haven't eaten for
+two days."
+
+"Oh Virgil!" cried Theodolinda, "what does this mean--all the crowd
+round the Home? Mr. Bleak and I looked up there, and the place is
+simply packed. You can't stay undiscovered long with all those people
+around. Who are they, anyway?"
+
+Quimbleton had to delay his reply until deglutition had mastered a
+bulky consignment of shrimp. His large, resolute face, while somewhat
+marred by hardships, showed no trace of panic.
+
+"I know all about it," he said. "It is the latest step on the route of
+all evil taken by that fanatical person whom I shall presently call
+father-in-law. He is not content with arresting people found drinking.
+This morning they began to seize people who THINK about drinking. Any
+one who is guilty of thinking, in an affirmative way, about liquor, is
+to be interned in the Federal Home for a course in mental healing."
+
+"But how can they tell?" asked Bleak, nervously.
+
+"I don't know," said Quimbleton. "Perhaps they have a kind of Third
+Degree, flash a seidel of beer on you suddenly, and if you make an
+involuntary gesture of pleasure, you're convicted. Perhaps they've
+invented an instrument that tells what you think about. Perhaps they
+just arrest you on suspicion. At any rate all the folks who have been
+thinking about booze are being collected and sent over here. I know
+because I've seen most of my friends arriving all morning. I suppose
+they'll get me next. I don't much care as long as I've had something to
+eat."
+
+"Virgil, dear," said Miss Chuff, "you MUSTN'T give up hope now, after
+being so brave. You know I'll stand by you to the end--to the very
+dregs."
+
+"If only I had some disguise," said Quimbleton sadly, "it wouldn't be
+so bad. But I must confess that these breath detectors and other
+unscrupulous instruments they use have rather unnerved me."
+
+Bleak suddenly remembered, and thrust his hand in his hip-pocket. He
+pulled out the hank of white beard that had floated down from the
+airplane a few days before. It was much crumpled, but intact.
+
+"Good man!" cried Quimbleton. "My jolly old beard!" He clapped it onto
+his face and beamed hopefully. "Now, if there were some way of getting
+rid of this tell-tale uniform--"
+
+They discussed this problem at some length, sitting in the sheltered
+bowl of sand, while Quimbleton finished his lunch. Bleak's suggestion
+of stitching together a sort of Robinson Crusoe suit of rhododendron
+leaves did not meet Quimbleton's approval.
+
+"No Robinson trousseau for me," he said. "I thought of pasting together
+the leaves of The Bartender's Benefactor, but I'm afraid that would be
+rather damning. No, I don't see what to do."
+
+"I have it!" said Theodolinda, gleefully. "I've got a sewing kit in the
+car--we'll unrip the upholstery and I can stitch you up a suit in no
+time. At least it will be better than the C. P. H. get-up, which would
+take you in front of a firing squad if it were seen."
+
+This seemed a good idea. Bleak volunteered to escort Miss Chuff back to
+the car and help her rip the covers off the cushions. This was done,
+and they carried back to Quimbleton's hiding place many yards of pale
+lilac colored twill (or whatever it is) and a flask of iced tea. In
+spite of distant sounds of warfare, the time passed pleasantly enough.
+Miss Chuff cut out and stitched assiduously; Quimbleton and Bleak,
+under her directions, sewed on the buttons snipped from the uniform.
+Birds twittered in the greenery about them, and they all felt something
+of the elation of a picnic when the garments were done and Quimbleton
+retired to a neighboring copse to make the change. The other two were
+too seriously concerned for his welfare to laugh when they saw him.
+
+"Splendid!" cried Bleak. "Now you can lie down in Miss Chuff's car and
+if any one looks in they'll just think you're part of the furnishings."
+
+"And I think we'd better get back to the car without delay," said
+Theodolinda. "I'd like to get you out of this danger zone as soon as
+possible."
+
+They hastened back to the wall, scaled it with the rope ladder--and
+stared in dismay. The car had gone. They could see it far down the
+road, guarded by a group of Pan-Antis. A cordon of the enemy had been
+thrown completely round the Home and escape was impossible. Worse
+still, the treachery of Miss Chuff must have been discovered, and they
+trembled to think what retaliation the Bishop might devise.
+
+In this moment of crisis Quimbleton regained his customary hardihood.
+Quilted in his lilac garments, with the white hedge of beard tossing in
+the breeze, he looked the dashing leader.
+
+"There's only one thing to do," he said. "We're surrounded in this
+place. We must go to the Home, make common cause with the prisoners
+there, and lead them in a sudden sally of escape."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DEPARTED SPIRITS
+
+
+If Bishop Chuff desired to make people stop thinking about alcohol, his
+plan of seizing them and shutting them up in the grounds of the Federal
+Home at Cana was a quaint way of attaining this purpose. For all the
+victims, who had been suddenly arrested in the course of their daily
+concerns, accused (before a rum-head court martial) of harboring
+illicit alcoholic desires, and driven over to Cana in crowded
+motor-trucks, now had very little else to brood about. In the golden
+light and fragrance of a summer afternoon, here they were surrounded by
+all the apparatus to restrain alcoholic excess, and not even the
+slightest exhilaration of spirit to justify the depressing scene. It
+was annoying to see frequent notices such as: This Entrance for
+Brandy-Topers; or Vodka Patients in This Ward; or Inmates Must Not Bite
+Off the Door-Knobs. It seemed carrying a jest too far when these
+citizens, most of whom had not even smelt a drink in two years, found
+themselves billeted into padded cells and confronted by rows of
+strait-jackets. Moreover, the Home had lain unused for many months: it
+was dusty, dilapidated, and of a moldy savor. Some of the unwilling
+visitors, finding that the grounds included a strip of sandy beach,
+took their ordeal with reasonable philosophy. "Since we are to be
+slaves," they said, "at least let's have some serf bathing." And
+donning (with a shudder) the rather gruesome padded bathing suits they
+found in the lockers, they went off for a swim. Others, of a humorous
+turn, derived a certain rudimentary amusement in studying the garden
+marked Reserved for Patients with Insane Delusions, where they found a
+very excellent relief-model of the battleground of the Marne, laid out
+by a former inmate who had imagined himself to be General Joffre. But
+most of them stood about in groups, talking bitterly.
+
+Quimbleton, therefore, found a receptive audience for his Spartacus
+scheme of organizing this band of downtrodden victims into a fighting
+force. He gathered them into the dining-hall of the Home and addressed
+them in spirited language.
+
+"My friends" (he said), "unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I
+feel it my duty to administer a few remarks on the subject of our
+present situation.
+
+"And the first thought that comes to my mind, candidly, is this, that
+we must give Bishop Chuff credit for a quality we never imagined him to
+possess. That quality, gentlemen, is a sense of humor. I hear some
+dissent; and yet it seems to me to be somewhat humorous that this
+gathering, composed of men who were accustomed, in the good old days,
+to carry their liquor like gentlemen, should now, when they have been
+cold sober for two years, be incarcerated in this humiliating place,
+surrounded by the morbid relics of those weaker souls who found their
+grog too strong for them.
+
+"I say therefore that we must give Bishop Chuff credit for a sense of
+humor. It makes him all the more deadly enemy. Yet I think we will have
+the laugh on him yet, in a manner I shall presently describe. For the
+Bishop has what may be denominated a single-tract mind. He undoubtedly
+imagines that we will submit tamely to this outrage. He has surrounded
+us with guards. He expects us to be meek. In my experience, the meek
+inherit the dearth. Let us not be meek!"
+
+There was a shout of applause, and Quimbleton's salient of horse-hair
+beard waved triumphantly as he gathered strength. His burly figure in
+the lilac upholstering dominated the audience. He went on:
+
+"And what is our crime? That we have nourished, in the privacy of our
+own intellects, treasonable thoughts or desires concerning alcohol!
+Gentlemen, it is the first principle of common law that a man cannot be
+indicted for thinking a crime. There must be some overt act, some
+evidence of illegal intention. Can a man be deprived of freedom for
+carrying concealed thoughts? If so, we might as well abolish the human
+mind itself. Which Bishop Chuff and his flunkeys would gladly do, I
+doubt not, for they themselves would lose nothing thereby."
+
+Vigorous clapping greeted this sally.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," cried Quimbleton, "though we follow a lost cause, and
+even though the gooseberry and the raisin and the apple be doomed, let
+us see it through with gallantry! The enemy has mobilized dreadful
+engines of war against us. Let us retort in kind. He has tanks in the
+field--let us retort with tankards. They tell me there is a warship in
+the offing, to shell us into submission. Very well: if he has gobs, let
+us retort with goblets. If he has deacons, let us parry him with
+decanters. Chuff has put us here under the pretext of being drunk. Very
+well: then let us BE drunk. Let us go down in our cups, not in our
+saucers. Where there's a swill, there's a way! Let us be sot in our
+ways," he added, sotto voce.
+
+Terrific uproar followed this fine outburst. Quimbleton had to calm the
+frenzy by gesturing for silence.
+
+"I hear some natural queries," he said. "Some one asks 'How?' To this I
+shall presently explain 'Here's how.' Bear with me a moment.
