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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5eef2b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63149 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63149) diff --git a/old/63149-0.txt b/old/63149-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9b44560..0000000 --- a/old/63149-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12334 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, -October, 1913, by Various - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, October, 1913 - Vol. LXXXVI. New Series: Vol. LXIV. May to October, 1913 - -Author: Various - -Release Date: September 8, 2020 [EBook #63149] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CENTURY ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 1913 *** - - - - -Produced by Jane Robins, Reiner Ruf, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - ###################################################################### - - Transcriber’s Notes - - This e-text is based on ‘The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine,’ - from October, 1913. The table of contents, based on the index - from the May issue, has been added by the transcriber. - - Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation have been retained, but - punctuation and typographical errors have been corrected. Passages - in English dialect and in languages other than English have - not been altered. The footnote has been moved to the end of the - corresponding article. - - _Underscores_ have been used to indicate italic text in the - original; ~tilde characters~ have been applied to denote small - capitals. - - ###################################################################### - - - - -[Illustration: - - Better is a dinner of herbs where love is - than a stalled ox and hatred therewith - - Proverbs XV. 17 - -From the painting in water color by Edmund Dulac] - - - - - ~The Century Magazine~ - - ~Vol. LXXXVI~ OCTOBER, 1913 ~No. 6~ - - Copyright, 1913, by ~The Century Co.~ All rights reserved. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - ~Americans, New-Made.~ Drawings by _W. T. Benda_ Facing page 894 - - ~Auto-Comrade, The~ _Robert Haven Schauffler_ 850 - - ~Cartoons.~ - Died: Rondeau Rymbel. _Oliver Herford_ 955 - A Triumph for the Fresh Air Fund. _F. R. Gruger_ 957 - Newport Note. _Reginald Birch_ 960 - - ~Casus Belli.~ 955 - - ~Devil, The, his Due~ _Philip Curtiss_ 895 - - ~Dinner of Herbs,” “Better is a.~ - Picture by _Edmund Dulac_ - Facing page 801 - - ~Garage in the Sunshine, A~ _Joseph Ernest_ 921 - Picture by Harry Raleigh. - - ~“Ghosts,” “Dey Ain’t No”~ _Ellis Parker Butler_ 837 - Pictures by Charles Sarka. - - ~Home.~ I. An Anonymous Novel. 801 - Illustrations by Reginald Birch. - - ~Homer and Humbug.~ _Stephen Leacock_ 952 - - ~Nemours: A Typical French Provincial - Town.~ _Roger Boutet de Monvel_ 844 - Pictures by Bernard Boutet de - Monvel. - - ~Paderewski at Home.~ _Abbie H. C. Finck_ 900 - Picture from a portrait by - Emil Fuchs. - - ~Paris.~ _Theodore Dreiser_ 904 - Pictures by W. J. Glackens. - - ~Progressive Party, The~ _Theodore Roosevelt_ 826 - Portrait of the author. - - ~Sculpture.~ _Charles Keck_ 917 - - ~Senior Wrangler, The~ 958 - Snobbery--America vs. England. - Our Tender Literary Celebrities. - - ~Summer Hills,” the, In “The - Circuit of~ _John Burroughs_ 878 - Portrait of the author by Alvin - L. Coburn. - - ~Sunset on the Marshes.~ From the - painting by _George Inness_ - Facing page 824 - - ~Trade of the World Papers, The~ _James Davenport Whelpley_ - XVIII. The Foreign Trade of the - United States 886 - - ~T. Tembarom.~ _Frances Hodgson Burnett_ 929 - Drawings by Charles S. Chapman. - - ~White Linen Nurse, The~ _Eleanor Hallowell Abbott_ 857 - Pictures, printed in tint, by - Herman Pfeifer. - - ~Year, The Most Important~ _Editorial_ 951 - - -VERSE - - ~Beggar, The~ _James W. Foley_ 877 - - ~Emergency.~ _William Rose Benét_ 916 - - ~Husband Shop, The~ _Oliver Herford_ 956 - Picture by Oliver Herford. - - ~Mother, The~ _Timothy Cole_ 920 - Picture by Alpheus Cole. - - ~Myself,” “I Sing of~ _Louis Untermeyer_ 960 - - ~Parents, Our~ _Charles Irvin Junkin_ 959 - Pictures by Harry Raleigh. - - ~Socratic Argument.~ _John Carver Alden_ 960 - - - - -HOME - -AN ANONYMOUS NOVEL - -(TO BE COMPLETED IN FOUR LONG INSTALMENTS) - - -CHAPTER I - -Red Hill drowses through the fleeting hours as though not only time, -but mills, machinery, and railways were made for slaves. Hemmed in -by the breathing silences of scattered woods, open fields, and the -far reaches of misty space, it seems to forget that the traveler, -studying New England at the opening of the nineteenth century through -the windows of a hurrying train, might sigh for a vanished ideal, and -concede the general triumph of a commercial age. - -For such a one Red Hill held locked a message, and the key to the lock -was the message itself: “Turn your back on the paralleled rivers and -railroads, and plunge into the byways that lead into the eternal hills, -and you will find the world that was and still is.” - -Let such a traveler but follow a lane that leads up through willow and -elderberry, sassafras, laurel, wild cherry, and twining clematis--a -lane alined with slender wood-maples, hickory, and mountain-ash, and -flanked, where it gains the open, with scattered juniper and oak, and -he will come out at last on the scenes of a country’s childhood. - -At right angles to the lane, a broad way cuts the length of the hill, -and loses itself in a dip at each end toward the valleys and the new -world. The broad way is shaded by one of two trees, the domed maple or -the stately elm. At the summit of its rise stands an old church the -green shutters of which blend with the caressing foliage of primeval -trees. Its white walls and towering steeple dominate the scene. White, -too, are the houses that gleam from behind the verdure of unbroken -lawns and shrubbery--all but one, the time-stained brick of which glows -blood-red against the black green of clinging ivy. - -Not all these homes are alive. Here a charred beam tells the story of -a fire, there a mound of trailing vines tenderly hides from view the -shame of a ruin, and there again stands a tribute to the power of the -new age--a house the shutters of which are closed and barred. White -now only in patches, its scaling walls have taken on the dull gray of -neglected pine. - -For generations the houses of Red Hill have sent out men, for -generations they have taken them back. Their cupboards guard trophies -from the seven seas, paid for with the Yankee nutmeg, swords wrought -from plowshares and christened with the blood of the oppressor, a long -line of collegiate sheepskins, and last, but by no means least, recipes -the faded ink and brittle paper of which sum the essence of ages of -culinary wisdom. - -Some of these clustered homes live the year round at full swing, but -the life of some is cut down to a minimum in the winter, only to spring -up afresh in summer, like the new stalk from a treasured bulb. Of such -was the little kingdom of Red Hill. Upon its long, level crest it bore -only three centers of life and a symbol: Maple House, the Firs, and Elm -House, half hidden from the road by their distinctive trees, but as -alive as the warm eyes of a veiled woman; and the church. - -The supper call had sounded, and the children’s answering cries had -ceased. Along the ribbon of the single road scurried an overladen -donkey. Three lengths of legs bobbed at varying angles from her fat -sides. Behind her hurried a nurse, aghast for the hundredth time at the -donkey’s agility, never demonstrated except at the evening hour. - -Half-way between Maple House and the Firs stood two bare-legged boys, -working their toes into the impalpable dust of the roadway and rubbing -the grit into their ankles in a final orgy of dirt before the evening -wash. They called derisively to the donkey-load of children, bound to -bed with the setting sun. - - -CHAPTER II - -On a day in early spring Alan Wayne was summoned to Red Hill. Snow -still hung in the crevices of East Mountain. On the hill the ashes, -after the total eclipse of winter, were meekly donning pale green. The -elms of Elm House were faintly outlined in verdure, and stood like -empty sherry-glasses waiting for warm wine. Farther down the road the -maples stretched out bare, black limbs whose budding tufts of leaves -served only to emphasize the nakedness of the trees. Only the firs, in -a phalanx, scoffed at the general spring cleaning, and looked old and -sullen in consequence. - -The colts, driven by Alan Wayne, flashed over the brim of Red Hill to -the level top. Coachman Joe’s jaw was hanging in awe, and so had hung -since Mr. Alan had taken the reins. For the first time in their five -years of equal life the colts had felt the cut of a whip, not in anger, -but as a reproof for breaking. Coachman Joe had braced himself for the -bolt, his hands itching to snatch the reins. But there had been no -bolting, only a sudden settling down to business. - -“Couldn’t of got here quicker if he’d let ’em bolt,” said he in -subsequent description to the stable-hand and the cook. He snatched up -a pail of water and poured it steadily on the ground. “Jest like that. -He knew what was in the colts the minute he laid hands on ’em, and when -he pulls ’em up at the barn door there wasn’t a drop left in their -buckets, was there, Arthur?” - -“Nary a drop,” said Arthur, stable-hand. - -“And his face,” continued the coachman. “Most times Mr. Alan has no -eyes to speak of, but to-day and that time Miss Nance stuck him with -the hat-pin--’member, cook?--his eyes spread like a fire and eat up his -face. This is a black day for the Hill. Somethin’ ’s going to happen. -You mark me.” - -In truth Mr. Alan Wayne had been summoned in no equivocal terms and, -for all his haste, it was with nervous step he approached the house. - -There was no den, no sanctuary beyond a bedroom, for any one at Maple -House. No one brought work to Red Hill save such work as fitted into -swinging hammocks and leafy bowers. Library opened into living-room and -hall, hall into drawing-room, and drawing-room into the cool shadows -and high lights of half-hidden mahogany and china closets. And here -and there and everywhere doors opened out on to the Hill. It was a -place where summer breezes entered freely and played, sure of a way -out. Hence it was that Maple House as a whole became a tomb on that -memorable spring morning when the colts first felt a master hand--a -tomb where Wayne history was to be made and buried as it had been -before. - -Maple House sheltered a mixed brood. J. Y. Wayne, seconded by Mrs. J. -Y., was the head of the family. Their daughter, Nance Sterling, and -her babies represented the direct line, but the orphans, Alan Wayne and -Clematis McAlpin, were on an equal footing as children of the house. -Alan was the only child of J. Y.’s dead brother. Clematis was also of -Wayne blood, but so intricately removed that her exact relation to the -rest of the tribe was never figured out twice to the same conclusion. -Old Captain Wayne, retired from the regular army, was an uncle in a -different degree to every generation of Waynes. He was the only man on -Red Hill who dared call for a whisky and soda when he wanted it. - -[Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch - -“ALONG THE RIBBON OF THE SINGLE ROAD SCURRIED AN OVERLADEN DONKEY”] - -When Alan reached the house, Mrs. J. Y. was in her garden across the -road, surveying winter’s ruin, and Nance with her children had borne -the captain off to the farm to see that oft-repeated wonder and always -welcome forerunner of plenty, the quite new calf. - -Clematis McAlpin, shy and long-limbed, just at the awkward age when -woman misses being either boy or girl, had disappeared. Where, nobody -knew. She might be bird’s-nesting in the swamp or crying over the -“Idylls of the King” in the barn loft. Certainly she was not in the -house. J. Y. Wayne had seen to that. Stern and rugged of face, he -sat in the library alone and waited for Alan. He heard a distant -screen-door open and slam. Steps echoed through the lonely house. Alan -came and stood before him. - -Alan was a man. Without being tall, he looked tall. His shoulders did -not seem broad till you noticed the slimness of his hips. His neck -looked too thin till you saw the strong set of his small head. In a -word, he had the perfect proportion that looks frail and is strong. -As he stood before his uncle, his eyes grew dull. They were slightly -blood-shot in the corners, and with their dullness the clear-cut lines -of his face seemed to take on a perceptible blur. - -J. Y. began to speak. He spoke for a long quarter of an hour, and then -summed up all he had said in a few words: - -“I’ve been no uncle to you, Alan; I’ve been a father. I’ve tried to -win you, but you were not to be won. I’ve tried to hold you, but it -takes more than a Wayne to hold a Wayne. You have taken the bit with a -vengeance. You have left such a wreckage behind you that we can trace -your life back to the cradle by your failures, all the greater for your -many successes. You’re the first Wayne that ever missed his college -degree. I never asked what they expelled you for, and I don’t want to -know. It must have been bad, bad, for the old school is lenient, and -proud of men that stand as high as you stood in your classes and on the -field. Money--I won’t talk of money, for you thought it was your own.” - -For the first time Alan spoke. - -“What do you mean, sir?” With the words his slight form straightened, -his eyes blazed, there was a slight quivering of the thin nostrils, and -his features came out clear and strong. - -J. Y. dropped his eyes. - -“I may have been wrong, Alan,” he said slowly, “but I’ve been your -banker without telling you. Your father didn’t leave much. It saw you -through junior year.” - -Alan placed his hands on the desk between them and leaned forward. - -“How much have I spent since then--in the last three years?” - -J. Y. kept his eyes down. - -“You know more or less, Alan. We won’t talk about that. I was trying -to hold you, but to-day I give it up. I’ve got one more thing to tell -you, though, and there are mighty few people that know it. The Hill’s -battles have never entered the field of gossip. Seven years before you -were born, my father--your grandfather--turned me out. It was from this -room. He said I had started the name of Wayne on the road to shame and -that I could go with it. He gave me five hundred dollars. I took it and -went. I sank low with the name, but in the end I brought it back, and -to-day it stands high on both sides of the water. I’m not a happy man, -as you know, for all that. You see, though I brought the name back in -the end, I never saw your grandfather again, and he never knew. - -“Here are five hundred dollars. It’s the last money you’ll ever have -from me; but whatever you do, whatever happens, remember this: Red Hill -does not belong to a Lansing or to a Wayne or to an Elton. It is the -eternal mother of us all. Broken or mended, Lansings and Waynes have -come back to the Hill through generations. City of refuge or harbor of -peace, it’s all one to the Hill. Remember that.” - -He laid the crisp notes on the desk. Alan half turned toward the door, -but stepped back again. His eyes and face were dull once more. He -picked up the bills and slowly counted them. - -“I shall return the money, sir,” he said and walked out. - -He went to the stables and ordered the pony and cart for the afternoon -train. As he came out he saw Nance, the children, and the captain -coming slowly up Long Lane from the farm. He dodged back into the -barn through the orchard and across the lawn. Mrs. J. Y. stood in the -garden directing the relaying of flower-beds. Alan made a circuit. As -he stepped into the road, swift steps came toward him. He wheeled, and -faced Clem coming at full run. He turned his back on her and started -away. The swift steps stopped so suddenly that he looked around. Clem -was standing stock-still, one awkward, lanky leg half crooked as though -it were still running. Her skirts were absurdly short. Her little -fists, brown and scratched, pressed her sides. Her dark hair hung in a -tangled mat over a thin, pointed face. Her eyes were large and shadowy. -Two tears had started from them, and were crawling down soiled cheeks. -She was quivering all over like a woman struck. - -Alan swung around, and strode up to her. He put one arm about her thin -form and drew her to him. - -“Don’t cry, Clem,” he said, “don’t cry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” - -For one moment she clung to him and buried her face against his coat. -Then she looked up and smiled through wet eyes. - -“Alan, I’m _so_ glad you’ve come!” - -Alan caught her hand, and together they walked down the road to the -old church. The great door was locked. Alan loosened the fastening of -a shutter, sprang in through the window, and drew Clem after him. They -climbed to the belfry. From the belfry one saw the whole world, with -Red Hill as its center. Alan was disappointed. The Hill was still half -naked, almost bleak. Maple House and Elm House shone brazenly white -through budding trees. They looked as though they had crawled closer -to the road during the winter. The Firs, with its black border of last -year’s foliage, looked funereal. Alan turned from the scene, but Clem’s -little hand drew him back. - -[Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch - -“HER SKIRTS WERE ABSURDLY SHORT. HER LITTLE FISTS, BROWN AND SCRATCHED, -PRESSED HER SIDES”] - -Clematis McAlpin had happened between generations. Alan, Nance, Gerry -Lansing, and their friends had been too old for her, and Nance’s -children were too young. There were Elton children of about her age, -but for years they had been abroad. Consequently, Clem had grown to -fifteen in a sort of loneliness not uncommon with single children who -can just remember the good times the half-generation before them used -to have by reason of their numbers. This loneliness had given her in -certain ways a precocious development while it left her subdued and shy -even when among her familiars. But she was shy without fear, and her -shyness itself had a flower-like sweetness that made a bold appeal. - -“Isn’t it wonderful, Alan?” she said. “Yesterday it was cold and it -rained and the Hill was black--_black_, like the Firs. To-day all the -trees are fuzzy with green, and it’s warm. Yesterday was so lonely, and -to-day you are here.” - -Alan looked down at the child with glowing eyes. - -“And, do you know, this summer Gerry Lansing and Mrs. Gerry are coming. -I’ve never seen her since that day they were married. Do you think it’s -all right for me to call her Mrs. Gerry, like everybody does?” - -Alan considered the point gravely. - -“Yes, I think that’s the best thing you could call her.” - -“Perhaps when I’m really grown up I can call her Alix. I think Alix is -such a _pretty_ name, don’t you?” - -Clem flashed a look at Alan, and he nodded; then, with an impulsive -movement she drew close to him in the half-wheedling way of woman about -to ask a favor. - -“Alan, they let me ride old Dubbs when he isn’t plowing. The old donkey -she’s so fat now she can hardly carry the babies. Some day when you’re -not in a _great_ hurry will you let me ride with you?” - -Alan started down the ladder. - -“Some day, perhaps, Clem,” he muttered. “Not this summer. Come on.” -When they had left the church, he drew out his watch and started. “Run -along and play, Clem.” He left her and hurried to the barn. - -Joe was waiting. - -“Have we time for the long road, Joe?” asked Alan as he climbed into -the cart. - -“Oh, yes, sir, especially if you drive, Mr. Alan.” - -“I don’t want to drive. Let him go and jump in.” - -The coachman gave the pony his head, climbed in, and took the reins. -The cart swung out, and down the lane. - -“Alan! Alan!” - -Alan recognized Clem’s voice and turned. She was racing across a corner -of the pasture. Her short skirts flounced madly above her ungainly -legs. She tried to take the low stone wall in her stride. Her foot -caught in a vine, and she pitched headlong into the weeds and grass at -the roadside. - -Alan leaped from the cart and picked her up, quivering, sobbing, and -breathless. - -“Alan,” she gasped, “you’re not going away?” - -Alan half shook her as he drew her thin body close to him. - -“Clem,” he said, “you mustn’t. Do you hear? You mustn’t. Do you think I -_want_ to go away?” - -Clem stifled her sobs and looked up at him with a sudden gravity in her -elfish face. She threw her bare arms around his neck. - -“Good-by, Alan.” - -He stooped and kissed her. - - -CHAPTER III - -If Alix Deering had not barked her pretty shins against the -center-board in Gerry Lansing’s sailing-boat on West Lake, it is -possible that she would in the end have married Alan Wayne instead of -Gerry Lansing. - -When two years before Alan’s dismissal Nance had brought Alix, an old -school friend, to Red Hill for a fortnight, everybody had thought what -a splendid match Alix and Alan would make. But it happened that Alan -was very much taken up at the time with memory and anticipation of a -certain soubrette, and before he awoke to Alix’s wealth of charms the -incident of the shins robbed him of opportunity. - -Gerry, dressed only in a bathing-suit, his boat running free before a -brisk breeze, had swerved to graze the Point, where half of Red Hill -was encamped, when he caught sight of a figure lying on the outermost -flat rock. He took it to be Nance. - -“Jump!” he yelled as the boat neared the rock. - -The figure started, scrambled to its feet, and sprang. It was Alix, -still half asleep, who landed on the slightly canted floor of the boat. -Her shins brought up with a thwack against the center-board, and she -fell in a heap at Gerry’s feet. Her face grew white and strained; for a -second she bit her lip, and then, “I _must_ cry,” she gasped, and cried. - -Gerry was big, strong, and placid. Action came slowly to him, but when -it came it was sure. He threw one knee over the tiller, and gathered -Alix into his arms. She lay like a hurt child, sobbing against his -shoulder. - -“Poor little girl,” he said, “I know how it hurts. Cry now, because in -a minute it will all be over. It will, dear. Shins are like that.” And -then before she could master her sobs and take in the unconscious humor -of his comfort, the boat struck with a crash on Hidden Rock. - -The nearest Gerry had ever come to drowning was when he had fallen -asleep lying on his back in the middle of West Lake. Even with a -frightened girl clinging to him, it gave him no shock to find himself -in the water a quarter of a mile from shore. But with Alix it was -different. She gasped, and in consequence gulped down a large mouthful -of the lake. Then she broke into hysterical laughter and swallowed -more. Gerry held her up, and deliberately slapped her across the mouth. -In a flash anger sobered her. Her eyes blazed. - -“You coward,” she whispered. - -Gerry’s face was white and stern. - -“Put one hand on my shoulder and kick with your feet,” he said. “I’ll -tow you to shore.” - -“Put me on Hidden Rock,” said Alix; “I prefer to wait for a boat.” - -“It will take an hour for a boat to get here,” answered Gerry. “I’m -going to tow you in. If you say another word I shall slap you again.” - -In a dead silence they plowed slowly to shore, and when Gerry found -bottom, he stood up, took Alix in his arms, and strode well up the bank -before he set her down. - -During the long swim she had had time to think, but not to forgive. -She stamped her sodden feet, shook out her skirts, and then looked -Gerry up and down. With his crisp, light hair; blue eyes, wide apart -and well open; and six feet of well-proportioned bulk, Gerry was good -to look at, but Alix’s angry eyes did not admit it. They measured him -scornfully; but it was not the look that hurt him so much as the way -she turned from him with a little shrug of dismissal and started along -the shore for camp. - -Gerry reached out and caught hold of her arm. She swung around, her -face quite white. - -“I see,” she said in a low voice, “you want it now.” - -Gerry held her with his eyes. - -“Yes,” he answered, “I want it now.” - -“Why did you yell at me to jump into your horrible boat?” - -“I took you for Nance.” - -“You took me for Nance,” repeated Alix with a mimicry and in a tone -that left no doubt as to the fact that she was in a nasty temper. “And -_why_,” she went on, her eyes blazing and her slight figure trembling, -“did you strike me--slap me across the face?” - -“Because I love you,” replied Gerry, steadily. - -“Oh!” gasped Alix. Her slate-gray eyes went wide open in unfeigned -amazement, and suddenly the tenseness that is the essence of attack -went out of her body. Instead of a self-possessed and very angry young -woman, she became her natural self--a girl fluttering before her first -really thrilling situation. - -There was something so childlike in her sudden transition that Gerry -was moved out of himself. For once he was not slow. He caught hold of -her and drew her toward him. - -But Alix was not to be plucked like a ripe plum. She freed herself -gently but firmly, and stood facing him. Then she smiled, and with the -smile she gained the upper hand. Gerry suddenly became awkward and -painfully aware of his bare arms and legs. He felt exceptionally naked. - -“When did it begin?” murmured Alix. - -“What?” said Gerry. - -“It,” said Alix. “When--how long have you loved me?” - -Gerry’s face turned a deep red, but he raised his eyes steadily to -hers. “It began,” he said simply, “when I took you in my arms and you -laid your face against my shoulder and cried like--like a little kid.” - -“Oh!” said Alix again, and blushed in her turn. She had lost the upper -hand and knew it. Gerry’s arms went around her, and this time she -raised her face and let him kiss her. - -[Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch - -“‘CLEM,’ HE SAID, ‘DO YOU THINK I _WANT_ TO GO AWAY?’”] - -“Now,” she said as they started for the camp, “I suppose I must call -you Gerry.” - -“Yes,” said Gerry, solemnly. “And I shall call you Little Miss Oh!” - -So casual an engagement might easily have come to a casual end, but -Gerry Lansing was quietly tenacious. Once moved, he stayed moved. No -woman had ever stirred him before; he did not imagine that any other -woman would stir him again. - -To Alix, once the shock of finding herself engaged was passed, came -full realization and a certain amount of level-headed calculation. She -knew herself to be high-strung, nervous, and impulsive, a combination -that led people to consider her lightly. On the day of the wreck Gerry -had shown himself to be a man full grown. He had mastered her; she -thought he could hold her. - -Then came calculation. Alix was out of the West. All that money could -do for her in the way of education and culture had been done, but -no one knew better than she that her culture was a mere veneer in -comparison with the ingrained flower of the Lansings’ family oak. Here -was a man she could love, and with him he brought her the old homestead -on Red Hill and an older brownstone front in New York the position of -which was as unassailable socially as it was inconvenient as regards -the present center of the city’s life. Alix reflected that if there was -a fool to the bargain it was not she. - -All Red Hill and a few Deerings gathered for the wedding, and many were -the remarks passed on Gerry’s handsome bulk and Alix’s scintillating -beauty; but the only saying that went down in history came from Alan -Wayne when Nance, just a little troubled over the combination of Gerry -and Alix, asked him what he thought of it. - -Alan’s eyes narrowed, and his thin lips curved into a smile as he gave -his verdict: - -“Andromeda, consenting, chained to the rock.” - - -CHAPTER IV - -To the surprise of his friends, Alan Wayne gave up debauch and found -himself employment by the time the spring that saw his dismissal from -Maple House had ripened into summer. He was full of preparation for his -departure for Africa when a summons from old Captain Wayne reached him. - -With equal horror of putting up at hotels or relatives’ houses, the -captain, upon his arrival in town, had gone straight to his club, and -forthwith become the sensation of the club’s windows. Old members -felt young when they caught sight of him, as though they had come -suddenly on a vanished landmark restored. Passing gamins gazed on his -short-cropped gray hair, staring eyes, flaring collar, black string -tie, and flowing broadcloth, and remarked: - -“Gee! look at de old spoit in de winder!” - -Alan heard the remark as he entered the club, and smiled. - -“How do you do, sir?” - -“Huh!” grunted the captain. “Sit down.” He ordered a drink for his -guest and another for himself. He glared at the waiter. He glared at a -callow youth who had come up and was looking with speculative eye at a -neighboring chair. The waiter retired almost precipitously. The youth -followed. - -“In my time,” remarked the captain, “a club was for privacy. Now it’s a -haven for bell-boys and a playground for whipper-snappers.” - -“They’ve made me a member, sir.” - -“Have, eh!” growled the captain, and glared at his nephew. Alan took -inspection coolly, a faint smile on his thin face. The captain turned -away his bulging eyes, crossed and uncrossed his legs, and finally -spoke. “I was just going to say when you interrupted,” he began, “that -engineering is a dirty job. Not, however,” he continued after a pause, -“dirtier than most. It’s a profession, but not a career.” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” said Alan. “They’ve got a few in the army, and they -seem to be doing pretty well.” - -“Huh, the army!” said the captain. He subsided, and made a new start. -“What’s your appointment?” - -“It doesn’t amount to an appointment. Just a job as assistant to -Walton, the engineer the contractors are sending out. We’re going to -put up a bridge somewhere in Africa.” - -“That’s it. I knew it,” said the captain. “Going away. Want any money?” - -The question came like solid shot out of a four-pounder. Alan started, -colored, and smiled all at the same time. - -“No, thanks, sir,” he replied; “I’ve got all I need.” - -The captain hitched his chair forward, and glared out on the avenue. - -“The Lansings,” he began, like a boy reciting a piece, “are devils for -drink, the Waynes for women. Don’t you ever let ’em worry you about -drink. Nowadays the doctors call us non-alcoholic. In my time it was -just plain strong heads for wine. I say, don’t worry about drink. -There’s a safety-valve in every Wayne’s gullet. But women, Alan!” -The captain slued around his bulging eyes. “You look out for them. -As your great-grandfather used to say, ‘To women, only perishable -goods--sweets, flowers, and kisses.’ And you take it from me, kisses -aren’t always the cheapest. They say God made everything down to little -apples and Jersey lightning, but when He made women the devil helped.” -The captain’s nervousness dropped from him as he deliberately drew out -his watch and fob. “Good thing he did, too,” he added as a pleasing -afterthought. He leaned back in his chair. A complacent look came over -his face. - -Alan got up to say good-by. The captain rose, too, and clasped the hand -Alan held out. - -“One more thing,” he said. “Don’t forget there’s always a Wayne to back -a Wayne for good or bad.” There was a suspicion of moisture in his eye -as he hurried his guest off. - -Back in his rooms, Alan found letters awaiting him. He read them, and -tore all up except one. It was from Clem. She wrote: - - Dear Alan: Nance says you are going very far away. I am sorry. It - has been raining here very much. In the hollows all the bridges are - under water. I have invented a new game. It is called “steamboat.” - I play it on old Dubbs. We go down into the valley, and I make - him go through the water around the bridges. He puffs just like a - steamboat, and when he gets out, he smokes all over. He is _too_ - fat. I hope you will come back very soon. - - ~Clem.~ - -That evening Clem was thrown into a transport by receiving her first -telegram. It read: - - You must not play steamboat again; it is dangerous. - - ~Alan.~ - -She tucked it in her bosom and rushed over to the Firs to show it to -Gerry. - -Gerry and Alix were spending the summer at the Firs, where Mrs. -Lansing, Gerry’s widowed mother, was still nominally the hostess. They -had been married two years, but people still spoke of Alix as Gerry’s -bride, and, in so doing, stamped her with her own seal. To strangers -they carried the air of a couple about to be married at the rational -close of a long engagement. No children or thought of children had -come to turn the channel of life for Alix. On Gerry, marriage sat as -an added habit. It was beginning to look as though he and Alix drifted -together not because they were carried by the same currents, but -because they were tied. - -Where duller minds would have dubbed Gerry the Ox, Alan had named him -the Rock, and Alan was right. Gerry had a dignity beyond mere bulk. -He had all the powers of resistance, none of articulation. Where a -pin-prick would start an ox, it took an upheaval to move Gerry. An -upheaval was on the way, but Gerry did not know it. It was yet afar off. - -To the Lansings marriage had always been one of the regular functions -of a regulated life, part of the general scheme of things. Gerry was -slowly realizing that his marriage with Alix was far from a mere -function, had little to do with a regular life, and was foreign to -what he had always considered the general scheme of things. Alix had -developed quite naturally into a social butterfly. Gerry did not -picture her as chain-lightning playing on a rock, as Alan would have -done; but he did in a vague way feel that bits of his impassive self -were being chipped away. - -Red Hill bored Alix, and she showed it. The first summer after the -marriage they had spent abroad. Now Alix’s thoughts and talk turned -constantly toward Europe. She even suggested a flying trip for the -autumn, but Gerry refused to be dragged so far from golf and his club. -He stuck doggedly to Red Hill till the leaves began to turn, and then -consented to move back to town. - -On their last night at the Firs, Mrs. Lansing, who was complimentary -Aunt Jane to Waynes and Eltons, entertained Red Hill as a whole to -dinner. With the arrival of dessert, to Alix’s surprise, Nance said, -“Port all around, please, Aunt Jane.” - -Lansings, Waynes, and Eltons were heavy drinkers in town, but it was a -tradition, as Alix knew, that on Red Hill they dropped it--all but the -old captain. It was as though, amid the scenes of their childhood, they -became children, and just as a Frenchman of the old school will not -light a cigarette in the presence of his father, so they would not take -a drink for drink’s sake on Red Hill. - -So Alix looked on interestedly as the old butler set glasses and -started the port. When it had gone the round, Nance stood up, and with -her hands on the table’s edge leaned toward them all. For a Wayne, she -was very fair. As they looked at her, the color swept up over her bare -neck. Its wave reached her temples, and seemed to stir the clustering -tendrils of her hair. Her eyes were grave and bright with moisture. Her -lips were tremulous. - -“We drink to Alan,” she said; “to-day is Alan’s birthday.” - -She sat down. They all raised their glasses. Little Clem had no wine. -She put a thin hand on Gerry’s arm. - -“Please, Gerry! Please!” - -Gerry held down his glass. Clematis dipped in the tip of her little -finger, and, as they all drank, gravely carried the drop of wine to her -lips. - - -CHAPTER V - -As Judge Healey, gray-haired, but erect, walked up the avenue his keen -glance fell on Gerry Lansing standing across the street before an art -dealer’s window. Gerry’s eyes were fastened on a picture that he had -long had in mind for a certain nook in the library of the town house. - -It was the second anniversary of his wedding, and though it was already -late in the afternoon, Gerry had not yet chosen his gift for Alix. He -turned from the picture with a last long look and a shrug, and passed -on to a palatial jeweler’s farther up the street. - -For many years Judge Healey had been foster-father to Red Hill in -general and to Gerry in particular. With almost womanly intuition -he read what was in Gerry’s mind before the picture, and acting on -impulse, the judge crossed the street and bought it. - -While the judge was still in the picture shop, Gerry came out of the -jeweler’s and started briskly for home. He had purchased a pendant of -brilliants, extravagant for his purse, but yet saved to good taste by a -simple originality in design. - -He waited until the dinner-hour, and then slipped his gift into Alix’s -hand as they walked down the stairs together. She stopped beneath the -hall light. - -“I can’t wait, dear; I simply can’t,” she said, and snapped open the -case. - -“Oh!” she gasped. “How dear! How perfectly dear! You old sweetheart!” - -She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him twice; then she flew -away to the drawing-room in search of Mrs. Lansing and the judge, the -sole guests at the little anniversary dinner. Gerry straightened his -tie and followed. - -Alix’s tongue was rippling, her whole body was rippling, with -excitement and pleasure. She dangled her treasure before their eyes. -She laid it against her warm neck and ran to a mirror. The light in her -eyes matched the light in the stones. The judge took the jewel and laid -it in the palm of his strong hand. It looked in danger of being crushed. - -“A beautiful thing, Gerry,” he said, “and well chosen. Some poet -jeweler dreamed that twining design, and set the stones while the dew -was still on the grass.” - -After dinner the four gathered in the library, but they were hardly -seated when Alix sprang up. Her glance had followed Gerry’s startled -gaze. He was staring at the coveted picture he had been looking at in -the gallery that afternoon. It hung in the niche in which his thoughts -had placed it. Alix took her stand before it. She glanced inquiringly -at the others. Mrs. Lansing nodded at the judge. Alix turned back to -the picture, and gravity stole into her face. Then she faced the judge -with a smile. - -“We live,” she said, “in a Philistine age, don’t we? But I’ve never let -my Philistinism drive pictures from their right place in the heart. -Pictures in art galleries--” she shrugged her pretty shoulders--“I have -not been trained up to them. To me they are mounted butterflies in a -museum, cut flowers crowded at the florist’s. But this picture and that -nook--they have waited for each other. You see the picture nestling -down for a long rest, and it seems a small thing, and then it catches -your eye and holds it, and you see that it is a little door that opens -on a wide world. It has slipped into the room and become a part of -life.” - -A strange stillness followed Alix’s words. To the judge and to Gerry -it was as though the picture had opened a window to her mind. Then she -closed the window. - -“Come, Gerry,” she said, turning, “make your bow to the judge and bark.” - -Gerry was excited, though he did not show it. - -“You have dressed my thoughts in words I can’t equal,” he said, and -strolled out to the little veranda at the back of the house. He -wanted to be alone for a moment and think over this flash of light -that had followed a dark day. For the first time in a long while Alix -had revealed herself. He did not begrudge the judge his triumph. He -knew instinctively that coming from him instead of from the judge the -picture would not have struck that intimate spark. - -The next day Gerry gave his consent to Alix’s plan for a flying trip -abroad, but with a reservation. The reservation was that she should -leave him behind. - -Judge Healey heard of this arrangement only when it was on the point -of being put into effect. In fact, he was only just in time at the -steamer to wave good-by to Alix. Leaning over the rail, with her high -color, moist red lips, and excited big eyes making play under a golden -crown of hair and over a huge armful of roses, Alix presented a picture -not easily forgotten. - -The judge turned to Gerry. - -“She ought not to be going without you, my boy.” - -“Oh, it’s all right,” said Gerry, lightly. “She’s well chaperoned. It’s -a big party, you know.” - -But during the weeks that followed the judge saw it was not all right. -Gerry had less and less time for golf and more and more for whisky and -soda. The judge was troubled, and felt a sort of relief when from far -away Alan Wayne cropped into his affairs and gave him something else to -think about. - -When Angus McDale of McDale & McDale called without appointment, the -judge knew at once that he was going to hear something about Alan. - -“Lucky to find you in,” puffed McDale. “It isn’t business exactly or -I’d have ’phoned. I was just passing by.” - -“Well, what is it?” asked the judge, offering his visitor a fresh cigar. - -“It’s this. That boy, Alan Wayne--sort of protégé of yours, isn’t he?” - -“Yes, in a way--yes,” said the judge, slowly, frowning. “What has Alan -done now?” - -“It’s like this,” said McDale. “Six months ago we sent Mr. Wayne out -on contract as assistant to Walton. Walton no sooner got on the ground -than he fell sick. He put Wayne in charge, and then he died. Now, this -is the point. Mr. Wayne seems to have promoted himself to Walton’s pay. -He had the cheek to draw his own as well. He won’t be here for weeks, -but his accounts came in to-day. I want to know if you see any reason -why we shouldn’t have that money back, to say the least.” - -The judge’s face cleared. - -“Didn’t he tell you why he drew Walton’s pay?” - -“Not a word. Said he’d explain accounts when he got here, but that sort -of thing takes a lot of explaining.” - -“Well,” said the judge, “I can tell you. Walton’s pay went to his -widow, through me. I’ve been doing some puzzling on this case already. -Now will you tell me how Alan got the money without drawing on you?” - -“Oh, there was plenty of money lying around. The job cost ten per cent. -less than Walton’s estimate. If he’d come back, we’d have hauled him -over the coals for that blunder. There was the usual reserve for work -in inaccessible regions, and then the people we did the job for paid -ten days’ bonus for finishing that much ahead of contract time.” - -The judge mused. - -“Was the job satisfactory to the people out there?” he asked. - -“Yes, it was,” said McDale, bluntly; “most satisfactory. But there was -a funny thing there, too. They wrote that while they did not approve of -Mr. Wayne’s time-saving methods, the finished work had their absolute -acceptance.” - -The judge was silent for a moment. - -“You want my advice?” he asked. - -“Yes; not for our own sake, but for Wayne’s.” - -“Well,” said the judge, “I’m going to give it to you for your sake. -When you stumble across a boy that can cut ten per cent. off the -working and time estimates of an old hand like Walton, you bind him -to you with a long contract at any salary he wants. And just one -thing more: when Alan Wayne steals a cent from you, or fifty thousand -dollars, you come to me, and I’ll pay it.” - -McDale’s eyes narrowed, and he puffed nervously at his cigar. He got up -to take his leave. - -“Judge,” he said, “your head is on right, and your heart’s in the right -place, as well. I begin to see that widow business. Wayne sized us up -for a hard-headed firm when it comes to paying out what we don’t have -to, and we are. It wasn’t law, but he was right. Walton’s work was done -just as if he’d been alive. Even a Scotchman can see that. You needn’t -worry. A man that you’ll back for fifty thousand is good enough for -McDale & McDale.” - - -CHAPTER VI - -It was Alix who discovered Alan as the _Elenic_ steamed slowly down the -Solent. He was already comfortably established in his chair, with a -small pile of fiction beside him. - -[Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch - -“‘IN MY TIME,’ REMARKED THE CAPTAIN, ‘A CLUB WAS FOR PRIVACY. NOW IT’S -A HAVEN FOR BELL-BOYS AND A PLAYGROUND FOR WHIPPER-SNAPPERS’”] - -She paused before she approached him. Alan had always interested her. -Perhaps it was because he had kept himself at a distance; but, then, -he had a way of keeping his distance from almost everybody. Alix had -thought of him heretofore as a modern exquisite subject to atavic fits -that, in times past, had led him into more than one barbarous escapade. -It was the flare of daring in these shameful outbursts that had saved -him from a suspicion of effeminacy. Now, in London she had by chance -heard things of him that forced her to a readjustment of her estimate. -In six months Alan had turned himself into a mystery. - -“Well,” she said, coming up behind him, “how are you?” - -Alan turned his head slowly, and then threw off his rugs and sprang to -his feet. - -“The sky is clear,” he said; “where did you drop from?” His eyes -measured her. She was ravishing in a fur toque and coat which had yet -to receive their baptism of import duty. - -“Oh,” said Alix, “my presence is humdrum. Just the usual returning from -six weeks abroad. But you! You come from the haunts of wild beasts, and -from all accounts you have been one.” - -“Been one! From all accounts!” exclaimed Alan, a puzzled frown on his -face. “Just what do you mean?” - -They started walking. - -“I mean that even in Africa one can’t hide from Piccadilly. In -Piccadilly you are already known not as Mr. Alan Wayne, a New York -social satellite, but as a whirlwind in shirt-sleeves. Ten Per Cent. -Wayne, in short.” She looked at him with teasing archness. She could -see that he was worried. - -“Satellite is rather rough,” remarked Alan. “I never was that.” - -“All bachelors are satellites in the nature of things--satellites to -other men’s wives.” - -“Have you a vacancy?” said Alan. - -The turn of the talk put Alix in her element. She had never been an -ingénue. She had been born with an intuitive defense. Finesse was her -motto, and artificiality was her foil. It had never been struck from -her hands. On the other hand, Alan knew that every woman who accepts -battle can be reached, even if not conquered. It is the approaches to -her heart that a woman must defend. Once those are passed, the citadel -turns traitor. - -They both knew they were embarking upon a dangerous game, but Alix had -played it often. No pretty woman takes her European degree without -ample occasion for practice, and Alix had been through the European -mill. She threw out her daintily shod feet as she walked. She was full -of life. She felt like skipping. The light of battle danced merrily in -her eyes. She made no other reply. - -“I met lots of people we both know,” she said at last. - -“Which one of them passed on the news that I had taken to the ways of a -wild beast?” - -“Oh, that was the Honorable Percy. I caught only a few words. He was -telling about a man known as Ten Per Cent. Wayne and the only time he’d -ever seen the shirt-sleeve policy work with natives. When I learned it -was Africa, I linked up with you at once and screamed, and he turned to -me and said, ‘You know Mr. Wayne?’ And I said I had thought I did, but -I found I only knew him _tiré à quatre épingles_, and wouldn’t he draw -his picture over again. But just then Lady Merle signaled the retreat, -and when the men came out, somebody else snaffled Collingeford before I -got a chance.” - -“Oh, Collingeford,” said Alan. “I remember.” He frowned and was silent. - -“Alan,” said Alix after a moment, “let me warn you. I see a new -tendency in you, but before it goes any further than a tendency, let -me tell you that a thoughtful man is a most awful bore. When I caught -sight of you I thought, ‘What a delightful little party!’ But if you’re -going to be pensive, there are others--” - -Alan glanced at her. - -“Alix,” he said, mimicking her tone, “I see in you the makings of -an altogether charming woman. I’m not speaking of the painstaking -veneer,--I suppose you need that in your walk of life,--but what’s -under it. There may be others, as you say,--pretty women have taken -to wearing men for bangles,--but don’t you make a mistake. I’m not a -bangle. I’ve just come from the unclothed world of real things. To me a -man is just a man, and, what’s more, a woman is just a woman.” - -“How un-American!” said Alix. - -“It’s more than that,” said Alan; “it’s pre-American.” - -Alix was thoughtful in her turn. Alan caught her by the arm and -turned her toward the west. A yawl was just crossing the disk of the -disappearing sun. Alix felt a thrill at his touch. - -“It’s a sweet little picture, isn’t it?” she said. “But you mustn’t -touch me, Alan. It can’t be good for us.” - -“So you feel it, too,” said Alan, and took his hand from her arm. - -During the voyage they were much together, not in dark corners, but -waging their battle in the open--two swimmers that fought each other, -forgetting to fight the tide that was bearing them out to sea. Alan -was not a philanderer to snatch an unrequited kiss. To him a kiss was -the seal on surrender. But to Alix the game was its own goal. As she -had always played it, nobody had ever really won anything. However, it -did not take her long to appreciate that in Alan she had an opponent -who was constantly getting under her guard and making her feel -things--things that were alarming in themselves, like the jump of one’s -heart into the throat or the intoxication that goes with hot, racing -blood. - -Alan’s power over women was in voice and words. If he had been hideous, -it would have been the same. With his tongue he carried Alix away, and -gave her that sense of isolation which lulls a woman into laxity. One -night as they sat side by side, a single great rug across their knees, -Alan laid his hand under cover on hers. A quiver went through Alix’s -body. Her closed hand stirred nervously, but she did not really draw it -away. - -“Alan,” she said, “I’ve told you not to. Please don’t! It’s -common--this sort of thing.” - -Alan tightened his grip. - -“You say it’s common,” he said, “because you’ve never thought it out. -Lightning was common till somebody thought it out. I sit beside you -without touching you, and we are in two worlds. I grip your hand like -this, and the abyss between us is closed. While I hold you, nothing can -come between.” - -Alix’s hand opened and settled into his. Alan went on: - -“Words talk to the mind, but through my hand my body talks to yours in -a language that was old before words were born. If I am full of dreams -of you and a desert island, I don’t have to tell you about it, because -you are with me. The things I want, you want. There are no other things -in life; for while I hold you, our world is one and it is all ours. -Nothing else can reach us.” - -For a while they sat silent, then Alix recovered herself. - -“After all,” she said, “we’re not on a desert island, but on a ship, -with eyes in every corner.” - -Alan leaned toward her. - -“But if we were, Alix! If we were on a desert island, you and I--” - -For a moment Alix looked into his burning eyes. She felt that there was -fire in her own eyes too--a fire she could not altogether control. She -disengaged herself and sprang up. Alan rose slowly and stood beside -her. He did not look at her parted lips and hot cheeks; he had suddenly -become languid. - -“That’s it,” he drawled--“eyes in every corner. I wonder how many -morals would stand without other people’s eyes to prop them up?” - -Alix left him. She felt baffled, as though she had tried desperately -to get a grip on Alan, and her hand had slipped. She felt that it was -essential to get a grip on him. She had never played the losing side -before, and she was troubled. - -Premonition does not come to a woman without cause. Toward the end of -the voyage Alix faced, wide-eyed, the revelation that the stakes of the -game she and Alan had played were body and soul. - -“Alan,” she said one night, with drooping head, “I’ve had enough. I -don’t want to play any more. I want to quit.” She lifted tear-filled -eyes to him. The foil of artificiality had been knocked from her hand. -She was all woman, and defenseless. - -Alan felt a trembling in all his limbs. - -“I want to quit, too, Alix,” he said in his low, vibrating voice, “but -I’m afraid we can’t. You see, I’m beaten, too. While I was just in love -with your body, we were safe enough; but now I’m in love with you. It’s -the kind of love a man can pray for in vain. No head in it; nothing but -heart. Honor and dishonor become mere names. Nothing matters to me but -you.” - -[Illustration: Drawn By Reginald Birch - -“’HE’D SAIL FOR AFRICA TO-MORROW AND THINK FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE OF -HIS ESCAPE FROM YOU AS A CLOSE SHAVE’”] - -Tears crawled slowly down Alix’s cheeks. She stood with her elbows -on the rail and faced the ocean, so no one might see. Her hands were -locked. In her mind her own thoughts were running. Somehow she could -understand Alan without listening. If only Gerry had done this thing to -her, she was thinking, the pitiless, wracking misery would have been -joy at white heat. She was unmasked at last; but Gerry had not unmasked -her. Not once since the day of the wreck and their engagement had Gerry -unmasked himself. - -Alan was standing with his side to the rail, his eyes leaving her face -only to keep track of the promenaders, so that no officious friend -could take her by surprise. He went on talking. - -“Our judgment is calling to us to quit, but it is calling from days -ago,” he said. “We wouldn’t listen then, and it’s only the echo we -hear now. We can try to quit if you like; but when I am alone, I shall -call for you, and when you are alone, you will call for me. We shall -always be alone except when we are near each other. We can’t break the -tension, Alix. It will break us in the end.” - -The slow tears were still crawling down Alix’s cheeks. In all her life -she had never suffered so before. She felt that each tear paid the -price of all her levity. - -“Alan,” she said with a quick glance at him, “did you know when we -began that it was going to be like this?” - -“No,” he answered. “I have trifled with many women, and I was ready to -trifle with you. No one had ever driven you, and I wanted to drive you. -I thought I had divorced passion and love. I thought perhaps you had, -too. But love is here. I am not driving you. We are being driven.” - - -CHAPTER VII - -Alix and Alan were in the grip of a fever that is hard to break save -through satiety and ruin. They were still held apart by generations -of sound tradition, but against this bulwark the full flood of -modern life, as they lived it, was directed. In Alan there was a -counter-strain, a tradition of passion that predisposed him to accept -the easy tenets of the growing sensual cult. As he found it more and -more difficult to turn his thoughts away from Alix, he strove to regain -the clear-headedness that only a year before had held him back from -definite moral surrender. - -With her things had not gone so far. From the security of the untempted -she had watched her chosen world play with fire, and only now, when -temptation assailed her, did she realize the weakness that lies in -every woman once her outposts have fallen and her bare heart becomes -engaged in the battle. - -One early morning Nance sent for Alan. He found her alone. She had been -crying. He came to her where she stood by the fire, and she turned and -put her arms around his neck. She tried to smile, but her lips twitched. - -“Alan,” she said, “I want you to go away.” - -Alan was touched. He caught her wrists and took her arms from about his -neck. - -“You mustn’t do that sort of thing to me, Nance. I’m not fit for it.” -He made her sit down on a great sofa before the fire and sat down -beside her. “You remind me to-day of the most beautiful thing I ever -heard said of you--by a spiteful friend.” - -“What was it?” said Nance, turning her troubled eyes to him. - -“She said, ‘She is only beautiful in her own home.’ I never understood -it before. It’s a great thing to be beautiful in one’s own home.” - -“Oh, Alan,” said Nance, catching his hand and holding it against her -breast, “it _is_ a great thing. It’s the greatest thing in life. That’s -why I sent for you--because you are wrecking forever your chance of -being beautiful in your own home. And worse than that, you are wrecking -Alix’s chance. Of course you are blind. Of course you are mad. I -_understand_, Alan, but I want to hold you close to my heart until you -see--until the fever is cooled. You and Alix cannot do this thing. It -isn’t as though her people and ours were of the froth of the nation. -You and she started life with nothing but Puritan to build on. You -may have built just play-houses of sand, but deep down the old rock -foundation must endure. You must take your stand on that.” - -Her eyes had been fixed in the fire, but now she turned them to his -face. Alan sat with head hanging forward, his gaze and thoughts far -beyond the confines of the room. Then he shook himself and got up to go. - -“I wish we could, Nance,” he said gravely, and then added half to -himself, half to her, “I’ll try.” - -For some days Alan had been prepared to go away and take Alix with -him, should she consent. Upon his arrival he had had an interview with -McDale & McDale, in the course of which that firm opened its eyes and -its pocket wider than it ever had before. - -“You are out for money, Mr. Wayne,” had been the feeble remonstrance of -the senior member. - -“Just money,” replied Alan. “If you owed as much as I do, you would be -out for it, too. Of course you’re not. What do you want? You’ve got my -guaranty--ten per cent. under office estimates for work and time.” - -When Alan left McDale & McDale’s offices he had contracted more or less -on his own terms, and McDale, Jr., said to the senior: - -“He’s only twenty-six--a boy. How did he beat us?” - -“By beating Walton’s record first,” replied McDale, Sr. “And how he did -that, time will show.” - -As he walked slowly back from Nance’s, Alan was thinking that, after -all, there was no reason why he should not cut and run--no reason -except Alix. - -He reached his rooms. As he crossed the threshold a premonition seized -him. He felt as though some one were there. He glanced hurriedly about. -The rooms were still in the disorder in which he had left them, and -they were empty. Then he saw that he had stepped on a note that had -been dropped through the letter-slip. He picked it up. A thrill went -through him as he recognized Alix’s handwriting. There was no stamp. -It must have been delivered by hand. He tore it open and read: “You -said that a moment’s notice was all you asked. I will take the Montreal -express with you to-day.” - -Alan’s blood turned to liquid fire. The note conjured before him a -vision of Alix. He crushed it, and held it to his lips and laughed, not -jeeringly, but in pure, uncontrolled excitement. - - * * * * * - -It was not a coincidence that Gerry had sought out Alix at the very -hour that Nance was summoning Alan. Gerry and Nance were driven by the -same forewarning of catastrophe. Gerry had felt it first, but he had -been slow to believe, slower to act. He had no precedent for this sort -of thing. His whole being was in revolt against the situation in which -he found himself. It was after a sleepless night, a most unheard of -thing with him, that he decided he could let things go no longer. He -went to Alix’s room, knocked, and entered. - -Alix was up, though the hour was early for her. Fresh from her bath, -she sat in a sheen of blue dressing-gown before the mirror doing her -own hair. Gerry glanced about him and into the bath-room, looking for -the maid. - -“Good morning,” said Alix. “She’s not here. Did you want to see her?” - -Gerry winced at the levity. He wondered how Alix could play the game -she was playing and be gay. Alix finished doing her hair. - -“There,” she said with a final pat, and turned to face Gerry. - -He was standing beside an open window. He could feel the cold air on -his hands. He felt like putting his head out into it. His head was hot. - -“Alix,” he said suddenly without looking at her, “I want you to drop -Alan.” - -“But I don’t want to drop Alan,” replied Alix, lightly. - -Gerry whirled around at her tone. His nostrils were quivering. To his -amazement, his hands fairly itched to clutch her beautiful throat. He -could hardly control his voice. - -“Stop playing, Alix,” he gulped. “There’s never been a divorcée among -the Lansings nor a wife-beater, and one is as near this room as the -other right now.” - -Gerry regretted the words as soon as he had said them, but Alix was not -angry. She looked at him through narrowed eyes. She speculated on the -sensation of being once again roughly handled by this rock of a man. -Only once before had she seen Gerry angry and the sight had fascinated -her then, as it did now. There was something tremendous and impressive -in his anger and struggle for control--a great torrent held back by a -great strong dam. She almost wished it would break through. She could -almost find it in her to throw herself on the flood and let it carry -her whither it would. She said nothing. - -Gerry bit his lips and turned from her. - -“And Alan, of all men!” he went on. At the words the current of her -thoughts was changed. She found herself suddenly on the defensive. “Do -you think you are the first woman he has played with and betrayed?” -Gerry’s lip was curved to a sneer. “A philanderer, a man who surrounds -himself with tarnished reputations.” - -A dull glow came into Alix’s cheeks. - -“Philanderers are of many breeds,” she said. “There are those who -have the wit to philander with woman, and those who can rise only -to a whisky or a golf-club. Whatever else Alan may be, he is not a -time-server.” - -Once aroused, Alix had taken up the gantlet with no uncertain hand. Her -first words carried the war into the enemy’s camp, and they were barbed. - -“What do you mean?” said Gerry, dully. He had not anticipated a defense. - -“I mean what you might have deduced with an effort. What are you but a -philanderer in little things where Alan is in great? What have you ever -done to hold me or any other woman? I respected you once for what you -were going to be. That has died. Did you think I was going to make you -into a man?” - -Gerry stood, breathing hard, a great despondency in his heart. Alix -went on pitilessly: - -“What have you become? A monumental time-server on the world, and you -are surprised that a worker reaches the prize that you can not attain! -‘All things come to him who waits.’ That’s a trite saying; but how -about this? There are lots of things that come to him who only waits -that he could do without. The trouble with you is that you have built -your life altogether on traditions. It is a tradition that your women -are faithful; so you need not exert yourself to holding yours. It is a -tradition that you can do no wrong; so you need not exert yourself to -doing anything at all. You are playing with ghosts, Gerry. Your party -was over a generation ago.” - -Alix had calmed down. There was still time for Gerry to choke her -to good effect. The hour could yet be his. But he did not know -it. Smarting under the lash of Alix’s tongue, he made a final and -disastrous false step. - -“You try to humiliate me by placing me back to back with Alan?” he -said, with his new-born sneer. Alix appraised it with calm eyes, and -found it rather attractive. “Well, let me tell you that Alan is so -small a man that if I dropped out of the world to-day, he’d sail for -Africa to-morrow and think for the rest of his life of his escape from -you as a close shave.” - -Alix sprang to her feet. She was trembling. Gerry felt a throb of -exultation. It was his turn to wound. - -“What do you mean?” said Alix, very quietly; but it was the quiet of -suppressed passion at white heat. - -“I mean that Alan is the kind of man who finds other men’s wives an -economy. He would take everything you have that’s worth taking, but not -you.” - -Alix’s eyes blazed at him from her white face. “Please go away,” she -said. He started to speak. “Please go away,” she repeated. Her lips -were quivering, and her face twitched in a way that was terrifying to -Gerry. He hurried out, repeating to himself over and over: “You have -made Alix cry. You have made Alix cry.” - -Alix toyed with the silver on her dressing-table until he had gone, and -then she swept across the room to her little writing-desk and wrote the -note that Alan had found half an hour later in his rooms. - - -CHAPTER VIII - -Gerry stood in the hall outside Alix’s room for a moment, hoping to -hear a sob, a cry, anything for an excuse to go back. Instead he heard -the scratch of a pen; but he was too troubled to deduce anything from -that. He went slowly down the stairs and out into the street. The -biting winter air braced him. He started to walk rapidly. At the end of -an hour he found himself standing on a deserted pier. He took off his -hat and let the wind cool his head. - -“I have been a brute,” he said to himself. “I have made a woman -cry--Alix!” He turned and walked slowly back to the avenue and into -his club, but he still felt uneasy. A waiter brought a whisky and soda -and put it at his elbow. Gerry turned on him. - -“Who told you to bring that?” Then he felt ashamed of his petulance. -“It’s all right, George,” he said more genially than he had spoken for -many a day; “but I don’t want it. Take it away.” - -He sat for a long time, and at last came to a resolution. Alix loved -roses. He would send her enough to bank her room, and he would follow -them home. He went up the avenue to his florist’s, and stood outside -trying to decide whether it should be one mass of blood red or a color -scheme. Suddenly the plate glass caught a reflection and threw it in -his face. Gerry turned. A four-wheeler was passing. He could not see -the occupant, but on top was a large, familiar trunk marked with a -yellow girdle. On the trunk was a familiar label. He stared at it, and -the label stared back at him, and finally danced before his mazed eyes -as the cab disappeared into the traffic. - -Gerry stood for a long while, stunned. He saw a lady bow to him from -a carriage, and afterward he remembered that he had not bowed back. -Somebody ran into him. He looked back at the flowers massed in the -window, remembered that he did not need them now, and drew slowly -away. Two men hailed him from the other side of the street. Gerry -braced himself, nodded to them, and hailed a passing hansom. From the -direction Alix’s cab had taken he knew the station for which she was -bound. As he arrived on the platform they were giving the last call -for the Montreal express. He caught sight of Alix hurrying through -the gates, and followed. As she reached the first Pullman, somebody -rapped on the window of the drawing-room. Gerry saw Alan’s face pressed -against the pane. He watched Alix stop, turn, and climb the steps of -the car, and then he wheeled and hurried from the station. - -Where could he go? Not to his club and Alan’s. His face would betray -the scandal with which the club would be buzzing to-morrow. Not to his -big, comfortable house. It would be too gloomy. Even in disaccord, Alix -had imparted to its somber oak and deep shadows the glow of buoyant -life. When she was there, one felt as though there were flowers in the -house. Gerry was seized with a great desire to hide from his world, his -mother, himself. He pictured the scare-heads in the papers. That the -name of Lansing should be found in that galley! It was too much. He -could not face it. - -He bought a morning paper, full of shipping news, and, getting into a -taxi, gave the address of his bank. On the way he studied the sailings’ -column. He found what he wanted--the _Gunter_, due to sail that -afternoon for Brazil, Pernambuco the first stop. - -At the bank Gerry drew out the balance of his current account. It -amounted to something over two thousand dollars. He took most of it -in Bank of England notes. Then he started home to pack, but before he -reached the house a vision of the servants, flurried after helping -their mistress off, commiserating him to one another, pitying him -to his face perhaps, or, in the case of the old butler, suppressing -a great emotion, was too much for him. He drove instead to a big -department store, and in an hour had bought a complete outfit. He -lunched at one of the quiet restaurants that divide down-town from -up-town. - -He had avoided buying a ticket. As the _Gunter_ warped out, the purser -came to him. - -“I understand you have no ticket.” - -“No,” said Gerry, drawing a roll of bills. “How much is the passage to -Pernambuco?” - -The purser fidgeted. - -“This is irregular, sir,” he said. - -“Is it?” said Gerry, indifferently. - -“I have no ticket-forms,” said the purser, weakening. - -“I don’t want a ticket,” said Gerry. “I want a good room and three -square meals a day.” - -Long, quiet days on a quiet sea are a master sedative to a troubled -mind. Gerry had a great deal to think through. He sat by the hour -with hands loosely clasped, his eyes far out on the ocean, tracing -the course of his married life, and measuring the grounds for Alix’s -arraignment. Gerry was just and generous to others’ faults, but not -to his own. He had forgotten the sting of Alix’s words, and, to his -growing amazement, saw in himself their justification. A time-server he -certainly had been. - -The landfall of Pernambuco awoke him from reveries and introspection. -He did not look upon this palm-strewn coast as a land of new -beginnings; he sought merely a Lethean shore. - -The ship crawled in from an oily sea to the long strip of harbor behind -the reef. Above, the sun blazed from a bowl of unbroken blue; on land, -the multicolored houses spread like a rainbow under a dark cloud of -brown-tiled roofs. Beyond the trees was a line of high, stuccoed -houses, each painted a different color, all weather-stained, and some -with rusted balconies that threatened to topple on to the passer-by. -One bore the legend, “Hôtel d’Europe.” There Gerry installed himself. - - -CHAPTER IX - -Between the hour of writing her note to Alan and the moment when she -stepped on the train Alix had had no time to think. She was still -driven by the impulse of anger that Gerry’s words had aroused. She did -not reflect that the wound was only to her pride. - -Alan held open the door of the drawing-room. She passed in, and he -closed it. She did not feel as though she were in a train. On the -little table stood a vase. It held a single perfect rose. Under the -vase was a curious doily, strayed from Alan’s collection of exotic -things. A cushion lay tossed on the green sofa, not a new cushion, -but one that had been broken in to comforting. Alix took in every -detail of the arrangement of the tiny room with her first breath. What -forethought, what a note of rest with which to meet a troubled and -hurried heart! But how insidious to frame an ignoble flight in such a -homelike setting! She felt a slight revolt at the travesty. - -Alan was standing with blazing eyes and working face, like an eager -hound in leash. Alix threw back her veil and looked at him. With a -quick stride forward he caught her to him, and kissed her mouth until -she gasped for breath. With a flash she remembered his own words, -“If ever I kiss you, I shall bring your soul out between your lips.” -To Alix’s amazement, she did not feel an answering fire. Her body -was being lashed with a living flame, and her body was cold. In that -instant this seemed a terrible thing. She had sold her birthright for -a price, and the price was turning to dead leaves. She made an effort -to kiss Alan in return, but with the effort shame came over her. There -was so much in Alan’s kiss! The kiss had brought her soul out between -her lips. Her soul stood naked before her, and one’s naked soul is an -ugly thing. The kiss disrobed her, too, and from that last bourn of -shame Alix suddenly revolted. - -Gasping, she pushed Alan from her. Their eyes met. His were burning, -hers were frightened. She moved slowly backward to the door, and with -her hand behind her opened the latch. Alan did not move. He knew -that if he could not hold her with his eyes, he could not hold her -at all. The train started. Alix passed through the door and rushed -to the platform. The porter was about to drop the trap on the steps. -Alix slipped by him. With all her force she pushed open the door and -jumped. The train was moving very slowly, but Alix reeled, and would -have fallen had it not been for a passing baggageman. He caught her, -and still in his arms, Alix looked back. Alan’s white face was at the -window. He looked steadily at her. - -“Ye almost wint with him, miss,” said the baggageman, with a full -brogue and a twinkling eye. - -Alix was tired and hungry when she got back home, but excitement kept -her up. She felt that she stood on the threshold of new effort and a -new life. After all, she thought, it was she who had made her dear old -Gerry into a time-server. She could have made him into anything else if -she had tried. She longed to tell him so. Perhaps he would catch her -and crush her in his arms as Alan had done. She laughed at herself for -wanting him to. She rang for the butler. - -“Where’s your master, John?” - -“I don’t know, ma’am. Mr. Gerry hasn’t come back since he went out this -morning.” To John, Mr. Lansing was a person who had been dead for some -time. His present overlords were Mr. and Mrs. Gerry and Mrs. Lansing -when she was in town. - -“Telephone to the club, and if he is there, tell him I want to see -him,” said Alix, and turned to her welcome tea. The sandwiches seemed -unusually small to her ravenous appetite. - -Gerry was not at the club. Alix dressed resplendently for dinner. -Never had she dressed for any other man with the care that she dressed -for Gerry that night. But Gerry did not come. At half-past nine Alix -ordered the table cleared. - -“I’ll not dine to-night,” she said to John. “When your master comes, -show him in here.” She sat on in the library, listening for Gerry’s -step in the hall. - -From time to time John came into the room to replenish the fire. On one -of these occasions Alix told him he might go to bed; but an hour later -he returned and stood in the door. Alix looked very small, curled up in -a great leathern chair by the fire. - -“It’s after one o’clock, ma’am,” said John. “Mr. Gerry won’t be coming -in to-night.” Alix made no answer. John held his ground. “It’s time for -you to go to bed, ma’am. Shall I call the maid?” - -It was a long time since John had taken any apparent interest in his -mistress. Alix had avoided him. She had felt that the old servant -disapproved of her. More than once she had thought of discharging him, -but he had never given her grounds that would justify her before Gerry. -Now he was ordering her to bed, and instead of being angry, she was -soothed. She wondered how she could ever have thought of discharging -him. He seemed strong and restful, more like part of the old house than -a servant. Alix got up. - -“No, don’t call the maid. I won’t need her,” she said. Then she added, -“Good night, John,” as she passed out. - -John held wide the door, and bowed with a deference that was a touch -more sincere than usual. “Good night,” he answered, as though he meant -it. - -Alix was exhausted, but it was long before she fell asleep. She cried -softly. She wanted to be comforted. She had dressed so beautifully, she -had been so beautiful, and Gerry had not come home. As she cried, her -disappointment grew into a great trouble. - -She awoke early from a feverish sleep. Immediately a sense of weight -assailed her. She rang, and learned that Gerry had not yet come home. -Then his words of yesterday suddenly came to her, “If I dropped out -of the world to-day--” Alix stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. Why had -she remembered those words? She lay for a long time, thinking. Her -breakfast was brought to her, but she did not touch it. It was almost -noon in the cloudy Sunday morning when she roused herself from apathy. -She sprang from the bed. She summoned Judge Healey with a note and Mrs. -Lansing with a telegram. The telegram was carefully worded: - - Please come and stay for a while. Gerry is away. - -The judge found Alix radiating the freshness of a beautiful woman -careful of her person; but it was the freshness of a pale flower. Alix -was grave, and her gravity had a sweetness that made the judge’s heart -bound. He felt an awakening in her that he had long watched for. She -told him all the story of the day before in a steady monotone that -omitted nothing and gave the facts only their own weight. - -When she had finished, the judge patted her hand. “You would make a -splendid witness, my dear,” he said. “Now, what you want is for me to -find Gerry and bring him back, isn’t it?” - -“Yes,” said Alix, “if you can.” - -“Nonsense! Of course I can. Men don’t drop out of the world so easily -nowadays. But I still want to know a thing or two. Are you sure Gerry -knew nothing of your--er--excursion to the station?” - -Alix shook her head. - -“From the time he left my room and the house he has not been back.” - -“Has he been to the club?” - -Alix colored faintly. “I see,” said the judge, quickly. “I’ll ask -there. I’ll go now.” He went off, and all that day he sought in vain -for a trace of Gerry. He went to all his haunts in the city; he had -telephoned to those outside. At night he returned to Alix, but it was -Mrs. Lansing who received him in the library. - -The judge was tired, and his buoyancy had deserted him. He told her of -his failure. Mrs. Lansing was thoughtful, but not greatly troubled. - -“Gerry,” she said, “has a level head. He may have gone away, but that -is all. He can take care of himself.” She went to tell Alix that there -was no news. When she came back, the judge turned to her. - -“Well,” he asked, “What did she say?” - -“Nothing, except that she wanted to know if you had tried the bank.” - -The judge struck his fist into his left hand. “Never thought of it,” -he said. “That child has a head!” He went to the telephone. From the -president of the bank he traced the manager, from the manager, the -cashier. Yes, Gerry had been at the bank on Saturday. The cashier -remembered it because Mr. Lansing had drawn a certain account in full. -He would not say how much. - -“There,” said the judge, with a sigh of relief, “that’s something. It -takes a steady nerve to draw a bank-account in full. You must take the -news up-stairs. I’m off. I’ll follow up the clue to-morrow.” - -There was a new look of content mingled with the worry in Mrs. -Lansing’s face that made the judge say, as he held out his hand in -farewell, “Things better?” - -Mrs. Lansing understood him. - -“Yes,” she answered, and added, “we have been crying together.” - -There had been strength in Mrs. Lansing’s calm. She had been waiting, -and now the waiting was over. Alix had given herself, tearful and -almost wordless, into arms that were more than ready, and had then -poured out her heart in a broken tale that would have confounded any -court of justice, but which between women was clearer than logic. - -At the end Mrs. Lansing said nothing. Instead, she petted Alix, carried -her off to bed, and kept her there for three days. In her waking hours -Alix added spasmodic bits to her confession--sage reflections after -the event, dreamy “I wonders” that speculated in the past and in the -measure of her emotions. - -On the fourth day Alix got up, but on the fifth she stayed in bed. Mrs. -Lansing found her pale and frightened. She had been crying. - -“Alix,” she whispered, kneeling beside the bed, “what is it?” - -Alix told her amid sobs. - -“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Lansing, throwing her arms about her, “don’t -cry. Don’t worry. The strength will come with the need. In the end -you’ll be glad. So will Gerry. So will all of us.” - -“It isn’t that,” said Alix, faintly. “Oh, it isn’t that! I’m just -thinking and thinking how terrible it would have been if I had run -away--really run away! I keep imagining how awful it would have been. -It is a nightmare.” - -“Call it a nightmare if you like, sweetheart, but just remember that -you are awake.” - -[Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch - -“’I USED TO THINK I COULD GO HOME, THAT IT WAS JUST A QUESTION OF -BUYING A TICKET. BUT--’”] - -“Yes,” said Alix, softly, “I am awake now. Mother, I want to go to Red -Hill. I know it’s early, but I want to go now. I want to watch the Hill -come to life and dress up for the summer. It will amuse me. It’s long -since I have watched for the first buds and the first swallows. I won’t -mind the melting snow and the mud. It’s so long since I’ve seen clean -country mud. I want to smell it.” - -“You don’t know how bleak the Hill can be before spring,” objected Mrs. -Lansing. - -“Will it be any bleaker with me there than when you were alone?” asked -Alix. - -Mrs. Lansing came over to her and kissed her. - -“No, dear,” she said. - - -CHAPTER X - -In the squalid Hôtel d’Europe Gerry occupied a large room that -overlooked the quay. Even if there had been a better hotel in town, he -would not have moved. Here he looked out on a scene of never-ceasing -movement and color. The setting changed with the varying light. The -false rains of the midsummer season came up in black horses of cloud, -driven by a furious wind. They passed with a whirl and a veritable -clatter of heavy drops hurled against the earth in a splendid volley. -The long strip of the quay emptied at the first wet shot. The -tatterdemalion crowd invaded every doorway and nook of shelter with -screams and laughter. Then came the sun again, and back came the throng -to the fresh-washed quay. - -Gerry missed his club, but for that he found a substitute. Cluny’s, -next door to the hotel, was a strange hall of convivial pleasure. A -massive square door, the masonry of which centuries had hardened and -blackened to stone, gave on to a long hallway that ended in a wider -dungeon. Here stood a bar and half a dozen teak tables. The floor was -of stone flags. - -The clientele had the cleavage of oil and water. One part stood to -their drink at the bar, had it, and went out. The other sat to their -glasses at the tables, and sat late. Among these was a pale, thin man -of about Gerry’s age, with a mouth slightly twisted to humor until -toward evening drink loosened it to mere weakness. One afternoon he -nodded to Gerry, and Gerry left the bar for the tables. After that they -sat together. The man was an American--the American consul. Gerry liked -him, pitied him, and forgot to pity himself. One night he invited the -consul to his room. They sat in the balcony, a bottle of whisky and a -siphon between them. Gerry started to put his glass on the rail. - -“Don’t do it,” said the consul, with his twisted smile; “it might carry -away.” He went on more seriously. “It’s rotten. The whole place is -rotten. There’s a blight on the men and the women and on the children. -God!” - -Gerry put down his glass untouched. “Why don’t you go home?” - -The consul took a long drink, eyed the empty glass, and spoke into it. - -“I used to think just like that. ’Why don’t you go home?’ I used to -think I could go home, that it was just a question of buying a ticket -and climbing aboard a liner. But--” he broke off, and glanced at Gerry -as he refilled his glass. - -“But what?” said Gerry. - -“Well,” said the consul, “I’m just drunk enough to tell you. I’m only -proud in the mornings before I’m thoroughly waked up. I used to drive a -pen for a Western daily at twenty-five dollars a week. It was good pay, -and I married on it. I and the girl lived like the corn-fed hogs of our -native State. Life was one sunshine, and when the baby came, we joined -hands, and said good-by to sorrow forever. Then her people got busy -and landed me this job. The pay was three thousand, and if you want to -see how big three thousand dollars a year can look, just go and stand -behind any old kind of plow in Kansas. I jumped at it. We sold out our -little outfit and raked up just enough to see me out here. The girl and -the kid went to visit her people. I was to save up out of the first -quarter’s pay and send for them. That was three years ago.” - -“Do you see that steamer out there?” said Gerry. “Well, she’s bound for -home. I want to give you the chance that comes after the last chance. I -want you to let me send you home.” - -The consul looked around. His pendulous lip twisted into a smile. - -“So you took all that talk for the preamble to a touch!” he said. - -“No, I didn’t,” said Gerry, indignantly. - -“Well, well, never mind,” said the consul. “There’s nothing left to go -back to, and there’s nothing left to go back. That little account in -the bank, and what it may do for some poor devil, is the only monument -I’ll ever build.” - -The whisky-bottle was almost empty, but Gerry’s glass was still -untouched. The consul pointed at it. - -“You can still leave it alone? I don’t know where you come from, or -what you’re loafing in this haven of time-servers for, but I’m going to -give you a bit of advice: you take that steamer yourself.” - -Gerry colored. - -“I can’t,” he stammered. “There’s nothing left for me either to go home -to.” He said nothing more. The consul had suddenly turned drowsy. - - -CHAPTER XI - -Almost a month had passed since Gerry landed on his Lethean shore, and -it had served him well. But that night on the balcony woke him up. -The world seemed to have time-servers in small regard. First Alix and -now this consul chap. Gerry began to think of his mother. He strolled -over to the cable station. The offices were undergoing repairs. The -ground floor was unfurnished save for a table and one chair. In the -chair sat a chocolate-colored employee with a long bamboo on the floor -beside him. Gerry’s curiosity was aroused. He went in and wrote his -message to his mother, just a few words telling her he was all right. -The chocolate gentleman folded the message, slipped it into the split -end of the bamboo, and stuck it up through a hole in the ceiling to the -floor above. - -[Illustration: Loaned by George Inness, Jr. Color-Tone, engraved for -~The Century~ by H. Davidson - -SUNSET ON THE MARSHES - -FROM THE PAINTING BY GEORGE INNES] - -Gerry went out and rambled over the city. Night came on. He was -restless. He wished he had not sent the message. It was forming itself -into a link. He dined badly at a restaurant, and then wandered back to -the quay. Arriving steamers were posted on a blackboard under a street -lamp. The mail from New York was due to-morrow. The consul’s papers -would be full of the latest New York society scandal--his scandal. - -A long, raking craft was taking on its meager provisions. Gerry engaged -its captain in a pantomime parley. The boat was bound for Penedo to -take on cotton. Gerry decided to go to Penedo. Two of the crew went -back with him to get his baggage. The hotel was closed. Gerry was the -only guest, and he had his key. He had paid his weekly bill that day, -so there was no need to wake any one up. In half an hour he and his -belongings were stowed on the deck of the _Josephina_, and she was -drifting slowly down to the bar. - -Four days later they were off the mouth of the San Francisco. They -doubled in, and tacked their way up to Penedo. There was no life in -Penedo. It was desolate and lonely compared with the Hôtel d’Europe and -the lively quay; so when a funny little stern-wheeler started up the -river on its weekly trip to Piranhas, Gerry went with it. - -Gerry chartered a ponderous canoe. At first he had a man to paddle -him up and down and sometimes across the wide half-mile of water; but -before long he learned to handle the thing himself. The heavy work -soon trimmed his splendid muscles into shape. He supplied the hostelry -with a variety of fish. - -One morning he woke earlier than usual. The wave of life was running -high in his veins. He sprang up and, still in his pajamas, hurried out -for his morning swim. The break of day was gloriously chilly. A cool -breeze, hurrying up from sea, was steadily banking up the mist that -hung over the river. Gerry sprang into his canoe and pushed off. He -drove its heavy length up-stream, not in the teeth of the current, for -no man could do that, but skirting the shore, seizing on the help of -every eddy, and keeping an eye out for the green, swirling mound that -meant a pinnacle of rock just short of the surface. He went farther up -the river than ever before. His muscles were keyed to the struggle. -He passed the last jutting bend that the best boatmen on the river -could master, and found himself in a bay protected by a spit of sand, -rock-tipped and foam-tossed where it reached the river’s channel. - -Gerry ran the canoe upon the shore and stepped on to the spit of sand. -In that moment just to live was enough. Then the sun broke out, and -helped the wind clear the last bank of mist from the river. As he -looked, a sharp cry broke on his astonished ears. - -Almost at the end of the tongue of sand stood a girl. Her hair was -blowing about her slim shoulders. Over one of them she gazed, startled, -at Gerry. He drew back, mumbling apologies that she could not have -understood even if she could have heard them. Then she plunged with a -clean, long dive into the river. But before she plunged she laughed. -Gerry heard the laugh. With an answering call he threw himself into the -water, and swam as he never swam before. - - (To be continued) - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY[1] - -BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT - - The National Progressive Party was born in Chicago, August 5, 1912, - at a convention which nominated Roosevelt for the presidency. - Since that time, though defeated in the national election, it has - figured more and more in the legislative and political activities - of State and Nation. In fact progressivism is the one altogether - incalculable element in the political situation of this country - at a time when all men are peering, puzzled and anxious, into - the mists of the future. At ~The Century’s~ request Mr. - Roosevelt prepared the following paper for the thoughtful attention - of the people of this land. It is crowded with suggestion.--~The - Editor.~ - - -Fundamentally the reason for the existence of the Progressive party is -found in two facts: first, the absence of real distinctions between -the old parties which correspond to those parties and, second, the -determined refusal of the men in control of both parties to use the -party organizations and their control of the Government for the purpose -of dealing with the problems really vital to our people. - -As to the first fact, it is hardly necessary to point out that the -two old parties to-day no longer deal in any real sense with the -issues of fifty and sixty years ago. At that time there was a very -genuine division-line between the Republicans and the Democrats. The -Republicans of those years stood for a combination of all that was -best in the political philosophies of both Jefferson and Hamilton; and -under Lincoln they represented the extreme democratic movement which -was headed by Jefferson and also that insistence upon national union -and governmental efficiency which were Hamilton’s great contributions -to our political life in the formative period of the republic. The -Republicanism of that day was something real and vital, and the -Republican party under Lincoln was the radical party of the country, -abhorred and distrusted by the reactionaries and ultraconservatives, -especially in the great financial centers, precisely as is now true of -the Progressives. The Democratic party of that day, on the contrary, -was no longer the party either of Jefferson or of Jackson, whose points -of unlikeness were at least as striking as their points of likeness, -and in the world of politics stood for slavery and for such development -of the extreme particularistic doctrine euphoniously known as “States’ -rights,” as to mean, when carried to its logical extreme, total -paralysis of governmental functions and ultimately disunion. - -The outbreak of the Civil War and its successful conclusion forced the -majority of the conservative class of the North into the Republican -ranks; for when national dissolution is an issue, or even when any -serious disaster is threatened, all other issues sink out of sight when -compared with the vital need of sustaining the National Government. -There is no possibility of even approximating to social and industrial -justice if the National Government shows itself impotent to deal with -malice domestic and foreign levy. - -On the other hand, after the Civil War, the Democratic party found its -position one of mere negation or mere antagonism to the Republican -party. The Democrats in the Northern States had very different -principles in the East and the West, and both in the East and the West -alike they had nothing in common with the Democrats of the South save -the bond of hatred to Republicanism. - - -OLD PARTIES AND NEW ISSUES - -Under such conditions it was inevitable that after the issues raised by -the war were settled, and as year by year they tended more and more to -become nebulous memories, the new issues which arose should divide the -parties each within itself rather than serve as a basis for true party -division. The bonds were those of name, custom, and tradition rather -than of principle. Each party could pride itself on fervent fixity of -opinion as regards the issues that were dead, but each party showed -complete indecision of purpose in dealing with the problems that were -living. A party which alternately nominated Mr. Bryan and Mr. Parker -for President, and a party wherein Messrs. Penrose, La Follette, and -Smoot stand as the three brothers of leadership, can by no possibility -supply the need of this country for efficient and coherent governmental -action as regards the really vital questions of the day. Each party -contains within its leadership and membership men who are hopelessly -sundered by whatever convictions they really hold and who act together -simply for reasons of personal or party expediency. It is impossible to -secure the highest service for the people from any party which, like -the Democracy, is wedded to States’ rights, as against those peoples’ -rights which can be obtained only by the exercise of the full power of -the National Government. On the other hand it is utterly hopeless to -expect any sincerity of devotion to any principle of concern to the -people as a whole from a party the machinery of which is usurped and -held by the powers that prey, in the political and business world; and -this has been the case with the Republican party since the bosses in -June, 1912, at Chicago stole from the rank and file their right to make -their own platform and nominate their own candidates. - -So much for the incongruous jumble of conflicting principles and -policies within each party and the lack of real points of difference -between them. Their showing on this point is so bad that by sheer force -of habit our people have grown to accept as a matter of course and -without surprise the situations to which it gives rise. For instance, -in New York State there was very little genuine surprise among the -people as a whole when in the legislature the Republican adherents of -the Republican boss and the Democratic adherents of the Democratic -boss, after deliberate caucus and conference, repudiated their -preëlection pledges as to primary legislation, and joined with hearty -good will to defeat the measure which both had promised to support. It -would be difficult to imagine a better instance of the way in which -our present party conditions insure the absolute powerlessness of the -people when faced by a bipartizan combine of the two boss-ridden party -machines, whose hostility each to the other is only nominal compared to -the hostility of both to the people at large. - - -SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGES - -The second fundamental fact of the situation partly depends upon this -first fact. Where neither party ventures to have any real convictions -upon the vital issues of the day it is normally impossible to use -either as an instrument for meeting these vital issues. Most of these -issues, at least in their present form, have become such during the -lifetime of the present generation. There are, of course, issues of -which this is not true. The need of fortifying the Panama Canal and of -building and maintaining a thoroughly efficient navy of adequate size, -find their justification in the policy of Washington, for instance, -and neither policy can be antagonized save by those who are the -heirs of Washington’s bitterest and most insidious opponents. Again, -the questions arising in connection with our international relations -must to-day, as always, be settled exactly along the lines of general -policy laid down by Washington, under penalty of risking grave national -discredit and disgrace. - -But most of the issues which nine times out of ten most concern the -average man and average woman of our republic have reached their -present form only within the lifetime of the men who are now of -middle age. They are due to the profound social and economic changes -of the last half-century, to the exhaustion of the soil and of our -natural resources, to the rapid growth of manufacturing towns and -great trading cities, and to the relative lowering of the level of -life in many country districts, both from the standpoint of interest -and the standpoint of profit. Whether we approach the problem having -in view only the interests of the wage-worker or of the farmer or of -the small business man, or having in view the interests of the public -as a whole, we are obliged to face certain new facts. One is that in -their actual workings the old doctrines of extreme individualism and -of a purely competitive industrial system have completely broken down. -Another is that if we are to grapple efficiently with the evils of -to-day, it will be necessary to invoke the use of governmental power -to a degree hitherto unknown in this country, and, in the interest of -the democracy, to apply principles which the purely individualistic -democracy of a century ago would not have recognized as democratic. - -It is utterly useless to try to meet our needs by recreating the -vanished conditions which rendered it possible for this vanished -individualistic democracy to preach and practise what it did, and -which preaching and practising of an extreme individualism, be it -remembered, laid the corner of the very conditions against which we -are in revolt to-day. The present-day need of our people is to achieve -the purpose our predecessors in the democratic movement had at heart, -even though it be necessary to abandon or reverse the methods by which -they in their day sought to realize, and indeed often did realize, that -purpose. The Progressive party is the only political instrumentality -in existence to-day which recognizes the need of achieving this purpose -by the new methods which under the changed industrial and social -conditions are alone effective. - - -COLLECTIVE ACTION AND THE INDIVIDUAL - -This means increased efficiency of governmental action. It does not -mean in the slightest degree any impairment or weakening of individual -character. The combination of efficient collective action and of -individual ability and initiative is essential to the success of the -modern state. It is in civil life as it is in military life. No amount -of personal prowess will make soldiers collectively formidable unless -they possess also the trained ability to act in common for a common -end. On the other hand, no perfection of military organization will -atone for the lack of the fighting edge in the man in the ranks. The -same principle applies in civil life. We not merely recognize but -insist upon the fact that in the life career of any man or any woman -the prime factor as regards success or failure must be his or her -possession of that bundle of qualities and attributes which in their -aggregate we denominate as character; and yet that, in addition, there -must be proper social conditions surrounding him or her. - -Recognition of and insistence upon either fact must never be permitted -to mean failure to recognize the other and complementary fact. The -character of the individual is vital, and yet, in order to give it fair -expression, it must be supplemented by collective action through the -agencies of government. Our critics speak as if we were striving to -weaken the strength of individual initiative. Yet these critics, who -for the most part are either men of wealth who do not think deeply on -subjects unconnected with the acquisition of wealth, or else men of a -cloistered intellectualism, are themselves in practice the very men -who are most ready to demand the exercise of collective power in its -broadest manifestation; that is, through the police force, when there -is danger of disorder or violence. - -[Illustration: ROOSEVELT - -FROM A PHOTOGRAPH COPYRIGHT BY PACH BROS. - -COLOR-TONE ENGRAVED FOR THE CENTURY BY H. DAVIDSON] - -The growth in the complexity of community life means the partial -substitution of collectivism for individualism, not to destroy, but -to save individualism. A very primitive country community hardly -needs a constable at all. As it changes into a village and then into -a city, it becomes necessary to organize a police force, and this not -because the average man has deteriorated in individual initiative and -prowess, but because social conditions have so changed as to make -collective action necessary. When New York was a little village, a -watchman with a lantern and a stave was able to grapple with the only -type of law-breaker that had yet been developed. Nowadays, in place of -this baggy-breeched, stave-and-lantern carrier, we have the complex -machinery of our police department, with a personnel ranging from -a plain-clothes detective to a khaki-clad mounted officer with an -automatic-repeating pistol. As the complexity of life has grown, as -criminals have become more efficient and possessed of a greater power -of combined action, it has been necessary for the government to keep -the peace by the development of the efficient use of its own police -powers. It is just the same with many matters wholly unconnected with -criminality. The government has been forced to take the place of the -individual in a hundred different ways; in, for instance, such matters -as the prevention of fires, the construction of drainage systems, the -supply of water, light, and transportation. In a primitive community -every man or family looks after his or its interest in all these -matters. In a city it would be an absurdity either to expect every -man to continue to do this, or to say that he had lost the power of -individual initiative because he relegated any or all of these matters -to the province of those public officers whose usefulness consists in -expressing the collective activities of all the people. - - -THE SOCIAL GOAL - -In other words, the multiplication of activities in a highly civilized -and complex community is such that the enormous increase in collective -activity is really obtained not as a substitute for, but as an -addition to, an almost similar increase in the sphere of individual -initiative and activity. There are, of course, cases of substitution; -but, speaking roughly and on the whole, the statement as above made -is accurate. The increase of collective activity for social and -industrial purposes does not mean in any shape or way a deadening -of individual character and initiative such as would follow on the -effort virtually to apply the doctrines of the Marxian socialists; -for “socialist” is a term so vague, and includes so many men working -wisely for justice, that it is necessary to qualify it in order to -define it. We are striving in good faith to produce conditions in -which there shall be a more general division of material well-being, -to produce conditions under which it shall be difficult for the -very rich to become so very rich, and easier for the men without -capital, but with the right type of character, to lead a life of -self-respecting and hard-working well-being. The goal is a long way -off, but we are striving toward it; and the goal is not socialism, but -so much of socialism as will best permit the building thereon of a -sanely altruistic individualism, an individualism where self-respect -is combined with a lively sense of consideration for and duty toward -others, and where full recognition of the increased need of collective -action goes hand in hand with a developed instead of an atrophied power -of individual action. - -Now, it is fairly easy to gain a more or less half-hearted acceptance -of these views as right in the abstract. All that the Progressive party -is endeavoring to do is to apply them in the concrete. - - -THE REPUBLICAN DIFFERENCE - -We are sundered from the men who now control and manage the Republican -party by the gulf of their actual practices and of the openly avowed -or secretly held principles which rendered it necessary for them to -resort to these practices. The rank and file of the Republicans, as -was shown in the spring primaries of 1912, are with us; but they have -no real power against the bosses, and the channels of information are -so choked that they are kept in ignorance of what is really happening. -The doctrines laid down by Mr. Taft as law professor at Yale give the -theoretical justification for the practical action of Mr. Penrose and -Mr. Smoot. The doctrines promulgated by Mr. Nicholas Murray Butler, -when he writes Mr. Barnes’s platform, serve to salve the consciences -of those who, although they object to bossism on esthetic grounds, -yet sincerely feel that governmental corruption is preferable to the -genuine exercise of popular power. This acquiescence in wrong-doing -as the necessary means of preventing popular action is not a new -position. It was the position of many upright and well-meaning Tories -who antagonized the Declaration of Independence and the movement which -made us a nation. It was the position of a portion of the very useful -Federalist party, which at the close of the eighteenth century insisted -upon the vital need of national union and governmental efficiency, but -which was exceedingly anxious to devise methods for making believe to -give the people full power while really putting them under the control -of a propertied political oligarchy. - -The control of the Republican National Convention in June, 1912, in -the interest of Mr. Taft was achieved by methods full of as corrupt -menace to popular government as ballot-box stuffing or any species of -fraud or violence at the polls. Yet it was condoned by multitudes of -respectable men of wealth and respectable men of cultivation because -in their hearts they regarded genuine control by what they called “the -mob”--that is, the people--as an evil so great that compared with -it corruption and fraud became meritorious. The Republican party of -to-day has given absolute control of its destinies into the hands of -a National Committee composed of fifty-three irresponsible and on the -whole obscure politicians. It has specifically provided that these men, -who have no responsibility whatever to the public, can override the -lawfully expressed will of the majority in any state primary. It has -perpetuated a system of representation at national conventions which -gives a third of the delegates to communities where there is no real -Republican vote, where no delegation for or against any man really -represents anything, and where, in consequence, the National Committee -can plausibly seat any delegates it chooses without exciting popular -indignation. In sum, these fifty-three politicians have the absolute -and unchallenged control of the National Convention. They do not have -to allow the rank and file of the party any representation in that -convention whatever, and, as has been shown in actual practice, they -surrender to them any control whatever, on the occasion when they deem -it imperatively necessary, merely as a matter of expediency and favor, -and not as a matter of right or principle. - -It is difficult to understand how under these conditions -self-respecting men who in good faith uphold popular government can -continue in the party. But it is entirely obvious why those in control -of the party and its main supporters in the political, financial, -and newspaper worlds advocate the system. They do it from precisely -the same motives that actuate them in opposing direct primaries, in -opposing the initiative and the referendum, in opposing the right of -the people to control their own officials, in opposing the right of -the people as against the right of the judges to determine what the -Constitution, the fundamental law of the land, shall permit in the -way of legislation for social and industrial justice. All persons who -sincerely disbelieve in the right and the capacity of the people for -self-rule naturally, and from their point of view properly, uphold a -system of party government like that which obtains under the Republican -National Committee. For precisely similar reasons they antagonize -every proposal to give the people command of their own governmental -machinery. For precisely similar reasons they uphold the divine right -of the judiciary to determine what the people shall be permitted to -do with their own government in the way of helping the multitudes of -hard-working men and women of whose vital needs these well-meaning -judges are entirely ignorant. - - -THE DEMOCRATIC DIFFERENCE - -From the Democratic party as at present constituted we are radically -divided both because of the utter incoherence within that party -itself, and because the doctrines to which it is at present committed -are either fundamentally false or else set forth with a rhetorical -vagueness which makes it utterly futile to attempt to reduce them to -practice. The Democratic party can accomplish nothing of good unless it -deliberately repudiates its campaign pledges--unless it deliberately -breaks the promises it solemnly made in order to acquire power. Such -repudiation necessarily means an intellectual dishonesty so great -that no skill in rhetorical dialectics can cover or atone for it. -To win power by definite promises, and then seek to retain it by the -repudiation of those promises, would show a moral unfitness such as -not to warrant further trust of any kind. Therefore we must proceed -upon the assumption that the leaders of the Democracy meant what they -said when they were seeking to obtain office. Their only performance so -far, at the time that this article is written, is in connection with -the tariff and with a discreditable impotence in foreign affairs. As -a means of helping to solve great industrial and social problems, the -tariff is merely a red herring dragged across the trail to divert our -people from the real issues. The present tariff bill has been handled -by precisely the same improper methods by which the Payne-Aldrich -law was enacted. The only safe way of treating the tariff, that of -a permanent non-partizan, expert tariff commission, providing for -a schedule by schedule reunion, was deliberately repudiated. The -Payne-Aldrich tariff was a thoroughly bad bill; and therefore I am all -the more sorry to see the principles of evil tariff-making which it -crystallized repeated in the Underwood-Wilson bill. - -The Democratic party specifically asserted that by correcting the -evils of the tariff they would reduce the cost of living, help the -wage-worker and farmer, and take the most important step necessary -to the solution of the trust problem. So far, there has not been the -smallest evidence that these results will follow their action; and -unless such results do follow from it, the Democratic tariff policy -will be proved an empty sham. - -I have read with care Mr. Wilson’s chapter in the “New Freedom” -in which he professes to set forth his attitude as regards the -trusts. The chapter does not contain, as far as I can find, one -specific proposal for affirmative action. It does contain repeated, -detailed, and specific misrepresentations of the Progressive -position--misrepresentations so gross that all that is necessary in -order to refute them is to challenge Mr. Wilson to produce a single -line from the Progressive National platform, or from the speeches of -the men who stood on that platform, which will bear out his assertions. -Aside from these specific misrepresentations, there are various -well-phrased general statements implying, approval of morality in -the abstract, but no concrete proposal for affirmative action. A -patient and sincere effort to find out what Mr. Wilson means by the -“New Freedom” leaves me in some doubt whether it has any meaning at -all. But if there is any meaning, the phrase means and can mean only -freedom for the big man to prey unchecked on the little man, freedom -for unscrupulous exploiters of the public and of labor to continue -unchecked in a career of cutthroat commercialism, wringing their -profits out of the laborers whom they oppress and the business rivals -and the public whom they outwit. This is the only possible meaning that -the phrase can have if reduced to action. It is, however, not probable -that it has any meaning at all. It certainly can have no meaning of -practical value if its coiner will not translate it out of the realm of -magniloquent rhetoric into specific propositions affecting the intimate -concerns of our social and industrial life to-day. To discriminate -against a very few big men because of their efficiency, without regard -to whether their efficiency is used in a social or anti-social manner, -may perhaps be included in Mr. Wilson’s meaning; but this would be -absolutely useless from every aspect, and harmful from many aspects, -while all the other big unscrupulous men were left free to work their -wicked will. The line should be drawn on conduct, not on size. The -man who behaves badly should be brought to book, whether he is big or -little; but there should be no discrimination against efficiency, if -the results of the efficiency are beneficial to the wage-earners and -the public. - - -THE PEOPLE’S RIGHTS - -We have waited for a year to see such propositions made, and until -they are made and put into actual practice, and until we see how they -work, the phrase “New Freedom” must stand as any empty flourish of -rhetoric, having no greater and no smaller value than all the similar -flourishes invented by clever phrase-makers whose concern is with -diction and not action. The problems connected with the trusts, the -problems connected with child labor, and all similar matters, can be -solved only by affirmative national action. No party is progressive -which does not set the authority of the National Government as supreme -in these matters. No party is progressive which does not give to the -people the right to determine for themselves, after due opportunity -for deliberation, but without endless difficulty and delay, what the -standards of social and industrial justice shall be; and, furthermore, -the right to insist upon the servants of the people, legislative and -judicial alike, paying heed to the wishes of the people as to what the -law of the land shall be. The Progressive party believes with Thomas -Jefferson, with Andrew Jackson, with Abraham Lincoln, that this is a -government of the people, to be used for the people so as to better the -condition of the average man and average woman of the nation in the -intimate and homely concerns of their daily lives; and thus to use the -government means that it must be used after the manner of Hamilton and -Lincoln to serve the purposes of Jefferson and Lincoln. - -We are for the people’s rights. Where these rights can best be obtained -by exercise of the powers of the State, there we are for States’ -rights. Where they can best be obtained by the exercise of the powers -of the National Government, there we are for national rights. We are -not interested in this as an abstract doctrine; we are interested in -it concretely. Wisconsin possesses advanced laws in the interest of -labor. There are other States in this respect more backward, where -wage-workers, and especially women and child wage-workers, are left -at the mercy of greedy and unscrupulous capitalists. Wherever this -operates unjustly to favor the capitalists of other less advanced -States at the expense of Wisconsin, and therefore for business reasons -to make state legislatures fearful of passing laws for the proper -safeguarding of the life, health, and liberty of the wage-workers, then -we believe that the National Government should step in and by national -action secure in the interest of the wage-workers uniform conditions -throughout the Union. We hold it to be the duty of the National -Government to put all the governmental resources of our people, -national and state, behind the movement for the wise and sane uplifting -of the men and women whose lives are hardest. - -We believe in the principle of a living wage. We hold that it is -ruinous for all our people, if some of our people are forced to subsist -on a wage such that body and soul alike are stunted. We believe in -safeguarding the body of the wage-worker, and in providing for his -widow and children if he falls a victim to industrial accident. We -believe in shortening the labor day to the point that will tell most -for the laborer’s efficiency both as wage-worker and as citizen. In the -Progressive National platform we inserted the following plank: - - - SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL JUSTICE - - The supreme duty of the nation is the conservation of human - resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial - justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in state and - nation for:-- - - Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial - accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary - unemployment, and other injurious effects incident to modern - industry; - - The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various - occupations, and the exercise of the public authority of state and - nation, including the federal control over interstate commerce and - the taxing power, to maintain such standards; - - The prohibition of child labor; - - Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide a living scale - in all industrial occupations; - - The prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an - eight-hour day for women and young persons; - - One day’s rest in seven for all wage workers; - - The eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four-hour industries; - - The abolition of the convict contract labor system; substituting - a system of prison production for governmental consumption only; - and the application of prisoners’ earnings to the support of their - dependent families; - - Publicity as to wages, hours and conditions of labor; full reports - upon industrial accidents and diseases, and the opening to public - inspection of all tallies, weights, measures and check systems on - labor products; - - Standards of compensation for death by industrial accident and - injury and trade diseases which will transfer the burden of lost - earnings from the families of working people to the industry, and - thus to the community; - - The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, - irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system - of social insurance adapted to American use; - - The development of the creative labor power of America by lifting - the last load of illiteracy from American youth and establishing - continuation schools for industrial education under public control - and encouraging agricultural education and demonstration in rural - schools; - - The establishment of industrial research laboratories to put the - methods and discoveries of science at the service of American - producers. - - We favor the organization of the workers, men and women, as a means - of protecting their interests and of promoting their progress. - -These propositions are definite and concrete. They represent for the -first time in our political history the specific and reasoned purpose -of a great party to use the resources of the government in sane fashion -for industrial betterment. - - -COUNTRY PROBLEMS - -We do not believe in confining governmental activity to the city. We -believe that the problem of life in the open country is well nigh the -gravest problem before this nation. The eyes and thoughts of those -working for social and industrial reform have been turned almost -exclusively toward the great cities, and toward the solution of the -questions presented by their teeming myriads of people and by the -immense complexity of their life. Yet nothing is more certain than -that there can be no permanent prosperity unless the men and women who -live in the open country prosper. The problems of the farm, of the -village, of the country church, and the country school, the problems of -getting most value out of and keeping most value in the soil, and of -securing healthy and happy and well-rounded lives for those who live -upon it, are fundamental to our national welfare. The first step ever -taken toward the solution of these problems was taken by the Country -Life Commission appointed by me, opposed with venomous hostility by -the foolish reactionaries in Congress, and abandoned by my successor. -Congress would not even print the report of this commission, and it -was the public-spirited, far-sighted action of the Spokane Chamber of -Commerce which alone secured the publication of the report. The farmers -must organize as business men and wage-workers have organized, and the -Government must help them organize. - - -THE BUSINESS WORLD - -In dealing with business, the Progressive party is the only party which -has put forth a rational and comprehensive plan. We believe that the -business world must change from a competitive to a coöperate basis. We -absolutely repudiate the theory that any good whatever can come from -confining ourselves solely to the effort to reproduce the dead-and-gone -conditions of sixty years ago--conditions of uncontrolled competition -between competitors most of whom were small and weak. The reason that -the trusts have grown to such enormous size is to be found primarily in -the fact that we relied upon the competitive principle and the absence -of governmental interference to solve the problems of industry. Their -growth is specifically and precisely due to the practice of the archaic -doctrines advocated by President Wilson under the pleasingly delusive -title of the “New Freedom.” - -We hold that all such efforts to reproduce dead-and-gone conditions -are bound to result in failure or worse than failure. The breaking-up -of the Standard Oil Trust, for example, has not produced the very -smallest benefit. It has merely resulted in enormously increasing -the already excessive profits of a small number of persons. Not the -smallest benefit would accrue--on the contrary, harm would result--if -in dealing with the Steel Corporation we merely substituted for one -such big corporation four or five smaller corporations of the stamp of -the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. The “Survey” published a study of the -conditions of life and labor among the wage-workers of this company -which it is not too much to describe as appalling. The effort to -remedy conditions in connection with the trusts by the establishment, -instead of one big company, of four such companies engaged in cutthroat -competition, cannot work the smallest betterment, and would probably -work appreciable harm. That kind of “new” freedom is nothing whatever -but the old, old license for the powerful to prey on the feeble. - - -COMPETITION AND CORPORATIONS - -There is a very real need of governmental action, but it should be -action along a totally different line. The result of the unlimited -action of the competition system is seen at this moment in the -bituminous coal-mines of West Virginia, where the independent -operators, in the ferocity of their unregulated competition, and partly -because they are forbidden to combine even for useful purposes, seek -their profit in the merciless exploitation of the wage-workers who -toil for them. The law, in the strict spirit of the “new freedom,” -forbids them to combine for a useful purpose, and yet offers no check -upon their dealing with their employees in a spirit of brutal greed. -What is needed is thoroughgoing, efficient, and, if necessary, drastic -supervision and control of the great corporations doing an interstate -business, by means of a Federal administrative body akin in its -functions to the Interstate Commerce Commission. This body should have -power not only to enforce publicity, but to secure justice and fair -treatment to investors, wage-workers, business rivals, consumers, and -the general public alike. - -Such an industrial commission should do as the Interstate Commerce -Commission should do, that is, remember always its dual duty, the -duty to the corporation and individual controlled no less than to the -public. It is an absolute necessity that the investors, the owners, of -an honest, useful, and decently managed concern, should have reasonable -profit. It is impossible to run business unless this is done. Unless -the business man prospers, there will be no prosperity for the rest of -the community to share. He must have certainty of law and opportunity -for honest and reasonable profit under the law. - -Experience has proved that we cannot afford to leave the great -corporations to determine for themselves without governmental -supervision how they shall treat their employees, their rivals, their -customers, and the general public. But experience has no less shown -that it is as fatal for the agents of government to be unjust to the -corporation as to fail to secure justice from them. In dealing with -railways, for example, it is just as important that rates should not -be too low as that they should not be too high. The living wage and -the living rate are interdependent. In dealing with useful, honestly -organized, and honestly managed railways, rates must be kept high -enough to permit of proper wages and proper hours of labor for the men -on the railroad, and to permit the company to pay compensation for the -lives and limbs of those employees who suffer in doing its business; -and at the same time to secure a reasonable reward to the investors--a -reward sufficient to make them desirous to continue in this type -of investment. Precisely the same course of action which should be -followed in dealing with the railroads should also be followed by the -Interstate Industrial Commission in dealing with the great industrial -corporations engaged in interstate business. - - -TAXATION - -We believe that great fortunes, even when accumulated by the man -himself, are of limited benefit to the country, and that they are -detrimental rather than beneficial when secured through inheritance. -We therefore believe in a heavily progressive inheritance tax--a tax -which shall bear very lightly on small or ordinary inheritances, but -which shall bear very heavily upon all inheritances of colossal size. -We believe in a heavily graded income tax, along the same lines, but -discriminating sharply in favor of earned, as compared with unearned, -incomes. - -It would be needless and burdensome to set forth in detail all the -matters, national, state, and municipal, to which we would apply -our principles. We believe that municipalities should have complete -self-government as regards all the affairs that are exclusively their -own, including the important matter of taxation, and that the burden -of municipal taxation should be so shifted as to put the weight of -land taxation upon the unearned rise in value of the land itself -rather than upon the improvements, the buildings; the effort being to -prevent the undue rise of rent. We regard it as peculiarly the province -of the government to supervise tenement-houses, to secure proper -living conditions, and to erect parks and playgrounds in the congested -districts, and to use the schools as social centers. - - -THE PEOPLE AND THE LAWS - -We hold that all the agencies of government belong to the people, that -the Constitution is theirs, and that the courts are theirs. The people -should exercise their power, not to overthrow either the Constitution -or the courts, but to overthrow those who would pervert them into -agents against the popular welfare. We believe that where a public -servant misrepresents the people, the people should have the right -to remove him from office, and that where the legislature enacts a -law which it should not enact or fails to enact a law which it should -enact, the people should have the right on their own initiative to -supply the omission. We do not believe that either power should be -loosely or wantonly used, and we would provide for its exercise in a -way which would make its exercise safe; but the power is necessary, and -it should be provided. - -We hold, moreover, with the utmost emphasis, that the people themselves -should have the right to decide for themselves after due deliberation -what laws are to be placed upon the statute-books and what construction -is to be placed upon the constitutions, national and state, by the -courts, so far as concerns all laws for social and industrial justice. -This proposal has nothing whatever to do with any ordinary case at -law. It has nothing to do with the exercise by the judge of judicial -functions, or with his decision in any issue merely between man and -man. It has to do only with the exercise by the court of political -and legislative functions. We believe that it is wise to continue the -American practice of using the courts as a check upon the legislature -in this manner, but only so long as it is possible, in the event of -conflict between the legislature and the court, to call in as arbiter -the people who are the masters of both legislature and court, and whose -own vital interests are at issue. The court and the legislature alike -are the servants of the people, and they are dealing with the interests -of the people; and the people, the masters of both, have the right to -decide between them when their own most intimate concerns are at stake. - -The present process of constitutional amendment is too long, too -cumbrous, and too uncertain to afford an adequate remedy, and, -moreover, after the amendment has been carried, the law must once more -be submitted to the same court which was, perhaps, originally at fault, -in order to decide whether the new law comes within the amendment. -Provision should be made by which, after due deliberation, the people -should be given the right themselves to decide whether or not a -given law passed in the exercise of the police power for social or -industrial betterment and declared by the court to be unconstitutional, -shall, notwithstanding this, become part of the law of the land. This -proposal has caused genuine alarm and been treated as revolutionary; -but opposition to it can proceed only from complete misunderstanding -both of the proposal and of the needs of the situation. Of course, -however, the selfish opposition of the great corporation lawyers and -of their clients is entirely intelligent; for these men alone are the -beneficiaries of the present reign of hidden, of invisible, government, -and they rely primarily on well-meaning but reactionary courts to -thwart the forward movement. - - -NO DIVINE RIGHT OF JUDGES - -Concretely to illustrate just what we mean, our assertion is that the -people have the right to decide for themselves whether or not they -desire a workmen’s compensation law, or a law limiting the number of -hours of women in industry, or deciding whether in unhealthy bakeshops -wage-workers shall be employed more than a certain length of time per -day, or providing for the safeguarding of dangerous machinery, or -insisting upon the payment of wages in cash, or assuming and exercising -full power over the conduct of corporations--the power denied by the -court in connection with the Knight Sugar Case, but finally secured to -the people by the decision in the Northern securities case. Every one -of these laws has been denied to the people, again and again, both by -national and by state judges in various parts of the Union. - -We hold emphatically that these matters are not properly matters for -final judicial decision. The judges have no special opportunity and no -special ability to determine the justice or injustice, the desirability -or undesirability, of legislation of such a character. Indeed, in most -cases, although not in all, the judges in the higher courts are so out -of touch with the conditions of life affected by social and industrial -legislation on behalf of the humble that they are peculiarly unfit to -say whether the legislation is wise or the reverse. Moreover, whether -they are fit or unfit, it is not their province to decide what the -people ought or ought not to desire in matters of this kind. They are -not law-makers; they were not elected or appointed for such purpose. -They are not censors of the public in this matter. We do not purpose to -exalt the legislature at their expense. We do not accept the view so -common in other countries that the legislature should be the supreme -source of power. On the contrary, our experience has been that the -legislature is quite as apt to act unwisely as any other governmental -body; and it is because of this fact that the experiment of so-called -commission government in cities is being so widely tried. We respect -the judges, we think that they are more apt on the whole to be good -public servants than any other men in office; but we as emphatically -refuse to subscribe to the doctrine of the divine right of judges as -to the doctrine of the divine right of kings. We are not specially -concerned with the question as to which of two public servants, the -court or the legislature, shall have the upper hand of the other; but -we are vitally concerned in seeing that the people have the upper hand -over both. Any argument against our position on this point is merely -an argument against democracy. - - -THE KEYSTONE OF PROGRESSIVISM - -Moreover, any professed adherence to our other doctrines, while at the -same time this doctrine is repudiated, means nothing. During the last -forty years the beneficiaries of reaction have found in the courts -their main allies; and this condition, so unfortunate for the courts, -no less than for the people, has been due to our governmental failure -to furnish methods by which an appeal can be taken directly to the -people when, in any such case as the cases I have above enumerated, -there is an issue between the court and the legislature. It is idle to -profess devotion to our Progressive proposals for social and industrial -betterment if at the same time there is opposition to the one -additional proposal by which they can be made effective. It is useless -to advocate the passing of laws for social justice if we permit these -laws to be annulled with impunity by the courts, or by any one else, -after they have been passed. This proposition is a vital point in the -Progressive program. - -To sum up, then, our position is, after all, simple. We believe that -the government should concern itself chiefly with the matters that are -of most importance to the average man and average woman, and that it -should be its special province to aid in making the conditions of life -easier for these ordinary men and ordinary women, who compose the great -bulk of our people. To this end we believe that the people should have -direct control over their own governmental agencies; and that when this -control has been secured, it should be used with resolution, but with -sanity and self-restraint, in the effort to make conditions of life and -labor a little easier, a little fairer and better for the men and women -of the nation. - - - [1] Copyright, 1913, by The Century Co. All rights reserved. The - republication of this article, either in whole or in part, is - expressly prohibited, except through special arrangement with The - Century Co. - - - - -[Illustration: Half-tone plate engraved by C. W. Chadwick - -ALPHONSE DAUDET - -A PORTRAIT SKETCH, DRAWN FROM THE LIFE, BY JOHN ALEXANDER] - - - - -“DEY AIN’T NO GHOSTS” - -BY ELLIS PARKER BUTLER - -Author of “Pigs is Pigs,” “Long Sam ’Takes Out,’” etc. - -WITH PICTURES BY CHARLES SARKA - - -Once ’pon a time dey was a li’l’ black boy whut he name was Mose. -An’ whin he come erlong to be ’bout knee-high to a mewel, he ’gin to -git powerful ’fraid ob ghosts, ’ca’se dat am sure a mighty ghostly -location whut he lib’ in, ’ca’se dey’s a grabeyard in de hollow, an’ a -buryin’-ground on de hill, an’ a cemuntary in betwixt an’ between, an’ -dey ain’t nuffin’ but trees nowhar excipt in de clearin’ by de shanty -an’ down de hollow whar de pumpkin-patch am. - -An’ whin de night come’ erlong, dey ain’t no sounds _at_ all whut -kin be heard in dat locality but de rain-doves, whut mourn out, -“Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” jes dat trembulous _an’_ scary, an’ de owls, whut -mourn out, “Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” more trembulous an’ scary dan dat, an’ -de wind, whut mourn out, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” mos’ scandalous’ trembulous -an’ scary ob all. Dat a powerful onpleasant locality for a li’l’ black -boy whut he name was Mose. - -’Ca’se dat li’l’ black boy he so specially black he can’t be seen in de -dark _at_ all ’cept by de whites ob he eyes. So whin he go’ outen de -house _at_ night, he ain’t dast shut he eyes, ’ca’se den ain’t nobody -can see him in de least. He jes as invidsible as nuffin’. An’ who -know’ but whut a great, big ghost bump right into him ’ca’se it can’t -see him? An’ dat shore w’u’d scare dat li’l’ black boy powerful’ bad, -’ca’se yever’body knows whut a cold, damp pussonality a ghost is. - -So whin dat li’l’ black Mose go’ outen de shanty at night, he keep’ -he eyes wide open, you may be shore. By day he eyes ’bout de size ob -butter-pats, an’ come sundown he eyes ’bout de size ob saucers; but -whin he go’ outen de shanty at night, he eyes am de size ob de white -chiny plate whut set on de mantel; an’ it powerful’ hard to keep eyes -whut am de size oh dat from a-winkin’ an’ a-blinkin’. - -So whin Hallowe’en come’ erlong, dat li’l’ black Mose he jes mek’ -up he mind he ain’t gwine outen he shack _at_ all. He cogitate’ he -gwine stay right snug in de shack wid he pa an’ he ma, ’ca’se de -rain-doves tek notice dat de ghosts are philanderin’ roun’ de country, -’ca’se dey mourn out, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an’ de owls dey mourn out, -“Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ de wind mourn out, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” De eyes -ob dat li’l’ black Mose dey as big as de white chiny plate whut set on -de mantel by side de clock, an’ de sun jes a-settin’. - -So dat all right. Li’l’ black Mose he scrooge’ back in de corner by -de fireplace, an’ he ’low’ he gwine stay dere till he gwine _to_ bed. -But byme-by Sally Ann, whut live’ up de road, draps in, an’ Mistah -Sally Ann, whut is her husban’, he draps in, an’ Zack Badget an’ de -school-teacher whut board’ at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house drap in, an’ a -powerful lot ob folks drap in. An’ li’l’ black Mose he seen dat gwine -be one s’prise-party, an’ he right down cheerful ’bout dat. - -So all dem folks shake dere hands an’ ’low “Howdy,” an’ some ob dem -say: “Why, dere’s li’l’ Mose! Howdy, li’l’ Mose!” An’ he so please’ -he jes grin’ an’ grin’, ’ca’se he ain’t reckon whut gwine happen. So -byme-by Sally Ann, whut live up de road, she say’, “Ain’t no sort o’ -Hallowe’en lest we got a jack-o’-lantern.” An’ de school-teacher, -whut board at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, she ’low’, “Hallowe’en jes no -Hallowe’en _at_ all ’thout we got a jack-o’-lantern.” An’ li’l’ black -Mose he stop’ a-grinnin’, an’ he scrooge’ so far back in de corner he -’mos’ scrooge frough de wall. But dat ain’t no use, ’ca’se he ma say’, -“Mose, go on down to de pumpkin-patch an’ fotch a pumpkin.” - -“I ain’t want to go,” say’ li’l’ black Mose. - -“Go on erlong wid yo’,” say’ he ma, right commandin’. - -“I ain’t want to go,” say’ Mose ag’in. - -“Why ain’t yo’ want to go?” he ma ask’. - -[Illustration: Drawn by Charles Sarka - -“‘WHUT YO’ WANT TO SAY UNTO ME?’ _IN_QUIRE’ LI’L’ BLACK MOSE”] - -“’Ca’se I’s afraid ob de ghosts,” say’ li’l’ black Mose, an’ dat de -particular truth an’ no mistake. - -“Dey ain’t no ghosts,” say’ de school-teacher, whut board at Unc’ Silas -Diggs’s house, right peart. - -“’Ca’se dey ain’t no ghosts,” say’ Zack Badget, whut dat ’fear’d -ob ghosts he ain’t dar’ come to li’l’ black Mose’s house ef de -school-teacher ain’t ercompany him. - -“Go ’long wid your ghosts!” say’ li’l’ black Mose’s ma. - -“Wha’ yo’ pick up dat nomsense?” say’ he pa. “Dey ain’t no ghosts.” - -An’ dat whut all dat s’prise-party ’low: dey ain’t no ghosts. An’ dey -’low dey mus’ hab a jack-o’-lantern or de fun all sp’iled. So dat li’l’ -black boy whut he name is Mose he done got to fotch a pumpkin from de -pumpkin-patch down de hollow. So he step’ outen de shanty an’ he stan’ -on de door-step twell he get’ he eyes pried open as big as de bottom ob -he ma’s wash-tub, mostly, an’ he say’, “Dey ain’t no ghosts.” An’ he -put’ one foot on de ground, an’ dat was de fust step. - -An’ de rain-dove say’, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” - -An’ li’l’ black Mose he tuck anudder step. - -An’ de owl mourn’ out, “Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” - -An’ li’l’ black Mose he tuck anudder step. - -An’ de wind sob’ out, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” - -An’ li’l’ black Mose he tuck one look ober he shoulder, an’ he shut he -eyes so tight dey hurt round de aidges, an’ he pick’ up he foots an’ -run. Yas, sah, he run’ right peart fast. An’ he say’: “Dey ain’t no -ghosts. Dey ain’t no ghosts.” An’ he run’ erlong de paff whut lead’ -by de buryin’-ground on de hill, ’ca’se dey ain’t no fince eround dat -buryin’-ground _at_ all. - -No fince; jes de big trees whut de owls an’ de rain-doves sot in an’ -mourn an’ sob, an’ whut de wind sigh an’ cry frough. An’ byme-by -somefin’ jes _brush’_ li’l’ Mose on de arm, which mek’ him run jes -a bit more faster. An’ byme-by somefin’ jes _brush’_ li’l’ Mose on -de cheek, which mek’ him run erbout as fast as he can. An’ byme-by -somefin’ _grab’_ li’l’ Mose by de aidge of he coat, an’ he fight’ an’ -struggle’ an’ cry’ out: “Dey ain’t no ghosts. Dey ain’t no ghosts.” -An’ dat ain’t nuffin’ but de wild brier whut grab’ him, an’ dat ain’t -nuffin’ but de leaf ob a tree whut brush’ he cheek, an’ dat ain’t -nuffin’ but de branch ob a hazel-bush whut brush’ he arm. But he -downright scared jes de same, an’ he ain’t lose no time, ’ca’se de wind -an’ de owls an’ de rain-doves dey signerfy whut ain’t no good. So he -scoot’ past dat buryin’-ground whut on de hill, an’ dat cemuntary whut -betwixt an’ between, an’ dat grabeyard in de hollow, twell he come’ -to de pumpkin-patch, an’ he rotch’ down an’ tek’ erhold ob de bestest -pumpkin whut in de patch. An’ he right smart scared. He jes de mostest -scared li’l’ black boy whut yever was. He ain’t gwine open he eyes -fo’ nuffin’, ’ca’se de wind go, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” an’ de owls go, -“Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ de rain-doves go, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” - -He jes speculate’, “Dey ain’t no ghosts,” an’ wish’ he hair don’t stand -on ind dat way. An’ he jes cogitate’, “Dey ain’t no ghosts,” an’ wish’ -he goose-pimples don’t rise up dat way. An’ he jes ’low’, “Dey ain’t no -ghosts,” an’ wish’ he backbone ain’t all trembulous wid chills dat way. -So he rotch’ down, an’ he rotch’ down, twell he git’ a good hold on dat -pricklesome stem of dat bestest pumpkin whut in de patch, an’ he jes -yank’ dat stem wid all he might. - -“_Let loosen my head!_” say’ a big voice all on a suddent. - -Dat li’l’ black boy whut he name is Mose he jump’ ’most outen he skin. -He open’ he eyes, an’ he ’gin’ to shake like de aspen-tree, ’ca’se whut -dat a-standin’ right dar behint him but a ’mendjous big ghost! Yas, -sah, dat de bigges’, whites’ ghost whut yever was. An’ it ain’t got no -head. Ain’t got no head _at_ all! Li’l’ black Mose he jes drap’ on he -knees an’ he beg’ an’ pray’: - -“Oh, ’scuse me! ’Scuse me, Mistah Ghost!” he beg’. “Ah ain’t mean no -harm _at_ all.” - -“Whut for you try to take my head?” ask’ de ghost in dat fearsome voice -whut like de damp wind outen de cellar. - -“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me!” beg’ li’l’ Mose. “Ah ain’t know dat was yo’ -head, an’ I ain’t know you was dar _at_ all. ’Scuse me!” - -“Ah ’scuse you ef you do me dis favor,” say’ de ghost. “Ah got -somefin’ powerful _im_portant to say unto you, an’ Ah can’t say hit -’ca’se Ah ain’t got no head; an’ whin Ah ain’t got no head, Ah ain’t -got no mouf, an’ whin Ah ain’t got no mouf, Ah can’t talk _at_ all.” - -An’ dat right logical fo’ shore. Can’t nobody talk whin he ain’t got no -mouf, an’ can’t nobody have no mouf whin he ain’t got no head, an’ whin -li’l’ black Mose he look’, he see’ dat ghost ain’t got no head _at_ -all. Nary head. - -So de ghost say’: - -“Ah come on down yere fo’ to git a pumpkin fo’ a head, an’ Ah pick’ dat -_ix_act pumpkin whut yo’ gwine tek, an’ Ah don’t like dat one bit. No, -sah. Ah feel like Ah pick yo’ up an’ carry yo’ away, an’ nobody see you -no more for yever. But Ah got somefin’ powerful _im_portant to say unto -yo’, an’ if yo’ pick up dat pumpkin an’ sot it on de place whar my head -ought to be, Ah let you off dis time, ’ca’se Ah ain’t been able to talk -fo’ so long Ah right hongry to say somefin’.” - -So li’l’ black Mose he heft up dat pumpkin, an’ de ghost he bend’ down, -an’ li’l’ black Mose he sot dat pumpkin on dat ghostses neck. An’ right -off dat pumpkin head ’gin’ to wink an’ blink like a jack-o’-lantern, -an’ right off dat pumpkin head ’gin’ to glimmer an’ glow frough de mouf -like a jack-o’-lantern, an’ right off dat ghost start’ to speak. Yas, -sah, dass so. - -“Whut yo’ want to say unto me?” _in_quire’ li’l’ black Mose. - -“Ah want to tell yo’,” say’ de ghost, “dat yo’ ain’t need yever be -skeered of ghosts, ’ca’se dey ain’t no ghosts.” - -An’ whin he say dat, de ghost jes vanish’ away like de smoke in July. -He ain’t even linger round dat locality like de smoke in Yoctober. He -jes dissipate’ outen de air, an’ he gone _in_tirely. - -So li’l’ Mose he grab’ up de nex’ bestest pumpkin an’ he scoot’. An’ -whin he come’ to de grabeyard in de hollow, he goin’ erlong same as -yever, on’y faster, whin he reckon’ he’ll pick up a club _in_ case he -gwine have trouble. An’ he rotch’ down an rotch’ down an’ tek’ hold of -a likely appearin’ hunk o’ wood what right dar. An’ whin he grab’ dat -hunk of wood-- - -“_Let loosen my leg!_” say’ a big voice all on a suddent. - -Dat li’l’ black boy ’most jump’ outen he skin, ’ca’se right dar in de -paff is six ’mendjus big ghostes, an’ de bigges’ ain’t got but one -leg. So li’l’ black Mose jes natchully handed dat hunk of wood to dat -bigges’ ghost, an’ he say’: - -“’Scuse me, Mistah Ghost; Ah ain’t know dis your leg.” - -An’ whut dem six ghostes do but stand round an’ confabulate? Yas, sah, -dass so. An’ whin dey do so, one say’: - -“’Pears like dis a mighty likely li’l’ black boy. Whut we gwine do fo’ -to _re_ward him fo’ politeness?” - -An’ anudder say’: - -“Tell him whut de truth is ’bout ghostes.” - -So de bigges’ ghost he say’: - -“Ah gwine tell yo’ somefin’ _im_portant whut yever’body don’t know: Dey -_ain’t_ no ghosts.” - -An’ whin he say’ dat, de ghostes jes natchully vanish away, an’ li’l’ -black Mose he proceed’ up de paff. He so scared he hair jes yank’ -at de roots, an’ whin de wind go’, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an de owl go’, -“Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ de rain-doves go, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” he jes -tremble’ an’ shake’. An’ byme-by he come’ to de cemuntary whut betwixt -an’ between, an’ he shore is mighty skeered, ’ca’se dey is a whole -comp’ny of ghostes lined up along de road, an’ he ’low’ he ain’t gwine -spind no more time palaverin’ wid ghostes. So he step’ offen de road -fo’ to go round erbout, an’ he step’ on a pine-stump whut lay right dar. - -“_Git offen my chest!_” say’ a big voice all on a suddent, ’ca’se dat -stump am been selected by de captain ob de ghostes for to be he chest, -’ca’se he ain’t got no chest betwixt he shoulders an’ he legs. An’ -li’l’ black Mose he hop’ offen dat stump right peart. Yes, _sah_; right -peart. - -“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me!” dat li’l’ black Mose beg’ an’ plead’, an’ de -ghostes ain’t know whuther to eat him all up or not, ’ca’se he step’ -on de boss ghostes’s chest dat a-way. But byme-by they ’low they let -him go ’ca’se dat was an accident, an’ de captain ghost he say’, “Mose, -you Mose, Ah gwine let you off dis time, ’ca’se you ain’t nuffin’ but a -misabul li’l’ tremblin’ nigger; but Ah want you should _re_mimber one -thing mos’ particular’.” - -“Ya-yas, sah,” say’ dat li’l’ black boy; “Ah, ’ll remimber. Whut is dat -Ah got to remimber?” - -De captain ghost he swell’ up, an’ he swell’ up, twell he as big as a -house, an’ he say’ in a voice whut shake’ de ground: - -“Dey ain’t no ghosts.” - -So li’l’ black Mose he bound to remimber dat, an’ he rise’ up an’ mek’ -a bow, an’ he proceed’ toward home right libely. He do, indeed. - -An’ he gwine along jes as fast as he kin, whin he come’ to de aidge -ob de buryin’-ground whut on de hill, an’ right dar he bound to -stop, ’ca’se de kentry round about am so populate’ he ain’t able to -go frough. Yas, sah, seem’ like all de ghostes in de world habin’ a -conferince right dar. Seem’ like all de ghosteses whut yever was am -havin’ a convintion on dat spot. An’ dat li’l’ black Mose so skeered he -jes fall’ down on a’ old log whut dar an’ screech’ an’ moan’. An’ all -on a suddent de log up and spoke: - -“_Get offen me! Get offen me!