+
+"My friends, it would be idle for us to attempt the great task before
+us relying merely on ourselves. In such great crises it is necessary to
+call upon a Higher Power for strength and succor. This is no mere
+brawl, no haphazard scuffle: it is the battle-ground--if I were
+jocosely minded I might say it is the bottle-ground--of a great
+principle. If, gentlemen, I wished to harrow your souls, I would ask
+you to hark back in memory to the fine old days when brave men and
+lovely women sat down at the same table with a glass of wine, or a mug
+of ale, and no one thought any the worse. I would ask you to remember
+the color of the wine in the goblet, how it caught the light, how
+merrily it twinkled with beaded bubbles winking at the brim, as some
+poet has observed. If I wanted to harrow you, gentlemen, I would recall
+to you little tables, little round tables, set out under the trees on
+the lawn of some country inn, where the enchanting music of harp and
+fiddle twangled on the summer air, where great bowls of punch chimed
+gently as the lumps of ice knocked on the thin crystal. The little
+tables were spread tinder the trees, and then, later on, perhaps, the
+customers were spread under the tables.--I would ask you to recall the
+manly seidel of dark beer as you knew it, the bitter chill of it as it
+went down, the simple felicity it induced in the care-burdened mind. I
+could quote to you poet after poet who has nourished his song upon
+honest malt liquor. I need only think of Mr. Masefield, who has put
+these manly words in the mouth of his pirate mate:
+
+    Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French,
+    And some'll swallow tea and stuff fit only for a wench,
+    But I'm for right Jamaica till I roll beneath the bench!
+
+    Oh some are fond of fiddles and a song well sung,
+    And some are all for music for to lilt upon the tongue;
+    But mouths were made for tankards, and for sucking at the bung!"
+
+This apparently artless oratory was beginning to have its effect. Loud
+huzzas filled the hall. These touching words had evoked wistful
+memories hidden deep in every heart. Old wounds were reopened and bled
+afresh.
+
+Again Quimbleton had to call for silence.
+
+"I will recite to you," he said, "a ditty that I have composed myself.
+It is called A Chanty of Departed Spirits."
+
+In a voice tremulous with emotion he began:
+
+    The earth is grown puny and pallid,
+     The earth is grown gouty and gray,
+    For whiskey no longer is valid
+     And wine has been voted away--
+    As for beer, we no longer will swill it
+     In riotous rollicking spree;
+    The little hot dogs in the skillet
+     Will have to be sluiced down with tea.
+
+    O ales that were creamy like lather!
+      O beers that were foamy like suds!
+    O fizz that I loved like a father!
+      O fie on the drinks that are duds!
+    I sat by the doors that were slatted
+      And the stuff had a surf like the sea--
+    No vintage was anywhere vatted
+      Too strong for ventripotent me!
+
+    I wallowed in waves that were tidal,
+      But yet I was never unmoored;
+    And after the twentieth seidel
+      My syllables still were assured.
+    I never was forced to cut cable
+      And drift upon perilous shores,
+    To get home I was perfectly able,
+      Erect, or at least on all fours.
+
+    Although I was often some swiller,
+      I never was fuddled or blowsed;
+    My hand was still firm on the tiller,
+      No matter how deep I caroused;
+    But now they have put an embargo
+      On jazz-juice that tingles the spine,
+
+    We can't even cozen a cargo
+      Of harmless old gooseberry wine!
+
+    But no legislation can daunt us:
+      The drinks that we knew never die:
+    Their spirits will come back to haunt us
+      And whimper and hover near by.
+    The spookists insist that communion
+      Exists with the souls that we lose--
+    And so we may count on reunion
+      With all that's immortal of Booze.
+
+    Those spirits we loved have departed
+      To some psychical twentieth plane;
+    But still we will not be downhearted,
+      We'll soon greet our loved ones again--
+    To lighten our drouth and our tedium
+      Whenever our moments would sag,
+    We'll call in a spiritist medium
+      And go on a psychical jag!
+
+As the frenzy of cheering died away, Quimbleton's face took on the glow
+of simple benignance that Bleak had first observed at the time of the
+julep incident in the Balloon office. The flush of a warm, impulsive
+idealism over-spread his genial features. It was the face of one who
+deeply loved his fellow-men.
+
+"My friends," he said, "now I am able to say, in all sincerity, Here's
+How. I have great honor in presenting to you my betrothed fiancee, Miss
+Theodolinda Chuff. Do not be startled by the name, gentlemen. Miss
+Chuff, the daughter of our arch-enemy, is wholly in sympathy with us.
+She is the possessor (happily for us) of extraordinary psychic powers.
+I have persuaded her to demonstrate them for our benefit. If you will
+follow my instructions implicitly, you will have the good fortune of
+witnessing an alcoholic seance."
+
+Miss Chuff, very pale, but obviously glad to put her spiritual gift at
+the disposal of her lover, was escorted to the platform by Bleak. The
+editor had been coached beforehand by Quimbleton as to the routine of
+the seance.
+
+"The first requirement," said Quimbleton to the awe-struck gathering,
+"is to put yourselves in the proper frame of mind. For that purpose I
+will ask you all to stand up, placing one foot on the rung of a chair.
+Kindly imagine yourselves standing with one foot on a brass rail. You
+will then summon to mind, with all possible accuracy and vividness, the
+scenes of some bar-room which was once dear to you. I will also ask you
+to concentrate your mental faculties upon some beverage which was once
+your favorite. Please rehearse in imagination the entire ritual which
+was once so familiar, from the inquiring look of the bartender down to
+the final clang of the cash-register. A visualization of the old free
+lunch counter is also advisable. All these details will assist the
+medium to trance herself."
+
+Bleak in the meantime had carried a small table on the platform, and
+placed an empty glass upon it. Miss Chuff sat down at this table, and
+gazed intently at the glass. Quimbleton produced a white apron from
+somewhere, and tied it round his burly form. With Bleak playing the
+role of customer he then went through a pantomime of serving imaginary
+drinks. His representation of the now vanished type of the bartender
+was so admirably realistic that it brought tears to the eyes of more
+than one in the gathering. The editor, with appropriate countenance and
+gesture, dramatized the motions of ordering, drinking, and paying for
+his invisible refreshment. His pantomime was also accurate and
+satisfying, evidently based upon seasoned experience. The argument as
+to who should pay, the gesture conveying the generous sentiment "This
+one's on me," the spinning of a coin on the bar, the raising of the
+elbow, the final toss that dispatched the fluid--all these were done to
+the life. The audience followed suit with a will. A whispering rustle
+ran through the dingy hall as each man murmured his favorite
+catchwords. "Give it a name," "Set 'em up again," "Here's luck," and
+such archaic phrases were faintly audible. Miss Chuff kept her gaze
+fastened on the empty tumbler.
+
+Suddenly her rigid pose relaxed. She drooped forward in her chair, with
+her head sunk and hands limp. Tenderly and reverently Quimbleton bent
+over her. Then, his face shining with triumph, he spoke to the hushed
+watchers.
+
+"She is in the trance," he said. "Gentlemen, her happy soul is in touch
+with the departed spirits. What'll you have? Don't all speak at once."
+
+Fifty-nine, in hushed voices, petitioned for a Bronx. Quimbleton turned
+to the unconscious girl.
+
+"Fifty-nine devotees," he said, "ask that the spirit of the Bronx
+cocktail vouchsafe his presence among us."
+
+Miss Chuff's slender figure stiffened again. Her hand went out to the
+glass beside her, and raised it to her lips. Some of the more eagerly
+credulous afterwards asserted that they had seen a cloudy yellow liquid
+appear in the vessel, but it is not improbable that the wish was father
+to the vision. At any rate, the fifty-nine suppliants experienced at
+that instant a gush of sweet coolness down their throats, and the
+unmistakable subsequent tingle. They gazed at each other with a wild
+surmise.
+
+"How about another?" said one in a thrilling whisper.
+
+"Take your turn," said Quimbleton. "Who's next?"
+
+One hundred and fifty-three nominated Scotch whiskey. The order was
+filled without a slip. Quimbleton's face beamed above his beard like a
+full-blown rose. "Magnificent!" he whispered to Bleak, both of them
+having partaken in the second round. "If this keeps on we'll have a
+charge of the tight brigade."
+
+The next round was ninety-five Jack Rose cocktails, but the audience
+was beginning to get out of hand. Those who had not yet been served
+grew restive. They saw their companions with brightened eyes and
+beaming faces, comparing notes as to this delicious revival of old
+sensations. In the impatience of some and the jubilation of others, the
+psychic concentration flagged a little. Then, just as Quimbleton was
+about to ask for the fourth round, the unforgiveable happened. Some one
+at the back shouted, "A glass of buttermilk!"
+
+Miss Chuff shuddered, quivered, and opened her eyes with a tragic gasp.
+She slipped from the chair, and fell exhausted to the floor. Bleak ran
+to pick her up. Quimbleton screamed out an oath.
+
+"The spell is broken!" he roared. "There's a spy in the room!"
+
+At that instant a battalion of armed chuffs burst into the hall. They
+carried a huge hose, and in ten seconds a six-inch stream of cold water
+was being poured upon the bewildered psychic tipplers. Quimbleton and
+Bleak, seizing the girl's helpless form, escaped by a door at the back
+of the platform.
+
+"Heaven help us," cried Bleak, distraught. "What shall we do? This
+means the firing squad unless we can escape."
+
+Theodolinda feebly opened her eyes.
+
+"O horrible," she murmured. "The spirit of buttermilk--I saw him--he
+threatened me--"
+
+"The horse!" cried Quimbleton, with fierce energy. "The Bishop's
+horse--in the stable!"
+
+They ran wildly to the rear quarters of the Home, where they found the
+Bishop's famous charger whinneying in his stall. All three leaped upon
+his back. In the confusion, amid the screams of the tortured inmates
+and the cruel cries of the invading chuffs, they made good their escape.
+
+Every one of the wretched inmates captured at the psychic carouse was
+immediately sentenced to six months' hard listening on the Chautauqua
+circuit. But even during this brutal punishment their memories returned
+with tenderest reminiscence to the experience of that afternoon. As one
+of them said, "it was a real treat." And although Quimbleton had
+plainly stated the relation in which he stood to Theodolinda Chuff, she
+had no less than two hundred and ten proposals of marriage, by mail,
+from those who had attended the seance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DECANTERBURY PILGRIMS
+
+
+Through a dreary waste of devastated country a little group of refugees
+plodded in silence. All about them lay fields and orchards which had
+been torn and uprooted as though by some unbelievable whirlwind. At a
+watering trough along the road they halted, facing the sign:
+
+    COMPULSORY DRINKING STATION
+
+    Adults, 1 quart
+    Children, 1 pint
+
+    THIRST FORBIDDEN BETWEEN HERE AND THE NEXT STATION
+
+
+Under the eye of an armed chuff, who watched them suspiciously, the
+wretched wanderers drank the water in silence, but without enthusiasm.
+Then they shuffled on down the road.
+
+At the front of the small procession a slender girl, in a much-stained
+sports suit, rode on a tall black horse. Beside the horse trudged a
+bulky man in a grotesque garb of dirty lavender quilting. A matted
+whisk of coarse beard drooped from his chin, but his blue eyes burned
+brightly in his sunburnt face. Over his shoulder he carried a six foot
+length of brass railing, a small folding table, and a shabby knapsack.
+
+Behind the horse limped a lean, dyspeptic-colored individual in a Palm
+Beach suit that would have been a social death-warrant on the shining
+sands of its name-place. There is no form of sartorialism that takes on
+such utter humility as a Palm Beach suit gone wrong. This particular
+vestment was spotted with ink, with mud, with fruit-juices, with every
+kind of stain; it was punctured with perforations that might have been
+due to fallen tobacco tinder. The individual within this travesty of
+clothing was painfully propelling a wheelbarrow, in which rode (not
+without complaint) a substantial woman and a baby. An older child
+trailed from the Palm Beach coat-tail.
+
+These jovial vagabonds, as the reader will have suspected, were no
+other than Theodolinda Chuff, Virgil Quimbleton, and the family of
+Bleaks.
+
+Affairs had gone steadily from bad to worse. After the incident--or, as
+some blasphemously called it, the miracle--at Cana, Bishop Chuff had
+commenced ruthless warfare. Enraged beyond control by the perfidy of
+his daughter, he had sent out the armies of the Pan-Antis to wreak
+vengeance on every human enterprise that could be suspected of
+complicity in the matter of fermentation. Not only had the countryside
+been laid waste, but the printing press had been abolished and all
+publishing trades were now a thing of the past. This, of course, had
+thrown Dunraven Bleak out of a job. He had retrieved his wife and
+children from the seashore, and in company with Quimbleton and Miss
+Chuff, and the noble and faithful horse John Barleycorn, they had led a
+nomad existence for weeks, flying from bands of pursuing chuffs, and
+bravely preaching their illicit gospel of good cheer in the face of
+terrible dangers.
+
+The girl, who was indeed the Jeanne d'Arc of their cause, was their
+sole means of subsistence. It was her psychic powers that made it
+possible for them, in a furtive way, to give their little
+entertainments. Their method was, on reaching a village where there
+were no chuff troops, to distribute certain handbills which Bleak had
+been able to get printed by stealth. These read thus:
+
+THE SIX QUIMBLETONS or The Decanterbury Pilgrims In Their Artistic
+Revival Of Old and Entertaining Customs, Tableaux Vivants Vanished
+Arts, Folklore Games and Conjuring Tricks Such as The Drinking of
+Healths, Toasts, Nosepainting, The Lifted Elbow, Let's Match For It,
+Say When, Light or Dark? and This One's On Me. COMMUNION WITH DEPARTED
+SPIRITS Please Do Not Leave Before the Hat Goes Round
+
+Having taken their station in some not too prominent place, Bleak would
+mount the wheelbarrow and play Coming Through the Rye on a jew's-harp.
+This, his sole musical accomplishment, was exceedingly distasteful to
+him: all his training had been in the anonymity of a newspaper office,
+and he felt his public humiliation bitterly.
+
+When a crowd had gathered, Quimbleton would ascend the barrow and make
+a brief speech (of a highly inflammatory and treasonable nature) after
+which he would set up the small table and the brass rail, produce a
+white apron and a tumbler from his knapsack, and introduce Theodolinda
+for an alcoholic trance. It was found that the public entered into the
+spirit of these seances with great gusto, and often the collection
+taken up was gratifyingly large. However, the life was hazardous in the
+extreme, and they were in perpetual danger of meeting secret service
+agents. It was only by repeated private trances of their own that they
+were able to keep up their morale.
+
+Reaching a bend in the way, where a grove of trees cast a grateful
+shade, the Decanterbury Pilgrims halted to rest. Quimbleton helped
+Theodolinda down from her horse, and they all sat sadly by the roadside.
+
+"Theo," said Quimbleton, as he wiped his brow, "do you think, dear,
+that if I set up the table you could give us a little trance? Upon my
+soul, I am nearly done in."
+
+"Darling Virgil," said Theodolinda, "I really can't do it. You know
+I've given you four trances already this morning, and you have communed
+with the soul of Wurzburger at least a dozen times. Then, as you know,
+I have put Mr. Bleak in touch with a julep six or seven times. All that
+takes it out of me dreadfully. I really must consider my art a bit: I
+don't want to be a mere psychic bartender, a clairvoyant distiller."
+
+"You are quite right, dear girl," said Quimbleton remorsefully. "But I
+couldn't help thinking how agreeable a psychical seidel of dark beer
+would be just now. You are our little Jeanne Dark, you know," he added,
+with an atrocious attempt at pleasantry.
+
+"That's all very well," said Bleak (who preferred julep to beer), "but
+if we don't look out Miss Chuff will go into a permanent trance. I've
+noticed it has been harder and harder to bring her back from these
+states of suspended sobriety. You know, if we crowd these phantasms of
+the grape upon her too fast, she might pass over altogether, and stay
+behind the bar for good. We are deeply indebted to Miss Chuff for her
+adorable willingness to act as a kind of bunghole into the spirit
+world, but we don't want her to slip through the hole and evaporate."
+
+"Safety thirst!" cried Quimbleton, raising his loved one to his lips.
+
+"We can't go on like this indefinitely," continued Bleak. "I don't mind
+being a mountebank, but mountebanks don't pay much interest. I'd rather
+be a safe deposit somewhere out of Chuff's reach. There's too much
+drama in this way of living."
+
+"I can stand the drama as long as I get the drams," said the
+unrepentant Quimbleton.
+
+"Well, _I_ won't stand it!" exclaimed Mrs. Bleak, shrilly. "Look what
+your insane schemes have brought us to! You and my husband seem to find
+comfort in your psychical toping, but I don't notice any psychical
+millinery being draped about for Miss Chuff or myself. And look at the
+children! They're simply in rags. If you really loved Miss Chuff I
+should think you'd be ashamed to use her as a spiritual demijohn!
+You've alienated her from her father, and reduced my husband from
+managing editor of a leading paper to managing jew's-harpist of a gang
+of psychic bootleggers." She burst into angry tears.
+
+Quimbleton groaned, and turned a ghastly fade upon Bleak.
+
+"It's quite true," he said.
+
+In the excitement Miss Chuff had turned very pale.
+
+"Virgil," she said faintly, "I believe I feel a trance coming on."
+
+"Great grief!" cried the harassed leader. "Not now, my darling! I think
+I see some troops in the distance. Quick, try to concentrate your mind
+on lemonade, on buttermilk, on beef tea!"
+
+Happily this crisis passed. Theodolinda had presence of mind enough to
+pull out a little photograph of her father from some secret hiding
+place, and by putting her mind on it shook off the dominion of the
+other world.
+
+Quimbleton spoke with anguished remorse.
+
+"Mrs. Bleak is right. I've been trying to hide it from myself, but I
+can do so no longer. This monkey business--what we might call this
+gorilla warfare--must stop. We will only land in front of a firing
+squad. I have only one idea, which I have been saving in case all else
+failed."
+
+The Bleaks were too discouraged to comment, but Theodolinda smiled
+bravely.
+
+"Virgil dear," she said, "your ideas are always so original. What is
+it?"
+
+Quimbleton stood up, unconsciously putting one foot on the portable
+brass rail which rested on its six-inch legs by the roadside. His tired
+eyes shone anew with characteristic enthusiasm. It was plain that he
+imagined himself before a large and sympathetic audience.
+
+"My friends," he said, "the secret of eloquence is to know your
+facts--or, as the all-powerful Chuff would amend it, to know your
+tracts. One fact, I think I may say, is plain. The jig is up, or (more
+literally), the jag is up. I can see now that alcohol will never be
+more than a memory. Principalities and powers are in league against us.
+If the malt has lost its favor, wherewith shall it be malted?"
+
+He paused a moment, as though expecting a little applause, and
+Theodolinda murmured an encouraging "Here, here."
+
+With rekindled eye he resumed.
+
+"Alcohol, I say, will never be more than a memory. Yet even a memory
+must be kept alive. The great tradition must not die. For the very sake
+of antiquarian accuracy, for the instruction of posterity, some exact
+record must be kept of the influence of alcohol upon the human soul.