_” yell’ dat log. - -So li’l’ black Mose he git’ offen dat log, an’ no mistake. - -An’ soon as he git’ offen de log, de log uprise, an’ li’l’ black Mose -he see’ dat dat log am de king ob all de ghostes. An’ whin de king -uprise, all de congergation crowd round li’l’ black Mose, an’ dey am -about leben millium an’ a few lift over. Yas, sah; dat de reg’lar -annyul Hallowe’en convintion whut li’l’ black Mose interrup’. Right dar -am all de sperits in de world, an’ all de ha’nts in de world, an’ all -de hobgoblins in de world, an’ all de ghouls in de world, an’ all de -spicters in de world, an’ all de ghostes in de world. An’ whin dey see -li’l’ black Mose, dey all gnash dey teef an’ grin’ ’ca’se it gettin’ -erlong toward dey-all’s lunch-time. So de king, whut he name old -Skull-an’-Bones, he step’ on top ob li’l’ Mose’s head, an’ he say’: - -“Gin’l’min, de convintion will come to order. De sicretary please note -who is prisint. De firs’ business whut come’ before de convintion am: -whut we gwine do to a li’l’ black boy whut stip’ on de king an’ maul’ -all ober de king an’ treat’ de king dat disrespictful’.” - -An’ li’l’ black Mose jes moan’ an’ sob’: - -“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me, Mistah King! Ah ain’t mean no harm _at_ all.” - -But nobody ain’t pay no _at_tintion to him _at_ all, ’ca’se yevery one -lookin’ at a monstrous big ha’nt whut name Bloody Bones, whut rose up -an’ spoke. - -[Illustration: Drawn by Charles Sarka - -“’YERE’S DE PUMPKIN’”] - -“Your Honor, Mistah King, an’ gin’l’min _an’_ ladies,” he say’, “dis am -a right bad case ob _lazy majesty_, ’ca’se de king been step on. Whin -yivery li’l’ black boy whut choose’ gwine wander round _at_ night an’ -stip on de king ob ghostes, it ain’t no time for to palaver, it ain’t -no time for to prevaricate, it ain’t no time for to cogitate, it ain’t -no time do nuffin’ but tell de truth, an’ de whole truth, an’ nuffin’ -but de truth.” - -An’ all dem ghostes sicond de motion, an’ dey confabulate out -loud erbout dat, an’ de noise soun’ like de rain-doves goin’, -“Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an’ de owls goin’, “Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ de wind -goin’, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” So dat risolution am passed unanermous, an’ -no mistake. - -So de king ob de ghostes, whut name old Skull-an’-Bones, he place’ he -hand on de head ob li’l’ black Mose, an’ he hand feel like a wet rag, -an’ he say’: - -“Dey ain’t no ghosts.” - -An’ one ob de hairs whut on de head ob li’l’ black Mose turn’ white. - -An’ de monstrous big ha’nt whut he name Bloody Bones he lay he hand on -de head ob li’l’ black Mose, an’ he hand feel like a toadstool in de -cool ob de day, an’ he say’: - -“Dey ain’t no ghosts.” - -An’ anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li’l’ black Mose turn’ white. - -An’ a heejus sperit whut he name Moldy Pa’m place’ he hand on de head -ob li’l’ black Mose, an’ he hand feel like de yunner side ob a lizard, -an’ he say’: - -“Dey ain’t no ghosts.” - -An’ anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li’l’ black Mose turn’ white -_as_ snow. - -An’ a perticklar bend-up hobgoblin he put’ he hand on de head ob li’l’ -black Mose, an’ he mek’ dat same _re_mark, an’ dat whole convintion ob -ghostes an’ spicters an’ ha’nts an’ yiver’thing, which am more ’n a -millium, pass by so quick dey-all’s hands feel lak de wind whut blow -outen de cellar whin de day am hot, an’ dey-all say, “Dey ain’t no -ghosts.” Yas, sah, dey-all say dem wo’ds so fas’ it soun’ like de wind -whin it moan frough de turkentine-trees whut behind de cider-priss. -An’ yivery hair whut on li’l’ black Mose’s head turn’ white. Dat whut -happen’ whin a li’l’ black boy gwine meet a ghost convintion dat-a-way. -Dat’s so he ain’ gwine forgit to remimber dey ain’t no ghostes. ’Ca’se -ef a li’l’ black boy gwine imaginate dey _is_ ghostes, he gwine be -skeered in de dark. An’ dat a foolish thing for to imaginate. - -So prisintly all de ghostes am whiff away, like de fog outen de holler -whin de wind blow’ on it, an’ li’l’ black Mose he ain’ see no ’ca’se -for to remain in dat locality no longer. He rotch’ down, an’ he raise’ -up de pumpkin, an’ he perambulate’ right quick to he ma’s shack, an’ he -lift’ up de latch, an’ he open’ de do’, an’ he yenter’ in. An’ he say’: - -“Yere’s de pumpkin.” - -An’ he ma an’ he pa, an’ Sally Ann, whut live up de road, an’ Mistah -Sally Ann, whut her husban’, an’ Zack Badget, an’ de school-teacher -whut board at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, an’ all de powerful lot of -folks whut come to de doin’s, dey all scrooged back in de cornder -ob de shack, ’ca’se Zack Badget he been done tell a ghost-tale, -an’ de rain-doves gwine, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an’ de owls am gwine, -“Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” and de wind it gwine, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” an’ -yiver’body powerful skeered. ’Ca’se li’l’ black Mose he come’ -a-fumblin’ an’ a-rattlin’ at de do’ jes whin dat ghost-tale mos’ -skeery, an’ yiver’body gwine imaginate dat he a ghost a-fumblin’ an’ -a-rattlin’ at de do’. Yas, sah. So li’l’ black Mose he turn’ he white -head, an’ he look’ roun’ an’ peer’ roun’, an’ he say’: - -“Whut you all skeered fo’?” - -’Ca’se ef anybody skeered, he want’ to be skeered, too. Dat’s natural. -But de school-teacher, whut live at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, she say’: - -“Fo’ de lan’s sake, we fought you was a ghost!” - -So li’l’ black Mose he sort ob sniff an’ he sort ob sneer, an’ he ’low’: - -“Huh! dey ain’t no ghosts.” - -Den he ma she powerful took back dat li’l’ black Mose he gwine be so -uppetish an’ contrydict folks whut know ’rifmeticks an’ algebricks an’ -gin’ral countin’ widout fingers, like de school-teacher whut board at -Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house knows, an’ she say’: - -“Huh! whut you know ’bout ghosts, anner ways?” - -An’ li’l’ black Mose he jes kinder stan’ on one foot, an’ he jes kinder -suck’ he thumb, an’ he jes kinder ’low’: - -“I don’ know nuffin’ erbout ghosts, ’ca’se dey ain’t no ghosts.” - -So he pa gwine whop him fo’ tellin’ a fib ’bout dey ain’ no ghosts whin -yiver’body know’ dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at -Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, she tek’ note de hair ob li’l’ black Mose’s -head am plumb white, an’ she tek’ note li’l’ black Mose’s face am de -color ob wood-ash, so she jes retch’ one arm round dat li’l’ black boy, -an’ she jes snuggle’ him up, an’ she say’: - -“Honey lamb, don’t you be skeered; ain’ nobody gwine hurt you. How you -know dey ain’t no ghosts?” - -An’ li’l’ black Mose he kinder lean’ up ’g’inst de school-teacher whut -board at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, an’ he ’low’: - -“’Ca’se--’ca’se--’ca’se I met de cap’n ghost, an’ I met de gin’ral -ghost, an’ I met de king ghost, an’ I met all de ghostes whut yiver was -in de whole worl’, an’ yivery ghost say’ de same thing: ’Dey ain’t no -ghosts.’ An’ if de cap’n ghost an’ de gin’ral ghost an’ de king ghost -an’ all de ghostes in de whole worl’ don’ know ef dar am ghostes, who -does?” - -“Das right; das right, honey lamb,” say’ de school-teacher. And she -say’: “I been s’picious dey ain’ no ghostes dis long whiles, an’ now I -know. Ef all de ghostes say dey ain’ no ghosts, dey _ain’_ no ghosts.” - -So yiver’body ’low’ dat so ’cep’ Zack Badget, whut been tellin’ de -ghost-tale, an’ he ain’ gwine say “Yis” an’ he ain’ gwine say “No,” -’ca’se he right sweet on de school-teacher; but he know right well he -done seen plinty ghostes in he day. So he boun’ to be sure fust. So he -say’ to li’l’ black Mose: - -“’T ain’ likely you met up wid a monstrous big ha’nt what live’ down de -lane whut he name Bloody Bones?” - -“Yas,” say’ li’l’ black Mose; “I done met up wid him.” - -“An’ did old Bloody Bones done tol’ you dey ain’ no ghosts?” say Zack -Badget. - -“Yas,” say’ li’l’ black Mose, “he done tell me perzackly dat.” - -“Well, if _he_ tol’ you dey ain’t no ghosts,” say’ Zack Badget, “I got -to ’low dey ain’t no ghosts, ’ca’se he ain’ gwine tell no lie erbout -it. I know dat Bloody Bones ghost sence I was a piccaninny, an’ I done -met up wif him a powerful lot o’ times, an’ he ain’ gwine tell no -lie erbout it. Ef dat perticklar ghost say’ dey ain’t no ghosts, dey -_ain’t_ no ghosts.” - -So yiver’body say’: - -“Das right; dey ain’ no ghosts.” - -An’ dat mek’ li’l’ black Mose feel mighty good, ’ca’se he ain’ lak -ghostes. He reckon’ he gwine be a heap mo’ comfortable in he mind sence -he know’ dey ain’ no ghosts, an’ he reckon’ he ain’ gwine be skeered of -nuffin’ never no more. He ain’ gwine min’ de dark, an’ he ain’ gwine -min’ de rain-doves whut go’, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an’ he ain’ gwine min’ -de owls whut go’, “Who-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ he ain’ gwine min’ de wind -whut go’, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” nor nuffin’, nohow. He gwine be brave as -a lion, sence he know’ fo’ sure dey ain’ no ghosts. So prisintly he ma -say’: - -“Well, time fo’ a li’l’ black boy whut he name is Mose to be gwine up -de ladder to de loft to bed.” - -An’ li’l’ black Mose he ’low’ he gwine wait a bit. He ’low’ he gwine -jes wait a li’l’ bit. He ’low’ he gwine be no trouble _at_ all ef he -jes been let wait twell he ma she gwine up de ladder to de loft to bed, -too. So he ma she say’: - -“Git erlong wid yo’! Whut yo’ skeered ob whin dey ain’t no ghosts?” - -An’ li’l’ black Mose he scrooge’, and he twist’, an’ he pucker’ up de -mouf, an’ he rub’ he eyes, an’ prisintly he say’ right low: - -“I ain’ skeered ob ghosts whut am, ’ca’se dey ain’ no ghosts.” - -“Den whut _am_ yo’ skeered ob?” ask he ma. - -“Nuffin’,” say’ de li’l’ black boy whut he name is Mose; “but I jes -feel kinder oneasy ’bout de ghosts whut ain’t.” - -Jes lak white folks! Jes lak white folks! - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF THE GABLED HOUSETOPS OF NEMOURS] - - - - -NEMOURS: A TYPICAL FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWN - -BY ROGER BOUTET DE MONVEL - -WITH PICTURES BY BERNARD B. DE MONVEL - - -It is only a little provincial town, like many others in France. It has -no famous monument, and the immediate neighborhood is neither imposing -nor celebrated. And yet this little town, with its quiet streets, its -modest houses, its limpid river, and its Champs de Mars, where in -fine weather the prominent citizens come to discuss the events of the -day, has a tranquil and intimate charm of its own, and the country -thereabouts is so rich in smiling, changing views,--moist fields along -the water’s-edge, wild heaths, and villages bathed in sunlight,--that -the whole makes a picture that wins one’s heart at first sight. - -Nemours lies in the department of Seine-et-Marne, that old part of -France which used to be called La Brie, on the road leading from -Fontainebleau to Montargis. As you approach the outlying houses, -you come upon the first bridge that crosses the canal, on the -sluggish waters of which glide unwieldy boats, heavily laden with -wood, blocks of stone, or fine sand, and towed by mules or donkeys. -Once over the bridge, to the right lies the main street, the Rue de -Paris--naturally, for what town of the provinces is without its Rue -de Paris? And what Rue de Paris has not, on one side, a window with -a tempting display of delicacies, and on the other, the shops of the -haberdasher, the grain-seller, the ironmonger, the harness-maker, and -the barber, who, in his shirt-sleeves, stands at his door waiting for -customers; and last, the Café du Progrès, where, gathered about little -tables, the men drink, and hold forth on the future of France. Then you -cross a second stream, bordered with old lime-trees and overshadowed -by the high walls of the convent. Here is the Hôtel de l’Ecu, which -still has the royal arms on its worn façade, and in front of which the -mail-coaches used to stop; here is the market-place; the church, which -dates from the thirteenth century; and, before the church, the statue -of the great man of the neighborhood, Etienne Bezout, the distinguished -mathematician. - -If the truth must be told, Etienne Bezout’s fame is hardly world-wide; -but since, in the matter of celebrities, one takes what one can get, -for many long years the townspeople have been glad to have this old -worthy--with his eighteenth-century wig, and his finger pointing -heavenward in an attitude of wisdom and abstraction--preside over their -weekly markets and the meetings of their fire-company, as well as at -their outpourings from mass, from funerals, weddings, and christenings. - -Beyond the market-place there is yet a third bridge, the great bridge -overlooking the river Loing. A few steps farther, and you are amused -by the droll sight of the washerwomen as they beat out their linen, -gossiping and shrieking on the bank, like so many frogs at the edge of -a marsh. Over there is the old pond, where the cows linger, and farther -still stands the feudal castle, with its square tower. Beyond this we -look down on the garden of M. le Curé, the tanneries, the convent, the -town mill, and, last of all, on the river, which, though choked with -weeds, is charmingly picturesque by reason of its tiny islands, its -bubbling waterfalls, and its Normandy poplars. Just across the bridge -lie the suburbs of the little town, with its working-men’s houses, -quaint roofs, and farm-yards; and then again the open country and the -green fields. - -[Illustration: THE CANAL AT NEMOURS WITH ITS BORDER OF NORMANDY -POPLARS] - -[Illustration: “AFTER ALL, EACH MAN ENJOYS LIFE IN HIS OWN WAY”] - -But to see Nemours as it should be seen, to catch the peculiar charm -of this little corner of the provinces which Balzac has made famous -in his “Ursule Mirouet,” we must retrace our steps. We must wander -through certain fascinating old streets, with rough cobblestones and -irregular sidewalks; the Rue du Prieuré, for instance, where the -booths of the sabot-makers stand side by side with the tiny shops of -the chair-caners; the Rue de l’Hospice, where old women in caps sit in -their doorways knitting, and where the little orphan children march, -two by two, under the guidance of the sisters of charity. We must -glance at the gabled houses in the Place au Blé and the Place St.-Jean, -or follow the Quai des Fosses, with its rows of flower-beds, where the -trees make green arches along the edge of the river. Now we will steal -into the courtyard of the old castle, which during the crusades was the -fortress of the “great and mighty lords” of that part of the country, -afterward the dwelling-place of the dukes of Nemours. Later, it was -the bailiff’s court down to the time of the Revolution; since when it -has gradually been transformed into a theater and dancing-hall, where -nowadays traveling companies of actors stop to play “The Two Orphans” -or “A Woman’s Punishment.” To-day the castle has a museum, for, just -as any self-respecting town must have a “great man,” it must also have -a museum, whether there is anything to put in it or not. Hence, it was -an important day when the mayor of Nemours, adorned with his tricolored -scarf, surrounded by the town councilors, and preceded by a flourish of -trumpets, instituted this indispensable glory. - -As we said before, the little town of Nemours has not been the scene of -any startling event, but, like most of our provincial towns, it belongs -to our past and is a part of our history. Its old walls have looked on -some imposing ceremonies and have witnessed the arrival and departure -of some celebrated personages. Did not Louis XIV himself condescend to -enter Nemours in November, 1696? Later, in 1773, did not the Comtesse -d’Artois choose it as a meeting-place with her sister, the Comtesse de -Provence? One can imagine the militia of Nemours forming in line in -the streets, the windows ablaze with lights, the thundering of cannon, -the waving of flags, the sheriffs in their uniforms of state, and the -townspeople, on bended knees, offering to these great personages their -homage and the freedom of the city. - -Indeed, this meeting between the sisters must still stand as the most -memorable incident in the annals or Nemours, for although in our day -politics play a more important part than formerly, we must yet admit -that official ceremonies have lost much of their old-time grandeur. - -[Illustration: A FRENCH COUNTRY CART RETURNING HOME ON MARKET-DAY FROM -MARKET] - -If we wish to understand the charm of the tranquil life of the -provinces, we must visit some of the townspeople of Nemours, and see -them at their daily tasks in the privacy of their own homes. In common -with the most important world capitals, this tiny town has its own -manner of living, its own customs and traditions. We should follow -yonder stout gentleman as, umbrella in hand, he takes his daily walk -with deliberate steps along the quay; we should say “Good afternoon” to -M. le Curé, whose cassock we see among the trees of his quiet garden; -we should also have a chat with the shoemaker at the corner; and, above -all, we should not fail to have our beard trimmed by the barber in the -Rue Neuve. He is such a kindly fellow, this barber. - -[Illustration: “THE ONE NOISY TIME IN THE WEEK IS MARKET-DAY”] - -Just beyond the barber’s shop is the hatter’s, and he too seems well -content with his lot. Not that his shop is spacious or his customers -abundant. One wonders how many hats he sells in a week, for, in the -memory of man, no one has ever seen two customers at the same time -in his shop. Nevertheless, whenever you go into the Chappellerie des -Elégants, you are certain to find M. Baudoin at his post behind the -counter, alert and smiling, eager to show you all the novelties of -the season. Above all things, do not venture to hint that his hats -are not the very latest creations as to shape and style, as you would -only surprise him, and inflict pain without standing a chance of -convincing him. M. Baudoin is confident that he can compete with the -most fashionable hatters in Paris, for has he not the best hats that -are made? Besides, can Paris compare with Nemours? You would never make -him believe it. He is proud of his native town, and despite his varied -experience with men and things, he has never seen a finer city. This is -the true provincial spirit. - -M. Baudoin is no longer young. A few years more, and he will sell out -his business, and with the proceeds of that sale, combined with his -savings (for, like all good Frenchmen, he has been thrifty), will be -able to end his peaceful life in ease and comfort. A little house in -the suburbs, very new and very white; a tiny garden, with three or -four fruit-trees, flower-beds with trim borders, and the inevitable -fountain--this is M. Baudoin’s dream of an ideal old age. - -This is, likewise, the dream of M. Robichon, the clock-maker; of M. -Troufleau, the tailor; and of M. Camus, the grain-merchant, all of whom -have spent their lives quietly in their little shops, selling from time -to time a hat, a watch, or a bag of grain. For the most part, they -have been happy. Their sons will have a modest inheritance, and will -carry on the trade of their fathers, unless one, fired with unusual -ambition, should some day become a country doctor or lawyer’s clerk. - -[Illustration: Color-Tone, engraved for ~The Century~ by H. -Davidson - -“THE LITTLE ORPHAN CHILDREN MARCH TWO BY TWO” - -DRAWN BY BERNARD B. DE MONVEL] - -Such are the people, born in the little town or its immediate vicinity. -In addition to this native population, there is a colony of residents -who have come from Paris or elsewhere and, attracted by the charm of -the place, have bought country houses in the neighborhood. - -Although only two hours’ distance by rail from Paris, Nemours is a -typical corner of the provinces, where members of the lower middle -class, and even persons of independent means, come in search of rest -and quiet; merchants who have retired from business, army officers on -half-pay, professors grown gray in service, and, oddly enough, a large -number of artists, painters, sculptors, and actors. Some come for the -summer only; others live in or near Nemours all the year round. - -It is not every French provincial town that can rival Nemours in one -respect: beside one of the new and dreadful houses its owner has seen -fit to erect a kind of ruin, an imitation in miniature of an old -fortified castle, with simulated remains of battlements, sham doors of -the middle ages, barred windows, etc. He has even taken the trouble -to have a real bullet embedded in the wall of his precious ruin--a -bullet fired, it is said, by the Prussians during their campaign in -France! Above the bullet, the date of the memorable event is placed in -large letters--1814! The bullet looks not unlike a tennis-ball; the -ruin itself seems to be made of papier-mâché; and, with the new house -by the side of the sham ruin, the _tout ensemble_ of this delightful -little property is a triumph of the grotesque. It is certain that it is -not this new and expensive quarter which lends to Nemours its strange -charm, any more than in other French towns, or in Paris itself, where -the modern attempts at architecture are veritable eyesores. - -After all, each man enjoys life in his own way; and so M. Chevillard, -a retired lawyer, who does not own any ruins, and who, strange to say, -does not desire any, has a passion of an entirely different kind. -M. Chevillard’s passion is fishing. He has chosen Nemours as his -abiding-place simply because its three watercourses abound in pike and -roach; but that fact does not imply that M. Chevillard catches many -of them. Nevertheless, every day we may see him seated placidly on -his camp-stool, on the bank of the river, near the bridge, wearing an -enormous straw hat, which the suns of many summers have tanned a rich -golden-brown, the shade of well-toasted bread. He holds a fishing-rod -in his hand; the line falls into the water, and its tiny red cork -moves gently to and fro with the current. When this red cork drifts -toward the dark shadows under the bridge, M. Chevillard jerks his rod -up quickly, and we hear the line whistle in the air; then, in the -twinkling of an eye, the cork falls back on the surface of the water, -and the game begins again; and so it goes on all day and every day. - -The strange thing is, however, that nearly every one in Nemours has -this same passion for fishing. All along the river, the canal, and the -smaller stream, we see rows of yellow hats, and, under them, any number -of kindly men and women of all ages, who sit calmly from morning till -night, watching their lines. - -In addition to this large body of fishermen, there are sportsmen; -but do not imagine that they are any more successful. Formerly, this -part of the country abounded in game; but of late years, owing to -the increasing number of these sportsmen, the pheasants have rapidly -diminished. As the cost of a hunting license in France is moderate, the -humblest grocer may have the privilege of stringing a cartridge-case -across his chest, and, attired in brown linen, with his grandfather’s -old gun on his shoulder, may revel in the joys of the chase. It is not -the humble grocer alone, however, who is responsible for the terrible -slaughter of birds. All the other grocers, his friends and neighbors, -would feel themselves disgraced if they did not follow his example; so, -along with the grocers come the ironmongers, the harness-makers, and -the innkeepers, in such overwhelming numbers that within a week after -the opening of the shooting season not a hair or a feather is left to -tell the tale. - -Greatly disturbed by this state of affairs, the sportsmen of Nemours -decided to found a society for the protection of game. Alas! within a -few months serious differences arose in the society, which was promptly -divided into two rival factions. Each faction had its own territory; -and from that moment bird-shooting was forgotten by both parties in -their eagerness to chase each other. The chief idea of each faction -was to guard jealously its own territory; and fierce injunctions were -sent to those imprudent sportsmen who ventured to trespass on forbidden -ground. As the respective shooting territories grow smaller each year, -and the two societies show no signs of being reconciled, there is grave -reason to fear that some fine day, not knowing how else to utilize -their powder and shot, the sportsmen of Nemours may be forced to fire -at one another! - -For my own part, I do not imagine that these gentlemen have as yet any -idea of resorting to such extreme measures; but, peaceful and serene -as the little town is, it has its own private quarrels. Just as there -are two sportsmen’s societies, so there are two clubs--two rival clubs, -known, quite properly, as the Union Club and the Peace Club, where -every evening, before dinner, the half-pay captains and the retired -merchants come to play whist at a penny a point. The members are -kindly men, honest and peaceful; but there is not one of them who is -not firmly convinced that any other club but his own is the resort of -ill-bred fellows, not fit associates for himself or his friends. There -is an abundance of gossip in this little town, and gossip travels fast -at card-tables as well as tea-tables. However, only a certain set among -the residents care to lend an ear to the local small-talk. - -During the summer, many artists come in quest of rest or an industrious -solitude. They are the ones who really enjoy and appreciate more -than any one else the strange, sweet charm of this little provincial -town, where every house has its garden, and every garden its flowers; -where the peaceful days go by with a slow and regular rhythm, and the -silence is broken only by the sound of the angelus or the ring of the -blacksmith’s anvil. - -The one noisy time in the week is market-day, when the throngs of -covered wagons, drawn by strong cart-horses, the peasant women in -their white caps and the men in their blue blouses bringing in cattle, -poultry, fruit, and vegetables, make a lively and attractive scene; -when the air is full of the crack of whips and the tinkle of bells, -and gay with songs, cries, and laughter. But it may not be long before -the country carts will give way to automobiles, the white caps to -beflowered hats, and the blouses to jackets of the latest cut. - - - - -THE AUTO-COMRADE - -BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER - -Author of “Romantic Germany,” “Romantic America,” etc. - - -Human nature abhors a vacuum, especially a vacuum inside itself. Offer -the ordinary man a week’s vacation all alone, and he will look as -though you were offering him a cell in Sing Sing. - -“There are a great many people,” says that wise and popular oracle, -Ruth Cameron, “to whom there is no prospect more terrifying than that -of a few hours with only their own selves for company. To escape that -terrible catastrophe, they will make friends with the most fearful bore -or read the most stupid story.... If such people are marooned a few -hours, not only without human companionship, but even without a book or -magazine with which to screen their own stupidity from themselves, they -are fairly frantic.” - -If any one hates to be alone with himself, the chances are that he has -not much of any self to be alone with. He is in as desolate a condition -as a certain Mr. Pease of Oberlin, who, having lost his wife and -children, set up his own tombstone and chiseled upon it this epitaph: - - “Here lies the pod. - The Pease are shelled and gone to God.” - -Now, pod-like people are always solitary wherever other people are -not; and there is, of course, nothing much more distressing than -solitariness. These people, however, through sheer ignorance, fall into -a confusion of thought. They suppose that solitude and solitariness -are the same thing. To the artist in life there is just one difference -between these two: it is the difference between heaven and its -antipodes. For, to the artist in life, solitude is solitariness plus -the Auto-comrade. - -As it is the Auto-comrade who makes all the difference, I shall try to -describe his appearance. His eyes are the most arresting part of him. -They never peer stupidly through great, thick spectacles of others’ -making. They are scarcely ever closed in sleep, and sometimes make -their happiest discoveries during the small hours. Indeed, these hours -are probably called small because the Auto-comrade often turns his eyes -into the lenses of a moving-picture machine that is so entertaining -that it compresses the hours to seconds. These eyes, through constant, -alert use, have become sharp. They can pierce through the rinds of the -toughest personalities, and even penetrate on occasion into the future. -They can also take in whole panoramas of the past in one sweeping -look. For they are of that “inner” variety through which Wordsworth, -winter after winter, used to survey his daffodil-fields. “The bliss of -solitude,” he called them. - -The Auto-comrade has an adjustable brow. It can be raised high enough -to hold and reverberate and add rich overtones to the grandest chords -of thought ever struck by a Plato, a Buddha, or a Kant. The next -instant it may easily be lowered to the point where Hy Mayer’s latest -cartoon or the tiny cachinnation of a machine-made Chesterton paradox -will not ring entirely hollow. As for his voice, it can at times be -more musical than Melba’s or Caruso’s. Without being raised above a -whisper, it can girdle the globe. It can barely breathe some delicious -new melody; yet the thing will float forth not only undiminished, but -gathering beauty, significance, and incisiveness in every land it -passes through. - -The Auto-comrade is an erect, wiry young figure of an athlete. As he -trades at the Seven-League Boot and Shoe Concern, it never bothers him -to accompany you on the longest tramps. His feet simply cannot be tired -out. As for his hands, they are always alert to give you a lift up the -rough places on the mountain-side. He has remarkable presence of body. -In any emergency he is usually the best man on the spot. - -A popular saw asserts that “looks do not count.” But in this case -they do count. For the Auto-comrade looks exactly like himself. He -is at once seer, creator, accomplisher, and present help in time of -trouble. But his every-day occupation is that of entertainer. He is the -joy-bringer--the Prometheus of pleasure. In his vicinity there is no -such thing as ennui or lonesomeness. Emerson wrote: - - “When I would spend a lonely day - Sun and moon are in my way.” - -But for pals of the Auto-comrade, not only sun, moon, etc., are in the -way, but all of his own unlimited resources. For every time and season -he has a fittingly varied repertory of entertainment. - -Now and again he startles you with the legerdemain feat of snatching -brand-new ideas out of the blue, like rabbits out of a hat. While you -stand at the port-hole of your cabin and watch the rollers rushing -back to the beloved home-land you are quitting, he marshals your -friends and acquaintances into a long line for a word of greeting or -a rapid-fire chat, just as though you were some idol of the people, -and were steaming past the Statue of Liberty on your way home from -lion-slaughter in Africa, and the Auto-comrade were the factotum at -your elbow who asks, “What name, please?” - -After the friends and acquaintances, he even brings up your _bêtes -noires_ and dearest enemies for inspection and comment. Strangely -enough, viewed in this way, these persons no longer seem so -contemptible or pernicious or devilish as they once did. At this point -your factotum rubs your eye-glasses bright with the handkerchief he -always carries about for slate-cleaning purposes, and, lo! you even -begin to discover hitherto unsuspected good points about the chaps. - -Then there are always your million and one favorite melodies which -nobody but that all-around musical amateur, the Auto-comrade, can so -exquisitely whistle, hum, strum, fiddle, blat, or roar. There is also -a universeful of new ones for him to improvise. And he is the jolliest -sort of fellow-musician, because, when you play or sing a duet with -him, you can combine with the exciting give-and-take and reciprocal -stimulation of the duet the godlike autocracy of the solo, with its -opportunity for uninterrupted, uncoerced, wide self-expression. -Sometimes, however, in the first flush of escape with him to the wilds, -you are fain to clap your hand over his mouth in order the better -to taste the essentially folkless savor of solitude. For music is a -curiously social art, and Browning was right when he said, “Who hears -music, feels his solitude peopled at once.” - -Perhaps you can find your entertainer a small lump of clay or -modeling-wax to thumb into bad caricatures of those you love and -good ones of those you hate, until increasing facility impels him to -try and model not a Tanagra figurine, for that would be unlike his -original fancy, but a Hoboken figurine, say, or a sketch for some Elgin -(Illinois) marbles. - -If you care anything for poetry and can find him a stub of pencil and -an unoccupied cuff, he will be most completely in his element; for -if there is any one occupation more closely identified with him than -another, it is that of poet. And though all Auto-comrades are not -poets, all poets are Auto-comrades. Every poem which has ever thrilled -this world or another has been written by the Auto-comrade of some -so-called poet. This is one reason why the so-called poets think so -much of their great companions. “Allons! after the great companions!” -cried old Walt to his fellow-poets. If he had not overtaken, and -held fast to, his, we should never have heard the “Leaves of Grass” -whispering “one or two indicative words for the future.” The bards -have always obeyed this call. And they have known how to value their -Auto-comrades, too. See, for example, what Keats thought of his: - - Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at the - end of a Journey or a Walk; though the Carpet were of Silk, the - Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and Sofa stuffed with - Cygnet’s down; the food Manna, the Wine beyond Claret, the Window - opening on Winander mere, I should not feel--or rather my Happiness - would not be so fine, as my Solitude is sublime. Then instead of - what I have described, there is a sublimity to welcome me home--The - roaring of the wind is my wife and the Stars through the window - pane are my Children.... I feel more and more every day, as my - imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone - but in a thousand worlds--No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic - greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the office - which is equivalent to a King’s body-guard.... I live more out of - England than in it. The Mountains of Tartary are a favorite lounge, - if I happen to miss the Alleghany ridge, or have no whim for Savoy. - -This last sentence not only reveals the fact that the Auto-comrade, -equipped as he is with a wishing-mat, is the very best cicerone in the -world, but also that he is the ideal tramping companion. Suppose you -are mountain-climbing. As you start up into “nature’s observatory,” he -kneels in the dust and fastens wings upon your feet. He conveniently -adjusts a microscope to your hat-brim, and hangs about your neck an -excellent telescope. He has enough sense, as well, to keep his mouth -shut. For, like Hazlitt, he “can see no wit in walking and talking.” -The joy of existence, you find, rarely tastes more cool and sweet and -sparkling than when you and your Auto-comrade make a picnic thus, -swinging in a basket between you a real, live thought for lunch. On -such an occasion you come to believe that Keats, on another occasion, -must have had his Auto-comrade in mind when he remarked to his friend -Solitude that - - “... it sure must be - Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, - When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.” - -The Auto-comrade can sit down with you in thick weather on a barren -lighthouse rock and give you a breathless day by hanging upon the walls -of fog the mellow screeds of old philosophies, and causing to march -and countermarch over against them the scarlet and purple pageants of -history. Hour by hour, too, he will linger with you in the metropolis, -that breeder of the densest solitudes,--in market or morgue, subway, -library, or lobby,--and hour by hour unlock you those chained books of -the soul to which the human countenance offers the master key. - -Something of a sportsman, too, is the Auto-comrade. He it is who makes -the fabulously low score at golf--the kind of score, by the way, that -is almost invariably born to blush unseen. And he will uncomplainingly, -even zestfully, fish from dawn to dusk in a solitude so complete that -there is not even a fin to break it. But if there are fish, he finds -them. He knows how to make the flies float indefinitely forward through -yonder narrow opening, and drop, as light as thistledown, in the center -of the temptingly inaccessible pool. He knows without looking exactly -how thick and prehensile are the bushes and branches that lie in wait -for the back cast, and he can calculate to a grain how much urging the -sulky four-pounder and the blest tie that binds him to the four-ounce -rod will stand. - -He is one of the handiest possible persons to have along in the woods. -When you take him on a canoe-trip with others, and the party comes to -“white water,” he turns out to be a dead shot at rapid-shooting. He -is sure to know what to do at the supreme moment when you jam your -setting-pole immutably between two rocks and, with the alternative -of making a hole in the water, are forced to let it go and grab your -paddle. And before you have time to reflect that the pale-face in the -bow can be depended upon to do just one thing at such a time, and -that is the exact opposite of what you are urging him to do, you are -hung up on a slightly submerged rock at the head of the chief rapid -just in time to see the rest of the party disappear around the lower -bend. At such a time, simply look to the Auto-comrade. He will carry -you through. Also there is no one like him at the moment when, having -felled your moose, leaned your rifle against a tree, and bent down the -better to examine him, the creature suddenly comes back to life. - -In tennis, when you wake up to find that your racket has just smashed -a lob on the bounce from behind the court, making a clean ace between -your paralyzed opponents, you ought to know that the racket was guided -by that superior sportsman; and if you are truly modest, you will -admit that the miraculous triple play wherewith your team whisked the -base-ball championship out of the fire in the fourteenth inning was -pulled off by the unaided efforts of a certain Young Men’s Christian -Association of Auto-comrades. - -There are other games about which he is not so keen: solitaire, for -instance. For solitaire is a social game that soon loses its zest if -there be not some devoted friend or relative sitting by and simulating -that pleasurable absorption in the performance which you yourself only -wish that you could feel. - -This great companion can keep you from being lonely even in a crowd. -But there is a certain kind of crowd that he cannot abide. Beware how -you try to keep him in a crowd of unadulterated human porcupines! You -know how the philosopher Schopenhauer once likened average humanity to -a herd of porcupines on a cold day, who crowd stupidly together for -warmth, prick one another with their quills, are mutually repelled, -forget the incident, grow cold again, and repeat the whole thing ad -infinitum. - -In other words, the human porcupine is the person considered at the -beginning of this one-sided discussion who, to escape the terrible -catastrophe of confronting his own inner vacuum, will make friends with -the most hideous bore. This creature, however, is much more rare than -the misanthropic Schopenhauer imagined. It takes a long time to find -one among such folk as lumbermen, Gipsies, shirt-waist operatives, -fishermen, masons, trappers, sailors, tramps, and teamsters. If the -philosopher had only had the pleasure of knowing those teamsters who -sent him into paroxysms of rage by cracking their whips in the alley, -I am sure that he would never have spoken so harshly of their minds -as he did. The fact is that porcupines are not extremely common among -the very “common” people. It may be that there is something stupefying -about the airs which the upper classes, the best people, breathe and -put on, but the social climber is apt to find the human porcupine in -increasing herds as he scales the heights. This curious fact would -seem incidentally to show that our misanthropic philosopher must have -moved exclusively in some of the best circles. - -Now, if there is one thing above all others that the Auto-comrade -cannot away with, it is the flaccid, indolent, stodgy brain of -the porcupine. If people have let their minds slump down into -porcupinishness, or have never taken the trouble to rescue them from -that ignominious condition--well, the Auto-comrade is no snob; when -all’s said, he is a rather democratic sort of chap, though he has to -draw the line somewhere, you know, and he really must beg to be excused -from rubbing shoulders with such intellectual rabble, for instance, -as blocks upper Fifth Avenue on Sunday noons. He prefers instead the -rabble which, on all other noons of the week, blocks the lower end of -that variegated thoroughfare. - -Such exclusiveness lays the Auto-comrade open, of course, to the charge -of inhospitality. But “is not he hospitable,” asks Thoreau, “who -entertains good thoughts?” Personally, I think he is. And I believe -that this sort of hospitality does more to make the world worth living -in than much conventional hugging to your bosom of porcupines whose -language you do not speak, yet with whom it is embarrassing to keep -silence. - -If the Auto-comrade mislikes the porcupine, however, the feeling -is returned with exorbitant interest. The alleged failings of -auto-comradeship have always drawn grins, fleers, nudges, and jokes -from the auto-comradeless. It is time the latter should know that the -joke is really on him; for he is the most forlorn of mankind. The other -is never at a loss. He is invulnerable, being one whom “destiny may not -surprise nor death dismay.” But the porcupine is liable at any moment -to be deserted by associates who are bored by his sharp, hollow quills. -He finds himself the victim of a paradox which decrees that the hermit -shall “find his crowds in solitude” and never be alone; but that the -flocker shall every now and then be cast into inner darkness, where -“there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” - -The laugh is on the porcupine; but the laugh turns almost into a tear -when one stops to realize the nature of his plight. Why, the poor -wretch is actually obliged to be near some one else in order to enjoy -a sense of vitality! In other words, he needs somebody else to do his -living for him. He is a vicarious citizen of the world, holding his -franchise only by courtesy of Tom, Dick, and Harry. - -All the same, it is rather hard to pity him very profoundly while he -continues to feel quite so contemptuously superior as he usually does. -Why, the contempt of the average porcupine for pals of the Auto-comrade -is akin to the contempt which the knights of chivalry felt for those -paltry beings who were called clerks because they possessed the queer, -unfashionable accomplishment of being able to read and write. - -I remember that the loudest laugh achieved by a certain class-day -orator at college came when he related how the literary guy and the -tennis-player were walking one day in the woods, and the literary guy -suddenly exclaimed: “Ah, leave me, Louis! I would be alone.” Even apart -from the stilted language in which the orator clothed the thought of -the literary guy, there is, to the porcupine, something irresistibly -comic in such a situation. It is to him as though the literary guy had -stepped up to the nearest policeman and begged for the room at Sing -Sing already referred to. - -Indeed, the modern porcupine is as suspicious of pals of the -Auto-comrade as the porcupines of the past were of sorcerers and -witches--folk, by the way, who probably consorted with spirits no more -malign than Auto-comrades. “What,” asked the porcupines of one another, -“can they be up to, all alone there in those solitary huts? What honest -man would live like that? Ah, they must be up to no good. They must be -consorting with the Evil One. Well, then, away with them to the stake -and the river!” - -As a matter of fact, it probably was not the Evil One that these poor -folk were consorting with, but the Good One. For what is a man’s -Auto-comrade, anyway, but his own soul, or the same thing by what other -name soever he likes to call it with which he divides the practical, -conscious part of his brain, turn and turn about, share and share -alike? And what is a man’s own soul but a small stream of the infinite, -eternal water of life? And what is heaven but a vast harbor where -myriad streams of soul flow down, returning at last to their Source -in the bliss of perfect reunion? I believe that many a Salem witch was -dragged to her death from sanctuary; for church is not exclusively -connected with stained glass and collection-baskets. Church is also -wherever you and your Auto-comrade can elude the starched throng and -fall together, if only for a moment, on your knees. - -Like the girl you left behind you, your Auto-comrade has much to gain -by contrast with your flesh-and-blood associates, especially if this -contrast is suddenly brought home to you after a too long separation -from him. I shall never forget the thrill that was mine early one -morning after two months of close, uninterrupted communion with one -of my best and dearest friends. At the very instant when the turn of -the road cut off that friend’s departing hand-wave, I was aware of -a welcoming, almost boisterous shout from the hills of dream, and, -turning quickly, beheld my long-lost Auto-comrade rushing eagerly down -the slopes toward me. - -Few joys may compare with the joy of such a sudden, unexpected reunion. -It is like “the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land.” No, this -simile is too disloyal to my friend. Well, then, it is like a beaker -full of the warm South when you are leaving a good beer country and are -trying to reconcile yourself to ditch-water for the next few weeks. At -any rate, similes or not, there were we two together again at last. -What a week of weeks we spent, pacing back and forth on the veranda -of our log cabin, where we overlooked the pleasant sinuosities of the -Sebois and gazed out together over golden beech and ghostly birch and -blood-red maple banners to the purple mountains of the Aroostook. And -how we did take stock of the immediate past, chuckling to find that -it had not been a quarter so bad as I had stupidly supposed. What -gilded forest trails were those which we blazed into the glamourous -land of to-morrow! And every other moment these recreative labors -would be interrupted while I pressed between the pages of a note-book -some butterfly or sunset leaf or quadruply fortunate clover which my -Auto-comrade found and turned over to me. Between two of those pages, -by the way, I afterward found the argument of this paper. - -Then, when the first effervescence of our meeting had lost a little of -its first, fine, carbonated sting, what Elysian hours we spent over -the correspondence of those other two friends, Goethe and Schiller! -Passage after passage we would turn back to re-read and muse over. -These we would discuss without any of the rancor or dogmatic insistence -or one-eyed stubbornness that usually accompany the clash of mental -steel on mental steel from a different mill. And without making any one -else lose the thread or grow short-breathed or accuse us passionately -of reading ahead, we would, on the slightest provocation, out-Fletcher -Fletcher chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. And we would -underline and bracket and side-line and overline the ragged little -paper volume, and scribble up and down its margins, and dream over its -foot-notes, to our hearts’ content. - -Such experiences, though, are all too rare with me. Why? Because my -Auto-comrade is a rather particular person and will not associate with -me unless I toe his mark. - -“Come,” I propose to him, “let us go on a journey.” - -“Hold hard,” says he, and looks me over appraisingly. “You know the -rule of the Auto-comrades’ Union. We are supposed to associate with -none but fairly able persons. Are you a fairly able person?” - -If it turns out that I am not, he goes on a rampage, and begins to -talk like an athletic trainer. The first thing he demands is that his -would-be associate shall keep on hand a jolly good store of surplus -vitality. You are expected to supply him exuberance somewhat as you -supply gasolene to your motor. - -Now, of course, there are in the world not a few invalids and other -persons of low physical vitality whose Auto-comrades happen to have -sufficient gasolene to keep them both running, if only on short -rations. Most of these cases, however, are pathological. They have hot -boxes at both ends of the machine, and their progress is destined all -too soon to cease and determine. The rest of these cases are the rare -exceptions which prove the rule. For unexuberant yet unpathological -pals of the Auto-comrade are as rare as harmonious households in which -the efforts of a devoted and blissful wife support an able-bodied -husband. - -The rule is that you have got to earn exuberance for two. “Learn to -eat balanced rations right,” thunders the Auto-comrade, laying down -the law; “exercise, perspire, breathe, bathe, sleep out of doors, and -sleep enough, rule your liver with a rod of iron, don’t take drugs or -nervines, cure sickness beforehand, do an adult’s work in the world, -have at least as much fun as you ought to have.” - -“That,” he goes on, “is the way to develop enough physical exuberance -so that you will be enabled to overcome your present sad addiction to -mob intoxication. And, provided your mind is not in as bad condition as -your body, this physical over-plus will transmute some of itself into a -spiritual exuberance. This will enable you to have more fun with your -mind than an enthusiastic kitten has with its tail. It will enable you -to look before and after, and purr over what is, as well as to discern, -with pleasurable longing, what is not, and set forth confidently to -capture it.” - -But if, by any chance, you have allowed your mind to get into the sort -of condition which the old-fashioned German scholar used to allow his -body to get into, it develops that the Auto-comrade hates a flabby -brain almost as much as he hates a flabby body. He soon makes it -clear that he will not have much to do with any one who has not yet -mastered the vigorous and highly complex art of not worrying. Also, -he demands of his companion the knack of calm, consecutive thought. -This is one reason why so many more Auto-comrades are to be found in -crow’s-nests, Gipsy-vans, and shirt-waist factories than on upper -Fifth Avenue. For, watching the stars and the sea from a swaying -masthead, taking light-heartedly to the open road, or even operating -a rather unwholesome sewing-machine all day in silence, is better for -consecutiveness of mind than a never-ending round of offices, clubs, -servants, committee meetings, teas, dinners, and receptions, to each of -which one is a little late. - -No matter what the ignorant or the envious may say, there is -nothing really unsocial in a moderate indulgence in the art of -auto-comradeship. A few weeks of it bring you back a fresher, keener -appreciator of your other friends and of humanity in general than you -were before setting forth. In the continuous performance of the psalm -of life such contrasts as this of solos and choruses have a reciprocal -advantage. - -But auto-comradeship must not be overdone, as it was overdone by the -medieval monks. Its delights are too delicious, its particular vintage -of the wine of experience too rich, for long-continued consumption. -Consecutive thought, though it is one of man’s greatest pleasures, is -at the same time almost the most arduous labor that he can perform. -And after a long spell of it, both the Auto-comrade and his companion -become exhausted and, perforce, less comradely. - -Besides the incidental exhaustion, there is another reason why this -beatific association must have its time-limit; for, unfortunately, -one’s Auto-comrade is always of the same sex as oneself, and in youth, -at least, if the presence of the complementary part of creation is long -denied, there comes a time when this denial surges higher and higher -in subconsciousness, then breaks into consciousness, and keeps on -surging until it deluges all the tranquillities, zests, surprises, and -excitements of auto-comradeship, and makes them of no effect. - -This is, perhaps, a wise provision for the salvation of the human -digestion. For, otherwise, many a man, having tasted of the fruit of -the tree of the knowledge of auto-comradeship, might thereupon be -tempted to retire to his hermit’s den hard by and endeavor to sustain -himself for life on apple-sauce. - -Most of us, however, long before such extremes have been reached, -are sure to rush back to our kind for the simple reason that we are -enjoying auto-comradeship so much that we want some one else to enjoy -it with. - - - - -THE WHITE LINEN NURSE - -HOW RAE MALGREGOR UNDERTOOK GENERAL HEARTWORK FOR A FAMILY OF TWO - -BY ELEANOR HALLOWELL ABBOTT - -Author of “Molly Make-Believe,” etc. - -IN THREE PARTS: PART THREE - -WITH PICTURES BY HERMAN PFEIFER - - -SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING INSTALMENTS - - On the day of her graduation from the training-school, the White - Linen Nurse was overcome by hysteria. For weeks she had been - working too hard, and two or three cases with which she had been - connected having gone wrong, she had racked herself with an absurd - sense of responsibility. Now, in her distracted state, the visible - sign of her self-contempt was the perfectly controlled expression - of her trained-nurse face. - - From a scene in her room with her two room-mates, in which - confidences are exchanged, she rushed to the office of the - Superintendent of Nurses, and hysterically demanded her own face. - The Senior Surgeon was sent for, and after tartly telling the girl - she was a fool, finally took her with him and his little crippled - daughter for a thirty-mile trip into the country, where he had been - summoned on a difficult case. - - On their return, the Senior Surgeon lost control of the machine on - a steep hill, and the three were thrown out. - - On recovering consciousness, the White Linen Nurse and the Child - find the Senior Surgeon pinned under their motor-car, and after - receiving instructions as to its management, the Nurse runs the car - into a brook, and the Senior Surgeon becomes aware for the first - time that the car is afire. Momentarily unnerved by the thought of - the peril in which he has been, the Senior Surgeon clings to the - White Linen Nurse, and finally proposes that, since she has decided - to give up professional nursing, she take up General Heartwork - for him and his daughter. The proposal is in fact a proposal of - marriage, and after a frank discussion of the situation (which is - one of the most significant and powerful pieces of work of the - author), the White Linen Nurse accepts. - - In the course of the discussion the Senior Surgeon confesses an - inherited tendency for drink, and adds that he leaves liquor alone - for eleven months in the year, but always goes off to Canada every - June for a hunting-trip, on which he drinks heavily. She insists - that he go this year and that they marry before his departure, and - not on his return, as he wishes. She wins her way, and the Senior - Surgeon goes alone. Disquieting letters from her recall him before - the end of the month. - -Nobody looks very well in the dawn. Certainly the Senior Surgeon -didn’t. Heavily, as a man wading through a bog of dreams, he stumbled -out of his cabin into the morning. Under his drowsy, brooding eyes -appalling shadows circled. Behind his sunburn, deeper than his tan, -something sinister and uncanny lurked wanly like the pallor of a soul. -Yet the Senior Surgeon had been most blamelessly abed and asleep since -griddle-cake-time the previous evening. - -Only the mountains and the forest and the lake had been out all night. -For seventy miles of Canadian wilderness only the mountains and the -forest and the lake stood actually convicted of having been out all -night. Dank and white with its vaporous vigil, the listless lake -kindled wanly to the new day’s breeze. Blue with cold, a precipitous -mountain peak lurched craggedly home through a rift in the fog. -Drenched with mist, bedraggled with dew, a green-feathered pine-tree -lay guzzling insatiably at a leaf-brown pool. As monotonous as a sob, -the waiting birch canoe _slosh-sloshed_ against the beach. - -There was no romantic smell of red roses in this June landscape; just -tobacco smoke, and the faint reminiscent fragrance of fried trout, and -the mournful, sizzling, pungent consciousness of a camp-fire quenched -for a whole year with a tinful of wet coffee-grounds. - -Gliding out cautiously into the lake as though the mere splash of -a paddle might shatter the whole glassy surface, the Indian guide -propounded the question that was uppermost in his mind. - -“Cutting your trip a bit short this year, ain’t you, Boss?” he quizzed -tersely. - -Out from his muffling Mackinaw collar the Senior Surgeon parried the -question with an amazingly novel sense of embarrassment. - -“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered with studied lightness. “There are one -or two things at home that are bothering me a little.” - -“A woman, eh?” said the Indian guide, laconically. - -“A _woman_?” thundered the Senior Surgeon. “A--woman? Oh, ye gods, no! -It’s wall-paper.” - -Then suddenly and unexpectedly in the midst of his passionate -refutation the Senior Surgeon burst out laughing, boisterously, -hilariously, like a crazy school-boy. Bluntly from an overhanging ledge -of rock the echo of his laugh came mocking back at him. Down from some -unvisioned mountain fastness the echo of that echo came wafting faintly -to him. - -The Senior Surgeon’s laugh was made of teeth and tongue and palate -and a purely convulsive physical impulse; but the echo’s laugh was -a fantasy of mist and dawn and inestimable balsam-scented spaces, -where little green ferns and little brown beasties and soft-breasted -birdlings frolicked eternally in pristine sweetness. - -Seven miles farther down the lake, at the beginning of the rapids, -the Indian guide spoke again. Racking the canoe between two rocks, -paddling, panting, pushing, sweating, the Indian guide lifted his voice -high, piercing, above the swirling roar of waters. - -“Eh, Boss,” he shouted, “I ain’t never heard you laugh before!” - -Neither man spoke again more than once or twice during the long, -strenuous hours that were left to them. The Indian guide was very busy -in his stolid mind trying to figure out just how many rows of potatoes -could be planted fruitfully between his front door and his cowshed. I -don’t know what the Senior Surgeon was trying to figure out. - -It was just four days later, from a rolling, musty-cushioned hack, that -the Senior Surgeon disembarked at his own front gate. - -Even though a man likes home no better than he likes--tea, few men -would deny the soothing effect of home at the end of a long, fussy -railroad journey. Five o’clock, also, of a late June afternoon is a -peculiarly wonderful time to be arriving home, especially if that home -has a garden about it, so that you are thereby not rushed precipitously -upon the house itself, as upon a cup without a saucer, but can toy -visually with the whole effect before you quench your thirst with the -actual draft. - -Very, very deliberately, with his clumsy rod-case in one hand, and -his heavy grip in the other, the Senior Surgeon started up the long, -broad gravel path to the house. For a man walking as slow as he was, -his heart was beating most extraordinarily fast. He was not accustomed -to heart-palpitation. The symptom worried him a trifle. Incidentally, -also, his lungs felt strangely stifled with the scent of June. Close -at his right, an effulgent white-and-gold syringa-bush flaunted its -cloying sweetness into his senses. Close at his left, a riotous bloom -of phlox clamored red-blue-purple-lavender-pink into his dazzled -vision. Multicolored pansies tiptoed velvet-footed across the grass. In -soft, murky mystery a flame-tinted smoke-tree loomed up here and there -like a faintly rouged ghost. Over everything, under everything, through -everything, lurked a certain strange, novel, vibrating consciousness of -occupancy--bees in the rose-bushes, bobolinks in the trees, a woman’s -work-basket in the curve of the hammock, a doll’s tea-set sprawling -cheerfully in the middle of the broad gravel path. - -It was not until the Senior Surgeon had actually stepped into the tiny -cream-pitcher that he noticed the presence of the doll’s tea-set. It -was what the Senior Surgeon said as he stepped out of the cream-pitcher -that summoned the amazing apparition from a ragged, green hole in the -privet hedge. Startlingly white, startlingly professional,--dress, -cap, apron, and all,--a miniature white linen nurse sprang suddenly -out at him like a tricky dwarf in a moving-picture show. Just at that -particular moment the Senior Surgeon’s nerves were in no condition -to wrestle with apparitions. Simultaneously, as the clumsy rod-case -dropped from his hand, the expression of enthusiasm dropped from the -face of the miniature white linen nurse. - -“Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear! have _you_ come home!” wailed the -familiar, shrill little voice. - -Sheepishly the Senior Surgeon picked up his rod-case. The noises in his -head were crashing like cracked bells. Desperately, with a boisterous -irritability, he sought to cover also the lurching _pound, pound, -pound_ of his heart. - -“What in hell are you rigged out like that for?” he demanded stormily. - -With equal storminess the Little Girl protested the question. - -“Peach said I could,” she attested passionately. “Peach said I could, -she did! She did! I tell you, I didn’t want her to marry us that day. -I was afraid, I was. I cried, I did. I had a convulsion; they thought -it was stockings. So Peach said, if it would make me feel any gooderer, -I could be the cruel new stepmother, and _she’d_ be the unloved -offspring, with her hair braided all yellow fluffikins down her back.” - -“Where _is_--Miss Malgregor?” asked the Senior Surgeon, sharply. - -Irrelevantly the Little Girl sank down on the gravel walk and began to -gather up her scattered dishes. - -“And it’s fun to go to bed now,” she confided amiably, “’cause every -night I put Peach to bed at eight o’clock, and she’s so naughty always -I have to stay with her. And then all of a sudden it’s morning--like -going through a black room without knowing it.” - -“I said, where _is_ Miss Malgregor?” repeated the Senior Surgeon, with -increasing sharpness. - -Thriftily the Little Girl bent down to lap a bubble of cream from the -broken pitcher. - -“Oh, she’s out in the summer-house with the Wall-Paper Man,” she -mumbled indifferently. - -Altogether jerkily the Senior Surgeon started up the walk for his own -perfectly formal and respectable brownstone mansion. Deep down in -his lurching heart he felt a sudden most inordinate desire to reach -that brownstone mansion just as quickly as possible, but abruptly even -to himself he swerved off instead at the yellow sassafras-tree and -plunged quite wildly through a mass of broken sods toward the rickety, -no-account, cedar summer-house. - -Startled by the crackle and thud of his approach, the two young figures -in the summer-house jumped precipitously to their feet, and, limply -untwining their arms from each other’s necks, stood surveying the -Senior Surgeon in unspeakable consternation,--the White Linen Nurse and -a blue-overalled lad most unconscionably mated in radiant youth and -agonized confusion. - -“Oh, my Lord, sir!” gasped the White Linen Nurse--“oh, my Lord, sir! I -wasn’t looking for _you_ for another week!” - -“Evidently not,” said the Senior Surgeon, incisively. “This is -the second time this evening that I’ve been led to infer that my -home-coming was distinctly inopportune.” - -Very slowly, very methodically, he put down first his precious rod-case -and then his grip. His brain seemed fairly foaming with blood and -confusion. Along the swelling veins of his arms a dozen primitive -instincts went surging to his fists. - -Then quite brazenly before his eyes the White Linen Nurse reached out -and took the lad’s hand again. - -“Oh, forgive me, Dr. Faber!” she faltered. “This is my brother.” - -“Your _brother_? What? Eh?” choked the Senior Surgeon. Bluntly he -reached out and crushed the young fellow’s fingers in his own. “Glad to -see you, son,” he muttered, with a sickish sort of grin, and, turning -abruptly, picked up his baggage again and started for the big house. - -Half a step behind him his bride followed softly. - -At the edge of the piazza he turned for an instant and eyed her a -bit quizzically. With her big, credulous blue eyes, and her great -mop of yellow hair braided childishly down her back, she looked -inestimably more juvenile and innocent than his own little shrewd-faced -six-year-old, whom he had just left domestically ensconced in the -middle of the broad gravel path. - -“For Heaven’s sake, Miss Malgregor,” he asked--“for Heaven’s sake, why -didn’t you tell me that the Wall-Paper Man was your brother?” - -Very contritely the White Linen Nurse’s chin went burrowing down into -the soft collar of her dress, and as bashfully as a child one finger -came stealing up to the edge of her red, red lips. - -“I was afraid you’d think I was--cheeky, having any of my family come -and live with us so soon,” she murmured almost inaudibly. - -“Well, what did you think I’d think you were if he wasn’t your -brother?” asked the Senior Surgeon, sardonically. - -“Very economical, I hoped,” beamed the White Linen Nurse. - -“All the same,” snapped the Senior Surgeon, with an irrelevance -surprising even to himself--“all the same, do you think it sounds quite -right and proper for a child to call her stepmother ’Peach’?” - -Again the White Linen Nurse’s chin went burrowing down into the soft -collar of her dress. - -“I don’t suppose it _is_ usual,” she admitted reluctantly. “The -children next door, I notice, call theirs ’Crosspatch.’” - -With a gesture of impatience, the Senior Surgeon proceeded on up the -steps, yanked open the old-fashioned shuttered door, and burst quite -breathlessly and unprepared upon his most amazingly reconstructed -house. All in one single second chintzes, muslins, pale blond maples, -riotous canary-birds stormed revolutionarily upon his outraged eyes. -Reeling back utterly aghast before the sight, he stood there staring -dumbly for an instant at what he considered, and rightly too, the -absolute wreck of his black-walnut home. - -“It looks like--hell!” he muttered feebly. - -“Yes, _isn’t_ it sweet?” conceded the White Linen Nurse, with -unmistakable joyousness. “And your library--” Triumphantly she threw -back the door to his grim workshop. - -“Good God!” stammered the Senior Surgeon, “you’ve made it pink!” - -Rapturously the White Linen Nurse began to clasp and unclasp her hands. - -“I knew you’d love it,” she said. - -Half dazed with bewilderment, the Senior Surgeon started to brush an -imaginary haze from his eyes, but paused midway in the gesture, and -pointed back instead to a dapper little hall-table that seemed to be -exhausting its entire blond strength in holding up a slender green -vase with a single pink rose in it. Like a caged animal buffeting for -escape against each successive bar that incased it, the man’s frenzied -irritation hurled itself hopefully against this one more chance for -explosive exit. - -“What--have--you--done--with the big--black--escritoire that -stood--_there_?” he demanded accusingly. - -“Escritoire? Escritoire?” worried the White Linen Nurse. “Why--why, I’m -afraid I must have mislaid it.” - -“Mislaid it?” thundered the Senior Surgeon. “Mislaid it? It weighed -three hundred pounds!” - -“Oh, it did?” questioned the White Linen Nurse, with great blue-eyed -interest. Still mulling apparently over the fascinating weight of the -escritoire, she climbed up suddenly into a chair, and with the fluffy, -broom-shaped end of her extraordinarily long braid of hair went angling -wildly off into space after an illusive cobweb. - -Faster and faster the Senior Surgeon’s temper began to search for a new -point of exit. - -“What do you suppose the servants think of you?” he stormed, “running -round like that, with your hair in a pigtail, like a kid?” - -“Servants?” cooed the White Linen Nurse. “Servants?” Very quietly she -jumped down from the chair and came and stood looking up into the -Senior Surgeon’s hectic face. “Why, there aren’t any servants,” she -explained patiently. “I’ve dismissed every one of them. We’re doing our -own work now.” - -“Doing ’our own work?’” gasped the Senior Surgeon. - -Worriedly the White Linen Nurse stepped back a little. - -“Why, wasn’t that right?” she pleaded. “Wasn’t it _right_? Why, I -thought people always did their own work when they were first married.” -With sudden apprehensiveness she glanced round over her shoulder at -the hall clock, and, darting out through a side door, returned almost -instantly with a fierce-looking knife. - -[Illustration: Color-Tone, engraved for ~The Century~ by H. C. -Merrill and H. Davidson - -“‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?’ HE FAIRLY SCREAMED AT HER. ‘JUST KEEPING -YOU COMPANY, SIR,’ YAWNED THE WHITE LINEN NURSE” - -DRAWN BY HERMAN PFEIFER] - -“I’m so late now, and everything,” she confided, “could you peel the -potatoes for me?” - -“No, I couldn’t,” said the Senior Surgeon, shortly. Equally shortly he -turned on his heel, and, reaching out once more for his rod-case and -grip, went on up the stairs to his own room. - -One of the pleasantest things about arriving home very late in the -afternoon is the excuse it gives you for loafing in your own room while -other people are getting supper. No existent domestic sound in the -whole twenty-four hours is as soothing at the end of a long journey as -the sound of _other_ people getting supper. - -Stretched out at full length in a big easy-chair by his bedroom window, -with his favorite pipe bubbling rhythmically between his gleaming -white teeth, the Senior Surgeon studied his new “solid-gold bed” and -his new sage-green wall-paper and his new dust-colored rug, to the -faint, far-away accompaniment of soft-thudding feet and a girl’s laugh -and a child’s prattle and the _tink, tink, tinkle_ of glass, china, -silver,--all scurrying consciously to the service of one man, and that -man himself. - -Very, very slowly, in that special half-hour an inscrutable little -smile printed itself experimentally across the right-hand corner of the -Senior Surgeon’s upper lip. - -While that smile was still in its infancy, he jumped up suddenly and -forced his way across the hall to his dead wife’s room,--the one -ghost-room of his house and his life,--and there, with his hand on the -turning door-knob, tense with reluctance, goose-fleshed with strain, -his breath gasped out of him whether or no with the one word, “Alice!” - -And, behold! there was no room there! - -Lurching back from the threshold as from the brink of an elevator-well, -the Senior Surgeon found himself staring foolishly into a most -sumptuous linen-closet, tiered like an Aztec cliff with home after home -for pleasant, prosy blankets and gaily fringed towels and cheerful -white sheets reeking most conscientiously of cedar and lavender. -Tiptoeing cautiously into the mystery, he sensed at one astonished, -grateful glance how the change of a partition, the readjustment of a -proportion, had purged like a draft of fresh air the stale gloom of -an ill-favored memory. Yet so inevitable did it suddenly seem for a -linen-closet to be built right there, so inevitable did it suddenly -seem for the child’s meager playroom to be enlarged just there, that -to save his soul he could not estimate whether the happy plan had -originated in a purely practical brain or a purely compassionate heart. - -Half proud of the brain, half touched by the heart, he passed on -exploringly through the new playroom out into the hall again. - -Quite distinctly now through the aperture of the back stairs the -kitchen voices came wafting up to him. - -“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” wailed his Little Girl’s peevish voice, “now -that--that man’s come back again, I suppose we’ll have to eat in the -dining-room all the time!” - -“‘That man’ happens to be your darling father,” admonished the White -Linen Nurse’s laughing voice. - -“Even so,” wailed the Little Girl, “I love you best.” - -“Even so,” laughed the White Linen Nurse, “I love _you_ best.” - -“Just the same,” cried the Little Girl, shrilly--“just the same, let’s -put the cream-pitcher ’way up high somewhere, so he can’t step in it.” - -As though from a head tilted suddenly backward the White Linen Nurse’s -laugh rang out in joyous abandon. - -Impulsively the Senior Surgeon started to grin; then equally -impulsively the grin soured on his lips. So they thought he was -clumsy? Eh? Resentfully he stared down at his hands, those wonderfully -dexterous, yes, ambidexterous, hands that were the aching envy of all -his colleagues. Interruptingly as he stared, the voice of the young -Wall-Paper Man rose buoyantly from the lower hallway. - -“Supper’s all ready, sir!” came the clear, cordial summons. - -For some inexplainable reason, at that particular moment almost nothing -in the world could have irritated the Senior Surgeon more keenly than -to be invited to his own supper, in his own house, by a stranger. -Fuming with a new sense of injury and injustice, he started heavily -down the stairs to the dining-room. - -Standing patiently behind the Senior Surgeon’s chair with a laudable -desire to assist his carving in any possible emergency that might -occur, the White Linen Nurse experienced her first direct marital -rebuff. - -“What do you think this is, an autopsy?” demanded the Senior Surgeon, -tartly. “For Heaven’s sake, go and sit down!” - -Quite meekly the White Linen Nurse subsided into her place. - -The meal that ensued could hardly have been called a success, though -the room was entrancing, the cloth snow-white, the silver radiant, the -guinea-chicken beyond reproach. - -Swept and garnished to an alarming degree, the young Wall-Paper Man -presided over the gravy and did his uttermost, innocent country-best to -make the Senior Surgeon feel perfectly at home. - -Conscientiously, as in the presence of a distinguished stranger, the -Little Crippled Girl most palpably from time to time repressed her -insatiable desire to build a towering pyramid out of all the salt-and -pepper-shakers she could reach. - -Once when the young Wall-Paper Man forgot himself to the extent of -putting his knife in his mouth, the White Linen Nurse jarred the whole -table with the violence of her warning kick. - -Once when the Little Crippled Girl piped out impulsively, “Say, Peach, -what was the name of that bantam your father used to fight against the -minister’s bantam?” the White Linen Nurse choked piteously over her -food. - -Twice some one spoke about this year’s weather. Twice some one -volunteered an illuminating remark about last year’s weather. Except -for these four diversions, restraint indescribable hung like a horrid -pall over the feast. - -Next to feeling unwelcome in your friend’s house, nothing certainly -is more wretchedly disconcerting than to feel unwelcome in your own -house. Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to grab up all the knives -within reach and ram them successively into his own mouth, just to -prove to the young Wall-Paper Man what a--what a devil of a good fellow -he was himself. Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to tell the White -Linen Nurse about the pet bantam of his own boyhood days, that he bet a -dollar could lick any bantam her father ever dreamed of owning. Grimly -the Senior Surgeon longed to talk dolls, dishes, kittens, yes, even -cream-pitchers, to his little daughter; to talk anything, in fact, to -_any one_; to talk, sing, shout _anything_ that would make him, at -least for the time being, one at heart, one at head, one at table, with -this astonishingly offish bunch of youngsters: but grimly instead, out -of his frazzled nerves, out of his innate spiritual bashfulness, he -merely roared forth, “Where are the potatoes?” - -“Potatoes?” gasped the White Linen Nurse. “Potatoes? Oh, potatoes?” she -finished more blithely. “Why, yes, of course. Don’t you remember you -didn’t have time to peel them for me? I was _so_ disappointed!” - -“You were so disappointed?” snapped the Senior Surgeon. “You? You?” - -Janglingly the Little Crippled Girl knelt right up in her chair and -shook her tiny fist right in her father’s face. - -“Now, Lendicott Faber,” she screamed, “don’t you start in sassing my -darling little Peach!” - -“Peach?” snorted the Senior Surgeon. With almost supernatural calm he -put down his knife and fork and eyed his offspring with an expression -of absolutely inflexible purpose. “Don’t you ever,” he warned -her--“ever, ever, let me hear you call--this woman ‘Peach’ again!” - -A trifle faint-heartedly the Little Crippled Girl reached up and -straightened her absurdly diminutive little white cap, and pursed her -little mouth as nearly as possible into an expression of ineffable -peace. - -“Why, Lendicott Faber!” she persisted heroically. - -“Lendicott!” exclaimed the Senior Surgeon. “What are _you_ -‘Lendicotting’ _me_ for?” - -Hilariously with her own knife and fork the Little Crippled Girl began -to beat upon the table. - -“Why, you dear silly!” she cried--“why, if I’m the new marma, I’ve -_got_ to call you Lendicott, and Peach has _got_ to call you Fat -Father.” - -Frenziedly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair and jumped to his -feet. The expression on his face was neither smile nor frown, nor war -nor peace, nor any other human expression that had ever puckered there -before. - -“God!” he said, “this gives me the willies!” and strode tempestuously -from the room. - -Out in his own workshop, fortunately, whatever the grotesque new -pinkness, whatever the grotesque new perkiness, his great free -walking-spaces had not been interfered with. Slamming his door -triumphantly behind him, he resumed once more the monotonous pace, -pace, pace that for eighteen years had characterized his first night’s -return to civilization. - -Sharply around the corner of his battered old desk the little path -started, wanly along the edge of his dingy book-shelves the little -path furrowed, wistfully at the deep bay-window, where his favorite -lilac-bush budded whitely for his departure, and rusted brownly for his -return, the little path faltered, and went on again, on and on and on, -into the alcove where his instruments glistened, up to the fireplace, -where his college trophy-cups tarnished. Listlessly the Senior Surgeon -began anew his yearly vigil. Up and down, up and down, round and round, -on and on and on, through interminable ducks to unattainable dawns, -a glutted, bacchanalian soul sweating its own way back to sanctity -and leanness. Nerves always were in that vigil--raw, rattling nerves -clamoring vociferously to be repacked in their sedatives. Thirst also -was in that vigil; no mere whimpering tickle of the palate, but a -drought of the tissues, a consuming fire of the bones. Hurt pride was -also there, and festering humiliation. - -But more rasping, this particular night, than nerves, more poignant -than thirst, more dangerously excitative even than remorse, hunger -rioted in him--hunger, the one worst enemy of the Senior Surgeon’s -cause, the simple, silly, no-account, gnawing, drink-provocative hunger -of an empty stomach. And one other hunger was also there--a sudden -fierce new lust for life and living, a passion bare of love, yet pure -of wantonness, a passion primitive, protective, inexorably proprietary, -engendered strangely in that one mad, suspicious moment at the edge of -the summer-house when every outraged male instinct in him had leaped to -prove that, love or no love, the woman was his. - -Up and down, up and down, round and round, eight o’clock found the -Senior Surgeon still pacing. - -At half-past eight the young Wall-Paper Man came to say good-by to him. - -“As long as sister won’t be alone any more, I guess I’ll be moving on,” -beamed the Wall-Paper Man. “There’s a dance at home Saturday night, -and I’ve got a girl of my own,” he confided genially. - -“Come again,” urged the Senior Surgeon. “Come again when you can stay -longer.” With one honest prayer in stock, and at least two purely -automatic social speeches of this sort, no man needs to flounder -altogether hopelessly for words in any ordinary emergency of life. With -no more mental interruption than the two-minute break in time, the -Senior Surgeon then resumed his bitter-thoughted pacing. - -At nine o’clock, however, patrolling his long, rangy book-shelves, -he sensed with a very different feeling through his heavy oak door -the soft, whirring swish of skirts and the breathy twitter of muffled -voices. Faintly to his acute ears came the sound of his little -daughter’s temperish protest, “I won’t! I won’t!” and the White Linen -Nurse’s fervid pleading, “Oh, you must! you must!” and the Little -Girl’s mumbled ultimatum, “Well, I won’t unless _you_ do.” - -Irascibly he crossed the room and yanked the door open abruptly upon -their surprise and confusion. His nerves were very sore. - -“What in thunder do you want?” he snarled. - -Nervously for an instant the White Linen Nurse tugged at the Little -Girl’s hand. Nervously for an instant the Little Girl tugged at the -White Linen Nurse’s hand. Then with a swallow like a sob the White -Linen Nurse lifted her glowing face to his. - -“K--kiss us good night!” said the White Linen Nurse. - -Telescopically all in that startling second, vision after vision -beat down like blows upon the Senior Surgeon’s senses. The pink, -pink flush of the girl; the lure of her; the amazing sweetness; the -physical docility--oh, ye gods, the docility! Every trend of her -birth, of her youth, of her training, forcing her now, if he chose it, -to unquestioning submission to his will and his judgment! Faster and -faster the temptation surged through his pulses. The path from her lips -to her ear was such a little path; the plea so quick to make, so short, -“I want you _now_!” - -“K--kiss us good night!” urged the big girl’s unsuspecting lips. “Kiss -us good night!” mocked the Little Girl’s tremulous echo. - -Then explosively, with the noblest rudeness of his life, “No, I won’t!” -said the Senior Surgeon, and slammed the door in their faces. - -Falteringly up the stairs he heard the two ascending, speechless with -surprise, perhaps, stunned by his roughness, still hand in hand, -probably, still climbing slowly bedward, the soft, smooth, patient -footfall of the White Linen Nurse and the jerky, laborious _clang, -clang, clang_ of a little dragging, iron-braced leg. - -Up and down, round and round, on and on and on, the Senior Surgeon -resumed his pacing. Under his eyes great shadows darkened. Along the -corners of his mouth the lines furrowed like gray scars. Up and down, -round and round, on and on and on and on. - -At ten o’clock, sitting bolt upright in her bed, with her worried eyes -straining bluely out across the Little Girl’s somnolent form into -unfathomable darkness, the White Linen Nurse in the throb of her own -heart began to keep pace with that faint, horrid _thud, thud, thud_ in -the room below. Was he passing the bookcase now? Had he reached the -bay-window? Was he dawdling over those glistening scalpels? Would his -nerves remember the flask in that upper desk drawer? Up and down, round -and round, on and on, the harrowing sound continued. - -Resolutely at last she scrambled out of her snug nest, and, hurrying -into her great warm, pussy-gray wrapper, began at once very -practically, very unemotionally, with matches and alcohol and a shiny -glass jar, to prepare a huge steaming cup of malted milk. Beefsteak was -vastly better, she knew, or eggs, of course; but if she should venture -forth to the kitchen for real substantials the Senior Surgeon, she felt -quite positive, would almost certainly hear her and stop her. So very -stealthily thus, like the proverbial assassin, she crept down the front -stairs with the innocent malted-milk cup in her hand, and then with her -knuckles just on the verge of rapping against the grimly inhospitable -door, went suddenly paralyzed with uncertainty whether to advance or -retreat. - -Once again through the somber, inert wainscoting, exactly as if a soul -had creaked, the Senior Surgeon sensed the threatening, intrusive -presence of an unseen personality. Once again he strode across the -room and jerked the door open with terrifying anger and resentment. - -As though frozen there on his threshold by her own bare little feet, -as though strangled there in his doorway by her own great mop of gold -hair, as stolid and dumb as a pink-cheeked graven image, the White -Linen Nurse thrust the cup out awkwardly at him. - -Absolutely without comment, as though she trotted on purely -professional business and the case involved was of mutual concern to -them both, the Senior Surgeon took the cup from her hand and closed the -door again in her face. - -At eleven o’clock she came again, just as pink, just as blue, just as -gray, just as golden. And the cup of malted milk she brought with her -was just as huge, just as hot, just as steaming, only this time she had -smuggled two raw eggs into it. - -Once more the Senior Surgeon took the cup without comment and shut the -door in her face. - -At twelve o’clock she came again. The Senior Surgeon was unusually -loquacious this time. - -“Have you any more malted milk?” he asked tersely. - -“Oh, yes, sir!” beamed the White Linen Nurse. - -“Go and get it,” said the Senior Surgeon. - -Obediently the White Linen Nurse pattered up the stairs and returned -with the half-depleted bottle. Frankly interested, she recrossed the -threshold of the room and delivered her glass treasure into the hands -of the Senior Surgeon as he stood by his desk. Raising herself to her -tiptoes, she noted with eminent satisfaction that the three big cups on -the other side of the desk had all been drained to their dregs. - -Then very bluntly before her eyes the Senior Surgeon took the -malted-milk bottle and poured its remaining contents out quite wantonly -into his waste-basket. Then equally bluntly he took the White Linen -Nurse by the shoulders and marched her out of the room. - -“For God’s sake,” he said, “get out of this room, and stay out!” - -_Bang!_ the big door slammed behind her. Like a snarling fang, the lock -bit into its catch. - -“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. Even just to herself, all alone -there in the big black hall, she was perfectly polite. “Y-e-s, sir,” -she repeated softly. - -With a slightly sardonic grin on his face, the Senior Surgeon resumed -his pacing up and down, round and round, on and on and on. - -At one o’clock, in the dull, clammy chill of earliest morning, he -stopped long enough to light his hearthfire. At two o’clock he stopped -again to pile on a trifle more wood. At three o’clock he dallied for an -instant to close a window. The new day seemed strangely cold. At four -o’clock dawn, the wonder, the miracle, the long-despaired-of, quickened -wanly across the east; then suddenly, more like a phosphorescent breeze -than a glow, the pale, pale yellow sunshine came wafting through the -green gloom of the garden. The vigil was over. - -Stumbling out into the shadowy hall to greet the new day and the new -beginning, the Senior Surgeon almost tripped and fell over the White -Linen Nurse, sitting all huddled up and drowsy-eyed in a gray little -heap on his outer threshold. The sensation of stepping upon a human -body is not a pleasant one. It smote the Senior Surgeon nauseously -through the nerves of his stomach. - -“What are you doing here?” he fairly screamed at her. - -“Just keeping you company, sir,” yawned the White Linen Nurse. Before -her hand could reach her mouth again, another great childish yawn -overwhelmed her. “Just--watching with you, sir,” she finished more or -less inarticulately. - -“Watching with me?” snarled the Senior Surgeon, resentfully. “Why -should you watch with me?” - -Like the frightened flash of a bird the heavy lashes went swooping down -across the pink cheeks and lifted as suddenly again. - -“Because you’re my--_man_,” yawned the White Linen Nurse. - -Almost roughly the Senior Surgeon reached down and pulled the White -Linen Nurse to her feet. - -“God!” said the Senior Surgeon. In his strained, husky voice the word -sounded like an oath. Grotesquely a little smile went scudding zigzag -across his haggard face. With an impulse absolutely alien to him he -reached out abruptly again and raised the White Linen Nurse’s hand to -his lips. “_Good_ God was what I meant--Miss Malgregor,” he grinned a -bit sheepishly. - -Quite bruskly then he turned and looked at his watch. - -“I’d like my breakfast just as soon now as you can possibly get it,” he -ordered peremptorily, in his own morbid, pathological emergency no more -stopping to consider the White Linen Nurse’s purely normal fatigue than -he in any pathological emergency of hers would have stopped to consider -his own comfort, safety, or, perhaps, even life. - -Joyously then like a prisoner just turned loose, he went swinging up -the stairs to recreate himself with a smoke and a shave and a great -splashing, cold shower-bath. - -Only one thing seemed really to trouble him now. At the top of the -stairs he stopped for an instant and cocked his head a bit worriedly -toward the drawing-room, where from some slow-brightening alcove -bird-carol after bird-carol went fluting shrilly up into the morning. - -“Is that those damned canaries?” he asked briefly. - -Very companionably the White Linen Nurse cocked her own towsled head on -one side and listened with him for half a moment. - -“Only four of them are damned canaries,” she corrected very gently. -“The fifth one is a parrakeet that I got at a mark-down because it was -a widowed bird and wouldn’t mate again.” - -“Eh?” jerked the Senior Surgeon. - -“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse, and started for the kitchen. - -No one but the Senior Surgeon himself breakfasted in state at five -o’clock that morning. Snug and safe in her crib up-stairs the Little -Crippled Girl slumbered peacefully on through the general disturbance. -And as for the White Linen Nurse herself, what with chilling and -rechilling melons, and broiling and unbroiling steaks, and making -and remaking coffee, and hunting frantically for a different-sized -water-glass or a prettier-colored plate, there was no time for anything -except an occasional hurried, surreptitious nibble half-way between the -stove and the table. - -Yet in all that raucous, early morning hour together neither man -nor girl suffered toward the other the slightest personal sense of -contrition or resentment; for each mind was trained equally fairly, -whether reacting on its own case or another’s, to differentiate pretty -readily between mean nerves and a mean spirit. - -Only once, in fact, across the intervening chasm of crankiness did -the Senior Surgeon hurl a smile that was even remotely self-conscious -or conciliatory. Glancing up suddenly from a particularly sharp and -disagreeable speech, he noted the White Linen Nurse’s red lips mumbling -softly one to the other. - -“Are you specially--religious, Miss Malgregor?” he grinned quite -abruptly. - -“No, not specially, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. “Why, sir?” - -“Oh, it’s only,” grinned the Senior Surgeon, dourly--“it’s only that -every time I’m especially ugly to you, I see your lips moving as though -in ‘silent prayer,’ as they call it; and I was just wondering if there -was any special formula you used with me that kept you so everlastingly -damned serene. Is there?” - -“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. - -“What is it?” demanded the Senior Surgeon, quite bluntly. - -“Do I _have_ to tell?” gasped the White Linen Nurse. A little -tremulously in her hand the empty cup she was carrying rattled against -its saucer. “Do I _have_ to tell?” she repeated pleadingly. - -A delirious little thrill of power went fluttering through the Senior -Surgeon’s heart. - -“Yes, you _have_ to tell me,” he announced quite seriously. - -In absolute submission to his demand, though with very palpable -reluctance, the White Linen Nurse came forward to the table, put down -the cup and saucer, and began to finger a trifle nervously at the cloth. - -“Oh, I’m sure I didn’t mean any harm, sir,” she stammered; “but all I -say is,--honest and truly all I say is,--’Bah! he’s nothing but a man, -nothing but a man, nothing but a man!’ over and over and over. Just -that, sir.” - -Uproariously the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair and jumped to his -feet. - -“I guess, after all, I’ll have to let the little kid call you ‘Peach’ -one day a week,” he acknowledged jocosely. - -With great seriousness then he tossed back his great, splendid head, -shook himself free apparently from all unhappy memories, and started -for his workroom, a great, gorgeously vital, extraordinarily talented, -gray-haired boy, lusting joyously for his own work and play again after -a month’s distressing illness. - -From the edge of the hall he turned round and made a really boyish -grimace at her. - -“Now, if I only had the horns or the cloven hoof that you think I -have,” he called, “what an easy time I’d make of it, raking over all -the letters and ads. that are stacked up on my desk!” - -“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. - -Only once did he come back into the kitchen or dining-room for -anything. It was at seven o’clock, and the White Linen Nurse was still -washing dishes. - -As radiant as a gray-haired god he towered up in the doorway. The -boyish rejuvenation in him was even more startling than before. - -“I’m feeling so much like a fighting-cock this morning,” he said, “I -think I’ll tackle that paper on--that I have to read at Baltimore next -month.” A little startlingly the gray lines furrowed into his cheeks -again. “For Heaven’s sake, see that I’m not disturbed by anything!” he -admonished her warningly. - -It must have been almost eight o’clock when the ear-splitting scream -from up-stairs sent the White Linen Nurse plunging out panic-stricken -into the hall. - -“Oh, Peach! Peach!” yelled the Little Girl’s frenzied voice, “come -quick and see what Fat Father’s doing _now_, out on the piazza!” - -Jerkily the White Linen Nurse swerved off through the French door that -opened directly on the piazza. Had the Senior Surgeon hanged himself, -she tortured, in some wild, temporary aberration of the “morning after”? - -But stanchly and reassuringly from the farther end of the piazza the -Senior Surgeon’s broad back belied her horrid terror. Quite prosily -and in apparently perfect health he was standing close to the railing -of the piazza. On a table directly beside him rested four empty -bird-cages. Just at that particular moment he was inordinately busy -releasing the last canary from the fifth cage. Both hands were smouched -with ink, and behind his left ear a fountain-pen dallied daringly. - -At the very first sound of the White Linen Nurse’s step the Senior -Surgeon turned and faced her with a sheepish sort of defiance. - -“Well, _now_, I imagine,” he said--“well, now I imagine I’ve really -made you mad.” - -“No, not mad, sir,” faltered the White Linen Nurse--“no, not mad, sir, -but very far from well.” Coaxingly, with a perfectly futile hand, she -tried to lure one astonished yellow songster back from a swaying yellow -bush. “Why, they’ll die, sir!” she protested. “Savage cats will get -them.” - -“It’s a choice of their lives or mine,” said the Senior Surgeon, -tersely. - -“Yes, sir,” droned the White Linen Nurse. - -Quite snappishly the Senior Surgeon turned upon her. - -“For Heaven’s sake, do you think canary-birds are more valuable than I -am?” he demanded stentoriously. - -Most disconcertingly before his glowering eyes a great sad, round tear -rolled suddenly down the White Linen Nurse’s flushed cheek. - -“N-o-o, not more valuable,” conceded the White Linen Nurse, “but more -c-cunning.” - -Up to the roots of the Senior Surgeon’s hair a flush of real contrition -spread hotly. - -“Why--Rae,” he stammered, “why, what a beast I am! Why--why--” In -sincere perplexity he began to rack his brains for some adequate -excuse, some adequate explanation. “Why, I’m sure I didn’t mean to make -you feel badly,” he persisted. “Only I’ve lived alone so long that I -suppose I’ve just naturally drifted into the way of having a thing -if I wanted it and--throwing it away if I didn’t. And canary-birds, -now? Well, really--” He began to glower all over again. “Oh, hell!” he -finished abruptly, “I guess I’ll go on down to the hospital, where I -belong!” - -A little wistfully the White Linen Nurse stepped forward. - -“The hospital?” she said. “Oh, the hospital. Do you think that perhaps -you could come home a little bit earlier than usual to-night, and--and -help me catch just one of the canaries?” - -“What?” gasped the Senior Surgeon. Incredulously with a very inky -finger he pointed at his own breast. “What? I?” he demanded. “I? Come -home early from the hospital to help _you_ catch a canary?” - -Disgustedly, without further comment, he turned and stalked back again -into the house. - -The disgust was still in his walk as he left the house an hour later. -Watching his exit down the long gravel path, the Little Crippled Girl -commented audibly on the matter. - -“Peach! Peach!” she called, “what makes Fat Father walk so--surprised?” - -People at the hospital also commented upon him. - -“Gee!” giggled the new nurses, “we bet he’s a Tartar! But isn’t his -hair cute? And, say, is it really true that that Malgregor girl was -pinned down perfectly helpless under the car and he wouldn’t let -her out till she’d promised to marry him? Isn’t it awful? Isn’t it -romantic?” - -“Why, Dr. Faber’s back!” fluttered the old nurses. “Isn’t he wonderful? -Isn’t he beautiful? But, oh, say,” they worried, “what do you suppose -Rae ever finds to talk with him about? Would she ever dare talk -_things_ to him,--just plain every-day things,--hats, and going to the -theater, and what to have for breakfast?” They gasped. “Why, yes, of -course,” they reasoned more sanely. “Steak? Eggs? Even oatmeal? Why, -people had to eat, no matter how wonderful they were. But evenings?” -they speculated more darkly. “But evenings?” In the whole range of -human experience was it even so much as remotely imaginable that, -evenings, the Senior Surgeon and Rae Malgregor sat in the hammock and -held hands? “Oh, gee!” blanched the old nurses. - -“Good morning, Dr. Faber,” greeted the Superintendent of Nurses from -behind her austere office desk. - -“Good morning, Madam,” said the Senior Surgeon. - -“Have you had a pleasant trip?” quizzed the Superintendent of Nurses. - -“Exceptionally so, thank you,” said the Senior Surgeon. - -“And--Mrs. Faber, is she well?” persisted the Superintendent of Nurses, -conscientiously. - -“_Mrs._ Faber?” gasped the Senior Surgeon. “_Mrs._ Faber? Oh, yes; why, -of course. Yes, indeed, she’s extraordinarily well. I never saw her -better.” - -“She must have been very lonely without you this past month,” rasped -the Superintendent of Nurses, perfectly polite. - -“Yes, she was,” replied the flushed Senior Surgeon. “She--she suffered -keenly.” - -“And you, too?” drawled the Superintendent of Nurses. “It must have -been very hard for you.” - -“Yes, it was,” replied the Senior Surgeon. “I suffered keenly, too.” - -Distractedly he glanced back at the open door. An extraordinarily large -number of nurses, internes, orderlies, seemed to be having errands up -and down the corridor that allowed them a peculiarly generous length of -neck to stretch into the Superintendent’s office. - -“Great Heavens!” snapped the Senior Surgeon, “what’s the matter with -everybody this morning?” Tempestuously he started for the door. “Hurry -up my cases, please, Miss Hartzen!” he ordered. “Send them to the -operating-room, and let me get to work.” - -At eleven o’clock, absolutely calm, absolutely cool, as pure as a girl -in his white operating-clothes; cleaner, skin, hair, teeth, hands, than -any girl who ever walked the face of the earth, in a white-tiled room -as free from germs as himself, with three or four small glistening -instruments, and half a dozen breathless assistants almost as spotless -as himself, with his sleeves rolled back the whole length of his arms, -and the faintest possible little grin twitching oddly at one corner of -his mouth, he “went in,” as they say, to a new-born baby’s tortured, -twisted spine, and took out fifty years, perhaps, of hunchbacked pain -and shame and morbid passions flourishing banefully in the dark shades -of a disordered life. - -At half-past twelve he did an appendix operation on the only son of -his best friend; at one o’clock he did another appendix operation. -Whom it was on didn’t matter; it couldn’t have been worse on any one. -At half-past one no one remembered to feed him. At two, in another -man’s operation, he saw the richest merchant in the city go wafted -out into eternity on the fumes of ether taken for the lancing of a -sty. At three o’clock, passing the open door of one of the public -waiting-rooms, an Italian peasant woman rushed out and spat in his -face because her tubercular daughter had just died at the sanatorium -where the Senior Surgeon’s money had sent her. Only in this one wild, -defiling moment did the lust for alcohol surge up in him again, surge -clamorously, brutally, absolutely mercilessly, as though in all the -world only interminable raw whisky was hot enough to cauterize a -polluted consciousness. At half-past three, as soon as he could change -his clothes again, he rebroke and reset an acrobat’s priceless leg. At -five o’clock, more to rest himself than anything else, he went up to -the autopsy amphitheater to look over an exhibit of enlarged hearts -whose troubles were permanently over. - -At six o’clock, just as he was leaving the great building, with all -its harrowing sights, sounds, and smells, a peremptory telephone call -from one of the younger surgeons of the city summoned him back into the -stuffy office again. - -“Dr. Faber?” - -“Yes.” - -“This is Merkley.” - -“Yes.” - -“Can you come immediately and help me with that fractured-skull case I -was telling you about this morning? We’ll have to trepan right away!” - -“Trepan _nothing_!” grunted the Senior Surgeon. “I’ve got to go home -early to-night--and help catch a canary.” - -“Catch a what?” gasped the younger surgeon. - -“A canary,” grinned the Senior Surgeon, mirthlessly. - -“A _what_?” roared the younger man. - -“Oh, shut up, you damned fool! Of course I’ll come,” said the Senior -Surgeon. - -There was no “boy” left in the Senior Surgeon when he reached home that -night. - -Gray with road-travel, haggard with strain and fatigue, it was long, -long after the rosy sunset-time, long, long after the yellow supper -light, that he came dragging up through the sweet-scented dusk of the -garden and threw himself down without greeting of any sort on the top -step of the piazza, where the White Linen Nurse’s skirts glowed -palely through the gloom. - -[Illustration: Color-Tone, engraved for ~The Century~ by H. C. -Merrill and H. Davidson - -“HE WAS INORDINATELY BUSY RELEASING THE LAST CANARY” - -DRAWN BY HERMAN PFEIFER] - -“Well, I put a canary-bird back into its cage for you,” he confided -laconically. “It was a little chap’s soul. It sure would have gotten -away before morning.” - -“Who was the man that tried to turn it loose _this_ time?” asked the -White Linen Nurse. - -“I didn’t _say_ that anybody did,” growled the Senior Surgeon. - -“Oh,” said the White Linen Nurse. “Oh.” Quite palpably a little shiver -of flesh and starch went rustling through her. “I’ve had a wonderful -day, too,” she confided softly. “I’ve cleaned the attic and darned nine -pairs of your stockings and bought a sewing-machine and started to make -you a white silk negligée shirt for a surprise.” - -“Eh?” jerked out the Senior Surgeon. - -The jerk seemed to liberate suddenly the faint vibration of dishes and -the sound of ice knocking lusciously against a glass. - -“Oh, have you had any supper, sir?” asked the White Linen Nurse. - -With a prodigious sigh the Senior Surgeon threw his head back against -the piazza railing and stretched his legs a little farther out along -the piazza floor. - -“Supper?” he groaned. “No; nor dinner, nor breakfast, nor any other -blankety-blank meal as far back as I can remember.” Janglingly -in his voice, fatigue, hunger, nerves, crashed together like the -slammed notes of a piano. “But I wouldn’t move now,” he snarled, -“if all the blankety-blank-blank foods in Christendom were piled -blankety-blank-blank high on all the blankety-blank-blank tables in -this whole blankety-blank-blank house.” - -Ecstatically the White Linen Nurse clapped her hands. - -“Oh, that’s just exactly what I hoped you’d say!” she cried. “’Cause -the supper’s right _here_!” - -“Here?” snapped the Senior Surgeon. Tempestuously he began all over -again: “I tell you I wouldn’t lift my little finger if all the -blankety-blank-blank-blank-blank--” - -“Oh, goody, then!” said the White Linen Nurse. “’Cause now I can feed -you! I sort of miss fussing with the canary-birds,” she added wistfully. - -“Feed me?” roared the Senior Surgeon. Again something started a lump of -ice tinkling faintly in a thin glass. “_Feed_ me?” he began all over -again. - -Yet with a fragrant strawberry half as big as a peach held out suddenly -under his nose, just from sheer, irresistible instinct he bit out at -it, and nipped the White Linen Nurse’s finger instead. - -“Ouch, sir!” said the White Linen Nurse. - -Mumblingly down from an up-stairs window, as from a face flatted -smouchingly against a wire screen, a peremptory summons issued. - -“Peach! _Peach!_” called an angry little voice, “if you don’t come to -bed now I’ll--I’ll say my curses instead of my prayers!” - -A trifle nervously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her feet. - -“Maybe I’d better go,” she said. - -“Maybe you had,” said the Senior Surgeon, quite definitely. - -At the edge of the threshold the White Linen Nurse turned for an -instant. - -“Good night, Dr. Faber,” she whispered. - -“Good night, Rae Malgregor--Faber,” said the Senior Surgeon. - -“Good night _what_?” gasped the White Linen Nurse. - -“Good night, Rae Malgregor--Faber,” repeated the Senior Surgeon. - -Clutching at her skirts as though a mouse were after her, the White -Linen Nurse went scuttling up the stairs. - -Very late on into the night the Senior Surgeon lay there on his piazza -floor, staring out into his garden. Very companionably from time to -time, like a tame firefly, a little bright spark hovered and glowed -for an instant above the bowl of his pipe. Puff, puff, puff; doze, -doze, doze; throb, throb, throb, on and on and on and on into the -sweet-scented night. - -So the days passed, and the nights, and more days, and more -nights--July, August, on and on and on. Strenuous, nerve-racking, -heartbreaking surgical days, broken maritally only by the pleasant, -soft-worded greeting at the gate, or the practical, homely appeal of -good food cooked with heart as well as with hands, or the tingling, -inciting masculine consciousness of there being a woman’s blush in the -house. Strenuous, house-working, child-nursing, home-making domestic -days, broken maritally only by the jaded, harsh word at the gate, -the explosive criticism of food, the deadening depressing feminine -consciousness of there being a man’s vicious temper in the house. - -Now and again, in one big automobile or another, the White Linen Nurse -and the Senior Surgeon rode out together, always and forever with the -Little Crippled Girl sitting between them, the other woman’s little -crippled girl. Now and again in the late summer afternoons the White -Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon strolled together through the -rainbow-colored garden, always and forever with the Little Crippled -Girl, the other woman’s little crippled girl, tagging close behind them -with her little sad, clanking leg. Now and again in the long sweet -summer evenings the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon sat on the -clematis-shadowed porch together, always and forever with the Little -Crippled Girl, the other woman’s little crippled girl, mocking them -querulously from some vague upper window. - -Now and again across the mutually ghost-haunted chasm that separated -them flashed the incontrovertible signal of sex and sense, as when a -new interne, grossly bungling, stood at the hospital window with a -colleague to watch the Senior Surgeon’s car roll away as usual with its -two feminine passengers. - -“What makes the chief so stingy with that big handsome girl of his?” -queried the new interne a bit resentfully. “He won’t ever bring her -into the hospital, won’t ever ask any of us young chaps out to his -house, and some of us come mighty near to being eligible, too. Who’s -he saving her for, anyway? A saint? A miracle-worker? A millionaire -medicine-man? They don’t exist, you know.” - -“I’m saving her for myself,” snapped the Senior Surgeon, most -disconcertingly from the doorway. “She--she happens to be my wife, not -my daughter, thank you.” He hurried home that night as rattled as a -boy, with a big bunch of new magazines and a box of candy as large as -his head tucked courtingly under his arm. - -Now and again across the chasm that separated them flashed the -incontrovertible signal of mutual trust and appreciation, as when once, -after a particularly violent vocal outburst on the Senior Surgeon’s -part, he sobered down very suddenly and said: - -“Rae Malgregor, do you realize that in all the weeks we’ve been -together you’ve never once nagged me about my swearing? Not a word, not -a single word!” - -“I’m not very used to--words,” smiled the White Linen Nurse, a bit -faintly. “All I know how to nag with is--is raw eggs. If we could only -get those nerves of yours padded just once, sir!” - -In August the Senior Surgeon suggested sincerely that the house was -much too big for the White Linen Nurse to run all alone, but conceded -equally sincerely, under the White Linen Nurse’s vehement protest, -that servants, particularly new servants, _did_ creak considerably -round a house, and that maybe “just for the present” at least, until he -finished the very nervous paper he was working on--perhaps it would be -better to stay “just by ourselves.” - -In September the White Linen Nurse wanted very much to go home to Nova -Scotia to her sister’s wedding, but the Senior Surgeon was trying a -very complicated and worrisome new brace on the Little Girl’s leg, and -it didn’t seem quite kind to go. In October she planned her trip all -over again. She was going to take the Little Crippled Girl with her -this time. But with their trunks already packed and waiting in the -hall, the Senior Surgeon came home from the hospital with a septic -finger, and it didn’t seem quite best to leave him. - -“Well, how do you like being married _now_?” asked the Senior Surgeon, -a bit ironically in his workroom that night, after the White Linen -Nurse had stood for an hour with evil-smelling washes and interminable -bandages, trying to fix that finger the precise, particular way that -he thought it ought to be fixed. “Well, how do you like being married -_now_?” he insisted trenchantly. - -“Oh, I like it all right, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. A little -bit wanly this time she smiled her pluck up into the Senior Surgeon’s -questioning face. “Oh, I like it all right, sir. Oh, of course, sir,” -she confided thoughtfully--“oh, of course, sir, it isn’t quite as fancy -as being engaged, or quite as free and easy as being single; but, -still,” she admitted with desperate honesty--“but, still, there’s a -sort of--a sort of a combination importance and--and comfort about it, -sir, like a--like a velvet suit--the second year, sir.” - -“Is that all?” quizzed the Senior Surgeon, bluntly. - -“That’s all so far, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. - -In November the White Linen Nurse caught a bit of cold that pulled her -down a little. But the Senior Surgeon didn’t notice it specially among -all the virulent ills he lived and worked with from day to day. And -then when the cold disappeared, Indian summer came like a reeking sweat -after a chill. And the house _was_ big, and the Little Crippled Girl -_was_ pretty difficult to manage now and then, and the Senior Surgeon, -no matter how hard he tried not to, did succeed somehow in creating -more or less of a disturbance at least every other day or two. - -And then suddenly, one balmy, gold-and-crimson Indian summer morning, -standing out on the piazza trying to hear what the Little Crippled Girl -was calling from the window and what the Senior Surgeon was calling -from the gate, the White Linen Nurse fell right down in her tracks, -brutally, bulkily, like a worn-out horse, and lay, as she fell, a -huddled white blot across the gray piazza. - -“Oh, Father, come quick! Come quick! Peach has deaded herself!” yelled -the Little Girl’s frantic voice. - -Just with his foot on the step of his car the Senior Surgeon heard -the cry and came speeding back up the long walk. Already there before -him the Little Girl knelt, raining passionate, agonized kisses on her -beloved playmate’s ghastly white face. - -“Leave her alone!” thundered the Senior Surgeon. “Leave her alone, I -say!” - -Bruskly he pushed the Little Girl aside, and knelt to cradle his own -ear against the White Linen Nurse’s heart. - -“Oh, it’s all right,” he growled, and gathered the White Linen -Nurse right up in his arms--she was startlingly lighter than he had -supposed--and carried her up the stairs and put her to bed like a child -in the great sumptuous guest-room, in a great sumptuous nest of all the -best linens and blankets, with the Little Crippled Girl superintending -the task with many hysterical suggestions and sharp, staccato -interruptions. For once in his life the Senior Surgeon did not stop to -quarrel with his daughter. - -Rallying limply from her swoon, the White Linen Nurse at last stared -out with hazy perplexity from her dimpling white pillows to see the -Senior Surgeon standing amazingly at the guest-room bureau with a -glass and a medicine-dropper in his hand, and the Little Crippled Girl -hanging apparently by her narrow, peaked chin across the foot-board of -the bed. - -Gazing down worriedly at the lace-ruffled sleeve of her night-dress, -the White Linen Nurse made her first public speech to the world at -large. - -“Who put me to bed?” whispered the White Linen Nurse. - -Ecstatically the Little Crippled Girl began to pound her fists on the -foot-board of the bed. - -“Father did!” she cried in unmistakable triumph. “All the little hooks, -all the little buttons! wasn’t it cunning?” - -The Senior Surgeon would hardly have been human if he hadn’t glanced -back suddenly over his shoulder at the White Linen Nurse’s quickly -changing color. Quite irrepressibly, as he saw the red blood come -surging home again into her cheeks, a short, chuckling little laugh -escaped him. - -“I guess you’ll live now,” he remarked dryly. - -Then because a Senior Surgeon can’t stay home on the mere impulse of -the moment from a great rushing hospital just because one member of -his household happens to faint perfectly innocently in the morning, he -hurried on to his work again, and saved a little boy, and lost a little -girl, and mended a fractured thigh, and eased a gunshot wound, and came -dashing home at noon in one of his thousand-dollar hours to feel the -White Linen Nurse’s pulse and broil her a bit of tenderloin steak with -his own thousand-dollar hands; and then went dashing off again to do -one major operation or another, telephoned home once or twice during -the afternoon to make sure that everything was all right, and, finding -that the White Linen Nurse was comfortably up and about again, went -sprinting off fifty miles somewhere on a meningitis consultation, and -came dragging home at last, somewhere near midnight, to a big, black -house brightened only by a single light in the kitchen, where the -White Linen Nurse went tiptoeing softly from stove to pantry in deft -preparation of an appetizing supper for him. - -Quite roughly again, without smile or appreciation, the Senior Surgeon -took her by the shoulders and turned her out of the kitchen and started -her up the stairs. - -“Are you an idiot?” he said. “Are you an imbecile?” he came back and -called up the stairs to her just as she was disappearing from the upper -landing. Then up and down, round and round, on and on and on, the -Senior Surgeon began suddenly to pace again. - -Only, for some unexplainable reason to the White Linen Nurse up-stairs, -his workroom didn’t seem quite large enough for his pacing this night. -Along the broad piazza she heard his footsteps creak. Far, far into -the morning, lying warm and snug in her own little bed, she heard his -footsteps crackling through the wet-leafed garden paths. - -Yet the Senior Surgeon didn’t look an atom jaded or forlorn when he -came down to breakfast the next morning. He had on a brand-new gray -suit that fitted his big, powerful shoulders to perfection, and the -glad glow of his shower-bath was still reddening faintly in his cheeks -as he swung around the corner of the table and dropped down into his -place, with an odd little grin on his lips directed intermittently -toward the White Linen Nurse and the Little Crippled Girl, who already -waited him there at each end of the table. - -“Oh, Father, _isn’t_ it lovely to have my darling, darling Peach all -well again!” beamed the Little Crippled Girl, with unusual friendliness. - -“Speaking of your ’darling Peach,’” said the Senior Surgeon, -abruptly--“speaking of your ‘darling Peach,’ I’m going to take her away -with me to-day for a week or so.” - -“Eh?” exclaimed the Little Crippled Girl. - -“What? What, sir?” stammered the White Linen Nurse. - -Quite prosily the Senior Surgeon began to butter a piece of toast; -but the little twinkle about his eyes belied in some way the utter -prosiness of the act. - -“For a little trip,” he confided amiably, “a little holiday.” - -A trifle excitedly the White Linen Nurse laid down her knife and fork -and stared at him as blue-eyed and wondering as a child. - -“A holiday?” she gasped. “To a--_beach_, you mean? Would there be a--a -roller-coaster? I’ve never seen a roller-coaster.” - -“Eh?” laughed the Senior Surgeon. - -“Oh, I’m going, too! I’m going, too!” piped the Little Crippled Girl. - -Most jerkily the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the table, -and swallowed half a cup of coffee at one single gulp. - -“Going _three_, you mean?” he glowered at his little daughter. “Going -_three_?” His comment that ensued was distinctly rough as far as -diction was concerned, but the facial expression of ineffable peace -that accompanied it would have made almost any phrase sound like a -benediction. “Not by a damned sight!” beamed the Senior Surgeon. “This -little trip is just for Peach and me.” - -“But, sir--” fluttered the White Linen Nurse. Her face was suddenly -pinker than any rose that ever bloomed. - -With an impulse absolutely novel to him, the Senior Surgeon turned and -swung his little daughter very gently to his shoulder. - -“Your Aunt Agnes is coming to stay with _you_ in just about ten -minutes,” he affirmed. “That’s what’s going to happen to _you_. And -maybe there’ll be a pony--a white pony.” - -“But Peach is so--pleasant!” wailed the Little Crippled Girl. “Peach is -so pleasant!” she began to scream and kick. - -“So it seems,” growled the Senior Surgeon; “and she’s--dying of it.” - -Tearfully the Little Girl wriggled down to the ground, and hobbled -around and thrust her finger-tip into the White Linen Nurse’s blushiest -cheek. - -“I don’t want Peach to die,” she admitted worriedly; “but I don’t want -anybody to take her away.” - -“The pony is very white,” urged the Senior Surgeon with a diplomacy -quite alien to him. - -Abruptly the Little Girl turned and faced him. - -“What color is Aunt Agnes?” she asked vehemently. - -“Aunt Agnes is pretty white, too,” declared the Senior Surgeon. - -With the faintest possible tinge of superciliousness the Little Girl -lifted her sharp chin a trifle higher. - -“If it’s just a perfectly plain white pony,” she said, “I’d rather -have Peach. But if it’s a white pony with black blots on it, and if -it can pull a little cart, and if I can whip it with a little switch, -and if it will eat sugar lumps out of my hand, and if its name is--is -’Beautiful, Pretty Thing--’” - -“Its name has always been ‘Beautiful, Pretty Thing,’ I’m quite sure,” -insisted the Senior Surgeon. Inadvertently as he spoke he reached out -and put a hand very lightly on the White Linen Nurse’s shoulder. - -Instantly into the Little Girl’s suspicious face flushed a furiously -uncontrollable flame of jealousy and resentment. Madly she turned upon -her father. - -“You’re a liar!” she screamed. “There _is_ no white pony! You’re a -robber! You’re a--a--drunk! You sha’n’t have my darling Peach!” She -threw herself frenziedly into the White Linen Nurse’s lap. - -Impatiently the Senior Surgeon disentangled the clinging little arms, -and, raising the White Linen Nurse to her feet, pushed her gently -toward the hall. - -“Go to my workroom,” he said. “Quickly! I want to talk with you.” - -A moment later he joined her there, and shut and locked the door behind -him. The previous night’s loss of sleep showed plainly in his face now, -and the hospital strain of the day before, and of the day before that, -and of the day before that. - -Heavily, moodily, he crossed the room and threw himself down in his -desk chair, with the White Linen Nurse still standing before him as -though she were nothing but a white linen nurse. All the splendor was -suddenly gone from him, all the radiance, all the exultant purpose. - -“Well, Rae Malgregor,” he grinned mirthlessly, “the little kid is -right, though I certainly don’t know where she got her information. I -_am_ a liar. The pony’s name is not yet ’Beautiful, Pretty Thing’! I -_am_ a drunk. I was drunk most of June. I _am_ a robber. I have taken -you out of your youth and the love chances of your youth, and shut you -up here in this great, gloomy old house of mine, to be my slave and my -child’s slave and--” - -“Pouf!” said the White Linen Nurse. “It would seem silly now, sir, to -marry a boy.” - -“And I’ve been a beast to you,” persisted the Senior Surgeon. “From the -very first day you belonged to me I’ve been a beast to you, venting -brutally on your youth, on your sweetness, on your patience, all the -work, the worry, the wear and tear, the abnormal strain and stress of -my disordered days and years; and I’ve let my little girl vent also -on you all the pang and pain of _her_ disordered days. And because in -this great, gloomy, racketty house it seemed suddenly like a miracle -from heaven to have service that was soft-footed, gentle-handed, -pleasant-hearted, I’ve let you shoulder all the hideous drudgery, the -care, one horrid homely task after another piling up, up, up, till you -dropped in your tracks yesterday, still smiling!” - -“But I got a good deal out of it, even so, sir!” protested the White -Linen Nurse. “See, sir!” she smiled. “I’ve got real lines in my face -now, like other women. I’m not a doll any more. I’m not a--” - -“Yes,” groaned the Senior Surgeon; “and I might just as kindly have -carved those lines with my knife. But I was going to make it all up to -you to-day,” he hurried. “I swear I was! Even in one short little week -I could have done it, you wouldn’t have known me, I was going to take -you away--just you and me. I would have been a saint. I swear I would! -I would have given you such a great, wonderful, child-hearted holiday -as you never dreamed of in all your unselfish life--a holiday all you, -you, you! You could have dug in the sand if you’d wanted to. God! I’d -have dug in the sand if you’d wanted me to. And now it’s all gone from -me, all the will, all the sheer, positive self-assurance that I could -have carried the thing through absolutely selflessly. That little -girl’s sneering taunt, the ghost of her mother in that taunt--God! when -anybody knocks you just in your decency, it doesn’t harm you specially; -but when they knock you in your wanting-to-be-decent, it--it undermines -you somewhere. I don’t know exactly how. I’m nothing but a man again -now, just a plain, everyday, greedy, covetous, physical man on the -edge of a holiday, the first clean holiday in twenty years, that he no -longer dares to take!” - -A little swayingly the White Linen Nurse shifted her standing weight -from one foot to the other. - -“I’m sorry, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. “I’d like to have seen a -roller-coaster, sir.” - -Just for an instant a gleam of laughter went scudding zigzag across the -Senior Surgeon’s brooding face, and was gone again. - -“Rae Malgregor, come here!” he ordered quite sharply. - -Very softly, very glidingly, like the footfall of a person who has -never known heels, the White Linen Nurse came forward swiftly, and, -sliding in cautiously between the Senior Surgeon and his desk, stood -there, with her back braced against the desk, her fingers straying -idly up and down the edges of the desk, staring up into his face, all -readiness, all attention, like a soldier waiting further orders. - -So near was she that he could almost hear the velvet heart-throb of -her, the little fluttering swallow, yet by some strange, persistent -aloofness of her, some determinate virginity, not a fold of her gown, -not an edge, not a thread, seemed even to so much as graze his knee, -seemed even to so much as shadow his hand, lest it short-circuit -thereby the seething currents of their variant emotions. - -With extraordinary intentness for a moment the Senior Surgeon sat -staring into the girl’s eyes, the blue eyes too full of childish -questioning yet to flinch with either consciousness or embarrassment. - -“After all, Rae Malgregor,” he smiled at last, faintly--“after all, Rae -Malgregor, Heaven knows when I shall ever get another holiday.” - -“Yes, sir?” said the White Linen Nurse. - -With apparent irrelevance he reached for his ivory paper-cutter and -began bending it dangerously between his adept fingers. - -“How long have you been with me, Rae Malgregor?” he asked abruptly. - -“Four months--actually with you, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. - -“Do you happen to remember the exact phrasing of my--proposal of -marriage to you?” he asked shrewdly. - -“Oh, yes, sir!” said the White Linen Nurse. “You called it ’general -heartwork for a family of two.’” - -A little grimly before her steady gaze the Senior Surgeon’s own eyes -fell, and rallied again almost instantly with a gaze as even and direct -as hers. - -“Well,” he smiled, “through the whole four months I seem to have kept -my part of the contract all right, and held you merely as a drudge in -my home. Have you, then, decided once and for all time, whether you are -going to stay on with us or whether you will ‘give notice,’ as other -drudges have done?” - -With a little backward droop of one shoulder the White Linen Nurse -began to finger nervously at the desk behind her, and turning half-way -round, as though to estimate what damage she was doing, exposed thus -merely the profile of her pink face, of her white throat, to the Senior -Surgeon’s questioning eyes. - -“I shall never--give notice, sir!” fluttered the white throat. - -“Are you perfectly sure?” insisted the Senior Surgeon. - -The pink in the White Linen Nurse’s profiled cheek deepened a little. - -“Perfectly sure, sir,” declared the carmine lips. - -Like the crack of a pistol, the Senior Surgeon snapped the ivory -paper-cutter in two. - -“All right, then,” he said. “Rae Malgregor, look at me! Don’t take your -eyes from mine, I say! Rae Malgregor, if I should decide in my own -mind, here and now, that it was best for you, as well as for me, that -you should come away with me now for this week, not as my guest, as I -had planned, but as my wife, even if you were not quite ready for it in -your heart, even if you were not yet remotely ready for it, would you -come because I told you to come?” - -Heavily under her white eyelids, heavily under her black lashes, the -girl’s eyes struggled up to meet his own. - -“Yes, sir,” whispered the White Linen Nurse. - -Abruptly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the desk and -stood up. The important decision once made, no further finessing of -words seemed either necessary or dignified to him. - -“Go and pack your suitcase quickly, then,” he ordered. “I want to get -away from here within half an hour.” - -But before the girl had half crossed the room he called to her -suddenly. And his face in that moment was as haggard as though a whole -lifetime’s struggle was packed into it. - -“Rae Malgregor,” he drawled mockingly, “this thing shall be--barter -’way through to the end, with the credit always on your side of the -account. In exchange for the gift of yourself--your wonderful self, -and the trust that goes with it, I will give you,--God help me!--the -ugliest thing in my life. And God knows I have broken faith with myself -once or twice, but never have I broken my word to another. From now on, -in token of your trust in me, for whatever the bitter gift is worth to -you, as long as you stay with me, my Junes shall be yours, to do with -as you please.” - -“_What_, sir?” gasped the White Linen Nurse. “_What_, sir?” - -Softly, almost stealthily, she was half-way back across the room to -him, when she stopped suddenly and threw out her arms with a gesture of -appeal and defiance. - -“All the same, sir,” she cried passionately--“all the same, sir, -the place is too hard for the small pay I get. Oh, I will do what I -promised,” she declared with increasing passion; “I will never leave -you; and I will mother your little girl; and I will servant your big -house; and I will go with you wherever you say! And I will be to you -whatever you wish; and I will never flinch from any hardship you impose -on me, nor whine over any pain, on and on and on, all my days, all my -years, till I drop in my tracks again, and die, as you say, ‘still -smiling’: all the same,” she reiterated wildly, “the place is too hard! -It always was too hard, it always will be too hard, for such small pay!” - -“For such small pay?” gasped the Senior Surgeon. - -About his heart a horrid, clammy chill began to settle. Sickeningly -through his brain a dozen recent financial transactions began to -rehearse themselves. - -“You mean, Miss Malgregor,” he said a bit brokenly--“you mean that I -haven’t been generous enough with you?” - -“Yes, sir,” faltered the White Linen Nurse. All the storm and passion -died suddenly from her, leaving her just a frightened girl again, -flushing pink-white before the Senior Surgeon’s scathing stare. One -step, two steps, three, she advanced toward him. “Oh, I mean, sir,” -she whispered--“oh, I mean, sir, that I’m just an ordinary, ignorant -country girl, and you--are further above me than the moon from the sea! -I couldn’t expect you to--love me, sir, I couldn’t even dream of your -loving me; but I do think you might like me just a little bit with your -heart!” - -“What?” cried the Senior Surgeon. “What?” - -_Whacketty-bang_ against the window-pane sounded the Little Crippled -Girl’s knuckled fists. Darkly against the window-pane squashed the -Little Crippled Girl’s staring face. - -“Father,” screamed the shrill voice. “Father, there’s a white lady -here, with two black ladies, washing the breakfast dishes! Is it Aunt -Agnes?” - -With a totally unexpected laugh, with a totally unexpected desire to -laugh, the Senior Surgeon strode across the room and unlocked his door. -Even then his lips against the White Linen Nurse’s ear made just a -whisper, not a kiss. - -“For God’s sake, hurry!” he said. “Let’s get out of here before any -telephone-message catches me!” - -Then almost calmly he walked out on the piazza and greeted his -sister-in-law. - -“Hello, Agnes!” he said. - -“Hello, yourself!” smiled his sister-in-law. - -“How’s everything?” he inquired politely. - -“How’s everything with you?” parried his sister-in-law. - -Idly for a few moments the Senior Surgeon threw out stray crumbs of -thought to feed the conversation, while smilingly all the while from -her luxuriant East Indian chair his sister-in-law sat studying the -general situation. The Senior Surgeon’s sister-in-law was always -studying something. Last year it was archæology; the year before, -basketry; this year it happened to be eugenics, or something funny like -that; next year, again, it might be book-binding. - -“So you and your pink-and-white shepherdess are going off on a little -trip together?” she queried banteringly. “The girl’s a darling, -Lendicott. I haven’t had as much sport in a long time as I had that -afternoon last June when I came in my best calling clothes and helped -her paint the kitchen woodwork. And I had come prepared to be a bit -nasty, Lendicott. In all honesty, Lendicott, I might just as well ’fess -up that I had come prepared to be just a little bit nasty.” - -“She seems to have a way,” smiled the Senior Surgeon--“she seems to -have a way of disarming people’s unpleasant intentions.” - -A trifle quizzically for an instant the woman turned her face to the -Senior Surgeon’s. It was a worldly face, a cold-featured, absolutely -worldly face, with a surprisingly humorous mouth that warmed her nature -just about as cheerfully, and just about as effectually, as one open -fireplace warms a whole house. Nevertheless, one often achieved much -comfort by keeping close to “Aunt Agnes’s” humorous mouth, for Aunt -Agnes knew a thing or two, Aunt Agnes did, and the things that she made -a point of knowing were conscientiously amiable. - -“Why, Lendicott Faber,” she rallied him now, “why, you’re as nervous as -a school-boy! Why, I believe--I believe that you’re going courting!” - -More opportunely than any man could have dared to hope, the White -Linen Nurse appeared suddenly on the scene in her little blue serge -wedding-suit, with her traveling-case in her hand. With a gasp of -relief the Senior Surgeon took her case and his own and went on -down the path to his car and his chauffeur, leaving the two women -temporarily alone. When he returned to the piazza, the woman of the -world and the girl not at all of the world were bidding each other a -really affectionate good-by, and the woman’s face looked suddenly just -a little bit old, but the girl’s cheeks were most inordinately blooming. - -In unmistakable friendliness his sister-in-law extended her hand to him. - -“Good-by, Lendicott, old man!” she said, “and good luck to you!” A -little slyly out of her shrewd, gray eyes, she glanced up sidewise at -him. “You’ve got the devil’s own temper, Lendicott dear,” she teased, -“and two or three other vices probably, and if rumor speaks the truth, -you’ve run amuck more than once in your life; but there’s one thing I -will say for you, though it prove you a dear stupid: you never were -overquick to suspect that any woman could possibly be in love with you.” - -“To what woman do you particularly refer?” mocked the Senior Surgeon, -impatiently. - -Quite brazenly to her own heart, which never yet apparently had stirred -the laces that enshrined it, his sister-in-law pointed with persistent -banter. - -“Maybe I refer to myself,” she laughed, “and maybe to the only other -lady present.” - -“Oh!” gasped the White Linen Nurse. - -“You do me much honor, Agnes,” bowed the Senior Surgeon. Quite -resolutely he held his gaze from following the White Linen Nurse’s -quickly averted face. - -A little oddly for an instant the older woman’s glance hung on his. - -“More honor perhaps than you think, Lendicott Faber,” she said, and -kept right on smiling. - -“Eh?” jerked the Senior Surgeon. Restively he turned to the White Linen -Nurse. - -Very flushingly on the steps the White Linen Nurse knelt arguing with -the Little Crippled Girl. - -“Your father and I are going away,” she pleaded. “Won’t you please kiss -us good-by?” - -“I’ve only got one kiss,” sulked the Little Crippled Girl. - -“Give it to your father!” pleaded the White Linen Nurse. - -Amazingly, all in a second, the ugliness vanished from the little face. -Dartlingly, like a bird, the child swooped down and planted one large, -round kiss on the astonished Senior Surgeon’s boot. - -“Beautiful Father!” she cried. “I kiss your feet.” - -Abruptly the Senior Surgeon plunged from the step and started down the -walk. His cheek-bones were quite crimson. - -Two or three rods behind him the White Linen Nurse followed -falteringly. Once she stopped to pick up a tiny stick or a stone, and -once she dallied to straighten out a snarled spray of red and brown -woodbine. - -Missing the sound or the shadow of her, the Senior Surgeon turned -suddenly to wait for her. So startled was she by his intentness, so -flustered, so affrighted, that just for an instant the Senior Surgeon -thought that she was going to wheel in her tracks and bolt madly back -to the house. Then quite unexpectedly she gave an odd, muffled little -cry, and ran swiftly to him, like a child, and slipped her bare hand -trustingly into his. And they went on together to the car. - -With his foot already half lifted to the step, the Senior Surgeon -turned abruptly around, and lifted his hat, and stood staring back -bare-headed for some unexplainable reason at the two silent figures on -the piazza. - -“Rae,” he said perplexedly--“Rae, I don’t seem to know just why, but -somehow I’d like to have you kiss your hand to Aunt Agnes.” - -Obediently the White Linen Nurse withdrew her fingers from his and -wafted two kisses, one to “Aunt Agnes” and one to the Little Crippled -Girl. - -Then the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon climbed up into the -tonneau of the car, where they had never, never sat alone before, -and the Senior Surgeon gave a curt order to his man, and the big car -started off again into interminable spaces. - -Mutely, without a word, without a glance, passing between them, the -Senior Surgeon held out his hand to her once more, as though the -absence of her hand in his was suddenly a lonesomeness not to be -endured again while life lasted. - -_Whizz, whizz, whizz, whir, whir, whir_, the ribbony road began to -roll up again on that hidden spool under the car. - -When the chauffeur’s mind seemed sufficiently absorbed in speed and -sound, the Senior Surgeon bent down a little mockingly and mumbled his -lips inarticulately at the White Linen Nurse. - -“See,” he laughed, “I’ve got a text, too, to keep my courage up. Of -course you _look_ like an angel,” he teased closer and closer to her -flaming face; “but all the time to myself, to reassure myself, I just -keep saying, ’Bah! she’s nothing but a woman, nothing but a woman, -nothing but a woman!’” - -Within the Senior Surgeon’s warm, firm grasp the White Linen Nurse’s -calm hand quickened suddenly like a bud forced precipitously into full -bloom. - -“Oh, don’t--talk, sir,” she whispered. “Oh, don’t talk, sir! Just -listen!” - -“Listen? Listen to what?” laughed the Senior Surgeon. - -From under the heavy lashes that shadowed the flaming cheeks the soul -of the girl who was to be his peered up at the soul of the man who was -to be hers, and saluted what she saw! - -“Oh, my heart, sir!” whispered the White Linen Nurse. “Oh, my heart, my -heart, my _heart_.” - - -THE END - - - - -THE BEGGAR - -BY JAMES W. FOLEY - - - Always beside me as I go my way - This beggar, Time, walks with his outstretched palms, - Demanding, not beseeching, of me alms-- - Alms of the precious hours of my day. - - So side by side we walk until my day - Is growing dusk, and Time’s purse of the years - Holds alms of mine, bright-jeweled with my tears, - Since I have given these treasured hours away. - - Nor from his swollen purse will he give me - One hour, although with spendthrift song and gay - I flung him alms, nor ever said him nay. - A beggar and a miser both is he! - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -IN “THE CIRCUIT OF THE SUMMER HILLS” - -BY JOHN BURROUGHS - -Author of “Wake Robin,” “Locusts and Wild Honey,” etc. - -WITH A PORTRAIT - - -I - -To sit on one’s rustic porch, or at the door of one’s tent, and see the -bees working on the catnip or motherwort or clover, to see the cattle -grazing leisurely in the fields or ruminating under the spreading -trees, or the woodchucks creeping about the meadows and pastures, or -the squirrels spinning along the fences, or the hawks describing great -spirals against the sky; to hear no sound but the voice of birds, -the caw of crows, the whistle of marmots, the chirp of crickets; to -smell no odors but the odors of grassy fields, or blooming meadows, or -falling rain; and amid it all, to lift one’s eyes to the flowing and -restful mountain lines--this is to get a taste of the peace and comfort -of the summer hills. - -This boon is mine when I go to my little gray farm-house on a broad -hill-slope on the home farm in the Catskills. Especially is it mine -when, to get still nearer nature and beyond the orbit of household -sounds and interruptions, I retreat to the big hay-barn, and on an -improvised table in front of the big open barn-doors, looking out into -the sunlit fields where I hoed corn or made hay as a boy, and write -this and other papers. - -The peace of the hills is about me and upon me, and the leisure of the -summer clouds, whose shadows I see slowly drifting across the face of -the landscape. The dissonance and the turbulence and the stenches of -cities, how far off they seem; the noise and the dust and the acrimony -of politics--how completely the hum of the honey-bees and the twitter -of swallows blot them all out! - -In the circuit of the hills, the days take form and character as they -do not in town, or in a country of low horizons. George Eliot says in -one of her letters: “In the country the days have broad open spaces -and the very stillness seems to give a delightful roominess to the -hours.” This is especially true in a hilly and mountainous country, -where the eye has a great depth of perspective opened to it. Take those -extra brilliant days that we so often have in the autumn--what a vivid -sense one gets of their splendor amid the hills! The deep, cradle-like -valleys, and the long flowing mountain lines, make a fit receptacle for -the day’s beauty; they hold and accumulate it, as it were. I think of -Emerson’s line: - - “O, tenderly the haughty day fills his blue urn with fire.” - -The valleys are vast blue urns that hold a generous portion of the -lucid hours. - -To feel to the full the peace of the hills, one must choose his -hills, and see to it that they are gentle and restful in character. -Abruptness, jagged lines, sharp angles, frowning precipices, while they -may add an element of picturesqueness, interfere with the feeling of -ease and restfulness that the peace of the hills implies. The eye is -disturbed by a confusion of broken and abrupt lines as is the ear by a -volume of discordant sounds. Long, undulating mountain lines, broad, -cradle-like valleys, easy basking hill-slopes, as well as the absence -of loud and discordant sounds, are a factor in the restfulness of any -landscape. - -My landscape is very old geologically, as old as the order of -vertebrate animals, but young historically, having been settled only -about one hundred and fifty years. The original forests still cover -the tops of the mountains with a dark-green mantle, which comes well -down upon their sides, where it is cut and torn and notched into by the -upper fields of the valley farms. - -I call my place Woodchuck Lodge, as I tell my friends, because we are -beleagured by these rodents. There is a cordon of woodchuck-holes all -around us. In the orchard, in the meadows, in the pastures, these -whistling marmots have their dens. Here one might easily have woodchuck -venison for dinner every day, yea, and for supper and breakfast, too, -if one could acquire a taste for it. I tried to dine on a woodchuck -once when I was a boy, but never have felt inclined to repeat the -experiment. If one were born in the woods and lived in the woods, -maybe he could relish a woodchuck. Talk about being autocthonous, and -savoring of the soil--try a woodchuck! The feeding habits of this -animal are as cleanly as those of a sheep or a cow--clover, plantain, -peas, beans, cucumbers, cabbages, apples--all sweet and succulent -things go to the making of his flabby body; yet he spends so much of -his time in pickle in the ground that his flesh is rank with the earth -flavor. He is not lean like a rabbit or a squirrel, nor so firm of -muscle as a ’coon or a ’possum; he is little more than a skin filled -with viscera. He is busy all summer storing up fat in his loose pouch -of a body for fuel during his long winter sleep. This sleep appears -to begin in late September, or after the first white frost. This year -I saw my last specimen on the twenty-eighth of the month as he was -running in great haste to his hole. Evidently he does not like the -pinch of the cold. He is a fair-weather animal and is the epicure -of the meadows and pastures. While the apples are still mellow on -the ground, while the red-thorn is still dropping its fruit, and the -aftermath is still fresh in the meadows, my woodchucks turn their backs -upon the world and retreat to their underground chambers for their six -months’ slumber. I know of no other hibernating animal that retires -from the light of day so early in the season. His active life stretches -from the vernal equinox to the autumnal equinox, and that is about all. -Half the year he is under ground, and at least half of each summer -day. No wonder his flesh is rank with the earth flavor. He appears to -live only to accumulate his winter store of fat. Apparently he comes -out of his den in summer only to feed, and maybe occasionally to bask -in the sunshine. He is never sportive or discursive like the birds and -squirrels. Life is a very serious business with him, and he has reduced -it to the lowest terms--eat, breed, and sleep. If woodchucks ever -engage in any sort of play, like other wild creatures, I have never -seen them, though I once had a tame young ’chuck that would play with -the kitten. - -The woodchuck probably sleeps more than half the time in summer; he -economizes his precious fat. Only once have I seen his tracks on the -snow. This was in late December; and following them up, I found the -woodchuck wandering about the meadow like one half demented. Something -had evidently gone wrong with him. Apparently he had not succeeded -in storing up his usual amount of fat. He showed little fight, and -we picked him up by the tail, put him into the sleigh, and brought -him home. A place under the barn floor was given to him, but he did -not long survive. All the glory of the fall, the heyday of the ’coon -and the squirrels, the woodchuck misses. No golden October, no Indian -summer for him; he has had his day. - -Though the woodchuck’s muscles are flabby, his heart is stout. The -farm-dog can kill him, but he cannot make him show fear or dismay; he -is game to the last. Twice I have seen him from my porch at Woodchuck -Lodge put on so bold a front, and become so aggressive, when surprised -in the middle of a field by a big shepherd-dog, that the dog did not -dare attack him, but circled about, seeking some unfair advantage, -only to be met at every point with those threatening, grating teeth. -In one case the woodchuck was far from his hole, and he kept charging -the dog and driving him nearer and nearer the stone wall, where his -own safety lay. An observer inoculated with the idea of animal reason -would have said that the tactics of the ’chuck were premeditated; but -I am sure he was too much engrossed with the task of defending himself -from the jaws of that dog to do any logical thinking or planning. -It was only the fortunes of battle that finally brought the hunter -and the hunted near the hole of safety, when, seeing his chance, the -woodchuck made a sudden, successful dash, too hurried, I fancy, even -to whistle his usual note of defiance. In the other case, the dog was -of a still more timid nature, and when the surprised woodchuck showed -fight, he concluded that he had no business at all with that particular -’chuck, which actually chased him from the meadow. I can still see the -woodchuck’s bristling, expanded tail as he drove fiercely after the -fleeing dog, which, with a tail anything but threatening, escaped over -the wall into the road. - -I find that one may be the principal actor in a little comedy, and not -see the humor of it at all at the time. I know the humor of a race I -had with a ’chuck last summer in my orchard was quite lost upon me till -it was over, and the ’chuck was in his hole, and I was back upon my -porch recovering my wind. The ’chuck was a hundred yards or more from -his den when I leaped over the fence from the road and surprised him. I -pressed him so closely that he took refuge in an apple-tree. Instantly -seeing his mistake, as the missile I hurled struck the tree, he sprang -down and rushed for his hole, a hundred and fifty feet away. But I got -there first. The ’chuck paused twenty feet to one side and regarded me -intently, defiantly. We stood and glared at each other a few moments, -while I recovered my breath. I wanted the scalp of that “varmint.” I -knew that he would make himself believe that I had planted my garden -for his special benefit, and I wanted to anticipate that conclusion. I -was weaponless. Twenty or more feet from me, on the opposite side from -the ’chuck, I saw a stone that would answer my purpose. I calculated -the chances; so did the woodchuck; I sprang for the stone and the -’chuck sprang for his hole, and was in it as my hand touched the stone. -He had won! As I sat on my porch, the recklessness and absurdity of a -man more than threescore and ten running down a woodchuck came over me; -and I have not yielded to such a temptation since. - - -II - -Where cattle and woodchuck thrive, there thrive I. The pastoral is -in my veins. Clover and timothy, daisies and buttercups indirectly -colored my youthful life; and if the dairy cow did not rock my cradle, -her products sustained the hand that did rock it. Hence I love this -land of wide, open, grassy fields, of smooth, broad-backed hills, -and of long, sweeping mountain lines. The cow fits well into these -scenes. It seems as if her broad, smooth muzzle and her potent tongue -might have shaped the landscape; it is certainly her cropping that has -brought about the hour-glass form of so many of the red-thorn trees, -which give a unique feature to the fields. Her fragrant breath is upon -the air, her hoof-prints are upon the highway; she may not yet have -attained to wisdom, yet surely all her ways are ways of pleasantness -and all her paths are paths of peace. Hence, when her ways and her -paths coincide with mine, I thrive best. From Woodchuck Lodge I look -out upon broad pastures, lands where dairy herds have grazed for a -hundred years, never the same herd for many summers, but all of the -same habits and dispositions. They all scour the pastures in the same -way, scattering, searching out every nook and corner, leaving no yard -of ground unvisited, apparently hunting each day for the sweet morsel -they missed the day before, disposing themselves in picturesque groups -upon the hills; never massed, except under the shade-trees on hot days; -slow-moving, making their paths here and there, lingering under the -red-thorn trees, where the fruit begins to drop in September; tossing -their heads above the orchard wall, where the fragrance of ripening -apples is on the air; in the autumn lying upon the cold, damp ground -and ruminating contentedly, with no fear of our ills and pains before -them; wading in the swamps, converging slowly toward the pasture-bars -as milking-time draws nigh, with always some tardy, indifferent ones -that the farm-dog has to hurry up; many colored--white, black, red, -brown--at times showing rare gentleness and affection toward one -another, such as licking one another’s heads or bodies, then spitefully -butting or goring one another; occasionally one of them lifting up her -head and sending her mellow voice over the hills like a horn, as if -to give voice to a vague unrest, or invoking some far-off divinity to -release the imprisoned Io--what a series of shifting rural pictures I -thus have spread out before me! Such an atmosphere of peace and leisure -over it all! The unhurrying and ruminating cattle make the days long; -they make the fields friendly, the hills eloquent, the shade-trees -idyllic. I wake up to hear the farmer summoning them from the field -in the dewy summer dawns, and I listen for his call to them on the -tranquil afternoons. One season an especially musical voice did the -evening calling--a trained voice from beyond the hills. What a pleasure -it was as we swung in our hammocks under apple-trees to hear the free, -sonorous summons, and to see the response of the herd in many-colored -lines converging down the slope to the bar-way! - -When the meadows have gotten a new carpet of tender grass in September, -and the cows are free to range in them, a new series of moving pictures -greets the eye. The grazing forms have a finer setting now, and -contentment and satisfaction are in every movement. How they sweep off -the tender herbage, into what artistic groups they naturally fall, -what pictures of peace and plenty they present! When they lie down to -ruminate, Emerson’s sentence comes to mind: “And the cattle lying on -the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts.” As a matter of -fact, I suppose no more vacant mind could be found in the universe -than that of the cow when she is reposing in a field, chewing her -cud. But she is the cause of tranquil if not of great thoughts in the -lookers-on, and that is enough. Tranquillity attends her wherever she -goes; it beams from her eyes, and lingers in her footsteps. - -I sympathize with Whitman as he expressed himself in these lines: - - “I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid - and self-contain’d, - I stand and look at them, long and long. - - “They do not sweat and whine about their condition, - They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, - They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, - Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of - owning things, - Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of - years ago, - Not one is respectable or happy over the whole earth.” - - -III - -If one has a bit of the farmer in him, it is a pleasure in the country -to have a real farmer for a neighbor--a man whose heart is in his work, -who is not longing for the town or the city, who improves his fields, -who makes two spears of grass grow where none grew before, whose whole -farm has an atmosphere of thrift and well-being. There are so many -reluctant, half-hearted farmers in our eastern States nowadays, so many -who do only what they have to do in order to survive; who leave the -paternal acres to run to weeds or brush; the paternal fences to fall -into ruins; the paternal orchards untrimmed and unplowed; the paternal -meadows unfertilized, while the fertilizer wastes in the barn-yard; who -get but one spear of grass where their fathers or grandfathers got two -or three; and whose plaint always is that farming does not pay. What is -the matter with our rural population? Has all the good farming blood -gone West, and do only the dregs of it remain? - -It is the man who makes the farm, as truly as it is the man who makes -any other business; it is the man behind the plow, as truly as it is -the man behind the gun, that wins the battle. A half-heart never won -a whole sheaf yet. The average farmer has deteriorated. He may know -more, but he does less than his father. He is like the second or third -steeping of the tea. Did the original settlers and improvers of the -farms, and the generations that followed them, leave all their virtue -and grip in the soil? It is certainly true that in my section the last -two generations have lived off the capital of labor and brains which -their ancestors put into the land; only here and there has a man added -anything, only here and there is a farmer who does not wish he had some -other business. If such men had that other business, they would reap -the same poor results. In the long run, you cannot reap where you have -not sown, and the only seed you can sow, in any business that yields -tenfold, is yourself--your own wit, your own industry. Unless you -plant your heart with your corn, it will mostly go to suckers; unless -you strike your own roots into the subsoil of your lands, it will not -bear fruit in your character, or in your bank-account--all of which -is simply saying that thin, leachy land will not bear good crops, and -unless a man has the real farming stuff in him, his farm quickly shows -it. - -My neighbor makes smooth the way of the plow and of the mower. Last -summer I saw him take enough stones and rocks from a three-acre field -to build quite a fortress; and land whose slumbers had never been -disturbed by the plow was soon knee-high with Hungarian grass. How -one likes to see a permanent betterment of the land like that!