+How can this be preserved? Not in books, not in the dead mummies of a
+museum. No, not in dead mummies, indeed, but in living rummies. That
+brings me to my great idea, which I have long cherished.
+
+"I propose, my dear friends, that in some appropriate shrine,
+surrounded by all the authentic trappings and utensils, some chosen
+individual be maintained at the public charge, to exhibit for the
+contemplation of a drouthing world the immortal flame of intoxication.
+He will be known, without soft concealments, as the Perpetual Souse. In
+his little bar, served by austere attendants, he will be kept in a
+state of gentle exhilaration. Nothing gross, nothing unseemly, I
+insist! In that state of sweetly glowing mind and heart, in that
+ineffable blossoming of all the nobler qualities of human dignity, this
+priest of alcohol will represent and perpetuate the virtues of the
+grape. Booze, in the general sense, will have gone West, but ah how
+fair and ruddy a sunset will it have in the person of this its vicar!
+There he will live, visited, studied, revered, a living memorial. There
+he will live, perpetually in a mellow fume of bliss, trailing clouds of
+glory, as if--as some poet says,
+
+    As if his whole vocation
+    Were endless intoxication.
+
+And now, my friends--not to weary you with the minor details of this
+far-reaching proposal--let me come to the point. For so gravely
+responsible a post, for an office so representative of the ideals and
+ambitions of millions, the choice cannot be cast haphazard. The choice
+must fall upon one qualified, confirmed, consecrated to this end. This
+deeply significant office must be conferred by the people themselves.
+It must be conferred by popular election. Candidates must be nominated,
+must stump the country explaining their qualifications. And let me say
+that, upon looking over the whole field, I see one man, who by the jury
+of his peers--or shall I say by the jury of his beers?--is supremely
+fitted for this post. It is my intention to nominate Mr. Dunraven Bleak
+for the office of Perpetual Souse."
+
+There was a moment of complete silence while his hearers considered the
+vast scope of this remarkable suggestion. It is only fair to say that
+Mr. Bleak's face had at first lighted up, but then he glanced at his
+wife and his countenance grew pinched. He spoke hastily:
+
+"A very generous thought, my dear fellow; but I feel that you would be
+far more competent for this form of public service than I could hope to
+be."
+
+"Your modesty does you credit," replied Quimbleton, "but you forget
+that owing to my relation with Miss Chuff I shall happily be precluded
+from the necessity of entering public life for this purpose."
+
+"And what, pray," said Mrs. Bleak with distinct asperity, "is to become
+of me and the children if Mr. Bleak is elected to this preposterous
+office?"
+
+"I was coming to that," said Quimbleton eagerly. "It would be arranged,
+of course, that the Perpetual Souse would be granted a liberal salary
+for his family expenses; you and your delightful children would be
+maintained at the public expense in a suitable bungalow nearby, with a
+private family entrance into the official cellars. Your rank, of
+course, would be that of Perpetual Spouse."
+
+"My good Quimbleton," said Bleak, somewhat bitterly, "this is a
+fascinating vision indeed, but how can it be accomplished? How would
+you ever get such a scheme accepted by Bishop Chuff, who will never
+forgive you for kidnaping his daughter? You are building bar-rooms in
+Spain, my dear chap; you are blowing mere soap-bubbles."
+
+"And why not?" cried his friend. "Bishop Chuff has called me a soap-box
+orator. At any rate, a man who stands upon a soap-box is nearer heaven
+by several inches than the man who stands upon the ground."
+
+Theodolinda's face sparkled with the impact of an idea.
+
+"Come," she said, "it's not impossible after all. I have a thought.
+We'll offer Father an armistice and talk things over with him. He
+doesn't know what straits we're in, and maybe we can bring him to
+terms. He was very badly scared by those gooseberry bombs, and maybe we
+can bluff him into a concession."
+
+"If we had had any luck," said Quimbleton, "we would have blown him
+into a concussion. But anyway, that's a bonny scheme. We'll grant him a
+truce. Bleak, you're a newspaper man, just get hold of the United Press
+and let them know the armistice is signed."
+
+Bleak smiled wanly at the thrust.
+
+"All right," he said. "Let's go. But what's your idea, Miss Chuff? We
+must have something to base negotiations on."
+
+"Wait and see," she cried gayly. "We'll talk it over as we go along."
+
+Mrs. Bleak aroused her children, who had fallen asleep, and climbed
+back into the wheelbarrow.
+
+"I don't know that I approve of that scheme of making Dunraven the
+Perpetual Souse," she remarked. "I can imagine what my poor mother
+would say about it if she were living. She came of fine old Kentucky
+stock, and it would humiliate her deeply to know to what a level we had
+been reduced."
+
+"My dear Mrs. Bleak," said Quimbleton, as he hoisted his betrothed into
+the saddle and the pilgrims began to move, "I know of a great deal of
+good old Kentucky stock that has had a far worse fate than that in
+these tragic years."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WITH BENEFIT OF CLERGY
+
+
+Through the sullen streets of the terrorized city Miss Chuff,
+Quimbleton and Bleak proceeded toward the great building where the
+Pan-Antis had their headquarters. They had left Mrs. Bleak, the
+children and the horse at a quiet soda-fountain in the suburbs. After
+repeated application over the wireless telephone, the terrible
+Bishop--the Prohibishop, as Quimbleton called him--had agreed to grant
+them an audience, and had accorded them safe-conduct through the chuff
+troops. Even so, their progress was difficult. Every few hundred yards
+they were halted and subjected to curt inquiry. Men and women who had
+heard of their gallant struggle against fearful odds pressed forward in
+an attempt to seize their hands, to embrace and applaud them, but these
+evidences of enthusiasm were sternly repressed by the chuffs.
+
+Bleak was frankly nervous as they approached the Chuff Building.
+
+"What line of talk are we going to adopt?" he asked.
+
+"Like any self-respecting line," replied Quimbleton, "Ours will be the
+shortest distance between two points. The first point is that we want
+to obtain something from Chuff. The second is that we have some
+information to give him which will be of immense value to him. This we
+shall hold over him as a club, to force him to concede what we want."
+
+"And what is this club?" asked Bleak, somewhat suspicious of his
+friend's sanguine disposition.
+
+"The admirable plan," said Quimbleton, "is Theodolinda's idea. She
+knows her father better than we do. She says that his passion is for
+prohibiting things. He thinks he has now prohibited everything
+possible. We are in a position to tell him something that still remains
+unprohibited. His eagerness to know what that may be will make him
+yield to our request."
+
+Bleak pondered gloomily. As far as he could recall, the Prohibition
+Government had overlooked nothing. The quaint part of it was that some
+of its prohibitions, carried to their logical extreme, had curiously
+overleaped their mark. For instance, finding it impossible to enforce
+the laws against playing games on Sundays, the Government had concluded
+that the only way to make the Sabbath utterly immaculate was to abolish
+it altogether, which was done. Other laws, probably based upon genuine
+zeal for human welfare, had resulted in odd evasions or legal fictions.
+For instance, people were forbidden to miss trains. The penalty for
+missing a train was ten days' hard labor splitting infinitives in the
+government tract-factory. Rather than impose this harsh punishment on
+any one, good-hearted engineers would permit their trains to loiter
+about the stations until they felt certain no other passengers would
+turn up. Consequently no trains were ever on time, and the Government
+was forced to do away with time entirely. Another thing that was
+abolished was hot weather. It had been found too tedious to tilt the
+axis of the earth, therefore all the thermometers were re-scaled. When
+the temperature was really 96 degrees, the mercury registered only 70
+degrees, and every one was saying how jolly cool it was for the time of
+year. This, of course, was careless, for there was no such thing as
+time or year, but still people kept on saying it. Bleak was thinking
+over these matters when he suddenly recalled that it was forbidden to
+remember things as they had been under the old regime. He pulled
+himself up with a start. In order to make his mind a blank he tried to
+imagine himself about to write a leading editorial for the Balloon.
+This was so successful that he did not come to earth again until they
+stood in the ante-room--or as Quimbleton called it, the anti-room--of
+the Bishop.
+
+"Who is to be spokesman?" he said apprehensively, gazing with distaste
+at the angular females who were pecking at typewriters. "It would be
+unseemly for me to present my own claims in this project. Quimbleton,
+you are the one--you have the gift of the tongue."
+
+"I would rather have the gift of the bung," whispered Quimbleton
+resolutely as they were ushered into the inner sanctum.
+
+The dreaded Bishop sat at an immense ebony flat-topped desk. The room
+was furnished like his mind, that is to say, sparsely, and without any
+southern exposure. A peculiarly terrifying feature of the scene was
+that the top of the desk was completely bare, not a single paper lay on
+it. Remembering his own desk in the newspaper office, Bleak felt that
+this was unnatural and monstrous. He noticed a breathoscope on the
+mantelpiece, with its sensitive needle trembling on the scaled dial
+which read thus:--
+
+As he watched the indicator oscillate rapidly on the dial, and finally
+subside uncertainly at zero, he thanked heaven that they had indulged
+in no psychic grogs that day.
+
+The Bishop's black beard foamed downward upon the desk like a gloomy
+cataract. Quimbleton for a moment was almost abashed, and regretted
+that he had not thought to whitewash his own dingy thicket.
+
+Bishop Chuff's piercing and cruel gaze stabbed all three. He ignored
+Theodolinda with contempt. His disdain was so complete that (as the
+unhappy girl said afterward) he seemed more like a younger brother than
+a father. There were no chairs: they were forced to stand. In a small
+mirror fastened to the edge of his desk the sneering potentate could
+note the dial-reading of the instrument without turning. He watched the
+reflected needle flicker and come to rest.