--piles -of renegade stone and rock. It is such things that make the country -richer. If all New England and New York had had such drastic treatment -years ago, the blight of discouraged farming never would have fallen -upon them, and the prairie States would not have so far distanced the -granite States. A granite soil should grow a better crop of men than -the silt of lake or river bottom, though it yields less corn to the -acre. - -The prairie makes a strong appeal to a man’s indolence and cupidity; -it is a place where he can sit at ease and let his team do most of his -work. But I much doubt whether the western farms ever will lay the -strong hands upon their possessors that our more varied and picturesque -eastern farms lay. Every field in these farms has a character of its -own, and the farms differ from one another as much as the people do. -An eastern farm is the place for a home; the western farm is the -place to grow wheat, pork, and beef. Oh, the flat, featureless, -monotonous, cornstalk-littered middle West! how can the rural virtues -of contentment and domesticity thrive there? There is no spot to make -your nest except right out on the rim of the world; no spot for a walk -or a picnic except in the featureless open of a thousand miles of black -prairie--the roads black, straight lines of mud or dust through the -landscape; the streams slow, indolent channels of muddy water; the -woods, where there are woods, a dull assemblage of straight-trunked -trees; the sky a brazen dome that shuts down upon you; there are no -hills or mountains to lift it up. The prairie draws no strong distinct -lines against the sky; the horizon is vague and baffling. Ah, my -mountains are very old measured by the geologic calendar! Yet how -foreign to our experience or ways of thinking it seems to speak of -mountains as either old or young, as if birth and death apply to them -also. But such is the fact: mountains have their day, which day is the -geologist’s day of millions of years. My mountains were being carved -out of a great plateau by the elements while the prairies were still -under the sea, and while most of the Rocky Mountains and the Alps, and -the Himalayas were gestating in the vast earth-womb. In point of age, -these mountains beside the Catskills are like infants beside their -great-grandfathers. Yet it is a singular contradiction that in their -outlines old mountains look young, and young mountains look old. The -only youthful feature about young mountains is that they carry their -heads very high, and the only old feature about old mountains is that -they have a look of repose and calmness and peace. All the gauntness, -leanness, angularity, and crumbling decrepitude are with the young -mountains; all the smoothness, plumpness, graceful flowing lines of -youth are with the old mountains. Not till the rocks are clothed with -soil made out of their own decay are outlines softened and life made -possible. Youthful mountains like the Alps are battle-marked by the -elements, and their proud heads are continually being laid low by -frost, wind, and snow; they are scarred and broken by avalanches the -season through. Old mountains, such as the Appalachian range, wear an -armor of soil and verdure over their rounded forms on which the arrows -of time have little effect. The turbulent and noisy and stiff-necked -period of youth is far behind them. - -Hundreds of dairy-farms nestle in the laps of the Catskills; and their -huge, grassy aprons, only a little wrinkled here and there, hold as -many grazing herds. Woodchuck Lodge is well upon the knee of one of -the ranges, and the fields we look upon are like green drapery lying -in graceful curves and broad, smooth masses over huge extended limbs. -Patches of maple forest here and there bend over a rounded arm or -shoulder, like a fur cape upon a woman. Here and there also huge, -weather-worn boulders rest upon the ground, dropped there by the moving -ice-sheet tens upon tens of thousands of years ago; and here and there -are streaks of land completely covered with smaller rocks wedged and -driven into the ground. It used to be told me in my youth that the -devil’s apron-string broke as he was carrying a load of these rocks -overhead, and let the mass down upon the ground. The farmers seldom -attempt to clear away these leavings of the devil. - - -IV - -My interest in the birds is not as keen as it once was, but they are -still an asset in my life. I must live where I can hear the crows caw, -the robins sing, and the song-sparrow trill. If I can hear also the -partridge drum, and the owl hoot, and the chipmunk cluck in the still -days of autumn, so much the better. The crow is such a true countryman, -so much at home everywhere, so thoroughly in possession of the land, -going his way winter and summer in such noisy contentment and pride -of possession, that I cannot leave him out. The bird I missed most in -California was the crow. I missed his glistening coat in the fields, -his ebony form and hearty call in the sky. - -One advantage of sleeping out of doors, as we do at Woodchuck Lodge, -is that you hear the day ushered in by the birds. Toward autumn you -hear the crows first, making proclamation in all directions that it -is time to be up and doing, and that life is a good thing. There is -not a bit of doubt or discouragement in their tones. They have enjoyed -the night, and they have a stout heart for the day. They proclaim -it as they fly over my porch at five o’clock in the morning; they -call it from the orchard, they bandy the message back and forth in -the neighboring fields; the air is streaked with cheery greetings and -raucous salutations. Toward the end of August, or in early September, -I witness with pleasure their huge mass-meetings or annual congress on -the pasture-hills or in the borders of the woods. Before that time, -you see them singly or in loose bands; but on some day in late summer, -or in early autumn, you see the clans assemble as if for some rare -festival and grand tribal discussion. A multitudinous cawing attracts -your attention when you look hillward and see a swarm of dusky forms -circling in the air, their voices mingling in one dissonant wave of -sound, while loose bands of other dusky forms come from all points of -the compass to join them. Presently many hundred crows are assembled, -alternately lighted upon the ground and silently walking about as if -feeding, or circling in the air, cawing as if they would be heard in -the next township. What they are doing or saying or settling, what -it all means, whether they meet by appointment in the human fashion, -whether it is a jubilee, a parliament, or a convention, I confess I -should like to know. But second thought tells me it is more likely -the gregarious instinct asserting itself after the scatterings and -separations of the summer. The time of the rookery is not far off, when -the inclement season will find all the crows from a large section of -the country massed at night in lonely tree-tops in some secluded wood. - -These early noisy assemblages may be preliminary to the winter union of -the tribe. What an engrossing affair it seems to be with the crows, how -oblivious they appear to all else in the world! The world was made for -crows, and what concerns them is alone important. The meeting adjourns, -from time to time, from the fields to the woods, then back again, the -babel of voices waxing or waning according as they are on the wing -or at rest. Sometimes they meet several days in succession and then -disperse, going away in different directions and irregularly, singly or -in pairs and bands, as men do on similar occasions. No doubt in these -great reunions the crows experience some sort of feeling or emotion, -though one would doubtless err in ascribing to them anything like -human procedure. It is not a definite purpose, but a tribal instinct, -that finds expression in their jubilees. - -The crow seems to have a great deal of business besides getting a -living. How social, how communicative he is--what picnics he has in -the fields and woods, how absolutely at home is he at all times and -places! I see them from my window flying by, by twos or threes or more, -on happy, holiday wings, sliding down the air, or diving and chasing -one another, or walking about the fields, their coats glistening in -the sun, the movement of their heads timing the movements of their -feet--what an air of independence and respectability and well-being -attends them always! The pedestrian crow! no more graceful walker ever -trod the turf. How different his bearing from that of a game-bird, and -from any of the falcon tribe. He never tries to hide like the former, -and he is never morose and sulky like the latter. He is gay and social -and in possession of the land; the world is his and he knows it, and -life is good. - -I suppose that if his flesh were edible, like that of the gallinaceous -birds, he would have many more enemies and his whole demeanor would -be different. His complacent, self-satisfied air would vanish. He -would not advertise his comings and goings so loudly. He would be less -conspicuous in the landscape; his huge mass-meetings in September would -be more silent and withdrawn. Well, then, he would not be the crow--the -happy, devil-may-care creature as we now know him. - -His little gaily dressed brother, the jay, does not tempt the sportsman -any more than the crow does, but he tempts other creatures--the owl -and squirrels, and maybe the hawks. Hence his tribe is much less. His -range is also more restricted, and his feeding habits are much less -miscellaneous. Only the woods and groves are his; the fields and rivers -he knows not. - -The crow is a noisy bird. All his tribe are noisy, but the noise -probably has little psychic significance. The raven in Alaska appears -to soliloquize most of the time. This talkativeness of the crow tribe -is probably only a phase of crow life, and signifies no more and no -less than other phases--their color, their cunning, the flick of their -wings, and the like. The barn-yard fowls are loquacious also, but -probably their loquacity is not attended with much psychic activity. - -In the mornings of early summer the out-of-door sleeper is more likely -to be awakened by the song-birds. In June and early July they strike -up about half-past three. “When it is light enough to see that all is -well around you, it is light enough to sing,” they carol. “Before the -early worm is stirring, we will celebrate the coming of day.” During -the summer the song-sparrows have been the first to nudge me in the -morning with their songs. One little sparrow especially would perch on -the telephone-wire above the roadside and go through his repertoire -of five songs with great regularity and joyousness. He will long be -associated in my mind with those early, fragrant, summer dawns. One of -his five songs fell so easily into words that I had only to call the -attention of my friends to it to have them hear the words that I heard: -“If, if, if you please, Mr. Durkee,”--the last word a little prolonged, -and with a rising inflection. Another was not quite so well expressed -by these words: “Please, please, speak to me, sweetheart.” The third -one suggested this sentence: “Then, then, Fitzhugh says, yes, sir!” -The fourth one was something like this: “If, if, if you seize her, do -it quick.” The fifth one baffled me to suggest by words. But in August -his musical enthusiasm began to decline. His different songs lost their -distinctiveness and emphasis. It was as if they had faded and become -blurred with the progress of the season. - -The little birds are insignificant and unobtrusive on the great -background of nature, yet if one learns to distinguish them and to -love them, their songs may become a sort of accompaniment to one’s -daily life. In May, while I was much occupied in repairing and making -habitable an old farm-house, a solitary, mourning, ground-warbler, -which one rarely sees or hears, came and tarried about the place for -a week or ten days, singing most of each forenoon in the orchard -and garden about the house, and giving to my occupation a touch of -something rare and sylvan. He lent to the apple-trees, which I had -known as a boy, an interest that the boy knew not. Then he went away, -whether on the arrival of his mate or not I do not know. - -[Illustration: Photograph, copyright, by Alvin Langdon Coburn. -Color-tone made for ~The Century~ by Henry Davidson - - JOHN BURROUGHS -] - -A butternut-tree stands across the road in front of Woodchuck Lodge. -One season the red squirrels stored the butternuts in the wall of one -of the upper rooms of the unoccupied house, to which they gained access -through a hole in the siding. When we moved in, in the summer, the -squirrels soon became uneasy, and one day one of them began removing -the butternuts, not to some other granary or place of safety, but -to the grass and dry leaves on the ground in the orchard. He was -unwittingly planting them by the act of hiding them. The automatic -character of much animal behavior, the extent to which their lives flow -in fixed channels, was well seen in the behavior of this squirrel. -His procedure in transferring the nuts from his den in the house to -the ground in the orchard, a distance of probably one hundred feet, -was as definite and regular as that of a piece of machinery. He would -rush up and over the roof of the house with a nut in his mouth, by -those sharp, spasmodic sallies so characteristic of the movements of -the red squirrel, down the corner of the house to the ground by the -same jerky movements, across some rubbish and open ground in the same -manner, alert and cautious, up the corner of a small building ten feet -high and eight long, over its roof, with arched tail and spread feet, -snickering and jerking, down to the ground on the other side, dashing -to the trunk of an apple-tree ten feet away, up it a few feet to make -an observation, then down to the ground again, and out into the grass, -where he would carefully hide his nut, and cover it with leaves. Then -back to the house again by precisely the same route and with precisely -the same movements, and bring another nut. Day after day I saw him thus -engaged till apparently all the nuts were removed. He probably did not -know he was planting butternut-trees for other red squirrels, but that -was what he was blindly doing. The crows and jays carry away and plant -acorns and chestnuts in the same blind way, thereby often causing a -pine forest to be succeeded by these trees. - -The red squirrel is only an irregular storer of nuts in the autumn. -In this respect he stands half-way between the chipmunk and the gray -squirrel, one of which regularly lays up winter stores and the other -none at all. - -How diverse are the ways of nature in reaching the same end! Both the -chipmunk and the woodchuck lay up stores against the needs of winter, -the latter in the shape of fat upon his own ribs, and the former in -the shape of seeds and nuts in his den in the ground; and I fancy that -one of them is no more conscious of what he is doing than the other. -Animals do not take conscious thought of the future; it is as if -something in their organization took thought for them. One November, -seized with the cruel desire to go to the bottom of the question of -the chipmunk’s winter stores, I dug out one after he had got his house -settled for the season. I found his den three feet below the surface -of the ground--just beyond the frostline--and containing nearly four -quarts of various seeds, most of them the little black grains of wild -buckwheat--two hundred and fifty thousand of them, I estimated--all -cleaned of their husks as neatly as if done by some patent machine. - -How many perilous journeys along stone walls and through weedy tangles -this store of seeds represented! One would say at least a thousand -trips, beset by many dangers from hawks and cats and weasels and other -enemies of the little rodent. - -The chipmunk is provident; he is a wise housekeeper, but one can hardly -envy him those three or four months of inaction in the pitchy darkness -of his subterranean den. His mate is not with him, and evidently the -oblivion of the hibernating sleep, like that of the woodchuck and of -certain mice, is not his. The life of the red and gray squirrels, who -are more or less active all winter, seems preferable. They lay up no -stores and are no doubt often cold and hungry, but the light of day -and the freedom of the snow and of the tree-tops are theirs. Abundant -stores are a good thing for both man and beast, but action, adventure, -struggle are better. - - - - -THE FOREIGN TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES - -(“THE TRADE OF THE WORLD” PAPERS) - -BY JAMES DAVENPORT WHELPLEY - -Author of “The Commercial Strength of Great Britain,” “Germany’s -Foreign Trade,” etc. - - -Queen Elizabeth was the founder of the school of “dollar diplomacy,” -and to this day her memory is revered by the merchant gilds of London. -This great queen paid much attention to the welfare of industry at -home, and sent trade adventurers abroad to open avenues of foreign -commerce; and in the degree with which the rulers and governments of -all lands have observed the necessities and development of the material -interests of their respective countries have nations flourished or -marked time. - -Through a peculiar misuse of the term, the foreign policy of the United -States has been termed “dollar diplomacy,” whereas, partly because of -national tradition and partly through lack of skill and experience, -the diplomacy of America has less relation to the extension of foreign -commerce than that of any other great modern nation. American diplomacy -has been governed more by altruistic ideas, the protection of foreign -peoples against themselves and others, the elimination of money -tributes and indemnities, the recognition of new governments without -conditions, and arbitration of international troubles as a neutral -nation. In these and in many other ways America has played her part -in various international controversies; but in the general scramble -for selfish advantage in all these affairs she has taken little or -no successful part. Yet American diplomacy has been called that of -the “dollar,” and has been credited in the minds of many of her own -citizens, as well as by foreigners, with a mercenary basis. - -The people of a nation have it within their power to advance the -interests of their foreign commerce in two ways: one by intelligent -legislation at home, and the other by intelligent diplomacy abroad. -The shipment of merchandise from one country to another means to the -selling nation a foreign market for the raw material, the employment -of labor to the extent of from thirty to ninety per cent. of the -selling value of the goods, and the payment for this material and -labor by foreigners in money or its equivalent. It is a clear gain -in every phase of the transaction. There is an old frontier adage, -which originated in the early days of the Western boom, to the effect -that “outside money makes the camp.” It is a homely expression that -summarizes the advantages of an export of two billion dollars’ worth -of goods with a comprehensiveness equal to its original application. -It is not too much to say that anything in the shape of legislation or -of increased facilities which assists the outward flow of the products -of labor is of unquestioned advantage to the producing nation. An -unnatural, though perhaps comprehensible, attitude of suspicion toward -successful export has come about in the United States. This has led to -hostility toward special rail and water-rates for export, lower prices -for bulk foreign business, niggardliness of national expenditures -for diplomatic representation and for the work of the Department of -Commerce and its foreign-trade bureau. It might almost be said that the -great and growing figures of foreign trade, issued triumphantly every -year by the government statisticians, have been achieved despite the -obstructions placed in the path of their progress. - -The growth of those figures in their largest aspect is due to organized -private effort, the methods and operations of which are a sealed -book to the government official or the general public, and which -unfortunately have shared in the recent and sweeping condemnation -of the business methods of all big corporations. There has been no -sifting of the wheat from the chaff, the good from the evil, with most -deplorable results, for which both public and corporations are to -blame. The natural result has been that in attempting to regulate the -home activities of “big business” their foreign activities have been -hindered and even checked. Lost ground in foreign directions is more -difficult to regain than at home, for certain artificial and natural -barriers always exist, which favor home markets, while foreign trade -meets well-equipped rivals at least on equal terms, and often with a -handicap. - -In the year 1913 the people of the United States are entering upon a -radical change in the national attitude toward domestic and foreign -commerce. There is a partial reversal of policy toward home industry; -there is also an important experiment afoot in diplomacy. It is too -early to say just how radical these changes will be in the final -reckoning, or what may be the outcome. It is quite possible that -increased freedom of trade may bring good results at home; and if -Congress recognizes the need of a commercial diplomacy auxiliary -to that of the litterateur, the reformer, the peace-advocate, the -missionary, and the general uplifter of mankind, and the administration -provides competent, permanent, and resident commercial diplomats or -attachés to all important American missions, a threatened disadvantage -may be turned into a victory. At present, however, American foreign -trade is the foot-ball of national politics. - -Private enterprise, with its able American representatives abroad, is -the only real guard against serious damage possessed by this great -asset of the nation. The advance of American foreign commerce may be -likened to a more or less friendly conflict with an allied army of -foreign competitors. This is specially true of American trade, for it -is generally a new-comer, and is regarded with dislike and antagonism -to such an extent as to induce combinations of rivals to resist its -advance. - -The strongest efforts of American diplomacy should be directed to -Russia and China to bring about a commercial entente between the -United States and these two countries. The future of China as a market -for foreign enterprise and merchandise will develop slowly, it is -true, but the results will in time prove stupendous. In view of this, -firm foundations should be laid for the structure of international -trade, which will inevitably develop in the course of years. In the -case of Russia there is no time to be lost. Here is a great area of -wonderfully productive territory inhabited by scores of millions of -people. Education is spreading among these people, and their wants -are multiplying. Such foreign trade as has found a lodgment there -is of the kind America wants, and will need more and more as her -productiveness increases and the oversupply of home markets becomes -more noticeable. England, Germany, France, the Low Countries, and those -of Scandinavia are losing no time. Political, financial, commercial, -and industrial bonds are being forged with all possible rapidity to -this awakening nation of industrious people. American interests in -Russia are already large, but their existence is due to private and -not national initiative. As a nation we have not only done much to -discourage the betterment of intercourse with Russia, but have even -actually threatened the existence of American interests therein by -inviting antagonism instead of friendly coöperation. It is not too late -to remedy this unfortunate attitude, but the situation needs prompt, -wise, and fearless handling by those responsible for the foreign policy -of the United States. - -American foreign commerce rests on a basis of international friendship. -Once established, the needs of the respective countries determine the -extent of international trading, modified as it must be, however, by -conditions of transportation and such fiscal restrictions as may be -imposed. Leaving the matter of price and quality to be dealt with by -the industrial exporter, as must be the case, the influence of the -Government remains as the most important outside factor in determining -the prosperity of this trade. Under the control of the Government -come the treaty-making power, with its bid for favorable reception -of American products; the official attitude toward facilities for the -manufacturing of exports and toward transportation; and assistance in -gathering information for exporters. The important, but more technical, -details of foreign commerce can safely be left to private enterprise in -its effort toward profitable trading. There is no doubt as to the good -intention of government officials and of those who vote the money for -their work: it is, of course, that American consumers shall benefit. - -There are two points of view, however, well illustrated in the attitude -of the British and the United States Government, respectively, as -to the direction in which governmental efforts may be extended in -the furtherance of foreign trade. The British Government pays great -attention to the diplomatic end of the business, and lets private -enterprise follow up any advantage gained. The United States Government -spends vastly more money and effort upon the details of trade, but in -many cases unfortunately attempts to build upon a shifting and insecure -foundation, in that the relations of the two countries may be weak -diplomatically, or there may be lack of knowledge or understanding as -to the general conditions to be met. For some American consul to inform -American manufacturers through the State Department of great openings -for the sale of goods does not mean necessarily that these goods can -be sold; for in some cases American competition would find itself -hopelessly handicapped by the superior trade diplomacy and knowledge -of its adversary, thus nullifying any possible superiority in goods or -prices. - -From a practical point of view, to analyze American foreign trade in -detail would be an endless and useless task. It has grown to be what it -is through exports of food-stuffs and raw materials, followed naturally -by the surplus products of manufacturing. Of imports the same may be -said, reversing the order of the progression. The land furnished the -material, and labor came at its call from all parts of the world. The -logical result of plenty of material, a constantly increasing supply -of labor, combined with national ingenuity and a climate conducive to -the development of nervous energy, is the production of more or less -finished merchandise in such quantities as to keep half the ships of -the world in daily use carrying it to and fro. Whether governmental -intervention has helped or hindered has been the subject of controversy -since this commerce began, and will continue until commerce ends; but -out of it all must come a certain amount of wisdom, gained through -experience, which should be of practical benefit to those on whom rests -the responsibility of official coöperation with private adventure in -foreign lands. - -The three great foreign trading nations of the world are England, -Germany, and the United States, in the order named. In 1912 the foreign -commerce of England amounted to a little less than $6,000,000,000, -that of Germany to more than $4,600,000,000, and that of the United -States to nearly $4,200,000,000. The total foreign trade of these three -countries is proportioned approximately between imports and exports as -follows: - - England Germany United - States - - Imports 60 per cent. 54 per cent. 43 per cent. - Exports 40 “ “ 46 “ “ 57 “ “ - -These figures mean that the United States is still a debtor nation. -If the imports of gold brought the imports level with the exports in -value, which they do not, but far from it, the figures would indicate -that the American people were getting cash for their goods instead of -merchandise, as would be the case if merchandise exports and imports -were equal. The most considerable factors that annually balance this -trade are the payments of interest and principal on American securities -held abroad, remittances by American immigrants to foreign lands, money -spent abroad by American tourists, and payments made to foreign-owned -vessels for freight-charges on goods carried to and from America. There -are several other factors in this balance, but the four named are the -most considerable. In the case of England and Germany, as well as many -other prosperous countries whose foreign-trade sheets show an excess -of imports over exports, this excess represents the profit on trading -abroad, and the inflow of returns upon capital invested abroad. In -other words, these nations are creditor, or money-lending, communities. -The imports of all money-lending countries, like France, England, -Germany, the Netherlands, and others, considerably exceed the exports, -while the exports of all borrowing, developing, or unequally developed -countries, like Russia, the United States, Argentina, Rumania, and many -others, exceed the imports, as the foreign investor must be paid his -interest, and the only source of money for such payment is eventually -either the product of the soil or of industry. - -One hundred years ago, when the population of the United States -was about seven millions, the American people imported annually -considerably less than $100,000,000 worth of merchandise, less than ten -per cent. of which came in free of duty. In 1912, when the population -was more than ninety millions, the importations amounted to nearly -$1,700,000,000, of which about fifty-four per cent. entered duty free. -The average ad valorem rate of import duty on dutiable goods one -hundred years ago was about forty per cent., and on the total imports, -dutiable and free, it was about thirty-five per cent. In 1912 the -average ad valorem on dutiable goods was about the same as one hundred -years before, and on the total imports, both dutiable and free, it was -about nineteen per cent. The progress of American foreign trade in one -hundred years is recorded as follows: - - _Year_ _Imports_ _Exports_ _Total Foreign - Trade_ - - 1810 $85,000,000 $67,000,000 $152,000,000 - 1830 63,000,000 72,000,000 135,000,000 - 1850 174,000,000 144,000,000 318,000,000 - 1870 436,000,000 393,000,000 829,000,000 - 1890 790,000,000 858,000,000 1,648,000,000 - 1912 1,818,000,000 2,363,000,000 4,181,000,000 - -In one hundred years the population has increased more than thirteen -times, and the foreign trade more than twenty-five times. In 1810 the -per capita foreign trade of America was about $21, and in 1912 it was -nearly $40. These latter figures are really much more significant than -appears at first glance, for the population of America, as estimated -in 1810, was composed of a larger proportion of effective producing -units than in 1912. Few but white people were counted, the percentage -of women and children was smaller, and virtually every white American -was self-supporting. The estimate of to-day includes, therefore, a -much larger percentage of human beings who, though counted as units -in population, are not so potential in the material activities of -the nation. The $40 per capita of 1912 is much more significant of -the growth of American foreign interests, therefore, than merely the -increase from the $21 of 1810 appears. - -Speaking generally, the foreign trade of the United States has -doubled every twenty years since 1830, regardless of wars, changes of -government, administrative policies, the rise or decline of shipping -interests, the increasing power of foreign competition, or the opening -and development of competitive territory in other parts of the world. -The development of industry in a country is usually written on the -character of the imports and exports, and the changes that take place -in the proportions of raw material and manufactured goods are most -significant. In the case of the United States, these are strikingly -shown in the more or less shifting percentages of a long period in -the growth of the nation--a period fully covering the time the United -States has figured to any marked degree in the economic affairs of the -world. In the last eighty-two years American foreign trade has been -roughly classified by percentages as follows: - - -_IMPORTS_ - - _1830_ _1870_ _1912_ - Crude food-stuffs and - food animals 11.77 12.41 13.93 - Food-stuffs partly or - wholly manufactured 15.39 22.03 11.86 - Crude manufactured - material 6.72 12.76 33.63 - Manufactures for use - in manufacture 8.22 12.75 17.77 - Manufactures ready for - consumption 56.97 39.82 21.78 - Miscellaneous .93 .23 1.03 - ------ ------ ------ - 100.00 100.00 100.00 - -The most noticeable features of the statement given above are that -the importation of crude food-stuffs and food animals remain about -the same in their relation to total imports, that the importation of -partly manufactured food-stuffs has decreased, that the importation -of materials for use in manufacture has enormously increased, and -that the importation of manufactured goods ready for consumption has -decreased by nearly two thirds. All of these figures, both of imports -and exports, are based on values and not on quantities. The latter -would be the most accurate measure of progress, as prices have changed -materially--either fallen or increased, mostly the latter--on many -important staples; but it would be virtually impossible to consider -these matters from a point of view other than that of values, where -everything is grouped under an inclusive total, and in all probability -the change that might follow a quantitative analysis, rather than one -based on values, would not materially alter any conclusions that might -be drawn. The changes in American exports during the same period were -by percentages as follows: - - -_EXPORTS_ - - _1830_ _1870_ _1912_ - Crude food-stuffs and - food animals 4.65 11.12 4.60 - Food-stuffs partly or - wholly manufactured 16.32 13.53 14.69 - Crude manufactured - material 62.34 56.64 33.31 - Manufactures for use - in manufacture 7.04 3.66 16.04 - Manufactures ready - for consumption 9.34 14.96 30.98 - Miscellaneous .31 .09 .38 - ------ ------ ------ - 100.00 100.00 100.00 - -The noticeable features of the record of American exports for the last -eighty-two years are that the export of food-stuffs has decreased -rather than increased in proportion to business in other commodities; -that the export of crude manufactured material has greatly decreased, -and in fact, with the exception of cotton, has become a negligible -quantity; and that the export of manufactured goods ready for -consumption has increased enormously. Exports of cotton are now the -basis of American export of raw material. Whereas the total production -of cotton in the United States in 1830 was only about 1,000,000 bales, -in 1912 the United States furnished nearly 11,000,000 bales for export, -valued at $625,000,000, amounting to fully five sixths of the value -of all raw material for manufacturing purposes exported by the United -States in that year. - -The export of raw cotton in the case of the United States does not mean -any appreciable backwardness of home manufacture. The importations of -manufactured cotton goods are decreasing annually, so far as cloths are -concerned. In 1912 less than $8,000,000 in cotton cloth was imported -from abroad. The heaviest importation of cotton goods was in laces -and such other things as are specialties of foreign manufacture, in -many cases hereditary trades, or trades dependent upon cheap, trained -female labor, such as is not available in America. America uses -nearly 6,000,000 bales of home-grown cotton every year in her own -factories, and supplies not only the home market with manufactured -goods, but manufactures more than $30,000,000 worth for foreign sale, -in competition with the great spinning and manufacturing countries -of Europe. The growing of cotton is not a raw-material industry in -the strict sense of the word, for, owing to peculiarities of climate, -certain features of the American labor supply, and the great amount -of money this staple crop brings from abroad and distributes in -non-manufacturing districts, it possesses a peculiar and great economic -value to the country. Coal, tobacco, petroleum, and timber are the -more important of the crude materials exported from the United States -in addition to cotton; but the total value of all these is, as stated, -about one sixth of the whole. - -The total value of the exports of domestic merchandise from the United -States in 1912 was about $2,363,000,000. As stated, cotton stands at -the head of the list. The iron and steel industry comes next; the -farmers of the United States furnish the third largest amount of -merchandise for export; and machinery of all kinds, oils, paper, fruit, -and chemicals, are the leaders in American export. The most interesting -changes that have taken place in American foreign trade in the last few -years are those that indicate certain possibilities of the future; in -fact, they are in a way prophetic of what is to happen in the economic -life of the nation. In 1902 93,000 head of cattle were imported, and in -1912 the importations numbered 325,000. In 1902 about 327,000 head of -cattle were exported, and in 1912 only about 46,000. This means that -the American people have nearly reached the point where the home market -absorbs all cattle grown in the country, and that in future other -peoples, who in the past have been dependent upon the United States for -their beef supply, must look elsewhere. The exportation of bread-stuffs -has decreased materially, while importation has quadrupled, thus -telling a story of shortage in food-supply, as did the change in the -cattle movement. This same shortage is shown in like changes in the -trade in meat products, dairy products, eggs, and nearly every other -variety of staple food. - -The United States produces half the copper of the world, but both -exports and imports of this metal are increasing, showing that other -countries are sending copper to this country for treatment. In 1902, -America imported 135,000,000 pounds of tin plates, and in 1912 only -4,500,000 pounds. The exports of tin plates increased during the same -period from 3,500,000 pounds to 183,000,000 pounds. Iron and steel -show a marked decline in imports and an enormous gain in exports. The -American people are no longer importing automobiles to any extent, -but are increasing their sales abroad, and in 1912 sold $28,000,000 -worth to foreign buyers. The importations of coffee virtually hold -their own, amounting in 1912 to nearly 1,000,000,000 pounds; but owing -to increased prices, the value of this importation is nearly double -that of 1902. The exports of the iron and steel industry of the United -States, including the manufactures of these materials as well, now -amount to about $1,000,000 per day. Europe takes the higher class of -goods, and Canada and South America take the rails, structural iron -and steel, heavy castings, and other like products that constitute the -heavy tonnage of the industry. - -The countries taking their largest proportionate share of their imports -from the United States are: Haiti, 69 per cent.; Honduras, 68 per -cent.; Canada, 62 per cent.; Santo Domingo, 61 per cent.; Panama, 56 -per cent.; Mexico, 55 per cent.; Cuba, 53 per cent.; and Costa Rica 51 -per cent. England takes 17.3 per cent. of her imports from the United -States, Germany 13.3 per cent., and France 8.6 per cent. Of the South -American countries, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru take from -20 to 30 per cent. of their imports from the United States, while -others take smaller percentages, ranging from the 13.8 of Argentina -and the 12.8 of Brazil to the 2.8 per cent. of Bolivia. Other countries -draw very slightly upon the United States for their imports, notably -China, which takes only 5 per cent.; India, 3 per cent.; Morocco, less -than 1 per cent.; Servia, 1 per cent.; and about the same for Turkey -and Rumania. The great markets for American products at the present, -in total value of goods sold to the peoples of these countries, are -England, purchasing as she does from America goods to the amount of -$572,000,000; Canada, $285,000,000; Germany, $283,000,000; France, -$119,000,000; the Netherlands, $117,000,000; Italy, $70,000,000; Cuba, -$57,000,000; Mexico, $56,000,000; Russia, $52,000,000; Austria-Hungary, -Argentina, and Belgium, between $45,000,000 and $50,000,000 each, and -Australia, Brazil, and Japan, between $27,000,000 and $32,000,000 each. - -Of the export trade of the United States, 60 per cent. goes to Europe, -23 per cent. to North America, 6 per cent. to South America, 5 per -cent. to Asia, 4 per cent. to Oceanica, and 2 per cent. to Africa. -American producers send more than 90 per cent. of their entire foreign -shipments, or more than $2,000,000,000 worth of goods, to nineteen -countries, and the remaining ten per cent. covers the trade with all -the rest of the world. England buys about 26 per cent. of the total -American export; Canada 15 per cent.; Germany 13 per cent.; France 7 -per cent.; the Netherlands 4 per cent.; Italy, Cuba, and Belgium, each -3 per cent.; Mexico, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Russia, and Brazil, -each 2 per cent.; and Spain, Austria-Hungary, Panama, China, and the -Philippines, each about 1 per cent. - -Official figures of imports and exports are useful as indications from -which deductions may safely be drawn, but they are not an accurate -record of the trade relations of any two countries. In some cases the -indirect trade of the United States with certain countries is much -larger than custom-house figures would indicate, in that American -goods are purchased by other nations, who act as distributors or -intermediaries in conducting the foreign trade of the world. This -is very largely so in American trade with England. That country is -credited with purchases of American goods far in excess of the needs -of the British people. These goods are bought by English firms whose -dealings are largely with other foreign countries, and by them sold -to their customers on the Continent of Europe, in Asia, Oceanica, -or elsewhere. A striking example of this is the American trade with -Russia. It is impossible to state exactly the value of American goods -which in time find their way to the Russian consumer, but it is vastly -in excess of the amount of trade between the United States and Russia, -or $52,380,000, as given in government statistics. In the official -statement of exports of American cotton, Russia is credited by the -Department of Commerce figures as receiving 64,590 bales, valued at -$3,796,867. - -American consuls in Russia, and the cotton experts of that country, -estimate that Russia consumes annually nearly $50,000,000 worth of -American raw cotton, an amount nearly equal to the total export to -Russia of all American goods, according to United States government -figures. That the government figures are misleading is due to the fact -that they are figures of direct business only; and direct trade between -the United States and Russia is, for geographical, transportation, and -financial reasons, more or less hampered. American cotton is bought -for Russia in London, Hamburg, Antwerp, Copenhagen, and other great -European markets. The exports are credited in the United States to the -ports mentioned, and while the ultimate destination does not affect -the totals of American foreign trade, it does lead to wide-spread -confusion as to the comparative value of the various foreign markets -for American products. This is particularly unfortunate in the case of -Russia, a country with which the United States has recently had some -difficulty in the matter of a treaty of mutual trade and friendship. -Judging from United States government statistics, American trade -relations with Russia might be regarded as almost negligible; whereas -in fact they are already of the greatest value and importance, to say -nothing of the brilliant prospects of possible trade expansion in the -near future. Even the government figures show a direct sale to Russia -of nearly $50,000,000 worth of American goods, deducting the direct -sales of cotton. With a known consumption of $50,000,000 worth of -American cotton, this gives at least $100,000,000 as the value of -American sales to Russia. Cotton, however, is not the only merchandise -sold indirectly, and if other goods are handled in the same way to an -equal amount, it is possible that the annual sales of American goods to -Russia amount to nearly $200,000,000, or four times the amount allowed -by United States official figures. - -This correction would give Russia fourth instead of ninth place in -the list of great buyers of American goods. This is the most striking -illustration of the deceptive feature of government trade-statistics -in determining the order of importance of foreign buyers of American -goods, though there are other countries which suffer in the estimation -of exporters for the same reason. As has been already stated, it was -peculiarly unfortunate that this was so in the case of Russia, for -those who, for reasons of their own, favored national retaliation -against that country through mutual trade relations used United States -government statistics to support their argument, and the American -public naturally accepted these data at their apparent value. A final -and accurate determination of the value of each foreign country as a -market for American merchandise, a laborious and almost impossible -task, would undoubtedly lead to interesting and unexpected results. -It would not only make many changes in the list of the most important -customers, but would immediately suggest possibilities of more direct -trading, which would stimulate American rail, shipping, and financial -interests, increase profits by cutting out the middleman, and in the -end give added stimulus to American foreign trade. - -One of the most serious difficulties that confront the American -Government in its dealings with foreign nations is the inelasticity -of the American tariff laws. The most sensible and scientific tariff -law which the United States could have,--allowing that the principle -of tariff for revenue and protection is to prevail,--is such rate -of duty as may be deemed advisable, all things considered; an -arrangement whereby a surtax could be imposed upon goods from countries -discriminating against American merchandise, and a trading margin -for treaty-making purposes, ranging from the normal rate of duty, -as set forth in the customs laws, to absolute free trade between -the treaty-making powers. There is little or no hope that such a law -can prevail or will be formally advocated by any political party in -power; but it is a hopeful sign that it has been seriously suggested -and discussed by men prominent in the councils of the nation. That -tariff laws will in time be formulated on that basis is likely, but -such a statement reaches further into the domain of prophecy than is -apparently warranted in the present temper of actual legislation. -There is a simple truth, apparently often forgotten or ignored, and -it is that to give is necessary, to be able to take, in all dealings -between nations, as much as between individuals. All trading is in -the end a compromise, presumably mutually beneficent and equally so. -It rests with the wit and ability of the trader to see that he at -least comes out even. It would be interesting to know just how far -the late President McKinley intended to go in his advocacy of better -foreign-trade relations for the United States had not his tragic death -cut short his program. The last speech he made at Buffalo was crowded -with significance of what might come later. It was in a sense as though -he were only preparing the way for an important development of American -fiscal policy in connection with foreign trade. Those who were in his -closest confidence in the days just prior to his death have knowledge -of an evolution that had taken place in his mind--a mind that had given -more thorough thought and study to tariff matters than almost any -other in America at that time. They firmly believe that at the moment -the life of President McKinley ended, he had planned a pronunciamento -in favor of concessions to American foreign-trade interests which -would have startled the country, put the Republican party in line with -the mass of the voters who desired tariff revision, and of which his -Buffalo speech strongly advocating reciprocity in commerce was only the -opening paragraph. Had he lived, this one thing might have made a vast -difference in the subsequent fortunes of the Republican party; but when -he died his place was taken by a man whose marvelous activities did not -include an interest in the tariff. In fact, as he frankly expressed it, -the subject “bored” him, as it does many others, unfortunate for the -country as this may be. - -The American diplomatic service has passed through some remarkable -phases in the last twenty-five years. A few years ago it was quite -frankly used as a means for rewarding political services to the party -in power. No good could possibly come out of such a system. There were -some exceptions to the general rule that American ambassadors and -ministers were either indifferent to or else ignorant of the needs of -the United States in international politics, but they were few and far -between. More recently men have been selected for the most important -places by reason of their wealth and social standing. Some of those -selected made excellent representatives, but owing to the shortness of -their terms of office they had no more than familiarized themselves -with their surroundings than they were either recalled or found it -expedient to return to their native land. - -President Wilson has apparently established a new plan, or rather -revived an old one. He is selecting his foreign representatives -from the class known in Europe as the “intellectuals.” This policy -is adopted at a highly critical time in the history of the foreign -trading of the United States, and at a time when virtually all the -great international questions and controversies are those of respective -economic advantage, one nation over another. It comes also at a -time when the great commercial and industrial rivals of the United -States are pursuing a different policy, one which is perhaps worth -considering. England and Germany to a notable degree, and France, -Russia, and some others of the great Powers to a sufficient degree -to be noticeable, are training men for all diplomatic positions, and -promotions are made even to the highest places almost entirely upon the -merits and suitability of the candidates. The young man who enters the -foreign office service of England or Germany in a subordinate position -has within his power, if he develop accordingly, to become in time an -ambassador to some important country. He is thoroughly tried out, step -by step, as consul and minister before the highest rank is given to -him. He is moved about from one part of the world to another until he -becomes in truth a cosmopolitan not only in thought and habit, but -in language and knowledge. The most serious part of the education of -these men is, first, the economics of their own country, and, secondly, -the economics of the country to which they are to be accredited. -This education is practical and not theoretical. This is true to so -great an extent that, when a technical matter of trade enters into -a controversy between the two state departments, the minister or -ambassador is often found fully qualified to fight the battle himself -in aid of the material interests of the country he represents. There -are no more practical men anywhere than a majority of these who now -represent the progressive industrial countries of Europe as foreign -ministers or ambassadors. This particular feature of their equipment -for the office is not unnecessarily paraded, however, for their social -and political qualifications are more in the public eye. It is in the -private talks at the State Department at Washington, in London, Berlin, -Paris, St. Petersburg, or elsewhere, that their real fighting strength -is disclosed. It is not a question of private fortune with them, for -their governments remove any anxiety on that score by an adequate and -even abundant allowance of funds not only for salaries, but for housing -and maintenance. The British ambassador to Washington receives more -in salary and expense allowance than does the President of the United -States in proportion to the necessary expenditures of his office. - -To the American manufacturer, deeply engaged with his cost of -production and the filling of orders, it may appear that too much -stress is laid upon the function of foreign diplomacy in the success of -American business abroad; but it will not be necessary to give emphasis -to its importance with those Americans who have already pioneered their -business into remote parts of the world. They know, through bitter -experience, how inefficiency in an American embassy or legation can -hinder and even destroy the greater possibilities for American success. - -At present, and for years past, the fortunes of American foreign -trading depend, so far as diplomacy is concerned, upon the character, -ability, common sense, and adroitness of the individual government -representative abroad rather than upon the Government or the system as -a whole. Within the year 1912 we had the two extremes: in one country -an able, intelligent, and practical man, working persistently for weeks -to bring about a commercial entente cordiale between the United States -and the country in which he was stationed; and in another country -American interests were forced to appeal to English or other foreign -representatives to help them through a time of stress, because the -American representative considered things commercial as outside of -the province of his labors. Both of these men are out of office now -not because one was useful and the other useless, but because of the -system, or lack of system, which required their places for others. - -An English minister who was stationed in an important country a few -years ago failed when there to secure certain large contracts for -English builders. This same minister is still in the service, but is -now kicking his heels in an unimportant place, where what he does or -does not is of little consequence. A certain German ambassador was -recently denied the place of his choice because he had done so well -where he was that his services were still needed at that point; but -when the crisis has passed, he will get his reward all the more surely. - -The day will come in America when it will be realized that a nation -can well afford to cheapen for export by every means in its power, -and that such cheapness does not necessarily mean discrimination -against the home consumer. There are few signs of the dawn of this day -at the moment, and it will come only when the ultimate and general -overproduction of manufactures forces the attention of the whole nation -upon the need of still greater markets elsewhere. There is one comfort -for the people of the United States, possessed in no such degree by -any other nation at the present time or for several generations to -come, and that is, the abounding possibilities of the North American -continent in its natural resources, and the amazing vitality and -resourcefulness of its inhabitants. - -[Illustration: LAÏLA, FROM MESOPOTAMIA - -NEW-MADE AMERICANS - -A Few Types of Foreign Women Sketched, in New York, from the Life - -By W. T. Benda] - -[Illustration: ZOBÉIDA, FROM SYRIA] - -[Illustration: MARGHERITA, FROM ITALY] - -[Illustration: JENNY, FROM CANADA - -ULANA, FROM POLAND - -DOLORES, FROM SPAIN - -KALINKA, FROM BULGARIA - -ALICE, FROM ENGLAND - -SARAH, FROM SOUTHERN RUSSIA] - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -THE DEVIL, HIS DUE - -BY PHILIP CURTISS - - -Now, Furniss was a devil. I mean that exactly, and if I might, I should -like to explain it, for I wish to draw a distinction between the -devils and the merely devilish. If argot had not spoiled the phrase, I -might have said that he was a regular devil, as distinguished from the -volunteer, the territorial, the occasional, or the would-be devil. - -The distinction between a regular devil and one who is merely devilish -is exactly the distinction between the professional and the amateur -in all occupations. The devilish do things purely for the éclat of -the doing, while the devils do them because they want the things -done. A professional carpenter carpenters in order that he may have -a table, to be used for his varying ends; an amateur uses his tools -merely for the sake of the chips. That an occasional amateur displays -unusual brilliancy in the accomplishment has nothing to do with the -distinction. The real devils, moreover, regard the devilish purely -with a mild amusement, if they regard them at all. Their only vexation -is that of professional craftsmen at the “pin-money” workers, whose -spasmodic efforts cut into legitimate trade. - -The most powerful proof which I can bring to the statement that Furniss -was a real devil, however, is the one that he did not regard himself as -a devil at all. On the contrary, he regarded himself as an industrious -citizen, fairly successful in the accomplishments of his ends. As -a career, devilishness did not interest him in the slightest. Its -material rewards were all that he sought. - -Now, at midnight, on the thirtieth of October, Furniss, with the best -intentions in the world, was standing in a group in the ball-room of -the Fitchly Country Club, harmlessly singing “Auld Lang Syne.” At one -minute past twelve the engineer turned out all the lights, having -standing instructions to do so, for Fitchly was a goodly town, and on -this particular night the steward had forgotten to make an exception. -The result was that which usually occurs when the lights are turned -out on a perfectly respectable and usually sane gathering of grown men -and women--every bit of asininity in the mob swarmed to the surface. -There were cat calls, screams, and suggestive labials, while all the -naturally executive began groping toward the door and the steward. - -What the others did, however, did not matter. It was generally -understood that they were merely devilish, and no score was to be -counted against them. Furniss, on the other hand, played everything -for stakes, and his tally had to meet with a reckoning. For, when the -lights left their sudden wave of darkness on the mixed and rollicking -group, Furniss quietly and modestly followed the promptings of his -profession, turned slowly, gathered the nearest woman into his arms, -and thoroughly and deliberately kissed her. Who she was he had not the -slightest idea, nor did he, indeed, have any very lively curiosity. -The act was purely professional, perfectly methodic, as automatic -and unemotional as a response in a ritual. Thus, despite Furniss’s -known make-up, the fact would have passed unnoticed had it not been -for two things, first, that, owing to the deliberateness of Furniss -and the quickness of the engineer, the lights went on again before -he was through, and the second that the woman thus discovered in his -arms was the only one in the room whom he would have had the slightest -reason for wanting to kiss. It was a perfect triumph of circumstantial -evidence. - -The sudden hush which fell on the group when the lights were restored -at once displayed the awfulness of Furniss’s depravity, as viewed by -the Fitchly Country Club, in riot assembled. Had any other man been -caught in the same act, with any other woman, there would have been -merely a triumphant outcry of self-acknowledged devilishness. The man -would have bought at the bar below, and the women would have screamed -themselves to their motors; but, by some unusual instinct that was -positively primitive, every man and woman in the room realized that -Furniss was a professional and his act took a much more vital aspect. -By the same perfect precision of instinct not a single iota of blame -was attached to the lady in question, for the accurate conception of -Furniss on the part of the Country Club demonstrated also that she was -only an instrument in a tragedy of the elements. One does not accuse a -person of being an accessory to a cyclone. - -At the vivid and not wholly beautiful picture thus presented by -the electrics, the whole room foolishly and utterly unsuccessfully -attempted to give an imitation of a gathering which knows that nothing -has happened. After the awful hush of the first moment, the women began -quietly conversing in tones unusually subdued; the men began skylarking -and shouting on subjects unusually hollow. The object of instructing -the engineer to turn on the lights again, after midnight, had been to -allow the dance to continue until two in the morning. At one there was -not a single person left in the ball-room, and the waiters were already -sweeping up the fragments. Some fragments, however, they could not -sweep, and these make the following prelude: - -Ten years before, at the age of twenty-five, Furniss had had one chance -in a million of being decent; that is to say, he had nearly married a -good woman, and that woman, needless to explain, was the one whom by -sheer accident he kissed just ten years later. Furthermore, it was the -nearest that he had ever come to marrying anybody, or ever would come, -and it was a hollow victory for the law of chances. - -Furniss was a devil because he came of that stock. It bred true to -type, merely with refinements in each succeeding generation. His father -was a stout, red-faced man of the kind that, thirty years ago, drove -trotting-horses to a red-wheeled run-about, with wooden knobs on the -reins, and loops to hold to--a true example of the days when it took -absolute defiance to be a sporting-man. Furniss himself drove the -best-looking motor-car in Fitchly, and his effect was esthetically -better than his father’s, for, owing to the rigidity of the thing, it -is much easier to have a good taste in motor-cars than in horses. His -mother was a blonde, expensively-dressed woman of the type which goes -through life in the hideous belief that tight-lacing will make feminine -obesity anything but revolting. - -Yet at twenty-five Furniss had had his chances. He went to college -and played foot-ball. He played it well. It is frequently the noblest -thing that men of his stamp ever do, except one. They sometimes get -into the army, and into the cavalry; less frequently into the infantry, -but never, absolutely never, into the engineers. It was, moreover, the -heyday of the college athlete, those golden years of the nineties when -men wore huge white Y’s and H’s on high-necked sweaters at mountain -resorts all summer, and when reputations lasted more than a year. -With one of these reputations Furniss had come out of college, and -tentatively, against its judgment, Fitchly had received him. It was one -of those inconceivable cases when reason and instinct battle. Everybody -knew old man Furniss and had not the slightest illusions about him; -yet here was young Furniss a half-back at Yale! Time has helped us to -understand these things nowadays, but they troubled us then. - -In Furniss’s case reason won over instinct, and Fitchly received him -with open arms which wavered slightly. The only return he made was to -fall mildly in love with Helen Witherspoon. It would be nice to think -that something in the sweet, old-fashioned manner of this dainty, -refined girl, whose ancestors had been immigrants two hundred years -before Furniss’s, appealed to the brute and barbaric in the foot-ball -hero, and perhaps it did, but a more plausible reason for his falling -in love with her was that every one else was doing it. It was the -temptation of the desired, the invitation of a contest, and of all -things this appealed most to Furniss. Every one was doing it; but in a -very short time it narrowed down to Furniss and Butley Smith, of the -well-known legal firm of Smith, Smith & Smith, which drew up the city -charter and refused to accept criminal practice. She married Smith. -You could hardly call it a disappointed love-affair. It was rather -precision by elimination, and Furniss was eliminated. Furnisses were -all right as half-backs, but we didn’t marry them in Fitchly; at least -Father and Mother Witherspoon didn’t marry them, and in Fitchly they -did the marrying. - -From Furniss’s point of view it was unfortunate, but it was natural. As -an economic system, marriage did not wholly persuade him, anyway. - -So Furniss reverted to type, and did well at it. He lost little of his -athletic good looks, and he was certainly invaluable as a club-man. -Thirty-five found him stocky, but not fat, with a face rather round, -but not repellent; a tiny, trim mustache; the inevitable blue serge -and that almost offensively white linen which one associates with the -broker type--that whiteness which threatens to, but does not quite, -suggest scented soap. It would have been extremely difficult to say -whether or not he had brains. His achievements rather pointed to the -fact that he had, and his tastes to the fact that he had not; but, in -any case, he made money, and whatever might be his misdeeds, he never -bothered any one by telling about them. He manufactured in quantity the -best off-set drill in America, and furthermore, as he held the patents, -the wholesale jobbers who bought the drill troubled not one whit with -his morals. The society of Fitchly shook its head occasionally, but on -the whole kept him along. It would be extremely difficult to drop a man -who had nowhere to drop to; and as he asked nothing of Fitchly, there -was nothing to refuse. This occasion at the Country Club, then, was -the first real instance in which the elements had come in conflict. - -Of the many mixed emotions which accompanied the premature withdrawal -from the Country Club that night, only two will suffice for -illustration, as they marked the extremes--those of Furniss himself -and of Butley Smith, the Menelaus of the ravished Helen. Those of -Furniss, indeed, were no doubt very similar to the emotions of the son -of Priam himself on the occasion of the original Hellenic uprising--an -amusing incident and an unfortunate one, but why this unseemly outcry? -His kissing some one when the lights went out had been a perfectly -consistent act. It was not an emotional impulse; it was, in a way, a -duty to the conventions, and how was he to know that the recipient was -a former sweetheart? He had no desire to repeat the crime. The attitude -of the Country Club had made osculation rather nauseous. It would seem -better breeding not to notice it; and yet, and yet, it was rather funny -that it should have been Helen. It was the first personal illustration -which Furniss had ever had of the dramatic, and he began to ponder. If -you ever wish to reclaim a devil, just try him on the dramatic. It is -the only uplifting influence which sleeps in the souls of most of them. - -The emotions of Butley Smith were less happily chosen. He also felt the -impulse of the drama, but his was the stiff and unnatural drama of the -classic schools, for his cue directed him to punch in the face of the -offending Furniss. It was a glowing idea, but it wasn’t practical, as -associates of Butley brutally pointed out when they drew attention to -the fact that the face of the ex-half-back, and the present associate -of half the prize-fighters in the East, would be an extremely hard one -to pummel, and their logic suggests an admirable course of action for -one who would play a dramatic part in such histories. If you must be an -outraged husband, be one in a novel or a play, where you will always -be able to thrash or horsewhip or shoot the villain within an inch -of his life. The physical incapacity of villains in these circles is -admirable. In real life, unfortunately, they are quite apt to be fully -the equals of the outraged husband, or otherwise the husbands would be -less frequently outraged. - -The probabilities of this situation were easily comprehended by a legal -mind which spurned a criminal practice, and Butley Smith had to take -his satisfaction in biding his time, reserving, however, the privilege -of biting his lip, to which extent he lived up to the unities. Meantime -the situation in Fitchly did not improve. - -Just how bad the situation was growing, just how fitfully the pot was -boiling, how it was even fanned by his own disregard of it, was utterly -aside from the observation of Furniss. He never knew, for example, -and probably would not have cared if he did, that there had been a -proposition to expel him from the Fitchly Country Club. But, then, as -was pointed out by Carter of the firm of Carter, Pills & Carter, who -did take an occasional criminal case, if an action were instituted -against Furniss, it must necessarily involve the guileless Helen, and, -whatever might be the popular verdict, just how much she could be -called an accomplice would be a decision extremely delicate for the -trained legal mind. It was certain that Furniss’s face had borne no -scratches when the lights went on again. - -So Butley boiled and chafed under his natural injunction against -punching Furniss, and bit his lip, and bided his time, until ultimately -it began to react on Helen, whose original emotions had been as simple -as those of the criminal. He boiled and chafed and bided his time until -the desperate Helen resolved on a terrible step--no less than an actual -move to the walls of Ilium. She wrote a note, and invited Furniss to -meet her in the private dining-room of the Fitchly Inn. - -He went. We will not flatter Furniss. Any note in a feminine -handwriting would have brought him just the same, and his mood was not -of the most elevated. His dim, uncertain stirrings of the dramatic on -the morning of the thirty-first had gone permanently back to sleep, and -on this particular day he had reasons to be distinctly savage, for he -had just lost a forty-thousand-dollar order for the off-set drill, and -he had no active inclinations toward mushrooms. Still, business was -business, and one had to buy luncheon for two, anyway. - -So Helen met him, and Helen pleaded. Aside from the boiling of Butley, -her feminine sense of the just had told her that wrong must be -righted and happy endings must prevail. She had not the rude melodrama -of her consort, which saw a trouncing as the only fit remedy for -non-patrons of husbandry; but she had, nevertheless, an Emersonian -theory of compensation, which perceived that the apparent impunity of -the outrager was contrary to the ultimate laws of existence. So Helen -pleaded, and Paris got mad. He didn’t like Butley, anyway. He would -apologize to Helen, but he wouldn’t to Menelaus. He couldn’t see that -the affair was international, anyway. It seemed to him distinctly -Parisian. But Helen wore a tailored gown with a fringe of lace at her -neck, so Paris surrendered, and the entente cordiale was restored. -He promised to apologize at the Quoits Club that very day, and that -evening, at a prearranged dinner, the nations would banquet in harmony. -Seven stalwart oxen would be killed, a libation poured to the gods, and -for seven hours-- - -But just then the waiter brought the bill. - -The bill, with tips, was twenty-four dollars and sixty cents, and with -a sudden recollection of the forty-thousand-dollar order, Furniss -reverted to type. With the usual inconsistency of a man who can lose -large sums with apparent indifference, he raved and fumed at the loss -of a penny. He raved and fumed all the afternoon at his office, and it -was not until well after five that he made an unaccustomed appearance -at the Quoits Club, still raging and fuming, with the only horror that -a man of his type can ever know--the horror of losing money. - -Butley Smith was already at the Quoits Club, as Helen well knew -he would be; but Furniss was an unaccustomed presence. He usually -preferred the Racquets, where the stakes were worth playing, and his -advent in this, the stronghold of strictly civil practice, made a -commotion. The commotion, moreover, soon attracted the attention of -Butley, who was straying through the tables looking for a partner. - -Now, Butley Smith was rated a magnificent card-player, which meant that -he played auction like a stop-watch, and poker like a two-year-old -child. The exact opposite was true, by reputation, of Furniss, and at -sight of him in the stronghold of his own followers, who demanded his -redemption, Butley had a sudden golden inspiration. He ceased biting -his lip, and his time was bid. He would beard the lion in his den, and -beard him he did. - -“Furniss,” he said, “are you busy?” - -Furniss looked up in perplexity. - -“Suppose,” continued Butley, “that we throw a few hands of poker.” - -Butley was right. With Furniss of Fitchly that was indeed an audacious -suggestion to give, but, brooding on the circumstances of the last -two months, in the minds of the Quoits Club it instantly assumed -Homeric proportions. The turn of a card, the fall of a die, a woman’s -honor--there was a romance about it that struck clear home to their -devilishness; a veritable thrill went among them. Only Furniss was -mystified; but, then, he was a devil, and naturally did not know how it -felt to be devilish. But he saw light--his own light, a light that is -not on land or sea, only in the waters under the earth. - -“I’m on,” he said, and Butley dealt. - -In a crowded club-room at five o’clock in the afternoon a two-handed -game would ordinarily have been a monstrosity, but this was no -ordinary contest. It was a fight to the very death, and without a word -the spectators gathered at the only points where it is proper for -spectators to gather in a poker-game--without a word and without a -suggestion to join. - -I want to do justice to that game, but the truth is that Butley did not -win a single hand--or just one in the early part. - -“I raise you four,” said Furniss as the clock struck six. - -Butley glanced at his hand. - -“It’s yours,” he said sadly, and regretfully laid down three jacks, -while Furniss rapidly shuffled an ace high into the pack and looked at -his watch. - -Six o’clock had been fixed as the hour for stopping, as both had -confessed the common engagement for dinner, and Butley rose with the -sad, sweet air of one defeated, but still game. Knowing Furniss of -Fitchly, the onlookers applauded. But Furniss was busily counting his -chips. - -“Twenty--twenty-two--twenty-four--twenty-four-fifty”--the last chip! A -sudden warm triumph came over him. Like a flash, he drew ten cents from -his pocket. - -“Butley,” he exclaimed, “I’ll match you for a dime.” - -Was it a challenge to game on all fields? Was it a contemptuous fling -at the triviality of the winnings? Or was it really the recognition of -the instincts of one sportsman by another? Butley did not know; but if -Furniss was flinging down the glove, he would still pick it up again. -Any one would die game for ten cents, and with the debonair air of the -devilish, Butley drew forth a coin and slapped it down on the table. -Two heads. Furniss had won, and Butley had paid for the luncheon. - -Nevertheless, most astounding of all, the unities were suddenly -restored, for across the table, with a genial, companionable smile, -Furniss was extending the right hand of fellowship. - -“Butley,” he said, and honestly, with the thought of twenty-four-sixty, -“if there is anything that I have to apologize for, you can take this -for my apology.” - -Now at this point there settles down a despondency like a pall. Oh, how -one might wish that one could leave them there with that happy scene -as a curtain, and that devils were not, and that they were all merely -devilish. But this is the story of Furniss. - -For after the prearranged dinner that evening, while Furniss and Butley -were making a four at bridge with the hosts, fair Helen, who played -bridge not at all, was strumming faint chords in the music-room. And -during his partner’s play, while Butley was racking his mathematical -memory to recall every card that had ever been played in the world, -this Furniss pushed in through the curtains, and Helen looked up. - -“You apologized?” she asked him, softly, still playing the bass. - -He nodded. - -She looked down, then up again wistfully. - -“For my sake?” - -“For your sake,” lied Furniss, his eyes like a babe’s. - -She took both hands from the keyboard and faced him, while Furniss -leaned over. She did not move back, and a slow, gentle smile reflected -his own while Furniss deliberately kissed her. - -In the card-room Menelaus was recalling the bid. - -“One lily,” he said with elation. - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -PADEREWSKI AT HOME - -BY ABBIE H. C. FINCK - -WITH A PORTRAIT BY EMIL FUCHS - - -Riond-Bosson, Paderewski’s beautiful place at Morges, on the Swiss side -of Lake Geneva, has become one of the show-places of Europe not only on -account of its famous owner, but also for its orchards, greenhouses, -and the chicken farm, which is one of Mme. Paderewska’s chief cares. -Better still, it is a charming home, where the world’s greatest pianist -and his wife spend the happiest part of their lives, the time when he -is free to compose, to practise, and to surround himself with friends, -to whom in gracious hospitality both manage to devote much time. -Neither appears officially before luncheon; but Mme. Paderewska, shaded -by a sunbonnet, accompanied by several dogs, and followed by a retinue -of workmen, is one of the frequent morning sights about the premises. -She oversees everything, the house,--notably the kitchen, in which -both she and Paderewski are greatly interested,--the chickens, and the -growing of the fruit and vegetables. Besides this, she attends to her -husband’s enormous correspondence, and is always ready with help and -advice to smooth difficulties out of his way. - -The Paderewskis are very fond of animals, especially dogs and parrots. -The wild birds, too, receive Mme. Paderewska’s care, and by her special -orders birdhouses have been placed on every tree on the place. She has -her reward, for the air is filled with the melody of their songs. With -all the other demands on her time, she finds leisure for collecting -material for a cook-book, which promises to be a valuable work, many of -its recipes being the result of her personal experience. - -Paderewski spends most of the morning and afternoon hours in his own -study. He finds some time for exercise during the day, grass-cutting -on lawn and fields being his favorite outdoor work; and although his -priceless hands have to be protected by gloves, he gets a good deal of -fun as well as benefit from being a “farm-hand.” At luncheon-time he -appears, after a hard morning’s work, looking well, happy, and boyish, -dressed, like Mark Twain, in pure white, and ready to chat delightfully -on any subject, whether it be gastronomy, American politics, his own -interesting South-American experiences, or other topics. - -Paderewski’s love of the picturesque made him long to own one of the -splendid old châteaux that abound in that part of Switzerland; but -the more practical counsels of his wife prevailed, and their home is -simply a comfortable modern house, standing at the top of a large, -sloping, green field. It is built somewhat in the chalet type, of -red brick, with many balconies, and a stately front terrace, and it -commands a magnificent prospect, first of the rose-garden, then of the -wide sweep of green, bordered by huge trees--lindens, chestnuts, and -evergreens. Farther on is the lake, with a splendid view of Mont Blanc -for a background. Flowers abound: orange-trees in tubs, geraniums, -heliotrope, mignonette, and chiefly roses, which not only fill the -formal rose-garden, but scramble over the fences of the chicken-yards, -a mass of pink-and-red bloom; while in the orchard, between the -espalier-grown fruit-trees, there is almost an equal number of tall -rose-bushes, all in bloom in July. - -[Illustration: Half-tone plate engraved for ~The Century~ by H. -Davidson - -IGNACE PADEREWSKI - -FROM A CHARCOAL SKETCH BY EMIL FUCHS] - -There are many portraits of Paderewski at Riond-Bosson, but none except -the pencil-sketch by Burne-Jones has represented both the strength -and the spirituality of his head. This portrait hangs in the salon, -surrounded by old prints, which are one of the master’s hobbies. -Fragonard’s pictures are evidently among his favorites, as they also -occupy a place of honor in the drawing-room. Autographed engravings -by Alma-Tadema, caricatures of Paderewski by well-known artists, and -photographs of famous friends--Modjeska, Saint-Saëns, and Sembrich, -among others--adorn the house from top to bottom; and Paderewski is the -possessor of a remarkable collection of old Swiss prints of towns and -scenery. A few very interesting family photographs hang in the library, -a whole group being of Mme. Paderewska in her childhood and girlhood, a -maiden with beautiful dreamy eyes and a delicate face, framed in dusky -hair. - -There are seven pianos in the house, two being in the drawing-room; -but it is in his own study that Paderewski does all his practising -and composing. His practising would be both an encouragement and a -discouragement to students. Hour after hour he works, with the patience -that none but the greatest possess, polishing and repolishing phrases -that sound perfect even to a practised ear, but which do not satisfy -his critical judgment. Only occasionally does he allow himself the -relaxation of playing even a page of music; after this he returns -relentlessly to octave work, to staccato finger-passages, to separate -phrases from Liszt’s sonatas, to the more difficult portions of his own -magnificent “Variations et fugue,” to snatches of Chopin, or to bits of -Debussy, whose piano-music he likes. - -Paderewski has much admiration for the greatest masters of the French -school: Gounod, Bizet, and especially Saint-Saëns, whom he considers -the greatest living musician. With enthusiasm he tells of Saint-Saëns’s -achievement in playing four Mozart concertos from memory at the age of -seventy-six. He also admires Massenet, particularly his “Jongleur,” -which he calls the French composer’s masterpiece. He feels that -Gounod’s “Faust,” even more than his “Roméo et Juliette,” is immortal, -and that “Carmen” is one of the works which can never grow old, and -of which one cannot tire. He finds Gounod’s influence in Bizet’s -compositions, and still more in those of Tschaikovsky, who in all his -work was dominated by the great Frenchman, the “Faust” waltz even -having colored Tschaikovsky’s symphonic ideas, coming into them either -in conventional waltz time or in the unusual rhythm of five beats, -as in the second movement of the “Symphonie Pathétique.” Still more -pronounced is Tschaikovsky’s debt to Gounod in “Eugen Onegin,” where, -in the love-scene, this same waltz phrase appears reversed, though -almost identical with that in “Faust.” “But I prefer the father,” -Paderewski adds. To him, as to many other lovers of “Faust,” the -“Soldiers’ Chorus” is uninteresting; but he singles out for special -admiration _Mefisto’s_ striking song of the “Veau d’or,” his serenade, -and the “immortally beautiful” love-music. - -Acquaintance with Tschaikovsky’s music means knowing the whole Russian -school, Paderewski says, although the younger Russian musicians -repudiate him and Rubinstein, just as Russian writers turn against -their greatest representative, and call Turgenieff a foreigner, -expatriated, and untrue to Russian characteristics. The first and last -movements of Tschaikovsky’s best-loved symphony, the “Pathétique,” -Paderewski considers sublime; but he regards the other two as rather -commonplace. - -His opinion of the modern French school has not changed since his -talk with Mr. Daniel Gregory Mason, which was published in ~The -Century~ for November, 1908. Some of the Debussy piano-music -appeals to him; but he still considers “Pelléas” little more than -color, and rather monotonous color. - -“I think I must be very old-fashioned,” he once said, “for I know many -persons no younger than I who like it.” His own “Variations,” in which -some listeners found a surface resemblance to the modern French school, -have no more real relation to it than has the music of Chopin or of -Liszt. - -Paderewski is as great in gastronomy as in music, and he believes -the subject of food is “the most important question” in our country. -Of Americans he says: “They are rich--rich enough to spoil French -cooking,” meaning their frequent indifference to quality, a fact which -he deeply deplores; for in this art, to him as to other connoisseurs, -the French are supreme. “You have good fruits, good meats, but nothing -else is good except the scallops, which are the best thing you have. -The fish is abominable.” In saying this he probably had in mind the -cold-storage fish served in our hotels. “You have destroyed your -lobsters, your salmon, your terrapin, your forests. You never think -that another generation is coming.” - -America is not the only country he censures thus sharply. The English -are still more blameworthy, for their food-stuffs are perfection, -and yet nothing tastes good; though he admitted that one could get -excellent dinners in some London restaurants and private houses. - -The sour cherry, which Europe owes to Lucullus, is Paderewski’s -favorite fruit. Following the Roman’s example, he has imported the -choicest varieties for his Swiss home. These trees came from Poland, -and those who ate of the fruit agreed with Paderewski’s statement that -they are “the aristocrats among cherries.” - -Perhaps the most vital subject to the great Pole is his own beloved -country. He is considered an important factor in the Polish-European -politics of the day. Considerable apprehension was felt as to the -possible effect of his speech on his inflammable compatriots at the -Chopin centenary, in 1910, and at the presentation of the magnificent -monument which Paderewski had caused to be erected at Cracow in -commemoration of the Polish victory over the order of Teutonic Knights -at Grunewald, in 1410. One of his countrymen was the sculptor of the -splendid equestrian statue of Wladislaus II. The mere description -of the scenes that followed, of the acclamations of the Poles, the -cheers of thousands for their beloved Paderewski, moves the hearer -deeply; what it must have meant to the man in whose honor those -thousands gathered from all Poland--a man ready to give his heart’s -blood for his country--can be known only to himself and to his wife. -Among the interesting souvenirs of this occasion are autographs of -many distinguished Poles who gathered to do honor to Poland and to -Paderewski. It is hardly strange that the Powers that hold Poland -should have felt that very serious consequences might arise from this -one man’s magnetism, enthusiasm, and patriotism. - -In the speech he made at the Chopin centenary, he advanced an -interesting theory to explain the genius of his country and the unrest -and moodiness of the Poles. He believes that, as a nation, they are -like their music, and live in a perpetual state of _tempo rubato_, -caused by a physical defect--arrhythmia, or unevenness of heartbeat. -He was not in the best of health; and being unable to play at this -festival, he offered that honor to his American pupil and friend Ernest -Schelling, who passed through the ordeal triumphantly, satisfying not -only his Polish audience, but his sponsor by his interpretation of the -works of Poland’s idol, Chopin. - -Paderewski is not addicted to talking much about himself; but -occasionally he gives his friends a glimpse of the real man. One -autobiographic incident concerns his own playing. Berlin has always -been unjust to Paderewski, not for artistic reasons, but on political -grounds. One well-known critic, after hearing Paderewski play, went to -the artist’s room, his eyes filled with tears of joy, to congratulate -the master; but later, obeying the official _mot d’ordre_ which is -frequently used in the attempt to kill great artists, he wrote most -disagreeably about Paderewski, who, in relating the experience, added -half deprecatingly: “He spoiled me by his call. It is easy to be -spoiled; and he was so pleased the first time that I thought he would -come again.” - -The remarkable songs to the poems of Catulle Mendès, which Paderewski -published a few years ago, were written, he told us, in three weeks; -and in that year, produced in an incredibly short space of time, the -piano sonata and the sketch of the symphony also saw the light. The -scoring of the latter he could not finish until three years later. The -composer is very particular about his manuscript, and if he makes an -error, he rewrites the whole page. At times he could score only one -page; at others, as many as five; and he smilingly says, “I was so -proud of my five pages, even if they were all rests.” He himself has to -study the piano accompaniments to his later songs, and he says that “it -is foolish to make them so difficult.” - -His South-American experiences had been of great interest to him both -from the point of view of the artist and that of the observer. He -had played ten times in Buenos Aires to growing houses and increasing -enthusiasm, the last of the series being to a $12,000 audience; he -had tasted barbecued beef at a great plantation feast, and found it -very unpalatable; he had studied the agricultural conditions of the -South-American countries, and had been amazed at the natural wealth -of the Argentine Republic, at its forests of trees unknown to us, and -still more at its humus, forty meters deep, which makes a soil so -fertile that it will last for centuries with no enriching. Being a -practical farmer himself, and deeply interested in the good of his own -land and forests, every detail of this extraordinary wealth fascinated -the great pianist. - -Like many other famous artists of to-day, Paderewski finds the making -of records for a phonograph far more trying and fatiguing than playing -in public. He says he would “rather play at twenty concerts than once -for a phonograph.” One of these records was so difficult to make, and -needed so many repetitions to insure perfection in every note, not only -artistically, but acoustically, that he almost dislikes to hear it. It -is safe to predict that his admirers will not share this feeling, and -that his own “Cracovienne,” Mendelssohn’s “Hunting-Song,” and Liszt’s -“Campanella,” to mention only three, will become popular additions -to their collections of records. He has a large number of Oriental -records, in which he is greatly interested. Years ago, when he first -went to San Francisco, he spent much of his spare time at the Chinese -theater listening to their music; so the study of Oriental tunes is no -new thing, although, thanks to the recording machines, it has taken a -new form. - -Never shall we forget our last afternoon at Riond-Bosson, when -Paderewski played for us, giving almost a professional recital, at -which the greatest of all the music he played was his own “Variations -et fugue,” Opus 23. To hear them in the concert-hall, as New York -audiences have heard them, is a great experience; but to hear them in a -room, with three or four enthusiasts as the only listeners, is a much -greater one. Mme. Wilkonska, Paderewski’s sister; Miss Mickiewicz, -granddaughter of the famous Polish poet; Mr. Blake, a young Polish -sculptor, and we two, were the only persons there besides the pianist -and his wife. She stood at his side to turn the leaves for him, -although he hardly glanced at the printed page; but as he had not -played this composition in a long time, and had had only a few hours’ -practice to recall it to memory and fingers, he preferred to have the -music before him. Lovers of music will recall the majestic theme in -octaves upon which Paderewski has built one of the most splendid sets -of variations in all music, one worthy to be compared with Schubert’s -sublime variations on his song of “Death and the Maiden.” He had -thundered out his theme, when two of Mme. Paderewska’s dogs began a -mad romp through the room. Paderewski’s hands dropped from the keys, -and the culprits were summarily put out, little realizing their sins. -They reappeared at doors and windows, scratching and barking; but, once -fairly launched, Paderewski was undisturbed by their small noises, and -played on to the end. After finishing the fugue, he replied, in answer -to questions, that one of the variations was difficult, then mentioned -another, and ended by repeating several of the best variations and also -the splendid fugue. - -We had been privileged to enjoy an experience such as Liszt described -in his book on Chopin, when the other great Polish composer-pianist -let his friends hear his own works interpreted by himself; but at -Riond-Bosson there was no jarring note of Philistinism such as Liszt -found in the aristocratic salons in which Chopin played. - - - - -[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF THE SEINE] - - - - -PARIS - -BY THEODORE DREISER - -Author of “Sister Carrie,” “Jennie Gerhardt,” etc. - -WITH PICTURES BY W. J. GLACKENS - - -When the train rolled into the Gare du Nord, it must have been about -eight o’clock in the evening. X. had explained to me that, in order to -make my entrance into Paris properly gay and interesting, we were to -dine at the Café de Paris, then visit the Folies-Bergère, and afterward -have supper at the Abbaye Thélème. Now, as usual, X. was alert and -prepared. He had industriously piled all the bags close to the door, -and was hanging out of a window, doing his best to signal a _facteur_. -I was to stay in the car and hand all the packages down rapidly while -he ran to secure a taxi and an inspector, and in other ways to clear -away the impediments to our progress. With great executive enthusiasm -he told me that we must be at the Hôtel Normandy by eight-fifteen or -twenty, and that by nine o’clock we must be ready to sit down in the -Café de Paris to an excellent dinner, which he had ordered by telegraph. - -I recall my wonder in entering Paris--the lack of any extended suburbs, -the sudden flash of electric lights and electric cars. Mostly we seemed -to be entering through a tunnel or gully, and then we were there. The -noisy facteurs in their caps and blue aprons were all about the cars. -They ran and chattered and gesticulated, wholly unlike the porters -at Paddington and Waterloo, Victoria and Euston. The one we finally -secured, a husky little enthusiast, did his best to gather all our -packages in one grand mass and shoulder them, stringing them on a -single strap. The result of it was that the strap broke right over a -small pool of water, and among other things the canvas bag containing -my blanket and magnificent shoes fell into the water. - -The excited facteur was fairly dancing in anguish, doing his best to -get the packages strung together. Between us we relieved him of about -half of them, and from about his waist he unwrapped another large strap -and strung the remainder on that. Then we hurried on, for nothing would -do but that we must hurry. A taxi was secured, and all our luggage -piled on it. It looked half suffocated under bundles as it swung -away, and we were off at a mad clip through crowded, electric-lighted -streets. I pressed my nose to the window and took in as much as I -could, while X., between calculations as to how much time this would -take and that would take and whether my trunk had arrived safely, -expatiated laconically on French characteristics. - -“You smell this air? It is characteristic of Paris.” - -“The taxis always go like this.” We were racing like mad. - -“There is an excellent type; look at her.” - -“Now you see the chairs out in front. They are this way all over Paris.” - -I was looking at the interesting restaurant life, which never really -seems to be interrupted anywhere in Paris. One can always find a dozen -chairs, if not fifty or a hundred, somewhere out on the sidewalk, under -the open sky or a glass roof, with little stone-topped tables beside -them, the crowd surging to and fro in front. Here one can sit and have -one’s coffee, liqueur, sandwich. Everybody seems to do it; it is as -common as walking in the streets. - -We whirled through street after street, partaking of this atmosphere, -and finally swung up in front of a rather plain hotel, which was close -to the Avenue de l’Opéra, on the corner of the Rue St. Honoré and -the Rue de l’Echelle. Our luggage was quickly distributed, and I was -shown into my room by a maid who could not speak English. I unlocked -my belongings and rapidly changed my clothes, while X., breathing -mightily, fully arrayed, soon appeared, saying that I should await him -at the door below, where he would arrive with our guests. I did so, and -in fifteen minutes he returned, the taxi spinning up out of a steady -stream that was flowing by. I think my head was dizzy with the whirl -of impressions which I was garnering, but I did my best to keep a sane -view of things, and to get my impressions as sharp and clear as I could. - -I am satisfied of one thing in this world, and that is that the -commonest intelligence is very frequently confused or hypnotized or -overpersuaded by certain situations, and that the weaker ones are -ever full of the wildest forms of illusion. We talk about the sanity -of life. I question whether it exists. Mostly it is a succession of -confusing, disturbing impressions which are only rarely valid. This -night I know I was moving in a sort of maze, and when I stepped into -the taxi and was introduced to two ladies, I easily succumbed to what -was obviously their great beauty. - -Greuze has painted over and over the type that I saw before me--soft, -buxom, ruddy womanhood. I think the two may have been respectively -twenty-four and twenty-six. The elder was smaller than the younger, -although both were of good size, and not so ruddy; but both were plump, -round-faced, dimpled, and with a wealth of brownish-black hair, white -teeth, smooth, plump arms, necks, and shoulders. Their chins were -adorably rounded, their lips red, and their eyes laughing and gay. -They began laughing and chattering the moment I entered, extending -their soft, white hands, and saying things in French which I could not -understand. X. was smiling, beaming through his monocle in an amused, -superior way. The older girl was arrayed in pearl-colored silk, with -a black mantilla spangled with silver, and the younger had a dress of -peachblow hue, with a white lace mantilla, that was also spangled, and -they breathed a faint perfume. - -I shall never forget the grand air with which this noble band went into -the Café de Paris. We were in fine feather, and the ladies radiated -a charm and a flavor which immediately attracted attention. This -brilliant café was aglow with lights and alive with people. It is not -large in size, and is triangular in shape. The charm of it comes not so -much from the luxury of the fittings, which are luxurious enough, but -from their exceedingly good taste and the fame of the cuisine. One does -not see a bill of fare here that indicates prices. You order what you -like, and are charged what is suitable. Champagne is not an essential -wine, as it is in some restaurants; you may drink what you please. -There is a delicious sparkle and spirit to the place which can spring -only from a high sense of individuality. Paris is supposed to provide -nothing better than the Café de Paris in so far as food is concerned. - -I turned my attention to the elder of the two ladies, who was quite as -vivacious, if not quite so forceful, as her younger sister. I never -before knew what it meant to sit in a company of this kind, welcomed -as a friend, looked to for gaiety as a companion and admirer, and yet -not able to say a word in the language of the occasion. There were -certain words which could be quickly acquired, such as “beautiful,” -“charming,” “very delightful,” and so on, for which X. gave me the -French equivalent, and then I could make complimentary remarks, which -he would translate for all, and the ladies would say things in reply -which would come to me by the same medium. It went gaily enough, for -the conversation would not have been of a high order if I had been -able to speak French. X. objected to being used constantly as an -interpreter, and when he became stubborn and chatted gaily without -stopping to explain, I was compelled to fall back on the resources of -looks, smiles, and gestures. It interested me to see how quick these -women were to adapt themselves to the difficulties of the situation. -They were constantly laughing and chaffing between themselves, looking -at me and saying obviously flattering things, and then laughing at my -discomfiture in not being able to understand. The elder explained what -certain objects were by lifting them up and insisting on the French -name. X. was constantly telling me of the remarks they made at my -expense, and how sad they thought it was that I could not speak French. - -We departed finally for the Folies-Bergère, where the newest sensation -of Paris, Mistinguett, was playing. She proved to be a brilliant hoyden -to look upon; a gay, slim, yellow-haired tomboy who seemed to fascinate -the large audience by her boyish manners and her wayward air. There -was a brilliant chorus in spangled silks and satins. The vaudeville -acts were about as good as they are anywhere. I did not think that the -performance was any better than one might see in one or two places -in New York, though of course the humor was much broader. Now and -then one of their remarkable _bons mots_ was translated for me by X. -just to give me an inkling of the character of the place. Back of the -seats was a great lobby, or promenade, where some of the demi-monde of -Paris were congregated--beautiful creatures, in many instances, and -as unconventional as you please. I was particularly struck with the -smartness of their costumes and the cheerfulness of their faces. The -companion type in London and New York is somewhat colder-looking. Their -eyes snapped with Gallic intelligence, and they walked as though the -whole world held their point of view and no other. - -From here at midnight we left for the Abbaye Thélème, and there I -encountered the best that Paris has to show in the way of that gaiety -and color and beauty and smartness for which it is famous. One really -ought to say a great deal about the Abbaye Thélème, because it is the -last word, the quintessence, of midnight excitement and international -savoir-faire. The Russian and the Brazilian, the Frenchman, the -American, the Englishman, the German, and the Italian--all these meet -here on common ground. I saw much of restaurant life in Paris while I -was there, but nothing better than this. Like the Café de Paris, it -was very small when compared with restaurants of similar repute in New -York and London. I fancy it was not more than sixty feet square; only -it was not square, but pentagonal, almost circular. To begin with, the -tables were around the walls, with seats which had the wall for the -back; and then, as the guests poured in, the interior space was filled -with tables brought in for the purpose. Later in the morning, when the -guests began to leave, these tables were taken out again, and the space -was devoted to dancing and entertainers. - -As in the Café de Paris, I noticed that it was not so much the quality -of the furnishings as the spirit of the place which was important. -This latter was compounded of various elements, success being the -first one, perfection of service another, absolute individuality of -cooking another, and lastly the subtlety and magnetism of sex, which -is capitalized and used in Paris as it is nowhere else in the world. -Until I stepped into this restaurant I never actually realized what it -is that draws a certain moneyed element to Paris. The tomb of Napoleon, -the Panthéon, and the Louvre are not the significant attractions of -that important city. Those things have their value and constitute -an historical and artistic element that is imposing, romantic, and -forceful; but over and above that there is something else, and that -is sex. I did not learn until later what I am going to say now, but -it might as well be said here, for it illustrates the point exactly. -A little experience and inquiry in Paris quickly taught me that the -owners and managers of the more successful restaurants encourage and -help to sustain a certain type of woman whose presence is desirable. -She must be young, beautiful, or attractive, and, above all things, -possessed of temperament. A woman can rise in the café and restaurant -world of Paris quite as she can on the stage, and she can easily be -graduated from the Abbaye Thélème and Maxim’s to the stage; and, on the -other hand, the stage contributes freely to the atmosphere of Maxim’s, -the Abbaye Thélème, and other similar resorts. A large number of the -figures seen here and at the Folies-Bergère and at other places of -the same type are interchangeable. They are in the restaurants when -they are not on the stage, and they are on the stage when they are not -in the restaurants. They rise or fall by a world of strange devices, -and you can hear brilliant or ghastly stories illustrating either -conclusion. Paris--this aspect of it--is a perfect maelstrom of sex, -and it is sustained by the wealth and the curiosity of the stranger, as -well as of the Frenchman. - -The Abbaye Thélème on this occasion presented a brilliant scene. -Outside a small railing near the door several negro singers, a -mandolin-and a guitar-player, and several stage dancers were -congregated. A throng of people was pouring through the doors, all with -their tables previously arranged for. Outside, where a January wind was -blowing, you could hear a perfect uproar of slamming taxi doors, and -the calls of doormen and chauffeurs getting their vehicles in and out -of the way. The company generally, as on all such occasions, was alert -to see who was present and what the general spirit of the occasion was -to be. Instantly I detected a number of Americans; three amazingly -beautiful Englishwomen, such as I had not seen in England, and their -escorts; a few Spaniards or South Americans; and, after that, a variety -of persons whom I took to be largely French, although it was impossible -to tell. The Englishwomen interested me because in all my stay in -Europe I never saw three other women quite so beautiful, and because -in all my stay in England I scarcely saw a good-looking Englishwoman. -X. suggested that they were of that high realm of fashion which rarely -remains in London during the winter, when I was there; that if I -came again in May or June, and went to the races, I would see plenty -of them. Their lovely hair was straw-colored, and their cheeks and -foreheads were a faint pink and cream. Their arms and shoulders were -delightfully bare, and they carried themselves with amazing hauteur. -By one o’clock, when the majority of the guests had arrived, this room -fairly shimmered with white silks and satins, white arms and shoulders, -roses in black hair, and blue and lavender ribbons fastened about hair -of a lighter color. There were jewels in plenty,--opals and amethysts, -turquoises and rubies,--and there was a perfect artillery of champagne -corks. Every table was attended by its silver bucket of ice, and the -mandolins and guitars in their crowded angle were strumming mightily. - -As we seated ourselves, I speculated interestedly as to what drew -all these people from all parts of the world to see this, to be here -together. I do not know where you could go and for a hundred francs see -more of really amazing feminine beauty. I do not know where for the -same money you could buy the same atmosphere of lightness and gaiety -and enthusiasm. This place was fairly vibrating with a wild desire -to live. I fancy the majority of those who were here for the first -time, and particularly of the young, would tell you that they would -rather be here than in any other spot you could name. The place had a -peculiar glitter of beauty which was compounded by the managers with -great skill. The waiters were all deft, swift, suave, good-looking; -the dancers who stepped out on the floor after a few moments were of -an orchid-like Spanish type--ruddy, brown, full-bodied, black-haired, -black-eyed. They had on dresses that were as close-fitting as the -scales of a fish, and that glittered with the same radiance. They waved -and rattled and clashed castanets and tambourines and danced wildly and -sinuously to and fro among the tables. Some of them sang, or voices -accompanied them from the raised platform devoted to music. - -After a while red, blue, pink, and green balloons were introduced, -anchored to the champagne bottles, and allowed to float gaily in the -air. Paper parcels of small paste balls of all colors, and as light as -feathers, were distributed for the guests to throw at one another. In -ten minutes a wild artillery battle was raging. Young girls were up -on their feet, their hands full of these colored weapons, pelting the -male strangers of their selection. You would see tall Englishmen and -Americans exchanging a perfect volley of colored spheres with girls of -various nationalities--laughing, chattering, calling, screaming. The -_cocotte_ in all her dazzling radiance was here, exquisitely dressed, -her white arms shimmering. - -After a time, when the audience had worn itself through excitement to -satisfaction or weariness, or both, a few of the tables were cleared -away and the dancing began, occasional guests joining. There were -charming dances in costume from Russia, from Scotland, from Hungary, -and from Spain. I myself waltzed with a Spanish dancer, and had the -wonder of seeing an American girl rise from her table and dance -with more skill and grace than the employed talent. A wine-enthused -Englishman, a handsome youth of twenty-six or more, took the floor -and remained there gaily prancing about from table to table, dancing -alone or with whomsoever would welcome him. What looked like a -dangerous argument started at one time because a high-mettled Brazilian -considered that he had been insulted. A cordon of waiters and the -managers soon adjusted that. It was between three and four in the -morning when we finally left, and I was very tired. It was decided that -we should meet for dinner; and since it was almost daylight, I was -glad when we had seen our ladies to their apartment and returned to our -hotel. - -I shall never forget my first morning in Paris--the morning that I woke -up after about two hours’ sleep or less, prepared to put in a hard -day at sight-seeing, because X. had a program which must be adhered -to. He could be with me only until Monday, when he had to return. It -was fortunately a bright day, a little hazy and chill, but agreeable. -I looked out of the window of my very comfortable room on the fifth -floor, which gave out on a balcony overhanging the Rue St. Honoré, and -watched the crowd of French people below coming to work. It would be -hard to say what makes the difference between a crowd of Englishmen -and a crowd of Frenchmen, but there is a difference. It struck me -that these men and women walked faster, and that their movements were -more spirited than those of the English or Americans. They looked -more like Americans, though, than like the English, and they were -much more cheerful than either, chatting and talking as they came. I -was interested to see whether I could make the maid understand that -I wanted coffee and rolls without talking French, but the wants of -American travelers are an old story to French maids; and no sooner did -I say “_Café_” and make the sign of drinking from a cup than she said, -“_Oh, oui, oui, oui; oh, oui, oui, oui_,” and disappeared. Presently -the coffee was brought me, with rolls and butter and hot milk; and I -ate my breakfast as I dressed. - -About nine o’clock X. arrived with his program. I was to walk in -the garden of the Tuileries which was close at hand, where he would -join me later. We were to go for a walk in the Rue de Rivoli as -far as a certain bootmaker’s, who was to make me a pair of shoes -for the Riviera. Then we were to visit a haberdasher’s or two, and -after that go straight about the work of sight-seeing, visiting the -old book-stalls on the Seine, the churches of St.-Etienne-du-Mont, -Notre-Dame, Ste.-Chapelle, thereafter regulating our conduct by the -wishes of several guests who were to appear. - -We started off briskly, and my first adventure in Paris led me straight -to the gardens of the Tuileries, lying west of the Louvre. If any -one wanted a proper introduction to Paris, I should recommend this -above all others. Such a noble piece of gardening as this is the best -testimony France has to offer as to its taste, discrimination, and -sense of the magnificent. I should say, on mature thought, that we -shall never have anything like it in America. We have not the same -lightness of fancy. - -I recall walking in here and being struck at once with the magnificent -proportions of it all,--the breadth and stately lengths of its walks, -the utter wonder and charm of its statuary,--snow-white marble nudes -standing out on the green grass and marking the circles, squares, and -paths of its entire length. No such charm and beauty could be attained -in America because we would not permit the public use of the nude in -this fashion. - -Everywhere I went in Paris I was struck by the charming unity in the -conduct of business between husband and wife and son and daughter. -We talk much about the economic independence of women in America. It -seems to me that the French have solved it in the only way that it can -be solved. Madame helps her husband in his business and they make a -success of it together. Monsieur Galoyer took the measurements for my -shoes, but madame entered them in a book, and to me the shop was fifty -times as charming for her presence. She was pleasingly dressed, and -the shop looked as though it had experienced the tasteful touches of a -woman’s hand. It was clean and bright and smart, and smacked of good -housekeeping; and this was equally true of book-stalls, haberdashers’ -shops, art-stores, coffee-rooms, and places of public sale generally. -Wherever madame was, and she looked nice, there was a nice store; and -monsieur looked as fat and contented as could reasonably be expected in -the circumstances. - -I shall never forget this first morning’s impression of Paris, although -all my impressions of it were delightful and inspiring, from the -poorest quarter of the Charenton district to the perfections of the -Bois and the region about the Arc de Triomphe. It chanced that this -morning was bright, and I saw the Seine glimmering over the stones -of its shallow banks and racing madly. How much the French have -made of little in the way of a river! It is not very wide--about -half as wide as the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge, and not so wide as -the Harlem River. Here the Seine was as bright as a new button, its -banks properly lined with gray, but not dull-looking, walls, the two -streets which parallel it on each side alive with traffic; at every -few blocks a handsome bridge; every block a row of very habitable, if -not imposing, apartment-houses; at various points views of Notre-Dame, -the Tuileries, the Cours-la-Reine, of the Trocadéro, and the Eiffel -Tower. I followed the Seine from city wall to city wall one day, -from Charenton to Issy, and found every inch of it delightful. I was -never tired of looking at the wine-barges near Charenton; the little -bathing-pavilions and passenger-boats in the vicinity of the Louvre; -the brick-barges, hay-barges, coal-barges, and Heaven knows what else -plying between the city’s heart and points down-stream past Issy. It -gave me the impression of being one of the brightest, cleanest rivers -in the world--a river on a holiday. I saw it once at Issy at what is -known in Paris as the “green hour,” which is five o’clock, when the -sun was going down, and a deep, palpable fragrance wafted from a vast -manufactory of perfume filled the air. Men were poling boats of hay, -and laborers in their great wide-bottomed corduroy trousers, blue -shirts, and inimitable French caps, were trudging homeward, and I felt -as though the world had nothing to offer Paris which it did not already -have. I could have settled in a small house in Issy and worked as a -laborer in a perfume factory, carrying my dinner-pail with me every -morning, with a right good-will, or such was the mood of the moment. As -I write this, the mood comes back. - -This morning, on our way to St.-Etienne-du-Mont and the cathedral, -we examined the book-stalls along the Seine. To enjoy them, one has -to be in an idle mood and love out of doors; for they consist of a -dusty row of four-legged boxes, with lids coming quite to your chest -in height, and reminding one of those high-legged counting-tables -at which clerks sit on tall stools making entries in their ledgers. -These boxes are old and paintless and weather-beaten; and at night the -very dusty-looking keepers, who from early morning until dark have -had their shabby-backed wares spread out where dust and sunlight and -wind and rain can attack them, pack them in the body of the box on -which they are lying and close the lid. You can always see an idler or -two here, perhaps many idlers, between the Quai d’Orsay and the Quai -Voltaire. - -Paris is as young in its mood as any city in the world. It is as wildly -enthusiastic as a child. This morning I noticed here the strange -occurrence of battered-looking old fellows singing to themselves, which -I never noticed anywhere else in this world. Age sits lightly on the -Parisian, I am sure, and youth is a wild fantasy, an exciting realm of -romantic dreams. The Parisian, from the keeper of a market-stall to -the prince of the money world or of art, wants to live gaily, briskly, -laughingly, and he will not let the necessity of earning his living -deny him. I felt it in the churches, the depots, the department stores, -the theaters, the restaurants, the streets--a wild, keen desire for -life, with the blood and the body to back it up. It must be in the soil -and the air, for Paris sings. It is like poison in the veins, and I -felt myself growing positively giddy with enthusiasm. I believe that -for the first six months Paris would be a disease from which one would -suffer greatly and recover slowly. After that you would settle down to -live the life you found there in contentment and with delight, but you -would not be in so much danger of wrecking your very mortal body and -your uncertainly immortal soul. - -Now there was luncheon at Foyot’s, a little restaurant near the -Luxembourg and the Musée de Cluny, where the wise in the matter of food -love to dine, and where, as usual, X. was at his best. Foyot’s, as the -initiated will attest, is a delightful place to lunch or dine, for the -cooking is perfection itself. The French, while entirely discarding -show in many instances, and allowing their restaurants to look as -though they had been put together with an effort, nevertheless attain -an individuality of atmosphere which is delightful. For the life of me -I could not tell why this little restaurant seemed so smart and bright, -for there was nothing either smart or bright about it when I examined -it in detail; and so I was compelled to attribute the impression to -the all-pervading temperament of the owner. Always, in these cases, -there is a man, or a woman, quite remarkable for his point of view; -and although I did not see him, I fancied the owner, whatever his -name, must be such a man. Otherwise you could not take such simple -appointments and make them into anything so pleasing and so individual. - -Later in the day we took a taxi through singing streets, lighted by a -springtime sun, and came finally to the Restaurant Prunier, where it -was necessary to secure a table and order dinner in advance; and thence -to the Théâtre des Capucines in the Rue des Capucines, where tickets -for a farce had to be secured; and thence to a café near the Avenue de -l’Opéra, where we were to meet Madame de J., who, out of the goodness -of her heart, was to help entertain me while I was in the city. - -We came to her out of the whirl of the “green hour,” when the Paris -boulevards in this vicinity were fairly swarming with people--the -gayest world I have ever seen. We have enormous crowds in New York, -but they seem to be going somewhere very much more definitely than -in Paris. With us there is an eager, strident, almost objectionable -effort to get home or to the theater or to the restaurant which one can -easily resent, it is so inconsiderate and indifferent. In London you -do not feel that there are any crowds that are going to the theaters -or the restaurants; and if they are, they are not very cheerful about -it. They are enduring life; they have none of the lightness of the -Parisian world. I think it is all explained by the fact that Parisians -feel keenly that they are living now, and that they wish to enjoy -themselves as they go. The American and the Englishman--the Englishman -much more than the American--have decided that they are going to live -in the future. Only the American is a little angry about his decision, -and the Englishman a little meek or patient. Both feel that life is -intensely grim. But the Parisian, while he may feel or believe it, -decides wilfully to cast it off. He lives by the way, out of books, -restaurants, theaters, boulevards, and the spectacle of life generally. -The Parisians move briskly, and they come out where they can see -one another--out into the great wide-sidewalked boulevards and the -thousands upon thousands of cafés, and make themselves comfortable and -talkative and gay. It is obvious that everybody is having a good time, -not merely trying to have it; that they are enjoying the wine-like -air, the _brasseries_, the net-like movements of the cabs, the dancing -lights of the roadways, and the flare of the shops. It may be chill or -drizzling in Paris, but you scarcely feel it. Rain can scarcely drive -the people off the streets; literally it does not, for there are crowds -whether it rains or not, and they are not despondent. This particular -hour that brought us to the bar was essentially thrilling, and I was -interested to see what Madame de J. was like. - -We were sitting at a table, sipping a brandy and soda, when she -entered, a brisk, genial, sympathetic French person whose voice on the -instant gave me a delightful impression of her. It was the loveliest -voice I ever heard, soft and musical, a colorful voice touched with -both gaiety and sadness. Her eyes were light blue, her hair was brown, -and her manner sinuous and insinuating. She seemed to have the spirit -of a delightfully friendly collie or a child, and all the vitality and -alertness that go with either. I had a chance to observe her keenly. -In a moment she turned to me and asked whether I knew either of two -American authors whom she knew, men of considerable repute. Knowing -them both very well, it surprised me to think that she knew them. From -the way she spoke, she seemed to have been on the friendliest terms -with both; and any one by looking at her could have understood why they -should have taken an interest in her. - -If she had been of a somewhat more calculating type, I fancy that, -with her intense charm of face and manner and her intellect and -voice, she would have been very successful. I gained the impression -that she had been on the stage in some small capacity; but she had -been too diffident, not really brazen enough for the grim world in -which the French actress rises. I soon gained the impression that she -was a charming blend of emotion, desire, and refinement which one -sometimes meets with in the demi-monde. She would have done better in -literature or music or art, and she seemed fitted by her moods and her -understanding to be a light in any one of them or all. - -I shall never forget how she looked at me, quite in the spirit of a -gay uncertain child, and how quickly she made me feel that we should -get along very well together. “Why, yes,” she said in her soft voice, -“I will go about with you, although I should not know what is best -to see. But I shall be here, and if you want to come for me, we can -see things together.” Suddenly she reached over and took my hand and -pressed it genially, as though to seal the bargain. Then Madame de J., -promising to join us at the theater, went away. - -I would not say more of this evening except that it gave me another -glimpse of this unquestionably remarkable woman, who was especially -charming in a pale bluish-gray dress and gray furs. She helped -entertain us through what to me was a somewhat dull performance of -a farce in a tongue I did not understand. I was entertained by the -effective character work of the actors, but nothing compensates, as I -found everywhere, for ignorance of French. - -When we came out of this theater at half-past eleven, Madame de J. -was anxious to return to her apartment, and X. said he’d give me an -additional taste of the very vital café life of Paris. - -The strange impression which all this world of restaurant life gave me, -still endures. Obviously, when we arrived at twelve o’clock, the fun -was just getting under way. Some of these places, like the first one -we entered, were no larger than a fair-sized room in an apartment, but -crowded with a gay and even giddy throng of Americans, South Americans, -English, and others. One of the tricks in Paris to make a restaurant -successful is to keep it small, so that it has an air of overflow and -activity. Here, after allowing room for the red-jacketed orchestra, -the piano, and the waiters, there was scarcely space for the forty or -fifty guests who were present. Champagne was twenty francs the bottle, -and champagne was all that was served. It was necessary here, as at all -the restaurants, to contribute to the support of the musicians; and if -a strange young woman should sit at your table for a moment and share -either the wine or the fruit which would be quickly offered, you would -have to pay for that. Peaches were three francs each, and grapes five -francs the bunch. It was plain that all these things are offered in -order that the house might thrive and prosper. It was so at all of them. - -The personality of X. supplied a homy quality of comfortable -companionship. He was so full of a youthful zest to live, and so keen -after the shows and customs of the world, that to be near him was to -enjoy the privilege of great company. I never pondered why he was so -popular with women, or why his friends in different walks of life -constituted so great a company. He seemed to have known thousands -of all sorts, and to be at home in all conditions. That persistent, -unchanging atmosphere of “All is well with me,” to maintain which was -as much a duty as a tradition with him, made for exceedingly pleasant -companionship. - -This very remarkable evening X. and I spent wandering from one -restaurant to another in an effort to locate a certain Rillette, a girl -of whom I had heard when we first came to Paris. She had been one of -the most distinguished figures of the stage. Four or five years before -she had held at the Folies-Bergère much the same position recently -attained by Mistinguett, who was just then enthralling Paris; in other -words, she was the sensation of that stormy world of art and romance -of which these restaurants are a part. She was more than that. She -had a wonderful mezzo-soprano voice of great color and richness and a -spirit for dancing that was Greek in its quality. I was anxious to get -at least a glimpse of this exceptional Parisian type, the real spirit -of this fast world, the true artistic poison-flower, the lovely hooded -cobra, before she should be too old or too wretched to be interesting. - -At one café, quite by accident, we encountered Miss F., whom I had not -seen since we left Fishguard, and who was here in Paris doing her best -to outshine the women of the gay restaurants in the matter of dresses, -hats, and beauty. I must say she presented a ravishing spectacle, quite -as wonderful as any of the other women who were to be seen here; but -she lacked, as I was to note, the natural vivacity of the French. We -Americans, despite our high spirits and our healthy enthusiasm for -life, are nevertheless a blend of the English, the German, and some -of the sedate nations of the North, and we are inclined to a physical -and mental passivity which is not common to the Latins. This girl, -vivid creature that she was, did not have the spiritual vibration -which accompanies the Frenchwomen. As far as spirit was concerned, -she seemed superior to most of the foreign types present; but the -Frenchwomen are naturally gayer, their eyes brighter, their motions -lighter. She gave us at once an account of her adventures since I -had seen her. I could not help marveling at the disposition which -set above everything else in the world the privilege of moving in -this peculiar realm, which fascinated her much. As she told me on the -_Mauretania_, all she hoped for was to become a woman of Machiavellian -finesse, and to have some money. If she had money and attained to real -social wisdom, conventional society could go to the devil; for the -successful adventuress, according to her, was welcome anywhere--that -is, everywhere she would care to go. She did not expect to retain her -beauty entirely; but she did expect to have some money, and meanwhile -to live brilliantly, as she deemed that she was now doing. Her comments -on the various women of her class were as hard and accurate as they -were brilliant. I remember her saying of one woman, with an easy sweep -of her hand, “Like a willow, don’t you think?” Of another, “She glows -like a ruby.” It was true; it was fine character delineation. - -At Maxim’s, an hour later, she decided to go home, so we took her -to her hotel, and then resumed our pursuit of Rillette. After much -wandering, we finally came upon her, about four in the morning, in one -of those showy pleasure-resorts that I have described. - -“Ah, yes, there she is!” X. exclaimed, and I looked to a distant table -to see the figure he indicated, that of a young girl seemingly not -more than twenty-four or twenty-five, a white silk neckerchief tied -about her brown hair, her body clothed in a rather nondescript costume -for a world as showy as this. Most of the women wore evening clothes. -She had on a skirt of light-brown wool, a white shirtwaist open in -the front, with the collar turned down, showing her pretty neck. Her -skirt was short, and her sleeves were short, showing a solid fore -arm. Before she noticed X. we saw her take a slender girl in black -for a partner and dance, with others, in the open space between the -tables that circled the walls. Her face did not suggest the depravity -which her career would indicate, although it was by no means ruddy; -but she seemed to scorn rouge. Her eyes--eyes are always revealing -in a forceful personage--were large and vague and brown, set beneath -a wide, full forehead--very wonderful eyes. In her idle security and -profound nonchalance, she appeared like a figure out of the Revolution -or the Commune. She would have been magnificent in a riot, marching -up a Parisian street, her white band about her brown hair, carrying a -knife, a gun, or a flag. She would have had the courage, too; for it -was plain that life had lost much of its charm and she nearly all of -her caring. When her dance was done, she came over to us, and extended -an indifferent hand to X. He told me, after their light conversation -in French, that he had chided her to the effect that her career was -ruining her once lovely voice. “I shall find it again at the next -corner,” she said, and walked smartly away. - -[Illustration: ONE OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE CAFÉS ON THE BOULEVARDS OF -PARIS] - -“Some one should write a novel about a woman like that,” X. explained. -“She ought to be painted. It is amazing the sufficiency of soul that -goes with that type. There aren’t many like her. She could be the -sensation of Paris again if she wanted to, would try. But she won’t. -See what she said of her voice just now.” He shook his head. I smiled -approvingly, for obviously the appearance of the woman, her full, -compelling eyes, bore him out. - -She was a figure of distinction in this restaurant world, for many knew -her and kept track of her. I watched her from time to time talking -with the guests of one table and another, and the chemical content -which made her exceptional was as obvious as though she were a bottle -and bore a label. To this day she stands out in my mind, in her simple -dress and indifferent manner, as perhaps the one forceful, significant -figure that I saw in all the cafés of Paris or elsewhere. - -I should like to add here, before I part forever with this curious -and feverish Parisian restaurant world, that, after much and careful -observation, my conclusion has been that it was too utterly feverish, -artificial, and exotic not to be dangerous and grimly destructive, if -not merely touched upon at long intervals. - -[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF PARISIAN CAFÉ LIFE] - -This world of champagne-drinkers was apparently interested in only -two things--the flare and glow of the restaurants, which were always -brightly lighted and packed with people, and women. In the last -analysis, women were the glittering attraction; and truly one might say -they were glittering. Fine feathers make fine birds, and nowhere more -so than in Paris. But there were many birds who would have been fine -in much less showy feathers. In many instances they craved and secured -a demure simplicity which was even more destructive than the flaring -costumes of the demi-monde. It was strange to see American innocence, -the products of Petosky, Michigan, and Hannibal, Missouri, cheek by -jowl with the most daring and the most flagrant women that the great -metropolis could produce. I did not know until later how hard some of -these women were, how schooled in vice, how weary of everything save -this atmosphere of festivity and the privilege of wearing beautiful -clothes. It was a scorching lesson, and it displayed vice as an upper -and a nether millstone between which youth and beauty are ground or -pressed quickly to a worthless mass. I would defy anybody to live in -this atmosphere as long as five years and not exhibit strongly the -telltale marks of decay. - -Most people come here for a night or two, or a month or two, or once -in a year or so, and then return to the comparatively dull world from -which they emanated, which is fortunate. If they were here a little -while, this deceptive world of delight would lose all its glamour; -for in a very few days you see through the dreary mechanism by which -it is produced: the browbeating of shabby waiters by greedy managers, -the extortionate charges and tricks by which money is lured from the -pockets of the unwary, the wretched rooms and garrets from which some -of these butterflies emanate, to wing here in seeming delight and then -disappear. When the natural glow of youth has gone, then come powder -and paint for the face, belladonna for the eyes, rouge for the lips, -palms, and nails, and perfumes and ornament and the glitter of good -clothing; but underneath it all one reads the weariness of the eye, the -sickening distaste for bargaining hour by hour and day by day, the cold -mechanism of what was once natural, instinctive coquetry. - -[Illustration: “IN ONE OF THOSE SHOWY PLEASURE-RESORTS”] - -You feel constantly that many of these women would sell their souls for -one last hour of delight, and that some of them would then gladly take -poison, as many of them doubtless do, to end it all. - -Consumption, cocaine, and opium maintain their persistent toll. This is -a furnace of desire, this Montmartre district, and it burns furiously -with a hard, white-hot flame until there is nothing left save black -cinders and white ashes. Those who can endure its consuming heat are -quite welcome to its wonders until emotion and feeling and beauty are -no more. - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -EMERGENCY - -BY WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT - - - I’ve borne it out. There wasn’t much to bear, - By your own tenets; but there was for me,-- - A flaming onslaught; cohorts furiously - Charging the ramparts; fearful thunders booming; - Lightning and holocaust, and Terror looming - With black war-towers on the sky-line there! - - You saw not even a gnat to make one wince - While your own buoyant thoughts beat up the blue. - Let me be glad of that. The happier you! - I found myself alone to face disaster - Through age-long seconds. While your pulse beat faster - For mirth, my own--stopped dead, a moment since. - - Then, at my elbow--and whole worlds away-- - You turned; and I was snatching at my breath - After a sudden bout with worse than death, - With worse than beasts of Ephesus, uprisen - One moment from my heart that is their prison. - I bore it out. That’s all there is to say. - - They flash unwarning on our dozing acts, - The angel or the fiend. It seems to me - There’s nothing too sublime for Man to be - (In such clear moments),--naught too foully crawling! - What “self” is most our own, when this appalling - Apocalypse lights up the inmost facts? - - Something is changed; even though one drops back - In the next instant to the old routine, - Forgets the risk and is, as he has been, - The slowly-trailing, patient slug of Time, - Neither contemptible nor yet sublime, - Inching with pain along the beaten track; - - Something is changed--the mind paints heavens and hells; - And I, their dizzy colors in my brain, - Wonder just what is “sane” and what “insane,” - And what one can be sure of--where we’re master - Of our own triumphs, or our own disaster...? - But that’s enough. Let’s talk of something else! - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: ELIHU VEDDER - -FROM THE BUST BY CHARLES KECK - -Sculpture - -_By_ - -Charles Keck - -(_Examples of American Sculpture_)] - -[Illustration: DRAMA - -FROM THE SCULPTURE BY CHARLES KECK - -OWNED BY MRS. E. D. BRANDEGEE - - -MUSIC - -FROM THE SCULPTURE BY CHARLES KECK - -OWNED BY MRS. E. D. BRANDEGEE] - -[Illustration: YOUTHFUL AMERICA - -THE ALLEGHANY COUNTY SOLDIERS MEMORIAL AT PITTSBURGH - -FROM THE SCULPTURE BY CHARLES KECK] - - - - -[Illustration: Drawn by Alpheus Cole] - - - - -THE MOTHER - -BY TIMOTHY COLE - - - Dear solacer and goddess of the hearth, - O mother! whose enfolding arms and breast - Cradle the infant world from dawn’s fair birth - To the sun’s ripening noon with loving girth; - How oft, in dreaming, of thy sheltering rest, - Whose ingle-glow now kindles to new worth - Our souls, we see thy phantom figure blest, - Still ministrant, in light and beauty dressed. - Where light is, thitherward the spirit tends: - Mankind were yet within the womb of night, - From joy imprison’d save for thy sweet might, - Save for the flame thy love forever lends. - While beacon-like thy fire throws its spark, - We shall not fear, though all the world grow dark. - -[Illustration: Color-Tone, engraved for ~The Century~ by H. C. -Merrill and H. Davidson - -“’YOU’RE ALIVE, THANK HEAVEN!... SHALL I SEND FOR A PARSON?’” - -DRAWN BY HARRY RALEIGH] - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -A GARAGE IN THE SUNSHINE - -BY JOSEPH ERNEST - -WITH A PICTURE BY HARRY RALEIGH - - -Falling in love is specially a critical business for simple-minded -persons who have room in their heads for only one idea at a time. It -has a tendency to shift the basis of their existence in a perilous -degree before they are in the least aware what has happened to them. - -Like most persons who earn their living at the daily risk of their -lives, Teddy Rocco was not burdened with too active an imagination. -He did his regular ninety miles an hour round the motordromes on a -“Yellow Fiend” autocycle with a simple faith in his luck and no higher -aspirations than he could express in this way: - -“No, sir, you won’t find me in this speed game one day longer than it -takes me to clean up the price of a share in a cement garage, with -machine-tools complete, and beat it back to sunny