+
+"So, Mr. Quimbleton," he said, in a harsh and untuned voice, "You come
+comparatively sober. Strange that you should choose to be unintoxicated
+when you face the greatest ordeal of your life."
+
+The savage irony of this angered Quimbleton.
+
+"One touch of liquor makes the whole world kin," he said. "I assure you
+I have no desire to claim kinship with your bitter and intolerant soul."
+
+"Ah?" said the Bishop, with mock politeness. "You relieve me greatly. I
+had thought you desired to claim me as father-in-law."
+
+"Oh, Parent!" cried Theodolinda; "How can you be so cruel? Sarcasm is
+such a low form of humor."
+
+"I am not trying to be humorous," said the Bishop grimly. "You, who
+were once the apple of my eye, are now only an apple of discord. You,
+whom I considered such a promising child, are now a breach of promise.
+You have sucked my blood. You are a Vampire."
+
+"The Vampire on whom the sun never sets," whispered Quimbleton to the
+terrified girl, encouraging her as she shrank against him.
+
+"This is no time for jest," said the Bishop angrily. "You said you had
+a matter of vital import to lay before me. Make haste. And remember
+that you are here only on sufferance. I shall be pitiless. I shall
+scourge the evil principle you represent from the face of the earth."
+
+"We do not fear your threats," said Quimbleton stoutly. "We are not
+alarmed by your frown."
+
+He was, greatly, but he was sparring for time to put his thoughts in
+order. He started to say "Uneasy lies the head that wears a frown,"
+which was an aphorism of his own he thought highly of, but Theodolinda
+checked him. She knew that her father detested puns. It was perhaps his
+only virtue.
+
+"Bishop Chuff," said Quimbleton, "perhaps you are not aware of the
+strength and tenacity of the sentiment we represent. I assure you that
+if you underestimate the power of the millions of thirsty mouths that
+speak through us, you will rue the consequences. Trouble is brewing--"
+
+"Neither trouble, nor anything else, is brewing nowadays," said the
+terrible Bishop.
+
+Theodolinda saw that Quimbleton was losing ground by his incorrigible
+habit of talking before he said anything. She broke in impetuously, and
+explained the plan for the Perpetual Souse. Her father listened to the
+end with his cold, forbidding gaze, while the sensitive needle of the
+recording instrument on the mantel danced and wagged in agitation.
+
+"So this is your scheme, is it?" he said. "Abandoned offspring, you
+deserve the gallows."
+
+"Wait a moment," said Quimbleton. "Now comes the other side of the
+argument. If you grant us this concession we in turn will put you in
+possession of a magnificent idea. You think that you have prohibited
+everything. Your vetoes cumber the earth. But there is still one thing
+you have forgotten to prohibit."
+
+"What is it?" said the Bishop coldly. His hard face was unmoved, but
+his eyes brightened a trifle.
+
+"There is one thing you have forgotten to prohibit," said Quimbleton
+solemnly. "I can hardly conceive how it escaped you. The one thing that
+harasses human beings over the whole civilized world. The one thing
+which, if you were to abolish it, would make your name, foul as that
+now is, blessed in the ears of men. Oh, the joy of still having
+something to prohibit! The unmixed bliss and high privilege of the
+vetoing function! I envy you, from my heart, in still having something
+to forbid."
+
+The Bishop stirred uneasily in his chair. "What is it?" he said.
+
+Quimbleton watched him with a steady and slightly annoying smile.
+
+"I like to dwell in imagination upon your surprise when you realize
+what you have overlooked. It seems so simple! To abolish, prohibit,
+banish, and remove, at one swoop, the chief preoccupation of mankind!
+The simple and high-minded felicity of still having something
+prohibitable subject to your omnipotent legislation! But there, I dare
+say I am wrong. Probably you are weary of prohibiting things."
+
+Quimbleton made a motion to his companions as though to leave the room.
+The Bishop leaped to his feet, with curiously mingled anger and
+eagerness on his face. "Stop!" he cried. "You can't mean laughter? I
+abolished that some weeks ago. I don't believe there is anything left--"
+
+"How quaint it is," said Quimbleton (as though talking to himself),
+"that it is always the plainly obvious that eludes! But, of course, the
+reason you have not abolished this matter before is that to do so would
+wholly alter and undermine the habits of the race. Nothing would be the
+same as before. I daresay a good deal of misery would be caused in the
+long run, who knows? Ah well, it seems a pity you forgot it--"
+
+"Hell's bells!" roared the Bishop, bringing his fist down on the desk
+with fury--"What is it? Let me get at it!"
+
+"I should be sorry to marry into a profane family," was Quimbleton's
+reply, moving toward the door.
+
+The Bishop chewed the end of his beard with a crunching sound. This
+unpleasant gesture caused a tingle to pass along Bleak's sensitive
+spine, already strained to painful nervous tension. The office of the
+Perpetual Souse hung in the balance.
+
+"Look here," said Bishop Chuff, "If I let you have your way about
+the--the Permanent Exhibit, will you tell me what it is I have
+forgotten to prohibit?"
+
+"With pleasure," said Quimbleton. "Will you put it down in black and
+white, please?"
+
+He secured the Bishop's signature to a document giving instructions for
+the necessary legislation to be passed. Folding the precious paper in
+his pocket, Quimbleton faced the black-browed Bishop. He held
+Theodolinda by the hand.
+
+"I am sorry," he said, "that I should have forgotten to bring a ring
+with me. If I had done so, you might have married us here and now. At
+least you will not refuse us your blessing?"
+
+"Blessings have been abolished," said Chuff in a voice of exasperation.
+"Now inform me what it is that I have forgotten to condemn."
+
+"Work!" cried Quimbleton, and the three ran hastily from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE ELECTION
+
+
+In the days following Quimbleton's coup Chuff was in seclusion. It was
+rumored that he was ill; it was rumored that the sounds of breaking
+furniture had been heard by the neighbors on Caraway Street. But at any
+rate the Bishop lived up to his word. Orders over his signature went to
+Congress, and vast sums of money were appropriated immediately for
+
+The establishment and maintenance of a national park with suitable
+buildings and appurtenances wherein might be maintained an elected
+individual in a state of freedom, with access to alcoholic beverages,
+in order that successive generations might view for themselves the
+devastating effects of alcohol upon the human system.
+
+No political campaign was ever contested with more zeal and zest than
+that which led up to the election of the Perpetual Souse. Life had
+grown rather dreary under the innumerable prohibitions of the Chuff
+regime, and the citizens welcomed the excitement of the campaign as a
+notable diversion. Quimbleton appointed himself chairman of the
+committee to nominate Bleak, and the editor (acting under his friend's
+instructions) had hardly begun to deny vigorously that he had any
+intention of being a candidate before he found himself plunged into a
+bewildering vortex of meetings, speeches, and confessions of faith.
+Marching clubs, properly outfitted with two-quart silk tiles and frock
+coats, were spatting their way plumply down the Boulevard. Torchlight
+processions tinted the night; ward picnics strewed the shells of
+hard-boiled eggs on the lawns of suburban amusement parks, while Bleak,
+very ill at ease, was kissing adhesive babies and autographing tissue
+napkins and smiling horribly as he whirled about with the grandmothers
+in the agony of the carrousel. More than once, reeling with the endless
+circuit of a painted merry-go-round charger, the perplexed candidate
+became so confused that he kissed the paper napkin and autographed the
+baby.
+
+He found Quimbleton a stern ringleader. Virgil was not satisfied with
+the old-fashioned method of stumping the country from the taff-rail of
+a Pullman car, and insisted on strapping Bleak into the cockpit of a
+biplane and flying him from city to city. They would land in some
+central square, and the candidate, deafened and half-frozen, would
+stammer a few halting remarks. He felt it rather keenly that Quimbleton
+looked down on his lack of oratorical gift, and it was a frequent
+humiliation that when words did not prosper on his tongue his impatient
+pilot would turn on the motors and zoom off into space in the very
+middle of a sentence.
+
+Nevertheless, the campaign went famously. Bleak had one considerable
+advantage in being comparatively unknown. He had never permitted
+himself the luxury of making enemies: except for a few ex-reporters who
+had once worked on the Balloon he had not a foe in the world.
+Quimbleton had been eager to import a covey of gunmen from other
+cities, but when these arrived there was really nothing for them to do.
+They were glad to accept jobs from Bishop Chuff, and were well paid for
+waylaying and sniping the few grapes and apples that had escaped
+previous pogroms.
+
+There was only one plank in Bleak's modest platform, but he walked it
+so happily that it began to look like a gangplank leading onto the Ship
+of State. He expressed his doctrine very agreeably in his speech
+accepting the party nomination; though credit should be given to
+Theodolinda, who had assisted him by a little private seance before he
+addressed the convention.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he said (looking as he spoke at one of the
+handbills announcing his candidacy for the dignity of mouthpiece of the
+nation)--"I issue dodgers, but I never dodge the issue. I can Take It
+or Let It Alone, but frankly, I prefer to Take It. I hope I speak
+modestly: yet candor insists that both by past training and present
+inclination I feel myself fitted to deal with the problems of this
+exalted office. If elected to this high place of trust I shall regard
+myself solely as the servant of the public, solely as the
+representative of your sovereign will. As I raise the glass or peel the
+lemon, I shall not act in any individual capacity. My own good cheer (I
+beg you to believe) will be my last thought. I shall remember, in every
+gesture and every gulp, that my thirst is in reality the Thirst of a
+Nation, delegated to me by ballot; that my laughter and song (if things
+should go so far) are truly the mirth and music of a proud people
+expressing themselves through me. I shall be at all times accessible to
+my fellow-men, solicitous to hear their counsel and command. Believing
+(as I do) in moderation, yet I should not dream of permitting private
+sentiment to interfere with public interest when more violent measures
+should seem desirable.
+
+"I like to think, my fellow-citizens, that you have conferred this
+nomination upon me not wholly at random. I like to think that I am only
+expressing your thought when I say that many drinkers have been the
+worst enemies of the cause we all hold dear. The alcoholshevik and the
+I.W.W.--the I Wallow in Wine faction--have done much to discredit the
+old bland Jeffersonian toper who carried tippling to the level of a
+fine art. I have no patience with the doctrine of complete immersion.
+Ever since I was first admitted to the bar I have deplored the conduct
+of those violent and vulgar revelers who have brought discredit upon
+the loveliest, most delicate art known to man. Now, at last, by supreme
+wisdom, drinking is to be elevated to the dignity of a career. I like
+to think that I express your sentiment when I say that drinking is too
+precious, too subtle, too fragile a function to be entrusted to the
+common crowd. Therefore I heartily applaud your admirable intention of
+entrusting it entirely to me, and look forward with profound
+satisfaction to the privilege of enshrining and perpetuating in my own
+person the genial traditions that have clustered round the institution
+of Liquor. If elected, I shall endeavor to carry on the fine old
+rituals and pass them down unimpaired to the next incumbent. I shall
+endeavor to make duty a pleasure, and pleasure a duty. I shall remind
+myself that I am only performing the service to humanity that each one
+of you would willingly render if you were in my place.
+
+"My fellow-citizens, I thank you for your amiable confidence, and am
+happy to accept the nomination."
+
+There were some who criticized this speech on the ground that it was
+too academic. It was remembered that Mr. Bleak had at one time been a
+school-teacher, and his opponents were quick to raise the cry "What can
+a schoolmaster know about liquor?" It was said that Mr. Bleak was too
+scholarly, too aloof, too cold-blooded: that his interest in booze was
+merely philosophical, that he would be incompetent to deal with the
+practical problems of actual drinking: that he would surround himself
+with drinks that would be mere puppets, subservient entirely to his own
+purposes. The adherents of Jerry Purplevein, the nominee of the other
+party, made haste to assert that Bleak was not a drinker at all but was
+a tool of the Chuff machine. Jerry was a former bartender who had been
+pining away in the ice-cream cone business. Huge banners appeared
+across the streets, showing highly colored pictures of Mr. Purplevein
+plying his original profession, with the legend:
+
+    RALLY ROUND THE FLAGON
+
+    VOTE FOR
+
+    PURPLEVEIN
+
+    THE PRACTICAL MAN
+
+
+One of the exciting features of the campaign was the sudden appearance
+of a Woman's Party, which launched an ably-conducted boom for a Woman
+Souse and nominated Miss Cynthia Absinthe as its candidate. The idea of
+having a woman elected to this responsible office was disconcerting to
+many citizens, but Miss Absinthe's record (as outlined by her publicity
+headquarters) compelled respect. She was reputed to have been a
+passionate and tumultuous consumer of sloe gin, and thousands of women
+in white bartenders' coats marched with banners announcing:
+
+    ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER VOTE FOR CYNTHIA
+
+and
+
+    OUR SLOGAN IS SLOE GIN
+
+
+For a while there was quite a probability that the male vote would be
+so split by Bleak and Purplevein that Miss Absinthe would come in
+ahead. But at the height of the campaign she was found in a pharmacy
+drinking a maple nut foam. After this her cause declined rapidly, and
+even her most ardent partisans admitted that she would never be more
+than an Intermittent Souse.
+
+Purplevein's followers, in their desperate efforts to discredit Bleak,
+overplayed their hand (as "practical politicians" always do). The
+sagacious Quimbleton outmaneuvered them at every turn. Moderate
+drinkers rallied round Bleak. Moreover, the Bleak party had an
+irresistible assistant in the person of Miss Chuff, who put her trances
+unreservedly at Dunraven's disposal. In this way Quimbleton was able to
+produce his candidate before a monster mass meeting at the Opera House
+in a state of becoming exhilaration. This forever put an end to the
+rumor that Bleak was not a practical man. Miss Chuff also campaigned
+strenuously among the women, where Purplevein (being a bachelor) was at
+a disadvantage. "Vote for Bleak," cried Miss Chuff--"He has a wife to
+help him." Purplevein's argument that the office of Perpetual Souse
+should be an entirely stag affair fell dead before Theodolinda's
+glowing description of the Hostess House which Mrs. Bleak would conduct
+next door to the little temple which was to be erected by the
+government for the successful candidate.
+
+Despite the exhaustion of the campaign, Bleak stood it well.
+Quimbleton, knowing the disastrous effects of over-confidence, kept his
+man at fighting edge by a little judicious pessimism now and then, and
+rumors of the popularity of Purplevein among the hard drinkers. Day
+after day Quimbleton and Miss Chuff, after a little psychic communing,
+would prop the editor among cushions in the big gray limousine and spin
+him about the city and suburbs to bow, smile, say a few automatic words
+and pass on. Over the car floated a big banner with the words: Let
+Bleak Do Your Drinking For You: He Knows How. The unhappy Purplevein,
+who had to do his electioneering in a state of chill sobriety, was
+aghast to see the beaming and gently flushed face of his rival
+radiating cheer. At the eleventh hour he tried to change his tactics
+and plastered the billboards with immense posters:
+
+    BLEAK DOESN'T NEED THE JOB--HE'S SOUSED ALREADY
+
+This line of argument might perhaps have been powerful if adopted
+earlier, but by that time the agreeable vision of Bleak's ascetic
+features wreathed in a faintly spiritual benignance was already firmly
+fixed in the public imagination. The little celluloid button showing
+his transfigured and endearing smile was worn on millions of lapels. As
+one walked down the street one met that little badge hundreds of times,
+and the mere repetition of the tenderly exhilarated face seemed to many
+a citizen a beautiful and significant thing. Men are altruistic at
+heart. They saw that Bleak would make of this high office a richly
+eloquent and appealing stewardship. They were reconciled to their own
+abstinence in the thought that the dreams and desires of their own
+hearts would be so nobly fulfilled by him. Alcohol was gone forever,
+and perhaps it was as well. They themselves were conscious of having
+abused its sacred powers. But now, in the person of this chosen
+representative, all that was lovely and laughable in the old customs
+would be consecrated and enshrined forever. Men who had known Bleak in
+the days of his employment on the Balloon recollected that even during
+the cares and efforts of his profession little incidents had occurred
+that might have shown (had they been shrewd enough to notice) how
+faithfully he was preparing himself for the great responsibility
+destiny held concealed.
+
+The day of the election was declared a national festival. The Chuff
+government, a good deal startled by the universal seriousness and
+enthusiasm shown in the enrollment at the primaries, was disposed (in
+secret) to regard the office of Perpetual Souse as a helpful compromise
+on a vexed question. The war against Nature had been only partially
+successful: indeed the chuff chief-of-staff declared that Nature had
+not learned her lesson yet, and that some irreconcilable berries and
+fruits were still waging a guerilla fermentation, thus rupturing the
+armistice terms. The countryside had been ravaged, all the Chautauqua
+lecturers were hoarse, industry was at a standstill, misery and despair
+were widespread. Even the indomitable Chuff himself was a little
+nonplussed. Better (he thought) one man indubitably, decorously,
+publicly, and legally drunk, than millions of citizens privily
+attempting to cajole raisins and apples into illicit sprightliness.
+
+The citizens went to the polls in a mood of exalted self-denial. They
+knew that they were voting away their own rights, but they also knew
+that their private ideals would be more than realized in the legalized
+frenzy of their representative. Bleak, appearing on the balcony of his
+hotel, smiled affectionately on the loyal faces that cheered him from
+below. He was deeply moved. To Quimbleton (who was supporting him from
+behind) he said: "Their generosity is wonderful. I shall try to be
+worthy of their confidence. I hope I may have strength to put into
+practice the frustrated desires of these noble people."
+
+The result of the polling was to be announced by a searchlight from the
+City Hall. A white beam sweeping eastward would mean the election of
+Purplevein. A white beam sweeping westward would mean the triumph of
+Miss Absinthe. A steady red beam cast upward toward the zenith would
+indicate the victory of Bleak.
+
+At ten o'clock that night a scream of cheers burst from millions of
+people packed along the city streets. A clear, glowing shaft of red
+light leaped upward into the sky. Dunraven Bleak had been elected
+Perpetual Souse.
+
+Purplevein, who was rather a decent sort, hastened to Bleak's hotel to
+offer his congratulations. Bleak, who was sitting quietly with Mrs.
+Bleak, Quimbleton and Theodolinda, greeted him calmly. Poor Purplevein
+was very much broken up, and Quimbleton and Theodolinda, in the
+goodness of their hearts, arranged a quiet little seance for his
+benefit. They all sat their drinking psychic Three-Star in honor of the
+event. As Quimbleton said, helping Purplevein back to his motor--"Hitch
+your flagon to a Star."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+E PLURIBUS UNUM!
+
+
+Virgil and Theodolinda were returning from their honeymoon, which they
+had spent touring in Quimbleton's Spad plane. They had been in South
+America most of the time, where they found charming hosts eager to
+console them for the tragical developments in the northern continent.