Jax, Florida.” - -It was this ambition that led him, when he was not racing, to give -exhibitions at Santoni’s velodrome at Palmetto Beach, a track known to -the speed profession as the “Devil’s Soup-plate.” It was the same lack -of imagination that enabled him to hear of the introduction of Miss -Sadie Simmons to the soup-plate with feelings of unmingled disgust. - -“A girl!” he ejaculated, and made for Santoni’s office with his -features richly adorned with chain lubricant. “A girl! Yes, and a speed -limit, too, I reckon, and pretty-pretty stunts, and bouquets--what do -you know? Better call it the ’Angel’s Roundabout,’ and be done!” - -The graphite lubricant failed to conceal the scowl on his face as -he burst into the office. The proprietor, a keen purveyor of popular -excitement, was rubbing his hands in Mephistophelian satisfaction over -a new poster. - -“Daredevil Ted Rocco,” it said, and “Wild Will Ryan”; and below, in -big red type that crowded the rest almost off the sheet, “Miss Sadie -Simmons, America’s Queen of the Track.” From which the sagacious reader -will infer that Miss Simmons was new and unproved; otherwise Santoni -would infallibly have billed her as “Crazy Sadie,” in suggestion of -death-defying recklessness. - -“Hullo, Teddy!” cried Santoni in his mighty voice. “What you been doing -to your face?” - -“Greasin’ up,” Teddy answered shortly, and cast a malevolent glance at -the bill. “Listen here, San. What’s all this talk about a skirt comin’ -on? We don’t run any musical leg-show here, you know. If you let a dame -on to this track, it’s going to put the speeds on the blink, and then -you’ll need a complete Ziegfeld chorus to hold the crowd. I’ve got a -fine motion-picture of myself bein’ paced by something in bag-tights -and a picture-hat.” - -Santoni frowned warningly, jerked his head toward the half-open door -of his sanctum, and passed a large, embarrassed hand over his heavy -showman’s jowl. - -“I do’ know, Ted,” he growled. “Maybe she ain’t any funeral, either, if -you can believe her. But if you fancy your chance, you can argue the -point with her yourself, for she’s right here. Miss Simmons!” - -From Santoni’s sanctum came the sound of a chair abruptly pushed back, -and the click of high heels on the floor. The proprietor turned away -under the pretense of affixing the poster to the wall; then the door -opened wide and revealed “America’s Queen of the Track.” - -For a moment she inspected Teddy Rocco with the interest of a -professional rival. He did not look at all like a daredevil just then, -but merely a rather astonished little man with a square mechanic’s -jaw and a compact, wiry figure, his sleeves rolled up and his arms -and face besmeared. There was some reason for his astonishment, too, -for in America’s “Queen,” instead of the superannuated, hard-featured -circus-performer he had expected, he saw a rather shy, spruce little -girl, with bright, black eyes and an absurdly small nose. Her dark hair -hung in two thick, glossy ropes over her shoulders, and her skirt was -short enough to reveal several inches of well-modeled ankle. - -“What is it, Mr. Santoni?” she asked in a small, husky voice. - -“It’s only Ted Rocco,” explained the proprietor. “He don’t think you’ll -be fast enough for this track.” - -The girl stared at Teddy as though he had questioned her respectability. - -“How do you _know_ I won’t?” she demanded. - -They were particularly bright eyes. The daredevil shifted -uncomfortably, and his own eyes wandered over the room as though in -search of succor. - -“It isn’t that, exactly,” he stammered; “but, you see, miss, we let ’em -rip here. My makers pay for speed, and I got to show speed or I don’t -collect.” - -“You aren’t so much,” retorted the “Queen.” “I bet you don’t average -ninety, and I touched ninety myself at Coney last week.” - -The daredevil’s eyes ceased to wander, meeting hers in a stare of blank -incredulity. - -“You did ninety? You!” he said. “For the love of Mike!” - -“Why shouldn’t I? My makers pay for speed, too. And when they send me -along something with more power to it, I guess I’ll lap you every mile. -I think you’re mean to knock me just because I’m not a man.” - -“You see?” said Santoni, shrugging his shoulders. - -Whereupon the daredevil mumbled apologies, and retreated to the garage -in great discomfiture. He sat brooding on a pile of gasolene-cans and -watched Wild Will Ryan circling the track in a private try-out; but -instead of the racing auto-cycle, he saw only two black eyes that -stared reproachfully, and heard a small, curiously deep, and husky -voice that assured him over and over again that he was mean. - -When Ryan dismounted, red-eyed and hoarse from cleaving the air like -a projectile, Ted was still fidgeting with a wrench and muttering -gloomily. - -“Is it a goil?” asked Ryan. - -“Search me. It looks like one--a little brown girl about as big as a -ten-cent cigar. But with a nerve! Tips me the crinkled nose because -I said she might get in the way on a small track. Reckons I don’t -average ninety--me, that’s held five records! And when her dear -manufacturers, understand me, send her the cute little peacherino of a -sixteen-cylinder, eighty-horse dynamite-gun that they’re building for -her to go to finishing-school on, she’s going to make me look like a -pram-pusher with paralysis. Can you beat it?” - -“Never heard of her,” said Ryan. “She must be a new one in this game.” - -“Oh, she’s all kinds of new, take it from me. But if she tries to do -ninety an hour round this saucer, we won’t pick up enough of her to be -worth dressing.” - -Teddy swung off to remove the stains of toil from his face. When he -reappeared, normally dapper, as becomes a successful autocyclist, he -found little Miss Simmons preparing to try the track. Her costume wrung -from him an involuntary exclamation. Her cap, coat, and knickers were -all of gleaming scarlet leather. - -“Isn’t she the dandy?” grinned Ryan, as they stood aside and watched -her. “I reckon she knows the business, at that. She just shooed her -mechanic away, and started in to fix all the juice connections herself. -And look at her now, testing every spoke with her fingers. Some great -kid!” - -“What’s she riding?” asked Teddy. - -“Flying Centaur; new make, I guess. Bet she pulls down a wad for it, -too. Chunky little thing, ain’t she? You wouldn’t think she carried -metal to see her in skirts. If she took a spill at ninety, she’d bounce -some.” - -“Oh, shut your head!” exclaimed Teddy Rocco, with a sudden anger that -puzzled even himself. - -It was not without a tinge of professional jealousy that the two young -men stood in the center of the course and watched Miss Simmons pull her -bright new machine to the starting-point and climb into the saddle. In -Teddy’s mind there was also a certain jealousy of Santoni, who held her -for the start. But with the first healthy rip of the exhaust, and the -first smooth and perfect circle she described round the soup-plate, -these feelings were submerged in professional appreciation. - -Moment by moment she gathered speed, mounting the steep banking -accurately with every lap, until she was roaring and rattling round the -very uppermost edge like a bright-red marble in a basin. Santoni slowly -sauntered over to them, performing a sort of involuntary waltz as he -turned to follow her with his goggle eyes. - -“Maybe she ain’t no funeral, either,” he said. - -“You ought to be lynched for letting her do it, San,” said Teddy. “It -isn’t a girl’s game.” - -“Well, wouldn’t that jar you?” Santoni turned on Ryan with palms -outspread. “First he was sore because he thought she couldn’t ride, and -now he’s sore because she can!” - -Teddy made no reply. A new and strange feeling gripped him by the -throat until he choked. As he watched the track, a picture engraved -itself indelibly on his heart: a tiny scarlet figure astride a machine -that roared round and round with fiendish energy until it hung out -almost horizontally from the steep rim of the banking. Sadie’s black -eyes were narrowed to slits; her roped hair flew out behind her; -her lips were compressed in the lust of speed as she braced her -strong little knees and elbows hard against the leaping of her angry -motor. This was a sort of girl he had never imagined in his wildest -speculations. A girl who understood motors, he thought, could not fail -to be in every other way admirable. From such a girl, for example, a -man need never fear anything less than a square deal. - -When she cut off her ignition and slipped gradually down the banking, -he was the first to assist her to alight. - -“Say, kid, I want to tell you I’m sorry,” he whispered before the -others ran up. “I’m glad you’re going to ride with us.” - -For a moment the “Queen’s” eyes danced with pleasure; then they became -softly diffident again as she turned away to stable her machine. - -“I don’t fancy I’ll let the show down so badly,” she smiled over her -shoulder. - -In truth, the popularity of Sadie Simmons among the crowds that -flocked to the velodrome was immediate and great. She was irresistibly -diminutive and dainty, and silent and retiring in manner when not -racing; but once on her machine, rattling and bouncing round the -circumscribed track with the noise of a whole express-train, she was -transformed into a little red imp of daring unexcelled by the men; and -though they consistently beat her when it came to a test, it was Sadie -whom the crowds cheered and the fans petted. - -A faded woman, of an incurable pessimism, clucked everywhere after -her, like a hen after an adventurous duckling. Except for this -unexhilarating person, whom she addressed as “Aunty,” but who -frequently forgot the suggested relationship and called her “Miss,” -Sadie appeared to be quite alone in the world. She accepted with frank -pleasure the friendly advances of the fans, the comradeship of Wild -Will Ryan, and the wondering worship of Teddy Rocco. - -One morning Ryan emerged from the garage, laughing immoderately, and -pressing a hand to his face. - -“What’s bitin’ you, Irish?” inquired Teddy. - -The big Irishman withdrew his hand, and exhibited a cheek decorated -with the imprint of small and oily fingers on a ground that flamed -scarlet. - -“It’s little Sadie; she’s straight, that’s all,” he replied with a -grin, as though he had discovered a choice witticism. - -Teddy tore off his coat and flung it from him recklessly, and his cheek -flamed suddenly redder than Ryan’s. - -“Yes, and you’ll be stiff when I’m through with you, you big loafer!” -he said savagely. “How’d you find that out?” - -Ryan stretched forth a long arm, and swept his colleague into a hug -like a bear’s. - -“Be aisy, little man,” he said. “I just tried to kiss her while she was -fightin’ with a set o’ new piston-rings. I got mine all right--from the -lady.” - -But Teddy tore loose and rushed into the garage, where he found Sadie -still struggling with a recalcitrant piston of her dismounted motor. He -seized a cold chisel from the work-bench. - -“What did that fresh Mick say to you?” he demanded. - -“Drop it at once, Teddy,” commanded Sadie. “When I can’t manage Ryan -with my own hands, I’ll get a gun. Besides, I want you to hold these -rings tight for me, so I can push this piston in.” - -Teddy obeyed, marveling at the strength of the small brown fingers that -had essayed the task unaided. Once more that strange, choking sensation -assailed him, and he felt his eyes unaccountably filling with tears. - -“Sadie, you’re an everlasting little marvel,” he said. “I expect you’ll -marry one of these rich fans; but I wish it was me.” - -“I don’t want to marry anybody,” the girl replied. “Say, can’t you hold -those rings in without trembling so?” - -“But you got to marry somebody,” Teddy insisted. - -“I don’t have to,--there, that’s well in at last,--at least not for a -long time, till I get good and ready. And then he’ll have to be extra -good and handsome and rich. I’m awfully ambitious, you know.” - -“That’s all right, kid,”--Teddy swallowed a lump in his throat,--“but -take care you don’t put it off too long.” - -The girl looked up from her work with a puzzled air. - -“Take a good slant at me,” explained Teddy. “Don’t you see anything in -my eyes?” - -“They look queer, kind of anxious and strained. They’re like Will -Ryan’s.” - -“Everybody that stays in this game as long as we have gets the same -look. It comes from being scared stiff once or twice, and not being -able to forget it.” - -“I’m never scared,” said Miss Simmons, with a toss of her shapely -little head. - -“You haven’t begun yet. Wait till some one drops in front of you in the -last lap, and you have just half a second to make up your mind whether -you’ll run over him or take a chance among the crowd. One stunt like -that, and you won’t be so pretty.” - -“Then you can ask me again,” said Miss Simmons, with her usual quiet -self-possession. “I can almost see you doing it.” - -“I tell you it’s no game for a girl,” Teddy persisted. - -“Why not? I’d look nicer dead than you.” - -“Touch wood when you say that,” advised Teddy, laying his own hand on -the bench. - -“I won’t,” the girl retorted. “I reckoned all the chances before I came -into the game, and there’s no one to cry over me if I did get killed -except Aunty, and she’s made up her mind to it long ago and become -quite resigned. Besides, I’ve taken chances ever since I can remember. -Did you ever play the carnivals? I was raised in them, if you can call -it that. I did the high dive for years into a sort of canvas bucket -half-full of water, and I don’t think I’ve a scare in me.” - - * * * * * - -Teddy Rocco might have recalled this conversation, with superstitious -interest in its prophetic nature, the week before he left for the prize -meetings; but that, with most other things, was swept out of his mind -when he hunted for Santoni with blood on his face, swearing that he had -always intended to kill the proprietor and might as well get it over. - -It all happened in consequence of Santoni’s attempt to achieve a gala -finish to his season before his stars departed. To that end, he had -employed many banners in decoration of the velodrome, and one of them, -insecurely affixed to its post, came loose while the riders were in -mid-career. It fluttered aimlessly down upon the track, was caught up -in the wind of Ryan’s rush, danced a little behind him, and finally -wrapped itself round Sadie’s front wheel. There was a gasp of horror -from the spectators as the flimsy, yellow cotton wound itself tightly -on the hub. - -For a fraction of a second the heavy cycle, urged by its frantic motor, -slurred along the track with its front wheel jammed; then the tire -burst, the forks snapped like carrots, and Sadie’s tiny red figure -shot ahead over the handle-bars, struck the wire fence in front of the -spectators, and fell back limply on the track. - -In that final emergency she had retained presence of mind enough to cut -off the ignition, and below her on the incline her machine lay crumpled -and inert, as silent and shattered as herself. - -Teddy Rocco was fully fifty yards behind; that is, he had a good long -second in which to do his thinking. To his left was Sadie’s machine, -on his right the crowd yelled an inarticulate chorus of fear and -warning, which he heard above the roar of his motor. Dead ahead of him -lay a small, outstretched figure in torn and dusty scarlet leather; -and immediately above the white little face was a clear foot of almost -perpendicular banking. - -With a prayer for speed, he tore his throttle wide open, and steered -straight for that pale, blood-stained face until he could see the dark -lashes on the flickering eyelids; then with a violent swerve he shot up -the incline, and cleared her by inches. - -The spectators cried aloud in terror as his front wheel rose on the -wire mesh in front of them, raced along it for a yard or two, shaved -a fence-post, and slipped back upon the track. The machine lurched -sickeningly into the hollow of the banking in a last effort to recover -its balance. - -Teddy Rocco’s engine had stopped as he cleared the girl, and his toe -was pressed hard into the fork of his front wheel. The braked tire -screeched along the track, and when at last he struck the ground, his -speed was not more than twenty miles an hour. To the crowd it seemed -that he lay just where he had fallen, and they roared aloud in relief, -and in admiration of what appeared to be purely consummate pluck and -skill. - -When Teddy recovered his senses, drank out of a flask that Ryan held -to his lips, and stared about him, the first thing he saw was a tiny -patch of red disappearing over the edge of the track in the arms of the -attendants. Behind walked the faded woman he knew as “Aunty,” wringing -her hands in utterly justified pessimism. At one entrance a knot of -spectators filed sadly out, and among them a frightened woman wept -without restraint. - -Teddy went mad. He wanted to follow the little red patch wherever it -might be bound. Restrained from this, he desired greatly the death of -Santoni. - -“I told him them things was dangerous,” he repeated, with the futile -insistence of an intoxicated man. - -When they laid hands on him again, he fainted, and it was then that -they had the first opportunity to ascertain that his shoulder was -dislocated. With the tenderness of a woman, Ryan picked him up and bore -him away. - - * * * * * - -During the week before he was due to depart Teddy besieged the hospital -in which lay Sadie’s tortured little form, and sent up flowers daily, -until at last the nurse assured him that she had been able to see -them, and even to hold some of them in her hand. At this he begged and -stormed and wept until he was allowed to see her, despite the fact -that, as they explained to him in vain, it was not visitors’ day. - -But when he stood at her bedside, and she smiled wanly up at him out -of her bandages, and even put forth a very white little hand for him -to shake, a great peace came over him. There was still enough of her, -after all, to be worth dressing. - -“Tough luck, Teddy-Eddy!” she whispered in that deep, small voice of -hers. “Just to think I might never hear the band play for the start -again, or the engine rip when I turn on the juice--it gives me a lot to -worry about. You ought to be glad I didn’t take you at your word that -day in the garage when you wanted to lay Ryan out and asked me to marry -you. Look at what a fix you’d be in now!” - -“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” murmured Teddy. “I’d have -wanted you just the same.” - -“Do you mean to say you’d marry a wreck like me, Teddy Rocco? I’m all -to pieces; you haven’t a notion how badly I got mashed.” - -“And I don’t care, neither,” said Teddy, stoutly. “You’re alive, thank -Heaven! And you’re Sadie Simmons, and you can smile. Shall I send for a -parson?” - -“What, now?” - -“Only say the word.” - -The girl picked at the sheet for a moment, and her eyes, now ringed -with suffering and no longer bright, searched his face wonderingly; -but they found no trace of an emotion other than eagerness to be as -good as his word. - -“I don’t know,” she said at last; “it’ll need thinking over. You know, -it was hitting the wire fence that saved me, Teddy. It was like diving -into a net.” - -“Pretty hard net,” grinned the boy, reminiscently. - -“Lucky for you, or you’d have gone through it. Teddy boy, why didn’t -you run over me? I’m so small! You must have been mad to ride into the -fence like that.” - -“Who told you?” demanded Teddy. - -“Nurse. She says you hadn’t a chance in a thousand to get round me -without breaking your neck. I always liked you, Teddy. I’m glad you’re -brave.” - -“Then why not marry me, Sadie?” The boy came closer, while the nurse -hovered about impatiently. “You can’t come back, you know. However good -they patch you up, you’re done with the game.” - -“Marry you, after what I said about looking for a rich guy? I’m bad -and selfish, and I want so much. And I’m older than you think--nearly -nineteen. I only wore my hair that way for a stall. Would you really -marry me now, when I’m all cut up and no one else would look at me?” - -“Call me and see,” suggested Teddy, quietly. - -“I’ll let you know later, Teddy. It depends--” - -“But I’m going to Dayton to-night to race, and then I go South again. -How am I to know?” - -Sadie considered for a moment with eyes closed. When she opened them -again, her face was very grave. - -“Come past here on your way to the depot,” she said, “and look at this -window above the bed. It’s the fourth from the end. If the blind’s up, -you can bring along your parson.” - -“And if it’s down?” - -“If it’s down, it will mean that you’d better forget all about me.” - -“Then leave it up, Sadie,” he whispered as the nurse bustled up -suggestively. “I’m only two thousand short of buying a garage in -Florida, where I used to work. You’d love to be down there--all -sunshine, pelicans, palms, and sugar-cane, and butterflies as big as -your hand soaring about. You’d get well and strong down there, Sadie, -and I’d be so good to you! Don’t let them pull it down!” - -The nurse came nearer and began to fidget with the pillows. - -“I’ll have to get you to leave now, young man,” she said. “The doctor -will be here in a moment.” - -“Take care of yourself, Teddy,” smiled the girl, waving her hand feebly -as he tore himself away. “Touch wood as you go out.” - -She set her teeth for the doctor’s visit, and said not a word until he -had finished his examination; but her black eyes studied his face in an -agony of suspense. A momentary smile, accompanied by a raising of his -bushy, gray eyebrows, gave her the cue. - -“Doctor, will I get well?” she asked almost under her breath. - -“Why, of course,” replied the doctor. “As well as ever you were, I’m -hoping.” - -“But--but will I be ugly?” - -“Little Miss Vanity!” grinned the doctor. “You ought to be thankful you -have a breath left in your body. No, you won’t be ugly, if you mean -disfigured. Of course there’ll be scars--” - -“Do you think I’ll be able to ride again?” persisted the girl. - -“I don’t know why you shouldn’t be able to ride; but I guess when you -set eyes on the track you won’t want to. As for the rest, the cuts are -pretty clean and not deep. I should say, on the whole, that you’ll -have to look fairly close into the glass to see the one on your cheek, -and your hair will cover the scalp-wound. The others aren’t anywhere -to prevent you from wearing low-cut frocks. Now, are you satisfied, -daughter of Eve?” - -“Yes, thank you, Doctor. If the bone in my arm mends all right, that -is. It’s hurting a whole lot to-day.” - -“That means precisely that it is mending,” said the doctor as he picked -up his bag to depart. “And now that you’re sure of your precious -beauty, you’d better try to get some sleep.” - -Sadie closed her eyes obediently, but her brows were knitted in -thought. When the doctor had moved on, she looked up again with a sigh. - -“Nurse, the light bothers my eyes, and I can’t turn my head,” she said. -“Will you please pull down the blind?” - - * * * * * - -While it is still young and overflowing with vitality, the human frame -is able to summon life forces to its aid that can sometimes knit up -broken bones and torn tissues as though by magic power. Teddy Rocco -had seen various striking demonstrations of this quality in his racing -career, but it had never occurred to him that a mere girl might possess -it. He was greatly astonished, therefore, on meeting Ryan at a southern -track, to hear that Sadie was once more riding for the “Flying Centaur” -people. - -“She don’t look a cent worse,” said Ryan. “Same little red suit, same -little smile, same throaty little voice. And she’s making good, too. -Been all over the West, and packed up a nice parcel of the long green. -Not that she’ll ever need it; that kid will marry a million some day. -One of the guys that was following her round was big rich.” - -All that day Teddy rode entirely without judgment, and his old -daredevil dash was not in him. In fact, that was becoming his -consistent experience. Every time he would set his teeth and let his -engine out to the last notch to pass the man in front, a blind seemed -to shut down in front of him, or a little red figure would appear -stretched on the track ahead, and he would let the chance slip by. - -Consequently, when he returned to give exhibitions at the Devil’s -Soup-plate, he was no nearer the white southern garage of his dreams -than he had been the previous season. And the life of a speed-man is -short,--much shorter, as a rule, than that of a boxing champion. - -That garage, gleaming in the sun, with a palm or two in front and -lizards basking in its shadow, had been Teddy’s lodestar for years; -but on the first day of their meeting, Sadie’s brisk little figure -had slipped into the picture, and he could not imagine the place now -without seeing her standing at the door in a white dress, with no hat, -but with a bunch of crimson flowers at her waist. - -“This is my finish,” he told Santoni; “I’m a has-been. I’ve started -seein’ things. I won’t ride after this season.” - -Then he learned, with a shock, that Sadie was to be his -racing-companion once more. She had walked into Santoni’s office and -offered to give exhibitions on the old terms; and Santoni, being too -good a business man, and too stout withal to stand on his head for -joy, had shaken her by both hands, and spent an afternoon in devising a -poster more sensational than any he had previously compassed. - -When he wrote “America’s Foremost Queen of the Track” it seemed to him -weak and colorless; and he threw adjectives into it until Sadie had a -title as long as her arm. - -Teddy slipped away and hid himself when he saw her arrive, with a knot -of admirers, to survey the track. An expensively tailored costume -emphasized her recent prosperity, and her obvious gaiety of manner was -like a snub. When she laughingly pointed out to her companions the -precise spot on which she had struck the providential wire fence, Teddy -shuddered and turned away. - -In the garage he came upon a mechanic overhauling her mount, an -excessively powerful machine with four cylinders, its frame enameled -bright scarlet, and nickeled in an unusual degree. It looked a -sufficiently dangerous mount for a strong and skilful man racing on a -spacious track. He shrank from seeing Sadie ride it in the restricted -circle of the soup-plate. - -When they appeared on the track in the evening, however, he could no -longer ignore her presence. Indeed, she came behind him and slapped him -gaily on the shoulder, such a trim, joyously captivating midget, in her -scarlet leather motor-jacket, that his heart leaped at the sight of her. - -“Who said I couldn’t come back, Teddy Rocco?” she asked, and the -familiar, curious huskiness of her voice thrilled him so that he could -not reply. - -“I’m going to make you look like a never-was to-night, Teddy-Eddy,” she -went on, with a sort of malicious exhilaration in her manner. “I expect -you’re still single?” - -“Oh, cut it out, Sadie!” he pleaded. “I never done you any harm.” - -“Do you love me as much as ever?” asked little Miss Simmons, with an -unwonted feline delight in cruelty. “The villain thought he had the -poor little girl just where he wanted her, didn’t he? But the kind, -handsome doctor rescued her all right; and now she’s going to make the -villain look like thirty cents.” - -“You’ll have to go some,” said Teddy, grinning miserably, as he stooped -to adjust his carbureter. When he mounted his machine he was in a -white-hot, searing temper. If all the women in the world had been laid -side by side on an endless track, he would have ridden over their necks -at that moment with an exquisite pleasure. - -But though he rode with the courage of bitterness and desperation, he -soon found that Sadie had the heels of him. Once or twice when she -shot past him with an almost crazy recklessness, the thought flashed -through his mind that an imperceptible swerve of his handle-bar would -all but inevitably end both their lives, and he weakly throttled down -his engine, fearful lest the subconscious working of his tortured mind -might communicate a tremor to his arm; and every time that Sadie passed -him with a vicious spurt of her diabolical scarlet mount, he caught in -her eye a gleam of impish triumph. - -It was when he found himself riding behind her, with his front wheel -a hand’s-breadth from her hind one, that he realized how utterly his -nerve had failed. Ever and again, under his front wheel appeared a -white, blood-flecked little face, with eyelashes that quivered in -agony. With a sob, he cut out his engine and slid slowly down the track. - -“I’m through,” he said to a mechanic who seized his cycle. “I don’t -think I’ll need her again.” - -For a long time he sat in the gloom of the garage in dumb agony, and -even there the rip of Sadie’s powerful engine followed him above -the cheers of the crowd. Now and then, in the midst of the uproar, -he could hear the voice of Santoni yelling the laps; then there was -a final outburst of cheering. When it died away, Sadie’s motor was -silent. A moment later, as it seemed to him, the door of the workshop -slammed, and he looked up, to see her standing before him, her black -eyes dancing in that strange exhilaration that he had noted before, her -chest heaving with excitement under the vivid scarlet of her jacket. - -“I’ve shaded your track record, Teddy Rocco!” she cried. “I’ve beaten -you to bits! Now say I can’t come back! I’ve come, haven’t I?” - -“I guess,” said Teddy, humbly. - -“And what’s more, I’ve cleaned up three thousand dollars this season, -and I haven’t a scar left on me that you could see in this light. But -you’ll have to take my word for that. We can talk on level terms now, -Teddy. I’m as good as ever I was, don’t you think?” - -“I expect so,” stammered Teddy. “It’s me that’s in bad. I’ve lost -heart, Sadie, and my nerve’s gone. I’ve been scared a time too many.” - -“Then get your machine and rush me away,” cried Sadie, “and marry me -the first minute you can; and we’ll get out of this to Florida in the -morning, and see the garage and the sunshine and the butterflies. It’s -a square deal now, Teddy-Eddy. Stand up and kiss your honey-bird, you -brave, silly, big-hearted, mush-headed little man; for I love you so -much I couldn’t have offered you anything less, and I’ve waited so -long, my heart feels like it will burst!” - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -T. TEMBAROM - -BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT - -Author of “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s,” “The Shuttle,” etc. - -WITH DECORATIVE PICTURES BY CHARLES S. CHAPMAN - - -CHAPTER XXXII - -When Tembarom repeated the words “and you’re going to listen,” Lady -Joan began to stare at him. It was not the ridiculous boyish drop -in his voice which arrested her attention. It was a fantastic, -incongruous, wholly different thing. He had suddenly dropped his -slouch, and stood upright. Did he realize that he had slung his words -at her as if they were an order given with the ring of authority? - -“I’ve not bucked against anything you’ve said or done since you’ve been -here,” he went on, speaking fast and grimly. “I didn’t mean to. I had -my reasons. There were things that I’d have given a good deal to say to -you and ask you about, but you wouldn’t let me. You wouldn’t give me a -chance to square things for you--if they could be squared. You threw -me down every time I tried.” - -He was too wildly incomprehensible with his changes from humanness -to folly. Remembering what he had attempted to say on the day he had -followed her in the avenue, she was inflamed again. - -“What in the name of New York slang does that mean?” she demanded. - -“Never mind New York,” he answered, cool as well as grim. “A fellow -that’s learned slang in the streets has learned something else as well. -He’s learned to keep his eyes open. He’s on to a way of seeing things. -And what I’ve seen is that you’re so doggone miserable that--that -you’re almost down and out.” - -This time she spoke to him in the voice with the quality of deadliness -in it which she had used to her mother. - -“Do you think that because you are in your own house you can be as -intrusively insulting as you choose?” she said. - -“No, I don’t,” he answered. “What I think is quite different. I think -that if a man _has_ a house of his own, and there’s any one in big -trouble under the roof of it,--a woman most of all,--he’s a cheap skate -if he doesn’t get busy and try to help--just plain, straight _help_.” - -He saw in her eyes all her concentrated disdain of him, but he went on, -still obstinate and cool and grim. - -“I guess ‘help’ is too big a word just yet. That may come later, and -it mayn’t. What I’m going to have a try at now is making it easier for -you--just easier.” - -Her contemptuous gesture registered no impression on him, as he paused -a moment and looked fixedly at her. - -“You just hate me, don’t you?” It was a mere statement which couldn’t -have been more impersonal to himself if he had been made of wood. -“That’s all right. I seem like a low-down intruder to you. Well, that’s -all right, too. But what _ain’t_ all right is what your mother has set -you on to thinking about me. You’d never have thought it yourself. -You’d have known better.” - -“What,” she said fiercely, “is that?” - -“That I’m mutt enough to have a mash on you.” - -The common slangy crassness of it was a kind of shock. She caught her -breath and merely stared at him. But he was not staring at her; he was -simply looking straight into her face, and it amazingly flashed upon -her that the extraordinary words were so entirely unembarrassed and -direct that they were actually not offensive. He was merely telling her -something in his own way, not caring the least about his own effect, -but absolutely determined that she should hear and understand it. - -Her caught breath ended in something which was like a half-laugh. His -queer, sharp, incomprehensible face, his queer, unmoved voice, were too -extraordinarily unlike anything she had ever seen or heard before. - -“I don’t want to be brash, and what I want to say may seem kind of that -way to you; but it ain’t. Anyhow, I guess it’ll relieve your mind. Lady -Joan, you’re a looker--you’re a beaut from Beautsville. If I were your -kind, and things were different, I’d be crazy about you--crazy. But I’m -_not_ your kind--and things _are_ different.” He drew a step nearer -still to her in his intentness. “They’re _this_ different: why, Lady -Joan, I’m dead stuck on another girl!” - -She caught her breath again, leaning forward. - -“Another--” - -“She says she’s not a lady; she threw me down just because all -this darned money came to me,” he hastened on, and suddenly he was -imperturbable no longer, but flushed and boyish, and more of New York -than ever. “She’s a little bit of a quiet thing, and she drops her h’s; -but gee! You’re a looker--you’re a queen, and she’s not. But little Ann -Hutchinson--Why, Lady Joan, as far as this boy’s concerned,”--and he -oddly touched himself on the breast,--“she makes you look like thirty -cents.” - -Joan quickly sat down on the chair she had just left. She rested an -elbow on the table and shaded her face with her hand. She was not -laughing; she scarcely knew what she was doing or feeling. - -“You are in love with Ann Hutchinson,” she said, in a low voice. - -“Am I?” he answered hotly. “Well, I should smile!” He disdained to say -more. - -Then she began to know what she felt. There came back to her in flashes -scenes from the past weeks in which she had done her worst by him; in -which she had swept him aside, loathed him, set her feet on him, used -the devices of an ingenious demon to discomfit and show him at his -poorest and least ready. And he had not been giving a thought to the -thing for which she had striven to punish him. And he plainly did not -even hate her. His mind was clear, as water is clear. He had come back -to her this evening to do her a good turn--a good turn! Knowing what -she was capable of in the way of arrogance and villainous temper, he -had determined, despite herself, to do her a good turn. - -“I don’t understand you,” she faltered. - -“I know you don’t. But it’s only because I’m so dead easy to -understand. There’s nothing to find out. I’m just friendly--friendly, -that’s all.” - -“You would have been friends with me!” she exclaimed. “You would have -told me, and I wouldn’t let you! Oh!”--with an impulsive flinging out -of her hand to him,--“you good--good fellow!” - -“Good be darned!” he answered, taking the hand at once. - -“You _are_ good to tell me! I have behaved like a devil to you. But, -oh! if you only knew!” - -His face became mature again, but he took a most informal seat on the -edge of the table near her. - -“I do know, part of it. That’s _why_ I’ve been trying to be friends -with you all the time.” He said his next words deliberately. “If I was -the woman Jem Temple Barholm had loved, wouldn’t it have driven _me_ -mad to see another man in his place--and remember what was done to -him? I never even saw him, but, good God!”--she saw his hand clench -itself,--“when I think of it, I want to kill somebody! I want to kill -half a dozen. Why didn’t they _know_ it couldn’t be true of a fellow -like that!” - -She sat up stiffly and watched him. - -“Do--_you_--feel like that--about _him_?” - -“Do I!” he said hotly. “There were men there that _knew_ him, there -were women there that knew him: why wasn’t there just _one_ to stand -by him? A man that’s been square all his life doesn’t turn into a -card-sharp in a night. Damn fools! I beg your pardon!” he said hastily. -And then, as hastily again: “No, I _mean_ it. Damn fools!” - -“Oh!” she gasped just once. - -Her passionate eyes were suddenly blinded with tears. She caught at his -clenched hand and dragged it to her, letting her face drop on it and -crying like a child. - -The way he took her breakdown was just like him and like no one else. -He put the other hand on her shoulder and spoke to her exactly as he -had spoken to Miss Alicia on that first afternoon. - -“Don’t you mind me, Lady Joan,” he said. “Don’t you mind me a bit. I’ll -turn my back. I’ll go into the billiard-room and keep them playing -until you get away up-stairs. Now we understand each other, it’ll be -better for both of us.” - -“No, don’t go! Don’t!” she begged. “It is so wonderful to find some one -who sees the cruelty of it.” She spoke fast and passionately. “No one -would listen to any defense of him. My mother simply raved when I said -what you are saying--what you said of him just now.” - -“Do you want”--he put it to her with a curious comprehending of her -emotion--“to talk about him? Would it do you good?” - -“Yes! yes! I have never talked to any one. There has been no one to -listen.” - -“Talk all you want,” he answered with immense gentleness. “I’m here.” - -“I can’t understand it even now, but he would not see me,” she broke -out. “I was half mad. I wrote, and he would not answer. I went to his -chambers when I heard he was going to leave England. I went to beg him -to take me with him, married or unmarried. I would have gone on my -knees to him. He was _gone_! Oh, why? Why?” - -“You didn’t think he’d gone because he didn’t love you?” he asked her -quite literally and unsentimentally. “You knew better than that?” - -“How could I be sure of anything? When he left the room that awful -night he would not _look_ at me! He would not _look_ at me!” - -“Since I’ve been here I’ve been reading a lot of novels, and I’ve found -out a lot of things about fellows that are not the common, practical -kind. Now, he wasn’t. He’d lived pretty much like a fellow in a novel, -I guess. What’s struck me about that sort is that they think they -have to make noble sacrifices, and they’ll just walk all over a woman -because they won’t do anything to hurt her. There’s not a bit of sense -in it, but that was what he was doing. He believed he was doing the -square thing by you, and you may bet your life it hurt him like hell. I -beg your pardon; but that’s the word--just plain hell.” - -“I was only a girl. He was like iron. He went away alone. He was -killed, and when he was dead the truth was told.” - -“That’s what I’ve remembered,” he said quite slowly, “every time I’ve -looked at you. By gee! I’d have stood anything from a woman that had -suffered as much as that.” - -It made her cry, his genuineness, and she did not care in the least -that the tears streamed down her cheeks. How he _had_ stood things! How -he had borne, in that odd, unimpressive way, insolence and arrogance -for which she ought to have been blackballed by decent society! She -could scarcely bear it. - -“Oh! to think it should have been _you_,” she wept, “just _you_ who -understood!” - -“Well,” he answered speculatively, “I mightn’t have understood as well -if it hadn’t been for Ann. By jinks! I used to lie awake at night -sometimes, thinking, ‘Supposing it had been Ann and me!’ That’s why I -understood.” - -He put out his hand and caught hers and frankly squeezed it--squeezed -it hard; and the unconventional clutch was a wonderful thing to her. - -“It’s all right now, ain’t it?” he said. “We’ve got it straightened -out. You’ll not be afraid to come back here if your mother wants -you to.” He stopped for a moment and then went on with something of -hesitation: “We don’t want to talk about your mother. We can’t. But I -understand her, too. Folks are different from each other in their ways. -She’s different from you. I’ll--I’ll straighten it out with her if you -like.” - -“Nothing will need straightening out after I tell her that you are -going to marry Little Ann Hutchinson,” said Joan, with a half-smile, -“and that you were engaged to her before you saw me.” - -“Well, that does sort of finish things up, doesn’t it?” said T. -Tembarom. - -He looked at her so speculatively for a moment after this that she -wondered whether he had more to say. He had. - -“There’s something I want to ask you,” he ventured. - -“Ask anything.” - -“Do you know any one--just any one--who has a photo--just any old -photo--of Jem Temple Barholm?” - -She was rather puzzled. - -“I know a woman who has worn one for eight years. Do you want to see -it?” - -“I’d give a good deal to,” he replied. She took a flat locket from her -dress and handed it to him. - -“Women don’t wear lockets in these days,”--he could barely hear her -voice, it was so low,--“but I’ve never taken it off. I wanted him near -my heart. It’s _Jem_!” - -He held it on the palm of his hand and stood under the light, studying -it as if he wanted to be sure he wouldn’t forget it. - -“It’s--sorter like that picture of Miles Hugo, ain’t it?” he suggested. - -“Yes; people always said so. That was why you found me in the -picture-gallery the first time we met.” - -“I knew that was the reason, and I knew I’d made a break when I butted -in,” he answered. Then, still looking at the photograph, he said: -“You’d know that face again most anywhere you saw it, I guess. A man -would know a face like that again wherever he saw it. Thank you, Lady -Joan.” - -He handed back the picture, and she put out her hand again. - -“I think I’ll go to my room now,” she said. “You’ve done a strange -thing to me. You’ve taken nearly all the hatred and bitterness out of -my heart. I shall want to come back here whether my mother comes or -not--I shall want to.” - -“The sooner the quicker,” he said. “And so long as I’m here, I’ll be -ready and waiting.” - -“Don’t go away,” she said softly. “I shall need you.” - -“Isn’t that great?” he cried, flushing delightedly. “Isn’t it just -great that we’ve got things straightened so that you can say that. Gee! -This is a queer old world! There’s such a lot to do in it, and so few -hours in the day. Seems like there ain’t time to stop long enough to -hate anybody and keep a grouch on. A fellow’s got to keep hustling not -to miss the things worth while.” - -The liking in her eyes was actually wistful. - -“That’s your way of thinking, isn’t it?” she said. “Teach it to me if -you can. I wish you could. Good night.” She hesitated a second. “God -_bless_ you!” she added quite suddenly, almost fantastic the words -sounded to her, that she, Joan Fayre, should be calling down devout -benisons on the head of T. Tembarom--T. Tembarom! - - * * * * * - -Her mother was in her room when she reached it. She had come up -early to look over her possessions and Joan’s before she began -her packing. The bed, the chairs, and the tables were spread with -evening, morning, and walking-dresses, and the millinery collected -from their combined wardrobes. She was examining anxiously a -laces-appliquéd-and-embroidered white coat, and turned a slightly -flushed face toward the opening door. - -“I am going over your things as well as my own,” she said. “I shall -take what I can use. You will require nothing in London. What is the -matter?” she said sharply, as she saw her daughter’s face. - -Joan came forward, feeling it a strange thing that she was not in the -mood to fight--to lash out and be glad to do it. - -“Captain Palliser told me as I came up that Mr. Temple Barholm had -been talking to you,” her mother went on. “He heard you having some -sort of scene as he passed the door. As you have made your decision, of -course I know I needn’t hope that anything has happened.” - -“What has happened has nothing to do with my decision. He wasn’t -waiting for that,” Joan answered her. “We were both entirely mistaken, -Mother.” - -“What are you talking about?” cried Lady Mallowe. “What do you mean by -mistaken?” - -“He doesn’t want me; he never did,” Joan answered again. A shadow of a -smile hovered over her face, and there was no derision in it, only a -warming recollection of his earnestness when he had said the words she -quoted, “He is what they call in New York ’dead stuck on another girl.’” - -Lady Mallowe sat down on the chair that held the white coat, and she -did not push the coat aside. - -“He told you that in his vulgar slang!” she gasped out. “You--you ought -to have struck him _dead_ with your answer.” - -“Except poor Jem Temple Barholm,” was the amazing reply she received, -“he is the only _friend_ I ever had in all my life.” - - -CHAPTER XXXIII - -It was business of serious importance which was to bring Captain -Palliser’s visit to a close. He explained it perfectly to Miss Alicia a -day or so after Lady Mallowe and her daughter left them. He had lately -been most amiable in his manner toward Miss Alicia, and had given -her much valuable information about companies and stocks. He rather -unexpectedly found it imperative that he should go to London and Berlin -to “see people,” dealers in great financial schemes who were deeply -interested in solid business speculations such as his own. - -“I suppose he will be very rich some day,” Miss Alicia remarked the -first morning she and T. Tembarom took their breakfast alone together -after his departure. “It would frighten me to think of having as much -money as he seems likely to have quite soon.” - -“It would scare me to death,” said Tembarom. She knew he was making a -sort of joke, but she thought the point of it was her tremor at the -thought of great fortune. - -“He seemed to think that it would be an excellent thing for you to -invest in--I’m not sure whether it was the India Rubber Tree Company, -or the mahogany-forests, or the copper-mines that have so much gold and -silver mixed in them that it will pay for the expense of the digging,” -she went on. - -“I guess it was the whole lot,” put in Tembarom. - -“Perhaps it was. They are all going to make everybody so rich that it -is quite bewildering. He is _very clever_ in business matters. And so -kind. He even said that if I really wished it, he might be able to -invest my income for me and actually treble it in a year. But of course -I told him that my income was your generous gift to me, and that it was -far more than sufficient for my needs.” - -Tembarom put down his coffee-cup so suddenly to look at her that she -was fearful that she had appeared to do Captain Palliser some vague -injustice. - -“I am sure he meant to be most obliging, dear,” she explained. “I was -really quite touched. He said most sympathetically and delicately that -when women were unmarried, and unaccustomed to investment, sometimes a -business man could be of use to them. He forgot”--affectionately--“that -I had you.” - -Tembarom regarded her with tender curiosity. She often opened up vistas -for him as he himself opened them for the Duke of Stone. - -“If you hadn’t had me, would you have let him treble your income in a -year?” he asked. - -Her expression as that of a soft, woodland rabbit or a trusting -spinster dove. - -“Well, of course, if one were quite alone in the world and had only a -small income, it _would_ be nice to have it wonderfully added to in -such a short time,” she answered. “But it was his friendly solicitude -which touched me.” - -“If the time ever comes when you haven’t got me,” said Tembarom, -buttering his toast, “just you make a dead sure thing of it that you -don’t let any solicitous business gentleman treble your income in a -year.” - -“Temple,” gasped Miss Alicia, “you--you surely cannot mean that you do -not think Captain Palliser is--sincere!” - -Tembarom laughed outright his most hilarious and comforting laugh. - -“Sincere?” he said. “He’s sincere down to the ground--in what he’s -reaching after; but he’s not going to treble your income or mine. If he -ever makes that offer again, you just tell him I’m interested, and that -I’ll talk it over with him.” - -Their breakfast was at an end, and he got up, laughing again, as he -came to her end of the table, and put his arm round her shoulders in -the unconventional young caress she adored him for. - -“It’s nice to be by ourselves again for a while,” he said. “Let us go -for a walk together. Put on the little bonnet and dress that are the -color of a mouse. Those little duds just get me. You look so pretty in -them.” - -The sixteen-year-old blush ran up to the roots of her gray -side-ringlets. Just imagine his remembering the color of her dress and -bonnet, and thinking that anything could make her look pretty! She was -overwhelmed with innocent and grateful confusion. There really was no -one else in the least like him. - -“I wonder if it is wrong of me to be so pleased,” Miss Alicia thought. -“I must make it a subject of prayer.” - -She was pathetically serious, having been trained to a view of the -great first cause as figuratively embodied in the image of a gigantic, -irascible, omnipotent old gentleman specially wrought to fury by -feminine follies connected with becoming headgear. - -“It has sometimes even seemed to me that our Heavenly Father has a -special objection to ladies,” she had once timorously confessed to -Tembarom. “I suppose it is because we are so much weaker than men, and -so much more given to vanity and petty vices.” - -He had caught her in his arms and actually hugged her that time. Their -intimacy had reached the point where the affectionate outburst did not -alarm her. - -“Say,” he had laughed, “it’s not the men who are going to have the -biggest pull with the authorities when folks try to get into the place -where things are evened up. What I’m going to work my passage with is -a list of the few ‘ladies’ I’ve known. You and Ann will be at the head -of it. I shall just slide it in at the box-office window and say: ’Just -look over this, will you? These were friends of mine, and they were -mighty good to me. I guess if they didn’t turn me down, you needn’t. -I know they’re in here. Reserved seats. I’m not expecting to be put -with them, but if I’m allowed to hang around where they are, that’ll be -heaven enough for me.’” - -“I know you don’t mean to be irreverent, dear Temple,” she had gasped, -“I am quite sure you don’t. It is--it is only your American way of -expressing your kind thoughts.” Somehow or other, he was always _so_ -comforting. - -He held her arm as they took their walk. She had become used to that -also, and no longer thought it odd. It was only one of the ways he had -of making her feel that she was being taken care of. They had not been -able to have many walks together since the arrival of the visitors, and -this occasion was at once a cause of relief and inward rejoicing. The -entire truth was that she had not been altogether happy about him of -late. Sometimes, when he was not talking and saying amusing New York -things which made people laugh, he seemed almost to forget where he was -and to be thinking of something which baffled and tried him. The way -in which he pulled himself together when he realized that any one was -looking at him was, to her mind, the most disturbing feature of his -fits of abstraction. - -As they walked through the park and the village, her heart was greatly -warmed by the way in which every person they met greeted him. They -_liked_ him, really _liked_ him. Every man touched his cap or forehead -with a friendly grin. It was as if there were some extremely human -joke between them. Miss Alicia had delightedly remembered the Duke of -Stone’s saying that he was “the most popular man in the county.” - -Tembarom was rather silent during the first part of their walk, and -when he spoke it was of Captain Palliser. - -“He’s a fellow that’s got lots of curiosity. I guess he’s asked you -more questions than he’s asked me,” he began at last, and he looked at -her interestedly, though she was not aware of it. - -“I thought,--” she hesitated slightly because she did not wish to be -critical,--“I sometimes thought he asked me too many. He asked so much -about you and your life in New York, but more, I think, about you and -Mr. Strangeways. He was really quite persistent once or twice about -poor Mr. Strangeways.” - -“What did he ask?” - -“He asked if I had seen him, and if you had preferred that I should -not. He calls him your mystery, and thinks your keeping him here is so -extraordinary.” - -“I guess it is, the way he’d look at it,” Tembarom dropped in. - -“He was so anxious to find out what he looked like. He asked how old he -was and how tall, and whether he was quite mad or only a little, and -where you picked him up, and when, and what reason you gave for not -putting him in some respectable asylum. I could only say that I really -knew nothing about him, and that I hadn’t seen him because he had a -dread of strangers and I was a little timid.” - -She hesitated again. - -“I wonder,” she said, still hesitating even after her pause--“I wonder -if I ought to mention a rather rude thing I once saw him do?” - -“Yes, you ought,” Tembarom answered promptly, “I’ve a reason for -wanting to know.” - -“It was such a singular thing to do--in the circumstances,” she went on -obediently. “He knew, as we all know, that Mr. Strangeways must _not_ -be disturbed. One afternoon I saw him walk slowly backward and forward -before the west room window. He had something in his hand, and kept -looking up. That was what first attracted my attention--his queer way -of looking up. Quite suddenly he threw something which rattled on the -panes of glass; it sounded like gravel or small pebbles. I couldn’t -help believing he thought Mr. Strangeways would be startled into coming -to the window.” - -Tembarom smiled. - -“He did that twice,” he said. “Pearson caught him at it, though -Palliser didn’t know he did. He’d have done it three times, or more -than that, perhaps, but I casually mentioned in the smoking-room one -night that some curious fool of a gardener-boy had thrown some stones -and frightened Strangeways, and that Pearson and I were watching -for him, and that if I caught him, I was going to knock his block -off--_bing_! He didn’t do it again. Darned fool! And he’d better not -try it again when he comes back,” remarked Tembarom. - -Miss Alicia’s surprised expression made him laugh. - -“Do you think he will come back?” she exclaimed, “after such a long -visit?” - -“Oh, yes, he’ll come back. He’ll come back as often as he can until -he’s got a chunk of my income to treble--or until I’ve done with him.” - -“Until you’ve done with him, dear?” she said inquiringly. - -“Oh, well,” he said casually, “I’ve a sort of idea that he may tell me -something I’d like to know. I’m not sure; I’m only guessing. But even -if he knows it, he won’t tell me until he gets good and ready, and -thinks I don’t want to hear it.” - -He would not talk any more of Captain Palliser or allow her to talk of -him. He began to make jokes, and led her to other subjects. He asked -her to go to the Hibblethwaites’ cottage and pay a visit to Tummas. -He had learned to understand his accepted privileges in the making -of cottage visits by this time; and when he clicked any wicket-gate, -the door was open before he had time to pass up the wicket-path. They -called at several cottages, and he nodded at the windows of others -where faces appeared as he passed by. - -They had a happy morning together, a pleasant drive in the afternoon, -and a cozy evening in the library. - -About nine o’clock he laid his paper aside and spoke to her. - -“I’m going to ask you to do me a favor,” he said. “I couldn’t ask it -if we weren’t alone like this. I know you won’t mind. I’m going to ask -you to go to your room rather early. I want to try a sort of stunt on -Strangeways. I want to bring him down-stairs if he’ll come. I’m not -sure I can get him to do it; but he’s been a heap better lately, and -perhaps I can.” - -“Is he so much better as that?” she said. “Will it be safe?” - -He looked as serious as she had ever seen him look, even a trifle more -serious. - -“I don’t know how much better he is,” was his answer. “Sometimes you’d -think he was almost all right, and then--The doctor says that if he -could get over being afraid of leaving his room, it would be a big -thing for him. He wants him to go to his place in London so that he can -watch him.” - -“Do you think you could persuade him to go?” - -“I’ve tried my level best, but so far nothing doing.” - -He got up and stood before the mantel, his back against it, his hands -in his pockets. - -“I’ve found out one thing,” he said. “He’s used to houses like this. -Every now and again he lets something out quite natural. He knew that -the furniture in his room was Jacobean--that’s what he called it--and -he knew it was fine stuff. He wouldn’t have known that if he’d been a -piker. I’m going to try if he won’t let out something else when he sees -things here, if he’ll come.” - -“You have such a wonderfully reasoning mind, dear,” said Miss Alicia as -she rose. - -“If Ann had been with him,” he said, rather gloomily, “she’d have -caught on to a lot more than I have. I don’t feel very chesty about the -way I’ve managed it.” - -Miss Alicia went up-stairs shortly afterward, and half an hour later -Tembarom told the footmen in the hall that they might go to bed. The -experiment he was going to make demanded that the place should be -cleared of any disturbing presence. He had been thinking it over for -some time past. He had sat in the private room of the great nerve -specialist in London and had talked it over with him. He had talked of -it with the duke on the lawn at Stone Hover. There had been a flush of -color in the older man’s cheek-bones, and his eyes had been alight as -he took his part in the discussion. He had added the touch of his own -personality to it, as always happened. - -“We are having some fine moments, my dear fellow,” he had said, rubbing -his hands. “This is extremely like the fourth act. I’d like to be sure -what comes next.” - -“I’d like to be sure myself,” Tembarom answered. “It’s as if a flash -of lightning came sometimes, and then things clouded up. And sometimes -when I am trying something out, he’ll get so excited that I daren’t go -on until I’ve talked to the doctor.” - -It was the excitement he was dubious about to-night. It was not -possible to be quite certain as to the entire safety of the plan; but -there might be a chance, even a big chance, of wakening some cell from -its deadened sleep. Sir Ormsby Galloway had talked to him a good deal -about brain-cells, and he had listened faithfully, and learned more -than he could put into scientific English. Gradually, during the past -months, he had been coming upon strangely exciting hints of curious -possibilities. They had been mere hints at first, and had seemed almost -absurd in their unbelievableness; but each one had linked itself with -another, and led him on to further wondering and exploration. When -Miss Alicia and Palliser had seen that he looked absorbed and baffled, -it had been because he had frequently found himself, to use his own -figures of speech, “mixed up to beat the band.” He had not known which -way to turn; but he had gone on turning because he could not escape -from his own excited interest, and the inevitable emotion roused by -being caught in the whirl of a melodrama. That was what he’d dropped -into--a whacking big play. It had begun for him when Palford butted -in that night and told him he was a lost heir, with a fortune and an -estate in England; and the curtain had been jerking up and down ever -since. But there had been thrills in it, queer as it was. Something -doing all the time, by gee! - -He sat and smoked his pipe and wished Ann were with him because he knew -he was not as cool as he had meant to be. He felt a certain tingling -of excitement in his body, and this was not the time to be excited. -He waited for some minutes before he went up-stairs. It was true that -Strangeways had been much better lately. He had seemed to find it -easier to follow conversation. During the last few days, Tembarom had -talked to him in a matter-of-fact way about the house and its various -belongings. He had at last seemed to waken to an interest in the -picture-gallery. Evidently he knew something of picture-galleries and -portraits, and found himself relieved by his own clearness of thought -when he talked of them. - -“I feel better,” he said two or three times. “Things seem -clearer--nearer.” - -“Good business!” exclaimed Tem-barom. “I told you it’d be that way. -Let’s hold on to pictures. It won’t be any time before you’ll be -remembering where you’ve seen some.” - -He had been secretly rather strung up; but he had been very gradual in -approaching his final suggestion that some night, when everything was -quiet, they might go and look at the gallery together. - -“What you need is to get out of the way of wanting to stay in one -place,” he argued. “The doctor says you’ve got to have change, and even -going from one room to another is a fine thing.” - -Strangeways had looked at him anxiously for a few moments, even -suspiciously, but his face had cleared after the look. He drew himself -up and passed his hand over his forehead. - -“I believe--perhaps he is right,” he murmured. - -“Sure he’s right,” said Tembarom. “He’s the sort of chap who ought to -know. He’s been made into a baronet for knowing. Sir Ormsby Galloway, -by jingo! That’s no slouch of a name. Oh, he knows, you bet your life!” - -This morning when he had seen him he had spoken of the plan again. The -visitors had gone away; the servants could be sent out of sight and -hearing; they could go into the library and smoke and he could look at -the books. And then they could take a look at the picture-gallery if he -wasn’t too tired. It would be a change, anyhow. - - * * * * * - -To-night, as he went up the huge staircase, Tembarom’s calmness of -being had not increased. He was aware of a quickened pulse. The dead -silence of the house added to the unusualness of things. He could not -remember ever having been so anxious before, except on the occasion -when he had taken his first day’s “stuff” to Galton. But he showed -no outward signs of excitement when he entered the room and found -Strangeways standing, perfectly attired in evening dress. - -Pearson, setting things in order at the other side of the room, was -taking note of him furtively over his shoulder. Quite in the casual -manner of the ordinary man, he had expressed his intention of dressing -for the evening, and Pearson had thanked his stars for the fact -that the necessary garments were at hand. From the first, he had -not infrequently asked for articles such as only the resources of a -complete masculine wardrobe could supply; and on one occasion he had -suddenly wished to dress for dinner, and the lame excuses it had been -necessary to make had disturbed him horribly instead of pacifying him. -To explain that his condition precluded the necessity of the usual -appurtenances would have been out of the question. He had been angry. -What did Pearson mean? What was the matter? He had said it over and -over again, and then had sunk into a hopelessly bewildered mood, and -had sat huddled in his dressing-gown staring at the fire. Pearson -had been so harrowed by the situation that it had been his own idea -to suggest to his master that all possible requirements should be -provided. There were occasions when it appeared that the cloud over him -lifted for a passing moment, and a gleam of light recalled to him some -familiar usage of his past. When he had finished dressing, Pearson had -been almost startled by the amount of effect produced by the straight, -correctly cut lines of black and white. The mere change of clothes had -suddenly changed the man himself--had “done something to him,” Pearson -put it. After his first glance at the mirror he had straightened -himself, as if recognizing the fault of his own carriage. When he -crossed the room it was with the action of a man who has been trained -to move well. The good looks, which had been almost hidden behind a -veil of uncertainty of expression and strained fearfulness, became -obvious. He was tall, and his lean limbs were splendidly hung together. -His head was perfectly set, and the bearing of his square shoulders was -a soldierly thing. It was an extraordinarily handsome man Tembarom and -Pearson found themselves gazing at. Each glanced involuntarily at the -other. - -“Now, that’s first-rate. I’m glad you feel like coming,” Tembarom -plunged in. He didn’t intend to give him too much time to think. - -“Thank you. It will be a change, as you said,” Strangeways answered. -“One needs change.” - -His deep eyes looked somewhat deeper than usual, but his manner was -that of any well-bred fellow doing an accustomed thing. If he had been -an ordinary guest in the house, and his host had dropped into his -room, he would have comported himself in exactly the same way. - -They went together down the corridor as if they had passed down it -together a dozen times before. On the stairway Strangeways looked at -the tapestries with the interest of a familiarized intelligence. - -“It is a beautiful old place,” he said as they crossed the hall. “That -armor was worn by a crusader.” He hesitated a moment when they entered -the library, but it was only for a moment. He went to the hearth -and took the chair his host offered him, and, lighting a cigar, sat -smoking it. If T. Tembarom had chanced to be a man of an analytical or -metaphysical order of intellect, he would have found during the last -month many things to lead him far in mental argument concerning the -weird wonder of the human mind--of its power where its possessor, the -body, is concerned, its sometime closeness to the surface of sentient -being, its sometime remoteness. He would have known, awed, marveling at -the blackness of the pit into which it can descend, the unknown shades -that may enfold it and imprison its gropings. The old Duke of Stone -had sat and pondered many an hour over stories his favorite companion -had related to him. What curious and subtle processes had the queer -fellow not been watching in the closely guarded quiet of the room -where the stranger had spent his days: the strange thing cowering in -its darkness; the ray of light piercing the cloud one day and seeming -lost again the next; the struggles the imprisoned thing made to come -forth--to cry out that it was only immured, not wholly conquered, -and that some hour would arrive when it would fight its way through -at last! Tembarom had not entered into psychological research. He -had been entirely uncomplex in his attitude, sitting down before his -problem as a besieger might have sat down before a castle. The duke -had sometimes wondered whether it was not a good enough thing that he -had been so simple about it, merely continuing to believe the best -with an unswerving obstinacy and lending a hand when he could. A never -flagging sympathy had kept him singularly alive to every chance, and -now and then he had illuminations which would have done credit to a -cleverer man, and which the duke had rubbed his hands in half-amused, -half-touched elation. How he had kept his head and held to his purpose! - -T. Tembarom talked but little as he sat in his big chair and smoked. -Best let him alone and give him time to get used to the newness, he -thought. Nothing must happen that could give him a jolt. Let things -sort of sink into him, and perhaps they’d set him to thinking and lead -him somewhere. Strangeways himself evidently did not want talk. He -never wanted it unless he was excited. He was not excited now, and had -settled down as if he was comfortable. Having finished one cigar, he -took another, and began to smoke it much more slowly than he had smoked -his first. The slowness began to arrest Tembarom’s attention. This was -the smoking of a man who was either growing sleepy or sinking into deep -thought, becoming oblivious to what he was doing. Sometimes he held -the cigar absently between his strong, fine fingers, seeming to forget -it. Tembarom watched him do this until he saw it go out, and its white -ash drop on the rug at his feet. He did not notice it, but sat sinking -deeper and deeper into his own being, growing more remote. What was -going on under his absorbed stillness? Tembarom would not have moved or -spoken “for a block of Fifth Avenue,” he said internally. The dark eyes -seemed to become darker until there was only a pin’s point of light -to be seen in their pupils. It was as if he were looking at something -at a distance--at a strangely long distance. Twice he turned his head -and appeared to look slowly round the room, but not as normal people -look--as if it also was at the strange, long distance from him, and he -were somewhere outside its walls. It was an uncanny thing to behold. - -“How dead-still the room is!” Tembarom found himself thinking. - -It was “dead-still.” And it was “a queer deal,” sitting, not daring to -move, just watching. Something was bound to happen, sure. What was it -going to be? - -Strangeways’s cigar dropped from his fingers and appeared to rouse him. -He looked puzzled for a moment, and then stooped quite naturally to -pick it up. - -“I forgot it altogether. It’s gone out,” he remarked. - -“Have another,” suggested Tembarom, moving the box nearer to him. - -“No, thank you.” He rose and crossed the room to the wall of -book-shelves. And Tembarom’s eye was caught again by the fineness of -movement and line the evening clothes made manifest. “What a swell he -looked when he moved about like that! What a swell, by jingo!” - -He looked along the line of shelves and presently took a book down -and opened it. He turned over its leaves until something arrested his -attention, and then he fell to reading. He read several minutes, while -Tembarom watched him. The silence was broken by his laughing a little. - -“Listen to this,” he said, and began to read something in a language -totally unknown to his hearer. “A man who writes that sort of thing -about a woman is an old bounder, whether he’s a poet or not. There’s a -small, biting spitefulness about it that’s cattish.” - -“_Who_ did it?” Tembarom inquired softly. It might be a good idea to -lead him on. - -“Horace. In spite of his genius, the ‘Lampoons’ make you feel he was -rather a blackguard.” - -“Horace!” For the moment T. Tembarom forgot himself. “I always heard he -was a sort of Y. M. C. A. old guy--old Horace Greeley. The ‘Tribune’ -was no yellow journal when he had it.” - -He was sorry he had spoken the next moment. Strangeways looked puzzled. - -“The ’Tribune,’” he hesitated. “The Roman tribune?” - -“No, New York. He started it--old Horace did. But perhaps we’re not -talking of the same man.” - -Strangeways hesitated again. - -“No, I think we’re not,” he answered politely. - -“I’ve made a break,” thought Tembarom. “I ought to have kept my mouth -shut. I must try to switch him back.” - -Strangeways was looking down at the back of the book he held in his -hand. - -“This one was the Latin poet, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65 -~B.C.~ You know it,” he said. - -“Oh, _that_ one!” exclaimed Tembarom, as if with an air of immense -relief. “What a fool I was to forget! I’m glad it’s him. Will you go on -reading, and let me hear some more? He’s a winner from Winnersville, -that Horace is.” - -Perhaps it was a sort of miracle, accomplished by his great desire to -help the right thing to happen, to stave off any shadow of the wrong -thing. Whatsoever the reason, Strangeways waited only a moment before -turning to his book again. It seemed to be a link in some chain slowly -forming itself to draw him back from his wanderings. And T. Tembarom, -lightly sweating as a frightened horse will, sat smoking another pipe -and listening intently to “Satires” and “Lampoons,” read aloud in the -Latin of 65 ~B.C.