+
+It was a superb morning in early autumn when they were flying homeward.
+Beneath them lay the green and level meadows of New Jersey, and the
+dusky violet blue of the ocean shading to a translucent olive where
+long ridges of foam crumbled upon pale beaches. They turned inland,
+flying leisurely to admire the beauty of the scene. The mounting sun
+spread a golden shimmer over woods and corn-stubble. White roads ran
+like ribbons across the landscape. Quimbleton glided gently downward,
+intending to skim low over the treetops so that his bride might enjoy
+the rich loveliness of the view.
+
+Suddenly the great plane dipped sharply, tilted, and very nearly fell
+into a side-slip. Quimbleton was just able to pull her up again and
+climbed steeply to a safer altitude. He looked at his dashboard dials
+and indicators with a puzzled face. "Very queer," he said to
+Theodolinda through the speaking tube, "the air here has very little
+carrying power. It seems extraordinarily thin. You might think we were
+flying in a partial vacuum."
+
+From the behavior of the plane it was evident that some curious
+atmospheric condition was prevailing. There seemed to be a large hole
+or pocket in the air, and in spite of his best efforts the pilot was
+unable to get on even wing. Finally, fearing to lapse into a tail spin,
+he planed down to make a landing. Beneath them was a beautiful green
+lawn surrounded by groves of trees. In the middle of this lawn they
+struck gently, taxied across the smooth turf, and came to a stop
+beneath a splendid oak. Quimbleton assisted his wife to get out, and
+they sat down for a few minutes' rest under the tree.
+
+"What a heavenly spot!" cried Theodolinda, "I wonder where we are?"
+
+"Somewhere in New Jersey," said her husband. "I don't understand what
+was the matter with the air. It didn't act according to Hoyle."
+
+They gazed about them in some surprise at the opulent beauty of the
+scene. It seemed to be a kind of park, laid out in lawns, gardens and
+shrubbery, with groves of old trees here and there. A little artificial
+lake twinkled in a hollow.
+
+They happened to be gazing upward when a small round ball of tawny
+color fell from the tree. It was a robin. Folded solidly for sleep, he
+fell unresisting by the flutter of a wing, turning over and over gently
+until he struck the turf with the tiniest of soft thuds. He bounced
+slightly, rolled a little distance, and settled motionless in the grass.
+
+Quimbleton, amazed, stooped over the fallen bird, supposing it to be
+dead. Without lifting it from the ground he withdrew its head from
+under its wing. The bright eye unlidded and gazed at him sleepily. Then
+the bird closed its eye with a certain weary resignation, put its head
+back under its wing, and relaxed comfortably in the grass.
+
+Quimbleton was no very acute student of nature, but this seemed very
+odd to him. And then, examining the lower limbs of the tree, he uttered
+an exclamation. He swung himself up into the oak and shook one of the
+branches. Five other birds plopped comfortably into the grass and
+rested as easily as the first. He examined them one by one. They were
+all sound asleep.
+
+"Most amazing!" he said. "My dear, we will have to take up nature
+study. I am really ashamed of my ignorance. I always thought that owls
+were the only birds that slept by day."
+
+Theodolinda was looking at the five small bodies. She raised one of
+them gently, and sniffed gingerly.
+
+"Virgil," she said solemnly, "this is not mere slumber. These birds are
+drunk!"
+
+Quimbleton was about to speak when a grasshopper went by like an
+airplane, zooming in a twenty-foot leap. A bee sagged along heavily in
+an irregular zig-zag, and a caterpillar, more agile and purposeful than
+any caterpillar they had ever seen, staggered swiftly across a carpet
+of moss.
+
+The same thought struck them simultaneously, and at that moment
+Theodolinda noticed a small white signboard affixed to a tree-trunk in
+the grove. They ran to it, and saw in neat lettering:
+
+    TO THE PERPETUAL SOUSE, ONE MILE
+
+"Bless me!" cried Quimbleton. "What a stroke of luck! You know old
+Bleak wrote us when we were in Rio that he had been installed in his
+temple, but he didn't say where it was. Let's toddle up and have a look
+at him. That's why the bus acted so queerly. No wonder: we were
+probably flying in alcohol vapor."
+
+They walked through the grove and emerged upon a lawn that sloped
+gently upward. At the brow stood a beautiful little temple of Greek
+architecture. As they approached they read, carved into the marble
+architrave:
+
+    AEDES TEMULENTI PERPETUI
+    E PLURIBUS UNUM
+
+The little porch, under the marble columns, was cool and shady. A
+signboard said: Visiting Hours, Noon to Midnight. Quimbleton looked at
+his watch. "It's not noon yet," he said, "but as we're old friends I
+dare say he'll be willing to see us."
+
+Pushing through a slatted swinging door of beautifully carved bronze,
+they found themselves in a charmingly furnished reference library.
+There were lounges and deep leather chairs, and ash trays for smokers.
+Quimbleton, who was something of a bookworm, ran his eye along the
+shelves. "A very neat idea," he said. "They have collected a little
+library of all the standard works on drink. This should be of great
+value to future historians and researchers."
+
+Through another swinging door they found the central shrine.
+
+It was circular in shape, illuminated through a clear skylight. Under
+the rotunda was a low, broad marble counter, surmounted by a gleaming
+mirror and a noble array of bottles, flasks, decanters, goblets and
+glasses of every size. The pale yellow of white wines, the ruby of
+claret, the tawny brown of port, the green and violet and rose of
+various liqueurs, sparkled in their appointed vessels. In front of this
+altar stood a three-foot mahogany bar, with its scrolled rim and
+diminutive brass rail, all complete. A red velvet cord hung from brass
+posts separated it from the open floor.
+
+A series of mural paintings, in the vivid coloring and superb technique
+of Maxfield Parrish, adorned the walls of the room. They portrayed the
+history of Alcohol from the dawn of time down to the summer of 1919. A
+space for one more painting was left blank, and Mr. and Mrs. Quimbleton
+concluded that the artist was still at work upon the final panel.
+
+An attendant in white was polishing glasses behind the tiny bar. He was
+an elderly man with a pink clean-shaven face and the initials P. S.
+were embroidered on the collar of his starched jacket. There was an air
+of evident pride in his bearing as he listened to their exclamations of
+admiration.
+
+"Your first visit, sir?" he said.
+
+"Yes," said Quimbleton. "I must confess I had no idea it would be as
+fine as this. What time does Mr. Bleak get in?"
+
+"He usually opens up with a nip of Scotch about eleven-thirty," said
+the bartender. "Just so as to get up a little circulation before
+opening time. He's got a hard afternoon before him to-day," he added.
+
+"How do you mean?" said Quimbleton.
+
+"One of the excursion trains coming. The railroad runs cheap excursions
+here three days a week, and the crowds is enormous. When there's a
+bunch like that there's always a lot wants Mr. Bleak to take some
+special drink they used to be partial to, just to recall old times. Of
+course, being what you might call a servant of the public, he doesn't
+like not to oblige. But I doubt whether he's got the constitution to
+stand it long. The other day the Mint Julep Veterans of Kentucky held a
+memorial day here, and Mr. Bleak had to sink fifteen juleps to satisfy
+them. I tell him not to push himself too far, but he's still pretty new
+at the job. He likes to go over the top every day."
+
+"Your face is very familiar," said Theodolinda. "Where have we seen you
+before?"
+
+"I wondered if you'd recognize me," said the bartender. "I've shaved
+off my mustache. I'm Jerry Purplevein. When I was turned down in that
+election I thought this would be the next best thing. As a matter of
+fact, it's better. I don't really care for the stuff; I just like to
+see it around. Miss Absinthe felt the same way. She's head stewardess
+up to the Hostess House."
+
+"It seems to me I used to see you somewhere in New York," said
+Quimbleton.
+
+"I was head bar at the Hotel Pennsylvania," said Jerry. "We had the
+finest bar in the world, had only been running a couple of months when
+prohibition come in. They turned it into a soda fountain. Ah, that was
+a tragedy! But this is a grand job. Government service, you see: sure
+pay, tony surroundings, and what you might call steady custom. Mr.
+Bleak is as nice a gentleman to mix 'em for as I ever see."
+
+"But what is this for?" asked Theodolinda, pointing to a beautiful
+marble cash register. "Surely Mr. Bleak doesn't have to BUY his drinks?"
+
+"No, ma'am," said Jerry, "but he likes to have 'em rung up same as
+customary. He says it makes it seem more natural. Here he is now!"
+
+Jerry flew to attention behind the three-foot bar, and they turned to
+see their friend enter through the bronze swinging doors.
+
+"Well, well!" cried Bleak. "This is a delightful surprise!"
+
+He was dressed in a lounging suit of fine texture, and while he seemed
+a little thinner and paler, and his eyes a little weary, he was in
+excellent spirits.
+
+"Come," he said, "you're just in time for a bite of lunch. Jerry,
+what's on the counter to-day?"
+
+Jerry bustled proudly over to the free-lunch counter, whipped off the
+steam-covers, and disclosed a fragrant joint of corned beef nestling
+among cabbages and boiled potatoes. With the delight of the true artist
+he seized a long narrow carving knife, gave it a few passes along a
+steel, and sliced off generous portions of the beef onto plates bearing
+the P. S. monogram. This they supplemented with other selections from
+the liberally supplied free-lunch counter. Soft, crumbling orange
+cheese, pickles, smoked sardines, chopped liver, olives, pretzels--all
+the now-forgotten appetizers were laid out on broad silver platters.
+
+"I wish I could offer you a drink," said Bleak, "but as you know, it
+would be unconstitutional. With your permission, I shall have to have
+something. My office hours begin shortly, and some one might come in."
+
+He took up his station at the little bar behind the velvet cord, and
+slid his left foot onto the miniature rail. Jerry, with the air of an
+artist about to resume work on his favorite masterpiece, stood
+expectant.
+
+"A little Scotch, Jerry," said Bleak.
+
+In the manner reminiscent of an elder day Jerry wiped away imaginary
+moisture from the mahogany with a deft circular movement of a white
+cloth. Turning to the gleaming pyramid of glassware, he set out the
+decanter of whiskey, a small empty glass, and a twin glass two-thirds
+full of water. His motions were elaborately careless and automatic, but
+he was plainly bursting with joy to be undergoing such expert and
+affectionate scrutiny.
+
+Bleak poured out three fingers of whiskey, and held up the baby tumbler.
+
+"Here's to the happy couple!" he cried, and drank it in one swift,
+practiced gesture. He then swallowed about a tablespoonful of the
+water. Jerry removed the utensils, again wiped the immaculate bar, and
+rang the cashless cash-register. The Perpetual Souse smiled happily.
+
+"That's how it's done," he said. "Do you remember?"
+
+"We're just back from South America," said Quimbleton.
+
+"Some of the boys from the old Balloon office were in here the other
+day," said Bleak. "I'm afraid it was rather too much for them--in an
+emotional way, I mean. I tossed off a few for their benefit, and one of
+them--the cartoonist he used to be, perhaps you remember him--fainted
+with excitement."
+
+"Well, how do you like the job?" said Quimbleton.
+
+Bleak did not answer this directly. Making an apology to Jerry and
+promising to be back in a few minutes, he escorted his visitors round
+the temple and gave them some of the picture postcards of himself that
+were sold to souvenir hunters at five cents each. He showed them the
+cafeteria for the convenience of visitors, the Hostess House (where
+they found Mrs. Bleak comfortably installed), the ice-making machinery,
+the private brewery, and the motor-truck used to transport supplies. In
+a corner of the garden they found the children playing.
+
+"It's a good thing the children enjoy playing with empty bottles," said
+Bleak. "It's getting to be quite a problem to know what to do with
+them. I'm using some of them to make a path across the lawn, bury them
+bottom up, you know.
+
+"But you ask how I like it? I would never admit it before Jerry,
+because the good fellow expects more of me than I am able to fulfill,
+but as a matter of fact this is hardly a one-man job. There ought to be
+at least seven of us, each to go on duty one day a week. No--you see,
+being a kind of government museum, I don't even get Sundays off because
+lots of people can only get here that day. Next after Mount Vernon and
+Independence Hall, I get more visitors than any other national shrine.
+And almost all of them expect me to have a go at their favorite drink
+while they're watching me. Being what you might call the most public
+spirited man in the country, I have to oblige them as much as possible.
+But I doubt whether I shall be a candidate for reelection.
+
+"I think the government has rather overestimated my capacity," he
+continued. "They import a shipload of stuff from abroad every month,
+and send an auditor here to check over my empties. I've been hard put
+to it to get away with all the stuff. I've had to fall back on your old
+plan of using wine to irrigate the garden. It's had rather a
+dissipating effect on the birds and insects, though. Really, you ought
+to spend an evening here some time. The birds sing all night long: they
+have to sleep it off in the morning. A robin with a hang-over is one of
+the funniest things in the world."
+
+"We saw one!" cried Theodolinda. "He was more than hanging over--he had
+fallen right off!"
+
+"There's a butterfly here," said Bleak--"Rather a friend of mine, who
+can give a bumble bee the knock-out after he gets his drop of rum. I've
+seen him chase a wasp all over the lot."
+
+From the temple came the sound of chimes striking twelve, and down in
+the valley they heard the whistle of a train.
+
+"There's the excursion train leaving Souse Junction," said Bleak. "I
+must get back to the bar!"
+
+They returned to the shrine, and Bleak entered his little enclosure.
+
+"Jerry," he said, "the crowd will soon be here. I must get busy. What
+do you recommend?"
+
+"Better stick to the Scotch," said Jerry, and put the decanter on the
+mahogany. Bleak drank two slugs hastily, and turned to his friends with
+an almost wistful air.
+
+"Come again and stay longer," he said. "I see so many strangers, I get
+homesick for a friendly face." He called Quimbleton aside. "Does Mrs.
+Quimbleton keep up her trances?" he whispered.
+
+"Not recently," said Virgil. "You see, in South America there was no
+necessity--but when we get settled--"
+
+"You are a lucky fellow," whispered Bleak. "All the enjoyment without
+any of the formalities!" And he added aloud, grasping their hands,
+"Next time, come in the evening. A man in my line of work is hardly at
+his best before nightfall."
+
+As they walked back to the plane, Mr. and Mrs. Quimbleton saw the
+excursionists, a thousand or so, hastening through the park on foot and
+in huge sight-seeing cars where men with megaphones were roaring
+comments. One group of pedestrians bore a large banner lettered EGG NOG
+MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION OF CAMDEN, N. J.
+
+"Poor Mr. Bleak!" said Theodolinda. "On top of all that Scotch!"
+
+When they took the air again they circled over the temple at a safe
+height. They could see the crowd gathered densely round the little
+white columns. Virgil shut off the motor for a moment, and even at that
+distance they could hear the sound of cheers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IT'S A LONG WORM THAT HAS NO TURNING
+
+
+Bishop Chuff sat sourly in his office and sighed for more worlds to
+canker. Round the room stood the tall filing cases containing card
+indexes of prohibited offences, and he looked gloomily over the crowded
+drawers in the vain hope of finding something that had been overlooked.
+He pulled out a drawer at random--Schedule K-36, Minor Social
+Offenses--and ran his embittered eye over a card. It was marked
+Conversational Felonies, and began thus:
+
+    Arguing
+    Blandishing
+    Buffoonery
+    Contradicting
+    Demurring
+    Ejaculating
+    Exaggerating
+    Facetiousness
+    Giggling
+    Hemming and Hawing
+    Implying
+    Insisting
+    Jesting
+
+Each item also referred to another card on which the penalty was noted
+and legal test cases summarized.
+
+"No," he brooded, "there is nothing left."
+
+Even the most loyal of the Bishop's Staff admitted that he was far from
+well, and it was decided that he ought to take a vacation. He himself
+concurred in this, and as the home resorts were no longer places of
+mirth and glee, he determined to go to Europe. This would have the
+added advantage of enabling him to spend some time conferring with
+prohibition leaders abroad as to ways and means of converting Europe to
+his schemes of reform. Everyone in the office showed genuine
+unselfishness in making plans for the Bishop's vacation, and he was
+urged to stay away as long as he felt he could be spared. Europe, too,
+was much excited over the prospect of his coming, and the British prime
+minister was questioned on the subject in the House of Commons. For his
+entertainment on the voyage a set of twelve beautiful folio volumes,
+bound in black morocco, were prepared. They contained a digest of
+prohibition legislation which Chuff had been instrumental in having put
+on the statutes. For the first time in years the Bishop was cheered as
+he passed about the streets, and he realized that he had never known
+how popular he was until it was announced that he was going away.
+
+But still he was not content. One morning, not long before the date set
+for his sailing, he sat gloomily at his desk. He was engaged in making
+his will, and had found to his secret bitterness that after bequeathing
+a few personal trinkets to the office staff there was really no one to
+whom he could leave the bulk of his misfortune. Theodolinda, of course,
+he had quite cut off from his estate. He only knew that she was living
+somewhere with the degraded Quimbleton, carrying on a little psychic
+tavern which no laws could reach, in a state of criminal happiness.
+
+From the street, far beneath his open window, he heard the clamor of a
+police patrol and leaned eagerly over the sill in the hope of seeing
+something that would cheer his black mood. But it was only a man being
+arrested for leaning against a lamp-post--a rather common offence at
+that time, for most of the normal occupations of the citizens had been
+prohibited, and they mooned about the highways in a state of listless
+discontent. But then, farther down the channel of the street, he saw
+something that caught his eye. A group of people were marching with
+flags and signs toward the railway station. SATURDAY SCHOOL PICNIC TO
+SOUSE TEMPLE, he read on a banner. He noticed that in spite of all the
+laws against smiling in public, these people bore a look of suppressed
+merriment. They were obviously out for a good time. A sudden thought
+struck him.
+
+That afternoon, in impenetrable disguise, the Bishop paid his first
+visit to the Temple of Dunraven Bleak.
+
+The next morning, when his subordinates came to see him about the final
+plans for his departure, they were horrified to find him sitting at his
+desk wearing in the recesses of his beard what would have been called
+(on any other man) a smile.
+
+"I have changed my mind," he said. "I am not going away."
+
+They cried out in amazement, and pointed out to him how sorely in need
+of relaxation he was.
+
+"I am planning relaxation," he said, and that was all they could get
+out of him.
+
+Later in the day a confidential messenger was dispatched to the private
+printing press of the Chuff Organization, bearing the text of a poster
+which was found broadcast over the whole country a few days later. It
+ran thus:
+
+  AT THE NEXT ELECTION
+
+  For Perpetual Souse
+
+  VOTE FOR CHUFF
+
+  The People's Friend
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Sweet Dry and Dry, by
+Christopher Morley and Bart Haley
+
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