~ - -“By gee!” he said faithfully, at intervals, when he saw on the reader’s -face that the moment was ripe, “He knew it all,--old Horace,--didn’t -he?” - -He had steered his charge back. Things were coming along the line to -him. He’d learned Latin at one of these big English schools. Boys -always learned Latin, the duke had told him. They just had to. Most of -them hated it like thunder, and they used to be caned when they didn’t -recite it right. Perhaps if he went on, he’d begin to remember the -school. A queer part of it was that he did not seem to notice that he -was not reading his own language. - -He did not, in fact, seem to remember anything in particular, but went -on quite naturally for some minutes. He had replaced Horace on the -shelf and was on the point of taking another book when he paused, as if -recalling something else. - -“Weren’t we going to see the picture-gallery?” he inquired. “Isn’t it -getting late? I should like to see the portraits.” - -“No hurry,” answered T. Tembarom. “I was just waiting till you were -ready. But we’ll go right away, if you like.” - -They went without further ceremony. As they walked through the hall and -down the corridors side by side, an imaginative person might have felt -that perhaps the eyes of an ancient, darkling portrait or so looked -down at the pair curiously: the long, loosely built New Yorker rather -slouching along by the soldierly almost romantic figure which in a -measure suggested that others not unlike it might have trod the same -oaken floor, wearing ruff and doublet, or lace jabot and sword. There -was a far cry between the two, but they walked closely in friendly -union. When they entered the picture-gallery, Strangeways paused a -moment again, and stood peering down its length. - -“It is very dimly lighted. How can we see?” he said. - -“I told Pearson to leave it dim,” Tembarom answered. - -He tried, and succeeded tolerably well, to say it casually as he led -the way ahead of them. He and the duke had not talked the scheme over -for nothing. As his grace had said, they had “worked the thing up.” As -they moved down the gallery, the men and women in their frames looked -like ghosts staring out to see what was about to happen. - -“We’ll turn up the lights after a while,” T. Tembarom explained still -casually. “There’s a picture here I think a good deal of. I’ve stood -and looked at it pretty often. It reminded me of someone the first day -I set eyes on it; but it was quite a time before I made up my mind who -it was. It used to drive me half dotty trying to think it out.” - -“Which one?” asked Strangeways. - -“We’re coming to it. I want to see if it reminds you of any one. And I -want you to see it sudden.” “It’s got to be sudden,” he had said to the -duke. “If it’s going to pan out, I believe it’s got to be sudden. When -he first sees that picture he’s _got_ to get a jolt--he’s got to.” - -That was why Tembarom had the lights left dim. He had told Pearson to -leave a lamp that he could turn up quickly. - -The lamp was on a table near by and was shaded by a screen. He took -it from the shadow and lifted it suddenly, so that its full gleam -fell upon the portrait of the handsome youth with the lace collar and -the dark, drooping eyes. It was done in a second, with a dramatically -unexpected swiftness. His heart fairly thumped. - -“Who’s that?” he demanded, with abruptness so sharp-pitched that the -gallery echoed with the sound. “Who’s that?” - -He heard a hard, quick gasp, a sound which was momentarily a little -horrible, as if the man’s soul was being jerked out of his body’s -depths. - -“Who is he?” Tembarom cried again. “Tell me!” - -After the gasp, Strangeways stood still and stared. His eyes were glued -to the canvas, drops of sweat came out on his forehead, and he was -shuddering. He began to back away with a look of gruesome struggle. He -backed and backed, and stared and stared. The gasp came twice again, -and then his voice seemed to tear itself loose from some power that was -holding it back. - -“Th--at!” he cried. “It is--it--is Miles Hugo!” - -The last words were almost a shout, and he shook as if he would have -fallen. But T. Tembarom put his hand on his shoulder and held him, -breathing fast himself. Gee! if it wasn’t like a thing in a play! - -“Page at the court of Charles the Second,” he rattled off. “Died of -smallpox when he was nineteen. Miles Hugo! Miles Hugo! You hold on to -that for all you’re worth. And hold on to me. I’ll keep you steady. Say -it again.” - -“Miles Hugo,” the poor majestic-looking fellow almost sobbed it. “Where -am I? What is the name of this place?” - -“It’s Temple Barholm, in the county of Lancashire, England. Hold on to -that, too--like thunder!” - -Strangeways held the young man’s arm with hands that clutched. He -dragged at him. His nightmare held him yet; Tembarom saw it, but -flashes of light were blinding him. - -“Who,” he pleaded in a shaking and hollow whisper, “are you?” - -Here was a stumper, by jingo! and not a minute to think it out. But the -answer came all right. - -“My name’s Tembarom. T. Tembarom.” And he grinned his splendid grin -from sheer sense of relief. “I’m a New Yorker--Brooklyn. I was just -forked in here anyhow. Don’t you waste time thinking over me. You sit -down here and do your durndest with Miles Hugo.” - - -CHAPTER XXXIV - -Tembarom did not look as though he had slept particularly well, Miss -Alicia thought, when they met the next morning; but when she asked -him whether he had been disappointed in his last night’s experiment, -he answered that he had not. The experiment had come out all right, -but Strangeways had been a good deal worked up, and had not been -able to sleep until daylight. Sir Ormsby Galloway was to arrive in -the afternoon, and he’d probably give him something quieting. “Had -the coming down-stairs seemed to help him to recall anything?” Miss -Alicia naturally inquired. Tembarom thought it had. He drove to Stone -Hover and spent the morning with the duke; he even lunched with him. -He returned in time to receive Sir Ormsby Galloway, however, and until -that great personage left, they were together in Mr. Strangeways’ rooms. - -“I guess I shall get him up to London to the place where Sir Ormsby -wants him,” he said rather nervously, after dinner. “I’m not going to -miss any chances. If he’ll go, I can get him away quietly some time -when I can fix it so there’s no one about to worry him.” - -She felt that he had no inclination to go much into detail. He had -never had the habit of entering into the details connected with his -strange charge. She did not ask questions because she was afraid she -could not ask them intelligently. - -During the passage of the next few weeks, Tembarom went up to London -several times. Once he seemed called there suddenly, as it was only -during dinner that he told her that he was going to take a late train, -and should leave the house after she had gone to bed. She felt as -though something important must have happened, and hoped it was nothing -disturbing. - -When he had said that Captain Palliser would return to visit them, her -private impression, despite his laugh, had been that it must surely be -some time before this would occur. But a little more than three weeks -later he appeared, preceded only half an hour by a telegram, asking -whether he might not spend a night with them on his way farther north. -He could not at all understand why the telegram, which he said he had -sent the day before, had been delayed. - -A certain fatigued haggardness in his countenance caused Miss Alicia -to ask whether he had been ill, and he admitted that he had at least -not been well, as a result of long and too hurried journeys, and the -strenuousness of extended and profoundly serious interviews with his -capitalist and magnates. - -“No man can engineer gigantic schemes to success without feeling the -reaction when his load drops from his shoulders,” he remarked. - -“You’ve carried it quite through?” inquired Tembarom. - -“We have set on foot one of the largest, most substantially capitalized -companies in the European business world,” Palliser replied with the -composure which is almost indifference. - -“Good!” said Tembarom, cheerfully. - -He watched his guest a good deal during the day. He was a bad color for -a man who had just steered clear of all shoals and reached the highest -point of success. He had a haggard eye as well as a haggard face. -It was a terrified eye when its desperate determination to hide its -terrors dropped from it for an instant, as a veil might drop. A certain -restlessness was manifest in him, and he talked more than usual. He -was going to make a visit in Northumberland to an elderly lady of -great possessions. It was to be vaguely gathered that she was somewhat -interested in the great company--the Cedric. She was a remarkable old -person who found a certain agreeable excitement in dabbling in stocks. -She was rich enough to be in a position to regard it as a sort of game, -and he had been able on several occasions to afford her entertainment. - -“If she can play with things that way, she’ll be sure to want stock in -it,” Tembarom remarked. - -“If she does, she must make up her mind quickly,” Palliser smiled, “or -she will not be able to get it. It is not easy to lay one’s hands on -even now.” - -Tembarom thought of certain speculators of entirely insignificant -standing of whom he had chanced to see and hear anecdotes in New York. -He always detested “bluff,” whatsoever its disguise. - -“He’s got badly stung,” was his internal comment as he sucked at his -pipe and smiled urbanely at Palliser across the room as they sat -together. “He’s come here with some sort of deal on that he knows he -couldn’t work with any one but just such a fool as he thinks I am. I -guess,” he added in composed reflectiveness, “I don’t really know _how_ -big a fool I do look.” - -Whatsoever the deal was, he would be likely to let it be known in time. - -“He’ll get it off his chest if he’s going away to-morrow,” decided -Tembarom. “If there’s anything he’s found out, he’ll use it. If it -doesn’t pan out as he thinks it will, he’ll just float away to his old -lady.” - -He gave Palliser every chance, talking to him and encouraging him to -talk, even asking him to let him look over the prospectus of the new -company and explain details to him, as he was going to explain them -to the old lady in Northumberland. He opened up avenues; but for a -time Palliser made no attempt to stroll down them. His walk would be a -stroll, Tembarom knew, being familiar with his methods. He seemed to be -thinking things over before he decided upon the psychological moment at -which he would begin, if he began. When a man had a good deal to lose -or to win, Tembarom realized that he would be likely to hold back until -he felt something like solid ground under him. - -After Miss Alicia had left them for the night, perhaps he felt, as a -result of thinking the matter over, that he had reached a foothold of a -firmness at least somewhat to be depended upon. - -“What a change you have made in that poor woman’s life!” he said, -walking to the side table and helping himself to a brandy and soda. -“What a change!” - -“It struck me that a change was needed just about the time I dropped -in,” answered his host. - -“All the same,” suggested Palliser, tolerantly, “you were immensely -generous. She wasn’t entitled to expect it, you know.” - -“She didn’t expect anything, not a darned thing,” said Tembarom. “That -was what hit me.” - -Palliser smiled a cold, amiable smile. - -“Do you purpose to provide for the future of all your indigent -relatives even to the third and fourth generation, my dear chap?” he -inquired. - -“I won’t refuse till I’m asked, anyhow,” was the answer. - -“Asked!” Palliser repeated. “I’m one of them, you know, and Lady -Mallowe is another. There are lots of us, when we come out of our -holes. If it’s only a matter of asking, we might all descend on you.” - -Tembarom, smiling, wondered whether they hadn’t descended already, and -whether the descent had so far been all that they had anticipated. - -Palliser strolled down his opened avenue with an incidental air -which was entirely creditable to his training of himself. His host -acknowledged that much. - -“You are too generous,” said Palliser. “You are the sort of fellow -who will always need all he has, and more. The way you go among the -villagers! You think you merely slouch about and keep it quiet, but you -don’t. You’ve set an example no other landowner can expect to live up -to. It’s too lavish. It’s pernicious, dear chap. I know all about the -cottage you are doing over for Pearson and his bride. You had better -invest in the Cedric.” - -Palliser had reason to be so much more eager than he professed to be -that momentarily he swerved, despite himself, and ceased to be casual. - -“It is an enormous opportunity,” he said--“timber lands in Mexico, you -know. If you had spent your life in England, you would realize that -timber has become a desperate necessity, and that the difficulties -which exist in the way of supplying the demand are almost insuperable. -These forests are virtually boundless, and the company which controls -them--” - -“That’s a good spiel!” broke in Tembarom. - -It sounded like the crudely artless interruption of a person whose -perceptions left much to be desired. - -“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he replied rather stiffly. - -“There was a fellow I knew in New York who used to sell type-writers, -and he had a thing to say he used to reel off when any one looked like -a customer. He used to call it his ’spiel.’” - -Palliser’s quick glance at him asked questions, and his stiffness did -not relax itself. - -“Is this New York chaff?” he inquired coldly. - -“No,” Tembarom said. “You’re not doing it for ten per. He was.” - -“No, not exactly,” said Palliser. “Neither would you be doing it for -ten per if you went into it.” His voice changed. He became slightly -haughty. “Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to think you might care -to connect yourself with it. You have not, of course, been in the -position to comprehend such matters.” - -But the expression of Tembarom’s face did not change. He only gave a -half-awkward sort of laugh. - -“I guess I can learn,” he said. - -Palliser felt the foothold become firmer. The bounder was interested, -but, after a bounder’s fashion, was either nervous or imagined that -a show of hesitation looked shrewd. The slight hit made at his -inexperience in investment had irritated him and made him feel less -cock-sure of himself. A slightly offended manner might be the best -weapon to rely upon. - -“I thought you might care to have the thing made clear to you,” he -continued indifferently. “I meant to explain. You may take the chance -or leave it, as you like, of course. That is nothing to me at this -stage of the game. But, after all, we are, as I said, relatives of a -sort, and it is a gigantic opportunity. Suppose we change the subject.” - -Palliser paused in an unconcerned opening of a copy of the Sunday -“Earth.” - -“Oh, I don’t mind trying to catch on to what’s doing in any big -scheme,” said Tembarom. - -Palliser’s manner at the outset was perfect. He produced his papers -without too obvious eagerness. He spread them upon the table, and -coolly examined them himself before beginning his explanation. There -was more to explain to a foreigner and one unused to investment than -there would be to a man who was an Englishman and familiar with the -methods of large companies, he said. He went into technicalities, so to -speak, and used rapidly and lightly some imposing words and phrases, to -which T. Tembarom listened attentively, but without any special air of -illumination. He dealt with statistics and the resulting probabilities. -He made apparent the existing condition of England’s inability to -supply an enormous and unceasing demand for timber. He had acquired -divers excellent methods of stating his case to the party of the second -part. - -“He made me feel as if a fellow had better hold on to a box of matches -like grim death, and that the time wasn’t out of sight when you’d have -to give fifty-seven dollars and a half for a toothpick,” Tembarom later -said to the duke. - -What Tembarom was thinking as he listened to him was that he was not -getting over the ground with much rapidity. - -“If he thought I wanted to know what he thinks I’d a heap rather _not_ -know, he’d never tell me,” he speculated. “If he gets a bit hot in the -collar, he may let it out. Thing is to stir him up. He’s lost his nerve -a bit, and he’ll get mad pretty easy.” - -“Of course money is wanted,” Palliser said at length. “Money is always -wanted, and as much when a scheme is a success as when it isn’t. -Good names, with a certain character, are wanted. The fact of your -inheritance is known everywhere; and the fact that you are an American -is a sort of guaranty of shrewdness.” - -“Is it?” said T. Tembarom. “Well,” he added slowly, “I guess Americans -are pretty good business men.” - -Palliser thought that this was evolving upon perfectly natural lines, -as he had anticipated it would. The fellow was flattered and pleased. - -He went on in smooth, casual laudation: - -“No American takes hold of a scheme of this sort until he knows jolly -well what he’s going to get out of it. You were shrewd enough,” he -added significantly, “about Hutchinson’s affair. You ‘got in on the -ground floor’ there. That was New York forethought, by Jove!” - -Tembarom shuffled a little in his chair, and grinned a faint, pleased -grin. - -“I’m a man of the world, my boy--the business world,” Palliser -commented, hoping that he concealed his extreme satisfaction. “I know -New York, though I haven’t lived there. I’m only hoping to. Your air of -ingenuous ignorance is the cleverest thing about you,” which agreeable -implication of the fact that he had been privately observant and -impressed ought to have fetched the bounder if any thing would. - -T. Tembarom’s grin was no longer faint, but spread itself. Palliser’s -first impression was that he had “fetched” him. But when he answered, -though the very crudeness of his words seemed merely the result of -his betrayal into utter tactlessness by soothed vanity, there was -something--a shade of something--not entirely satisfactory in his face -and nasal twang. - -“Well, I guess,” he said, “New York _did_ teach a fellow not to buy a -gold brick off every con man that came along.” - -Palliser was guilty of a mere ghost of a start. Was there something -in it, or was he only the gross, blundering fool he had trusted to his -being? He stared at him a moment, and saw that there _was_ something -under the words and behind his professedly flattered grin--something -which must be treated with a high hand. - -“What do you mean?” he exclaimed haughtily. “I don’t like your tone. Do -you take _me_ for what you call a ’con man’?” - -“Good Lord, no!” answered Tembarom; and he looked straight at Palliser -and spoke slowly. “You’re a gentleman, and you’re paying me a visit. -You could no more try on a game to do me in my own house than--well, -than I could _tell_ you if I’d got on to you if I saw you doing it. -You’re a gentleman.” - -Palliser glared back into his infuriatingly candid eyes. He was a far -cry from being a dullard himself; he was sharp enough to “catch on” to -the revelation that the situation was not what he had thought it, the -type was more complex than he had dreamed. The chap had been playing -a part; he had absolutely been “jollying him along,” after the New -York fashion. He became pale with humiliated rage, though he knew his -only defense was to control himself and profess not to see through the -trick. Until he could use his big lever, he added to himself. - -“Oh, I see,” he commented acridly. “I suppose you don’t realize that -your figures of speech are unfortunate.” - -“That comes of New York streets, too,” Tembarom answered with -deliberation. “But you can’t live as I’ve lived and be dead easy--not -_dead_ easy.” - -Palliser had left his chair, and stood in contemptuous silence. - -“You know how a fellow hates to be thought _dead_ easy”--Tembarom -actually went to the insolent length of saying the words with a touch -of cheerful confidingness--“when he’s _not_. And I’m not. Have another -drink.” - -There was a pause. Palliser began to see, or thought he began to -see, where he stood. He had come to Temple Barholm because he had -been driven into a corner and had a dangerous fight before him. In -anticipation of it he had been following a clue for some time, though -at the outset it had been one of incredible slightness. Only his -absolute faith in his theory that every man had something to gain -or lose, which he concealed discreetly, had led him to it. He held a -card too valuable to be used at the beginning of a game. Its power -might have lasted a long time, and proved an influence without limit. -He forbore any mental reference to blackmail; the word was absurd. -One used what fell into one’s hands. If Tembarom had followed his -lead with any degree of docility, he would have felt it wiser to save -his ammunition until further pressure was necessary. But behind his -ridiculous rawness, his foolish jocularity, and his professedly candid -good humor, had been hidden the Yankee trickster who was fool enough to -think he could play his game through. Well, he could not. - -During the few moments’ pause he saw the situation as by a photographic -flashlight. He leaned over the table and supplied himself with a fresh -brandy and soda from the tray of siphons and decanters. He gave himself -time to take the glass up in his hand. - -“No,” he answered, “you are not ‘dead easy.’ That’s why I am going to -broach another subject to you.” - -Tembarom was refilling his pipe. - -“Go ahead,” he said. - -“Who, by the way, is Mr. Strangeways?” - -He was deliberate and entirely unemotional. So was T. Tembarom, when, -with match applied to his tobacco, he replied between puffs as he -lighted it: - -“You can search me. You can search him, too, for that matter. He -doesn’t know who he is himself.” - -“Bad luck for him!” remarked Palliser, and allowed a slight pause -again. After it he added, “Did it ever strike you it might be good luck -for somebody else?” - -“Somebody else?” Tembarom puffed more slowly, because his pipe was -lighted. - -Palliser took some brandy in his soda. - -“There are men, you know,” he suggested, “who can be spared by their -relatives. I have some myself, by Jove!” he added with a laugh. “You -keep him rather dark, don’t you?” - -“He doesn’t like to see people.” - -“Does he object to people seeing him? I saw him once myself.” - -“When you threw the gravel at his window?” - -Palliser stared contemptuously. - -“What are you talking about? I did not throw stones at his window,” he -lied. “I’m not a school-boy.” - -“That’s so,” Tembarom admitted. - -“I saw him, nevertheless. And I can tell you he gave me rather a start.” - -“Why?” - -Palliser half laughed again. He did not mean to go too quickly; he -would let the thing get on Tembarom’s nerves gradually. - -“Well, I’m hanged if I didn’t take him for a man who is dead.” - -“Enough to give any fellow a jolt,” Tembarom admitted again. - -“It gave me a ‘jolt.’ Good word, that. But it would give you a bigger -one, my dear fellow, if he was the man he looked like.” - -“Why?” Tembarom asked laconically. - -“He looked like Jem Temple Barholm.” - -He saw Tembarom start. There could be no denying it. - -“You thought that? Honest?” he said sharply, as if for a moment he had -lost his head. “You thought that?” - -“Don’t be nervous. Perhaps I couldn’t have sworn to it. I did not see -him very close.” - -T. Tembarom puffed rapidly at his pipe, and only ejaculated, “Oh!” - -“Of course he’s dead. If he wasn’t,”--with a shrug of his -shoulders,--“Lady Joan Fayre would be Lady Joan Temple Barholm, and -the pair would be bringing up an interesting family here.” He looked -about the room, and then, as if suddenly recalling the fact, added, “By -George! you’d be selling newspapers, or making them--which was it?--in -New York!” - -It was by no means unpleasing to see that he had made his hit there. T. -Tembarom swung about and walked across the room with a very perturbed -expression. - -“Say,” he put it to him, coming back, “are you in earnest, or are you -just saying it to give me a jolt?” - -Palliser studied him. The American sharpness was not always so keen as -it seemed. His face would have betrayed his uneasiness to the dullest -onlooker. - -“Have you any objection to my seeing him in his own room?” Palliser -inquired. - -“It does him harm to see people,” Tembarom said with nervous bruskness. -“It worries him.” - -Palliser smiled a quiet, but far from agreeable, smile. He enjoyed what -he put into it. - -“Quite so; best to keep him quiet,” he returned. “Do you know what -my advice would be? Put him in a comfortable sanatorium. A lot of -stupid investigations would end in nothing, of course, but they’d be a -frightful bore.” - -He thought it extraordinarily stupid in T. Tembarom to come nearer to -him with an eagerness entirely unconcealed, if he really knew what he -was doing. - -“Are you sure that if you saw him close you’d _know_, so that you could -swear to him?” he demanded. - -“You’re extremely nervous, aren’t you?” Palliser watched him with -smiling coolness. “Of course Jem Temple Barholm is dead; but I’ve no -doubt that if I saw this man of yours, I could swear he had remained -dead--if I were asked.” - -“If you knew him well, you could make me sure. You could swear one way -or another. I want to be _sure_,” said Tembarom. - -“So should I in your place; couldn’t be too sure. Well, since you ask -me, I _could_ swear. I knew him well enough. He was one of my most -intimate enemies. What do you say to letting me see him?” - -“I would if I could,” Tembarom replied, as if thinking it over. “I -would if I could.” - -Palliser treated him to the far from pleasing smile again. - -“But it’s quite impossible at present?” he suggested. “Excitement is -not good for him, and all that sort of thing. You want time to think it -over.” - -Tembarom’s slowly uttered answer, spoken as if he were still -considering the matter, was far from being the one he had expected. - -“I want time; but that’s not the reason you can’t see him right now. -You can’t see him because he’s not here. He’s gone.” - -Then it was Palliser who started, taken totally unaware in a manner -which disgusted him altogether. He had to pull himself up. - -“He’s gone!” he repeated. “You are quicker than I thought. You’ve got -him safely away, have you? Well, I told you a comfortable sanatorium -would be a good idea.” - -“Yes, you did.” T. Tembarom hesitated, seeming to be thinking it over -again. “That’s so.” He laid his pipe aside because it had gone out. - -He suddenly sat down at the table, putting his elbows on it and his -face in his hands, with a harried effect of wanting to think it over in -a sort of withdrawal from his immediate surroundings. This was as it -should be. His Yankee readiness had deserted him altogether. - -“By Jove! you are nervous!” Palliser commented. “It’s not surprising, -though. I can sympathize with you.” With a markedly casual air he -himself sat down and drew his documents toward him. “Let us talk of -something else,” he said. He preferred to be casual and incidental, if -he were allowed. It was always better to suggest things and let them -sink in until people saw the advantage of considering them and you. To -manage a business matter without open argument or too frank a display -of weapons was at once more comfortable and in better taste. - -“You are making a great mistake in not going into this,” he suggested -amiably. “You could go in now, as you went into Hutchinson’s affair, -‘on the ground floor.’ That’s a good enough phrase, too. Twenty -thousand pounds would make you a million. You Americans understand -nothing less than millions.” - -But T. Tembarom did not take him up. He muttered in a worried way from -behind his shading hands, “We’ll talk about that later.” - -“Why not talk about it now, before anything can interfere?” Palliser -persisted politely, almost gently. - -Tembarom sprang up, restless and excited. He had plainly been planning -fast in his temporary seclusion. - -“I’m thinking of what you said about Lady Joan,” he burst forth. “Say, -she’s gone through all this Jem Temple Barholm thing once; it about -half killed her. If any one raised false hopes for her, she’d go -through it all again. Once is enough for any woman.” - -His effect at professing heat and strong feeling made a spark of -amusement show itself in Palliser’s eye. It struck him as being -peculiarly American in its affectation of sentiment and chivalry. - -“I see,” he said. “It’s Lady Joan you’re disturbed about. You want to -spare her another shock. You are a considerate man, as well as a man -of business.” - -“I don’t want her to begin to hope if--” - -“Very good taste on your part.” Palliser’s polite approval was -admirable, but he tapped lightly on the paper after expressing it. “I -don’t want to seem to press you about this, but don’t you feel inclined -to consider it? I can assure you that an investment of this sort would -be a good thing to depend on if the unexpected happened. If you gave -me your check now, it would be Cedric stock to-morrow, and quite safe. -Suppose you--” - -“I--I don’t believe you were right--about what you thought.” The -sharp-featured face was changing from pale to red. “You’d have to be -able to swear to it, anyhow, and I don’t believe you can.” He looked at -Palliser in eager and anxious uncertainty. “If you could,” he dragged -out, “I shouldn’t have a check-book. Where would you be then?” - -“I should be in comfortable circumstances, dear chap, and so would you -if you gave me the money to-night, while you possess a check-book. It -would be only a sort of temporary loan in any case, whatever turned up. -The investment would quadruple itself. But there is no time to be lost. -Understand that.” - -T. Tembarom broke out into a sort of boyish resentment. - -“I don’t believe he did look like him, anyhow,” he cried. “I believe -it’s all a bluff.” His crude-sounding young swagger had a touch of -final desperation in it as he turned on Palliser. “I’m dead sure it’s -a bluff. What a fool I was not to think of that! You want to bluff me -into going into this Cedric thing. You could no more swear he was like -him than--than I could.” - -The outright, presumptuous, bold stripping bare of his phrases -infuriated Palliser too suddenly and too much. He stepped up to him and -looked into his eyes. - -“Bluff you, you young bounder!” he flung out at him. “You’re losing -your head. You’re not in New York streets here. You are talking to a -gentleman. No,” he said furiously, “I couldn’t swear that he was like -him, but what I _can_ swear in any court of justice is that the man I -saw at the window _was_ Jem Temple Barholm, and no other man on earth.” - -[Illustration] - -When he had said it, he saw the astonishing dolt change his expression -utterly again, as if in a flash. He stood up, putting his hands in his -pockets. His face changed, his voice changed. - -“Fine!” he said. “First-rate! That’s what I wanted to get on to.” - - -CHAPTER XXXV - -After this climax the interview was not so long as it was interesting. -Two men, as far apart as the poles, as remote from each other in -mind and body, in training and education or lack of it, in desires -and intentions, in points of view and trend of being, as nature and -circumstances could make them, talked in a language foreign to each -other of a wildly strange thing. Palliser’s arguments and points of -aspect were less unknown to T. Tembarom than his own were to Palliser. -He had seen something very like them before, though they had developed -in different surroundings and had been differently expressed. The -colloquialism “You’re not doing that for your health” can be made to -cover much ground in the way of the stripping bare of motives for -action. This was what, in excellent and well-chosen English, Captain -Palliser frankly said to his host. Of nothing which T. Tembarom said -to him in his own statement did he believe one word or syllable. The -statement in question was not long or detailed. It was, of course, -Palliser saw, a ridiculously impudent flinging together of a farrago -of nonsense, transparent in its effort beyond belief. Before he had -listened five minutes with the distinctly “nasty” smile, he burst out -laughing. - -“That is a good ‘spiel,’ my dear chap,” he said. “It’s as good a -‘spiel’ as your type-writer friend used to rattle off when he thought -he saw a customer; but I’m not a customer.” - -Tembarom looked at him interestedly for about ten seconds. His hands -were thrust into his trousers’ pockets, as was his almost invariable -custom. Absorption and speculation, even emotion and excitement, were -usually expressed in this unconventional manner. - -“You don’t believe a darned word of it,” was his sole observation. - -“Not a darned word,” Palliser smiled. “You are trying a ‘bluff,’ -which doesn’t do credit to your usual sharpness. It’s a bluff that is -actually silly. It makes you look like an ass.” - -“Well, it’s true,” said Tembarom; “it’s true.” - -Palliser laughed again. - -“I only said it made you _look_ like an ass,” he remarked. “I don’t -profess to understand you altogether, because you are a new species. -Your combination of ignorance and sharpness isn’t easy to calculate on. -But there is one thing I have found out, and that is, that when you -want to play a particularly sharp trick you are willing to let people -take you for a fool. I’ll own you’ve deceived me once or twice, even -when I suspected you. I’ve heard that’s one of the most successful -methods used in the American business world. That’s why I only say you -_look_ like an ass. You _are_ an ass in some respects; but you are -letting yourself look like one now for some shrewd end. You either -think you’ll slip out of danger by it when I make this discovery -public, or you think you’ll somehow trick me into keeping my mouth -shut.” - -“I needn’t trick you into keeping your mouth shut,” Tembarom suggested. -“There’s a straight way to do that, ain’t there?” And he indelicately -waved his hand toward the documents pertaining to the Cedric Company. - -It was stupid as well as gross, in his hearer’s opinion. If he had -known what was good for him he would have been clever enough to ignore -the practical presentation of his case made half an hour or so earlier. - -“No, there is not,” Palliser replied, with serene mendacity. “No -suggestion of that sort has been made. My business proposition was -given on an entirely different basis. You, of course, choose to put -your personal construction upon it.” - -“Gee whizz!” ejaculated T. Tembarom. “I was ’way off, wasn’t I?” - -“I told you that professing to be an ass wouldn’t be good enough in -this case. Don’t go on with it,” said Palliser, sharply. - -“You’re throwing bouquets. Let a fellow be natural,” said Tembarom. - -“That is bluff, too,” Palliser replied more sharply still. “I am not -taken in by it, bold as it is. Ever since you came here, you have been -playing this game. It was your fool’s grin and guffaw and pretense of -good nature that first made me suspect you of having something up your -sleeve. You were _too_ unembarrassed and candid.” - -“So you began to look out,” Tembarom said, considering him curiously, -“just because of that.” Then suddenly he laughed outright, the fool’s -guffaw. - -It somehow gave Palliser a sort of puzzled shock. It was so hearty -that it remotely suggested that he appeared more secure than seemed -possible. He tried to reply to him with a languid contempt of manner. - -“You think you have some tremendously sharp ‘deal’ in your hand,” he -said, “but you had better remember you are in England, where facts are -like sledge-hammers. You can’t dodge from under them as you can in -America. I dare say you won’t answer me, but I should like to ask you -what you propose to do.” - -“I don’t know what I’m going to do any more than you do,” was the -unilluminating answer. “I don’t mind telling you that.” - -“And what do you think _he_ will do?” - -“I’ve got to wait till I find out. I’m doing it. That was what I told -you. What are _you_ going to do?” he added casually. - -“I’m going to Lincoln’s Inn Fields to have an interview with Palford & -Grimby.” - -“That’s a good enough move,” commented Tembarom, “if you think you can -prove what you say. You’ve got to prove things, you know. I couldn’t, -so I lay low and waited, just like I told you.” - -“Of course, of course,” Palliser himself almost grinned in his -derision. “You have only been waiting.” - -“When you’ve got to prove a thing, and haven’t much to go on, you’ve -got to wait,” said T. Tembarom--“to wait and keep your mouth shut, -whatever happens, and to let yourself be taken for a fool or a -horse-thief isn’t as gilt-edged a job as it seems. But proof’s what -it’s best to have before you ring up the curtain. _You’d_ have to have -it yourself. So would Palford & Grimby before it’d be stone-cold safe -to rush things and accuse a man of a penitentiary offense.” - -He took his unconventional half-seat on the edge of the table, with -one foot on the floor and the other one lightly swinging. “Palford & -Grimby are clever old ducks, and they know that much. Thing they’d know -best would be that to set a raft of lies going about a man who’s got -money enough to defend himself, and to make them pay big damages for it -afterward, would be pretty bum business. I guess _they_ know all about -what proof stands for. _They_ may have to wait; so may you, same as I -have.” - -Palliser realized that he was in the position of a man striking at an -adversary whose construction was of india-rubber. He struck home, but -left no bruise and drew no blood, which was an irritating thing. He -lost his temper. - -“Proof!” he jerked out. “There will be proof enough, and when it is -made public, you will not control the money you threaten to use.” - -“When you get _proof_, just you let me hear about it,” T. Tembarom -said. “And all the money I’m threatening on shall go where it belongs, -and I’ll go back to little old New York and sell papers if I have to. -It won’t come as hard as you think.” - -The flippant insolence with which he brazened out his pretense that he -had not lied, that his ridiculous romance was actual and simple truth, -suggested dangerous readiness of device and secret knowledge of power -which could be adroitly used. - -“You are merely marking time,” said Palliser, rising, with cold -determination to be juggled with no longer. “You have hidden him away -where you think you can do as you please with a man who is an invalid. -That is your dodge. You’ve got him hidden somewhere, and his friends -had better get at him before it is too late.” - -“I’m not answering questions this evening, and I’m not giving -addresses, though there are no witnesses to take them down. If he’s -hidden away, he’s where he won’t be disturbed,” was T. Tembarom’s -rejoinder. “You may lay your bottom dollar on that.” - -Palliser walked toward the door without speaking. He had almost reached -it when he whirled about involuntarily, arrested by a shout of laughter. - -“Say,” announced Tembarom, “you mayn’t know it, but this lay-out would -make a first-rate turn in a vaudeville. You _think_ I’m lying, I _look_ -like I’m lying, I guess every word I say _sounds_ like I’m lying. To a -fellow like you, I guess it couldn’t help sound that way. And I’m not -lying. That’s where the joke comes in. I’m not lying. I’ve not told you -all I know because it’s none of your business and wouldn’t help; but -what I have told you is the stone-cold truth.” - -He was keeping it up to the very end with a desperate determination not -to let go his hold of his pose until he had made his private shrewd -deal, whatsoever it was. At least, so it struck Palliser, who merely -said: - -“I’m leaving the house by the first train to-morrow morning.” He fixed -a cold gray eye on the fool’s grin. - -“Six forty-five,” said T. Tembarom. “I’ll order the carriage. I might -go up myself.” - -The door closed. - - * * * * * - -Tembarom was looking cheerful enough when he went into his bedroom. He -had become used to its size and had learned to feel that it was a good -sort of place. It had the hall bedroom at Mrs. Bowse’s boarding-house -“beaten to a frazzle.” There was about everything in it that any man -could hatch up an idea he’d like to have. He had slept luxuriously -on the splendid carved bed through long nights, he had lain awake -and thought out things on it, he had lain and watched the fire-light -flickering on the ceiling, as he thought about Ann and made plans, -and “fixed up” the Harlem flat which could be run on fifteen per. -He had picked out the pieces of furniture from the Sunday “Earth” -advertisement sheet, and had set them in their places. He always saw -the six-dollar mahogany-stained table set for supper, with Ann at one -end and himself at the other. He had grown actually fond of the old -room because of the silence and comfort of it, which tended to give -reality to his dreams. Pearson, who had ceased to look anxious, and who -had acquired fresh accomplishments in the form of an entirely new set -of duties, was waiting, and handed him a telegram. - -“This just arrived, sir,” he explained. “James brought it here because -he thought you had come up, and I didn’t send it down because I heard -you on the stairs.” - -“That’s right. Thank you, Pearson,” his master said. - -He tore the yellow envelop, and read the message. In a moment Pearson -knew it was not an ordinary message, and therefore remained more than -ordinarily impassive of expression. He did not even ask of himself what -it might convey. - -Mr. Temple Barholm stood still a few seconds, with the look of a man -who must think and think rapidly. - -“What is the next train to London, Pearson?” he asked. - -“There is one at twelve thirty-six, sir,” he answered. “It’s the last -till six forty-five in the morning. You have to change at Crowley.” - -“You’re always ready, Pearson,” returned Mr. Temple Barholm. “I want to -get that train.” - -Pearson _was_ always ready. Before the last word was quite spoken he -had turned and opened the bedroom door. - -“I’ll order the dog-cart; that’s quickest, sir,” he said. He was -out of the room and in again almost immediately. Then he was at the -wardrobe and taking out what Mr. Temple Barholm called his “grip,” but -what Pearson knew as a Gladstone bag. It was always kept ready packed -for unexpected emergencies of travel. - -[Illustration] - -Mr. Temple Barholm sat at the table and drew pen and paper toward him. -He looked excited; he looked more troubled than Pearson had seen him -look before. - -“The wire’s from Sir Ormsby Galloway, Pearson,” he said. “It’s about -Mr. Strangeways. He’s done what I used to be always watching out -against: he’s disappeared.” - -“Disappeared, sir!” cried Pearson, and almost dropped the Gladstone -bag. “I beg pardon, sir. I know there’s no time to lose.” He steadied -the bag and went on with his task without even turning round. - -His master was in some difficulty. He began to write, and after dashing -off a few words, suddenly stopped, and then tore them up. - -“No,” he muttered, “that won’t do. There’s no time to explain.” Then he -began again, but tore up his next lines also. “That says too much and -not enough. It’d scare the life out of her.” - -He wrote again, and ended by folding the sheet and putting it into an -envelop. - -“This is a message for Miss Alicia,” he said to Pearson. “Give it to -her in the morning. I don’t want her to worry, because I had to go in -a hurry. Tell her everything’s going to be all right; but you needn’t -mention that anything’s happened to Mr. Strangeways.” - -“Yes, sir,” answered Pearson. - -Mr. Temple Barholm was already moving about the room, doing odd things -for himself rapidly, and he went on speaking. - -“I want you and Rose to know,” he said, “that whatever happens, you are -both fixed all right--both of you. I’ve seen to that.” - -“Thank you, sir,” Pearson faltered, made uneasy by something new in his -tone. “You said whatever happened, sir--” - -“Whatever old thing happens,” his master took him up. - -“Not to _you_, sir. Oh, I hope, sir, that nothing--” - -Mr. Temple Barholm put a cheerful hand on his shoulder. - -“Nothing’s going to happen that’ll hurt any one. Things may change, -that’s all. You and Rose are all right, Miss Alicia’s all right, I’m -all right. Come along. Got to catch that train.” - -In this manner he took his departure. - - - (To be continued) - - - - -[Illustration: TOPICS OF THE TIME] - - -THE MOST IMPORTANT YEAR - -This number of ~The Century~ closes its eighty-sixth volume, and -the November number will begin what we confidently believe will be the -most important year in the history of this magazine. The period through -which we are living is, in its display of scientific accomplishment -and clashing social forces, the most broadly significant and humanly -spectacular in our forty-three years of existence, and it is our -ambition to be, as nearly as possible, representative of the times in -which we live. - -Recognizing that this is, in a real and vital sense, the very age -of fiction, we plan that each number beginning with the November -~Century~ shall contain, in addition to a leading article on -modern conditions, an exceptional fiction feature. In fact the present -number, containing the beginning of the anonymous serial, “Home,” and -Colonel Roosevelt’s paper on the Progressive Party, illustrates our -purpose. - -In the November number the fiction feature will be an extraordinary -story by Stephen French Whitman entitled “The Woman from Yonder,” -and the non-fiction feature will be a paper entitled “The Militant -Women--and Women” by Edna Kenton, which, for dignity, power, and -clarity, states the case for the feminists as it never has been stated. -Indeed no person with a mind in the least open can read Miss Kenton’s -brief without sympathy and understanding. Also it is typical of many -clarifying papers on many timely subjects which we plan to publish -through the year. - -In December the non-fiction feature will be an absorbing paper on -“The Search for a Modern Religion” by Winston Churchill. In January -the fiction feature will be a most unusual story by May Sinclair. In -February we shall begin a new and important serial novel. - -Of course this does not mean that our leaders shall exhaust our -resources. Each number will contain other stories and other papers on -subjects of current importance. The leaders, however, are intended to -be the most important papers on their several subjects that the world -can produce. - -An eminent novelist declared to us years ago in his newspaper days his -belief that reporting was the noblest work of man. In later years, -when he had added art to his reports of life and was selling his -novels by the hundreds of thousands, he confirmed the statement of his -enthusiastic youth. Modern fiction is, literally, a report of life, -colored by personality, and formed by art. Its appeal is universal. Its -power is greater than any other engine of civilization. It is to this -period what poetry, what preaching, what oratory, and what editorials -have been to preceding periods. It is practically the only effective -means of approaching the minds of millions of intelligent persons. It -influences to a greater or a less degree the imagining, the thinking, -and the living of nearly all who are literate. - -During the coming years ~The Century~ will recognize this -important function of fiction, but in so doing it will not the less -regard fiction as an art. Roughly speaking, one half of each number -will be devoted to serials and short stories, and we shall, in their -selection, work toward an ideal. The problem of selection will be more -complex than for some other magazines, perhaps, for ~Century~ -readers are of many and varied tastes. There must be fiction for all -kinds of cultivated readers, for the lovers of artistry and subtlety -and the fine distinctions of human nature and for those who revel in -plot and climax. There must be fiction for the laughter-loving and -fiction for those for whom fiction seriously interprets life. But -whatever its kind it must all possess a common quality, and this, we -realize, it will take long to attain consistently. - -Apart from fiction and in addition to the distinguished series -of papers on great current movements already foretold, ~The -Century~ has planned for the coming year a number of features of -extraordinary interest and value. In November, for example, Professor -Edward Alsworth Ross, the distinguished sociologist of the University -of Wisconsin, will begin an examination into Immigration which cannot -fail to stir every American deeply, and undoubtedly will blaze the way -to greatly needed reforms. This is no sensational “campaign,” nor is -it a dry, scientific compilation, but a searching study of great human -facts and conditions that make their own prophecy. And, early in the -winter, Hilaire Belloc will begin an important series of papers on -French Revolutionary subjects. - -In literature we have in preparation several papers of permanent and -vital interest. Albert Bigelow Paine, for example, the biographer of -Mark Twain, will contribute, from European wanderings in an automobile -under his own leisurely guidance, papers bubbling with the humor that -is his special possession. The same note of vitality underlies the -year’s projects in biography, history, and science. - -In politics ~The Century~ will remain wholly non-partizan. -From time to time, as passing events or other occasions demand, we -shall deal with political personages and parties and policies from a -point of view altogether remote from any mere political interest, and -for the broad purpose of enlightening all citizens irrespective of -partizan creed. We expect, for example, when new situations develop, to -follow Mr. Roosevelt’s paper with papers by political leaders of equal -prominence upon the changing purposes and objects of their respective -parties. - -Art has always been ~The Century’s~ special field, and our plans -involve an interesting and important year. But there is another use -for pictures than the selection and display of beautiful and admirable -specimens of art. One picture is often more descriptive than pages upon -pages of the most skilful text, and we purpose to reproduce freely, for -the information of ~Century~ readers, examples illustrating the -more important transitional tendencies in the art and sculpture of our -day. - - - - -In Lighter Vein - - -HOMER AND HUMBUG - -BY STEPHEN LEACOCK - -Author of “Literary Lapses,” “Nonsense Novels,” etc. - -I do not mind confessing that for a long time past I have been very -skeptical about the classics. I was myself trained as a classical -scholar. It seemed the only thing to do with me. I acquired such a -singular facility in handling Latin and Greek that I could take a page -of either of them, distinguish which it was by glancing at it, and, -with the help of a dictionary and a compass, whip off a translation of -it in less than three hours. - -But I never got any pleasure from it. I lied about the pleasure of it. -At first, perhaps, I lied through vanity. Any scholar will understand -the feeling. Later on I lied through habit; later still because, after -all, the classics were all that I had and so I valued them. I have seen -a deceived dog thus value a pup with a broken leg, and a pauper child -nurse a dead doll with the sawdust out of it. So I nursed my dead Homer -and my broken Demosthenes though I knew that there was more sawdust -in the stomach of one modern author than in the whole lot of them. -Observe, I do not say which it is that has it full of it. - -So, I say, I began to lie about the classics. I said to people who -knew no Greek that there was a sublimity, a majesty about Homer which -they could never hope to grasp. I said it was like the sound of the -sea beating against the granite cliffs of the Ionian Esophagus; or -words to that effect. As for the truth of it, I might as well have -said that it was like the sound of a rum distillery running a night -shift on half-time. At any rate this is what I said about Homer, -and when I spoke of Pindar,--the dainty grace of his strophes,--and -Aristophanes, the delicious sallies of his wit, sally after sally, each -sally explained in a note, calling it a sally, I managed to suffuse my -face with a coruscation of appreciative animation which made it almost -beautiful. - -I admitted of course that Vergil, in spite of his genius, had a -hardness and a cold glitter which resembled rather the brilliance of a -cut diamond than the soft grace of a flower. Certainly I admitted this: -the mere admission of it would knock the breath out of any one who was -arguing. - -From such talks my friends went away saddened. The conclusion was too -cruel. It had all the cold logic of a syllogism (like that almost -brutal form of argument so much admired in the Paraphernalia of -Socrates). For if:-- - - Vergil and Homer and Pindar had all this grace, and pith, and these - sallies, - And if I read Vergil and Homer and Pindar, - And if they only read Mrs. Wharton and Mrs. Humphry Ward, - Then where were they? - -So, continued lying brought its own reward in the sense of superiority, -and I lied some more. - -When I reflect that I have openly expressed regret, as a personal -matter, even in the presence of women, for the missing books of -Tacitus, and the entire loss of the Abracadabra of Polyphemus of -Syracuse, I can find no words in which to beg for pardon. In reality -I was just as much worried over the loss of the ichthyosaurus. More, -indeed: I’d like to have seen it; but if the books Tacitus _did_ lose -were like those he didn’t, I wouldn’t. - -I believe all scholars lie like this. An ancient friend of mine, a -clergyman, tells me that in Hesiod he finds a peculiar grace that -he doesn’t find elsewhere. He’s a liar. That’s all. Another man, in -politics and in the legislature, tells me that every night before going -to bed he reads over a page or two of Thucydides to keep his mind -fresh. Either he never goes to bed or _he’s_ a liar. Doubly so; no one -could read Greek at that frantic rate; and, anyway, his mind isn’t -fresh. How could it be?--he’s in the legislature. I don’t object to his -talking freely of the classics, but he ought to keep it for the voters. -My own opinion is that before he goes to bed he takes whisky; why call -it Thucydides? - -[Illustration: THE ICHTHYOSAURUS DEVOURING TWO OF THE LOST BOOKS OF -TACITUS] - -I know there are solid arguments advanced in favor of the classics. I -often hear them from my colleagues. My friend the Professor of Greek -tells me that he truly believes the classics have made him what he is. -This is a very grave statement, if well founded. Indeed, I have heard -the same argument from a great many Latin and Greek scholars. They all -claim, with some heat, that Latin and Greek have practically made them -what they are. This damaging charge against the classics should not be -too readily accepted. In my opinion some of these men would be what -they are, no matter what they were. - -Be this as it may, I for my part bitterly regret the lies I have told -about my appreciation of Latin and Greek literature. I am anxious to -do what I can to set things right. I am therefore engaged on, indeed -have nearly completed, a work which will enable all readers to judge -the matter for themselves. What I have done is a translation of all -the great classics, not in the usual literal way but on a design that -brings them into harmony with modern life. - -The translation is intended to be within reach of everybody. It is so -designed that the entire set of volumes can go on a shelf twenty-seven -feet long, or even longer. The first edition will be an _édition de -luxe_ bound in vellum, or perhaps in buckskin, and sold at five hundred -dollars. It will be limited to five hundred copies, and, of course, -sold only to the feeble-minded. The next edition will be the Literary -Edition, sold to artists, authors, and actors. - -My plan is to transpose the classical writers so as to give, not the -literal translation word for word, but what is really the modern -equivalent. Let me give an odd sample or two to show what I mean. -Take the passage in the First Book of Homer that describes Ajax, the -Greek, dashing into the battle in front of Troy. Here is the way it -runs (as nearly as I remember) in the usual word for word translation -of the classroom, as done by the very best professor, his spectacles -glittering with the literary rapture of it. - - Then he too Ajax on the one hand leaped (or possibly jumped) into - the fight wearing on the other hand yes certainly a steel corselet - (or possibly a bronze under tunic) and on his head of course yes - without doubt he had a helmet with a tossing plume taken from the - mane (or perhaps extracted from the tail) of some horse which - once fed along the banks of the Scamander (and it sees the herd - and raises its head and paws the ground) and in his hand a shield - worth a hundred oxen and on his knees two especially in particular - greaves made by some cunning artificer (or perhaps blacksmith) and - he blows the fire and it is hot. - - Thus Ajax leaped (or, better, was propelled from behind) into the - fight. - -[Illustration: AJAX, “PROPELLED FROM BEHIND”] - -Now that’s grand stuff. There is no doubt of it. There’s a wonderful -movement and force to it. You can almost see it move, it goes so -fast. But the modern reader can’t get it. It won’t mean to him what -it meant to the early Greek. The setting, the costume, the scene have -all got to be changed in order to let the modern reader have a real -equivalent so as to judge for himself just how good the Greek verse -is. In my translation I alter the original just a little, not much -but just enough to give the passage a form that reproduces for us -the proper literary value of the verses, without losing anything of -their majesty. It describes, I may say, the Directors of the American -Industrial Stocks plunging into the Balkan War Cloud: - - Then there came rushing to the shock of war - Mr. McNicoll of the C. P. R. - He wore suspenders and about his throat - High rose the collar of a sealskin coat. - He had on gaiters and he wore a tie, - He had his trousers buttoned good and high; - About his waist a woollen undervest - Bought from a sad-eyed farmer of the West. - (And every time he clips a sheep he sees - Some bloated plutocrat who ought to freeze.) - Thus in the Stock Exchange he burst to view, - Leaped to the post, and shouted, “Ninety-two!” - -There! That’s Homer, the real thing! Just exactly as it sounded to the -rude crowd of Greek peasants who sat in a ring and guffawed at the -rhymes and watched the minstrel stamp it out into “feet” as he recited -it! - -Let me take another example, this time from the so-called Catalogue of -the Ships, which fills up nearly an entire book of Homer. This famous -passage names all the ships, one by one, and names the chiefs who -sailed on them, and names the particular town, or hill, or valley that -each came from. It has been much admired. It has that same majesty of -style that has been brought to an even loftier pitch in the New York -Business Directory and the City Telephone Book. It runs along, as I -recall it, something after this fashion: - - And first indeed oh, yes, was the ship of Homistogetes, the - Spartan, long and swift, having both its masts covered with cowhide - and two banks of oars. And he, Homistogetes, was born of Hermogenes - and Ophthalmia, and was at home in Syncope beside the fast-flowing - Paresis. And after him came the ship of Preposterus, the Eurasian, - son of Oasis and Hysteria, - ---and so on, endlessly. - -Instead of this I substitute, with the permission of the New York -Central Railway, a more modern example, the official catalogue of their -locomotives, taken almost word for word from the list compiled by their -Chief Superintendent of Rolling Stock and rendered into Homeric verse. -I admit that he wrote it in hot weather. - -[Illustration] - - Out in the yard and steaming in the sun - Stands locomotive engine number forty-one; - Seated beside the windows of its cab - Are Pat McGraw and Peter James McNab. - Pat comes from Troy and Peter from Cohoes, - And when they pull the throttle, off she goes; - And as she vanishes there comes to view - Steam locomotive engine number forty-two. - Observe her mighty wheels, her easy roll, - With William J. McArthur in control. - They say her engineer some time ago - Lived on a farm outside of Buffalo, - Whereas her fireman, Henry Edward Foy, - Attended school in Springfield, Illinois. - Thus does the race of men decay and rot-- - SOME MEN CAN HOLD THEIR JOBS AND SOME CAN NOT. - -Please observe that if Homer had actually written that last line, it -would have been quoted for nearly three thousand years as one of the -deepest sayings ever said. Orators would still be rounding out their -speeches with the majestic phrase (in Greek), “Some men can hold their -jobs”; essayists would open their most scholarly dissertations with the -words, “It has been finely said by Homer that some men can hold their -jobs”; and the clergy in the mid-pathos of a funeral sermon would lift -an eve skyward and echo, “and some can not.” - -This is what I should like to do: I’d like to take a large stone and -write on it-- - - “_The classics are only primitive literature. They belong in the - same class as primitive machinery, primitive music, and primitive - medicine,_” - ---and then throw it through the windows of a UNIVERSITY and hide behind -a fence to see the professors buzz! - - - - -CASUS BELLI - - -There has long been current in New Haven what is sure to be an -apocryphal story of college loyalty, told at the expense of Anson -Phelps Stokes, the popular secretary of Yale. Secretary Stokes is an -ordained clergyman in the Episcopal Church, and, so the story goes, as -he was once journeying west on the train in non-clerical garb, a man of -the self-appointed missionary type approached, and asked him solemnly: - -“I beg your pardon, sir, but are you a Christian man?” - -Startled, Dr. Stokes looked up and said: - -“Oh, d---- it, no.” - -The man turned to go, saying in a deeply offended tone: - -“Well, I only asked you if you were a Christian man. I don’t see--” - -Impulsively, Dr. Stokes caught him by the arm. - -“Oh, I beg your pardon,” he said. “I beg your pardon. I thought you -asked me if I was a Princeton man!” - - -[Illustration] - -Died - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: R. R. - -_HIS LAST PORTRAIT_] - - RYMBEL.--Suddenly, of weariness, at his home in Lighter Vein; - Rondeau Rymbel, aged two months. Please omit flowers. - - “_Blessed are the misunderstood._” - -[Illustration] - - -[Illustration] - - -THE HUSBAND SHOP - -A FABLE FOR HEIRESSES - -BY OLIVER HERFORD - - Above the plate-glass window-pane, - Inviting every passing gaze, - Hung an inscription, large and plain, - “_THE HUSBAND SHOP_.” This, in amaze, - Clorinda seeing, stopped wide-eyed, - And stared, then turned and stepped inside. - - A floor-walker whose faultlessness - And condescending air proclaimed - One of the _table d’haute noblesse_, - Approached Clorinda and exclaimed, - With graceful undulating palm: - “Something in husbands? _Oui, Madame._” - - “We have the latest thing of all - In husbands; kindly step this way. - We’re using them on hats this fall, - In place of plume or floral spray, - The creature being pinned or tied - With chiffon bows on either side.” - - He leads the way, all wreathed in smiles, - And wonderful in spotless spats - That flitter like twin butterflies - Along an avenue of hats, - Each one displaying on its brim - A husband--fashion’s latest whim. - - Clorinda tries them each in turn - Before the glass; some are too small, - And some too cold, and some too stern, - And some are slightly soiled, and all, - When punctured by the hat-pin’s steel, - Betray by squirms how bored they feel. - - At last Clorinda came to one - Marked “_Dobbs_,” that scarce seemed worth her while; - But when she tried it on for fun, - It met the hat-pin with a smile, - As if to say, “Oh, beauteous miss, - Even a stab from you is bliss!” - - “The very thing! but thrown away - Upon a _hat_!” Clorinda cried. - “’T would make a sweet corsage bouquet.” - The shoppers stared quite stupefied - To see Clorinda Dobbs depart - Wearing a husband next her heart. - - -[Illustration: Drawing by F. R. Gruger] - - -A TRIUMPH FOR THE FRESH-AIR FUND - -_Charity Note._ “Owing to the enterprise and generosity of the United -Welfare League, a gentleman, widely known in New York as Happy Harry, -was recently ‘rescued’ on the Bowery, washed, shaved, shod, and sent to -Sunnyside, in Sullivan County, New York. - -“We are glad to learn, from recent advices from Sunnyside, that the -stranger is wholeheartedly entering into the life and spirit of the -place.” - - -THE SENIOR WRANGLER - -_SNOBBERY--AMERICA VS. ENGLAND_ - -“How the Americans _do_ love a Duke!” is a frequent comment of the -British journals, and they then proceed to the sober generalization -that “the United States is a nation of flunkies and of snobs.” Whoever -will be at the pains to follow British weekly journalism will find -this sentiment repeated every little while. Good old British Podsnap! -No half-way course for him. He is not the man to shilly-shally with -a nation, and he will speak the plain truth to any hemisphere, no -matter how it hurts the hemisphere’s feelings. Vulgarity is a matter of -geography. It is reckoned from Pall Mall as time is from Greenwich. - -But as to snobs. New York’s streets are of course often choked with -them. A duke, an elephant, a base-ball pitcher on Fifth Avenue, may -at any time be the center of a disproportionate and servile attention -from both the American people and the press. Yet the cult of the -egregious and the greatly advertised has never the deep devotion -of sound snobbery. It is not for an upstart and volatile people to -dispute the calm supremacy of British snobbery. Your true snob is not -inquisitive at all. He has no sense of any social values not his own. -It is among the tightly closed minds of the tight little island that he -is seen at his best. What other nation could produce, in journalism, -such inimitable snobs as the Lord Alfred Douglases and the Saturday -Reviewers? - -American snobbery is not a sturdy plant. There is too much social -uncertainty at the root of it. What the British take for snobbery -over here springs from quite alien qualities--curiosity, a vast -social innocence, and a blessed inexperience of rank. To be sure, if -King George comes to New York some one may clip his coat-tails for a -keepsake; and it is quite probable that Mrs. Van Allendale, of Newport, -if asked to meet him, will be all of a tremble whether to address -him as “Sire” or “My God.” But what has this in common with the huge -assurances of British snobbery--its enormous certainty of the Proper -Thing, in clothes, people, religion, sports, manners, and races, and -its indomitable determination not to guess again? - -[Illustration: KING GEORGE IN NEW YORK] - - -_OUR TENDER LITERARY CELEBRITIES_ - -One day, not so very long ago, a well-known American author was laughed -at in a morning newspaper. It was apparently not meant for stinging -satire. But the author felt it somewhere about him and complained -to the editor of the pain. He wrote a letter for publication--long, -earnest, very indignant. I am, said he, the victim of a “malignantly -humorous attack.” By which process he turned a poor joke on himself -into a good one, and incidentally exposed a too tender private -temperament to the public gaze. - -Sometimes it seems as if the whole body of recent American literature -were not worth the damage sustained by character while consuming the -fruits of success. There are signs of a bad schooling, of too steady -a fare of sweets. For what doth it profit a man to run to a hundred -thousand if he turn out a prig? The thing too often happens. His -constitution may have been none too robust at the start, but it is -awful to think what might become of any of us. Undermined by reciprocal -endearments, we, too, might rage at the first word of criticism and -swoon at the sound of laughter. Potatoes will sprout in a warm cellar, -though some are worse than others. It is the effect of too much shelter -in the great author’s life. - -I condemn no man. I condemn the influences. Fortified against -displeasure, barricaded against even chaff, there comes a time when the -soul’s dark cottage needs ventilation. There should be more outside -breezes in The Literary Life. - - -[Illustration] - -OUR PARENTS - -TWO POEMS BY CHARLES IRVIN JUNKIN - -PICTURES BY HARRY RALEIGH - -[Illustration] - - -_WHEN PA IS SICK_ - - When pa is sick, - He’s scared to death, - An’ ma an’ us - Just holds our breath. - - He crawls in bed, - An’ puffs an’ grunts, - An’ does all kinds - Of crazy stunts. - - He wants “_Doc_” Brown, - An’ mighty quick; - For when pa’s ill, - He’s _awful_ sick. - - He gasps an’ groans, - An’ sort o’ sighs, - He talks s’ queer, - An’ rolls his eyes. - - Ma jumps an’ runs, - An’ all of us, - An’ all the house, - Is in a fuss, - - An’ peace an’ joy - Is mighty skeerce.-- - When pa is sick, - It’s somethin’ fierce. - -[Illustration: “WHEN PA IS SICK, IT’S SOMETHIN’ FIERCE”] - - - _WHEN MA IS SICK_ - - When ma is sick, - She pegs away; - She’s quiet, though, - Not much t’ say. - - She goes right on - A-doin’ things, - An’ sometimes laughs, - Er even sings. - - She says she don’t - Feel extry well, - But then it’s just - A kind o’ spell; - - She’ll be all right - To-morrow, sure. - A good old sleep - Will be the cure. - - An’ pa he sniffs, - An’ makes no kick, - Fer women-folks - Is always sick. - - An’ ma she smiles, - Lets on she’s glad.-- - When ma is sick, - It ain’t s’ bad. - -[Illustration: “WHEN MA IS SICK, IT AIN’T S’ BAD”] - - - - -[Illustration: HORACE.--] - - -“I SING OF MYSELF” - -(An ode by Horace.--Book II, Ode 20) - -BY LOUIS UNTERMEYER - - - Before I end this glorious batch - Of deathless verses, friend Mæcenas, - I’ve something still to add, to snatch - One laurel more to share between us. - (I mention all of this to no man - Except perhaps a friend--or Roman.) - - Now that my time has come to die - (Within a score or two of years), - I wish to have it known that I - Shall gladly leave this “vale of tears,” - Because (and how my friends will chortle!) - I shall be more than just immortal. - - Into the clear and boundless air - I shall ascend with sounding pinions. - Shouting a buoyant “I don’t care,” - Laughing at kings and their dominions. - And folks will say (how well you know it!), - “Q. Flaccus? Ah, he _was_ a poet!” - - My wings shall sprout,--why, even now - I feel all creepy and absurd-like,-- - My skin is roughening somehow, - My legs are positively birdlike. - And see, sure as I’m growing older, - Feathers and quills on either shoulder! - - And I shall fly about as long - As I’ve the slightest inclination, - A veritable Bird of Song - Without a local habitation. - Like Icarus, I’ll travel surely - And (need I say it?) more securely. - - From where the Dacian hides in shame - To where the river Rhone runs muddy, - All men will celebrate my name; - My works will constitute a study. - I shall be loved by people pat in - The ways of elementary Latin. - - Then let there be no dirge for me, - No petty grief or lamentation. - Why weep for one who’s sure to be - A joy and honor to creation? - Ah, you’re a lucky man, by Venus! - To have a friend like _me_, Mæcenas. - - -NEWPORT NOTE - -THE LATEST SENSATION IN SMART SOCIETY - -“Mrs. Algy Flint gave an informal turkey-trot last evening at ‘On -the Rocks,’ her palace in Newport. Prizes were awarded to the best -dancers. The first prize (an Owen Johnson Salamander fire-screen--for -stenographers and débutantes) was won by Miss Dolly Marble, for a novel -little dance entitled ‘The Tangorilla.’ The second prize (a Pankhurst -forcible feeder--for infants and invalids) was awarded to Bertie Stone, -her clever and light-footed partner.” - -[Illustration: - - Drawing by Birch - -“THE TANGORILLA”] - - -SOCRATIC ARGUMENT - -BY JOHN CARVER ALDEN - - Straight, at his ruler’s stern command, - The contents of the cup, offhand, - Inclusive of its dregs and lees, - Was promptly drained by Socrates. - More than his foes,--perhaps his wife-- - Caused his Xanthippe-thy for life. - - -THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW YORK - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Century Illustrated Monthly -Magazine, October, 1913, by Various - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CENTURY ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 1913 *** - -***** This file should be named 63149-0.txt or 63149-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/1/4/63149/ - -Produced by Jane Robins, Reiner Ruf, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, October, 1913 - Vol. LXXXVI. New Series: Vol. LXIV. May to October, 1913 - -Author: Various - -Release Date: September 8, 2020 [EBook #63149] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CENTURY ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 1913 *** - - - - -Produced by Jane Robins, Reiner Ruf, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="transnote mbot3"> - -<p class="s3 center"><b>Transcriber’s Notes</b></p> - -<p>This e-text is based on ‘The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine,’ -from October, 1913. The <a href="#CONTENTS">table of contents</a>, -based on the index from the May issue, has been added by the -transcriber.</p> - -<p>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation have been retained, but -punctuation and typographical errors have been corrected. Passages -in English dialect and in languages other than English have not been -altered. The footnote has been moved to the end of the corresponding -article.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="figlarge break-before"> - <a id="i_801" name="i_801"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe31_25" src="images/i_801.jpg" alt="Better is a dinner of herbs - where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. Proverbs XV.17. - From the painting in water color by Edmund Dulac." /></a> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_801_large.jpg" id="i_801_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_801" id="Page_801">[Pg 801]</a></span></p> - -<div class="frontmatter"> - -<h1>T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> M<span class="smaller">AGAZINE</span></h1> - -<div class="header_tab padbot2"> - <div class="table_row"> - <div class="table_cell center"> - V<span class="smaller">OL</span>. LXXXVI - </div> - <div class="table_cell center"> - OCTOBER, 1913 - </div> - <div class="table_cell center"> - N<span class="smaller">O</span>. 6 - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="center s6 mtop2">Copyright, 1913, by -T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> -C<span class="smaller">O.</span> All rights reserved.</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> - -</div> - -<table class="toc" summary="Table of Contents for October"> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - - </td> - <td class="author"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum s6"> - PAGE - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - A<span class="smaller">MERICANS</span>, N<span class="smaller">EW</span>-M<span class="smaller">ADE</span>. - Drawings by - </td> - <td class="author"> - W. T. Benda - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum" colspan="2"> - <a href="#NEW_MADE_AMERICANS">Facing page 894</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - A<span class="smaller">UTO</span>-C<span class="smaller">OMRADE</span>, - T<span class="smaller">HE</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - Robert Haven Schauffler - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#THE_AUTO-COMRADE">850</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - C<span class="smaller">ARTOONS</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject2"> - Died: Rondeau Rymbel. - </td> - <td class="author"> - Oliver Herford - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#Died">955</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject2"> - A Triumph for the Fresh Air Fund. - </td> - <td class="author"> - F. R. Gruger - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_957">957</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject2"> - Newport Note. - </td> - <td class="author"> - Reginald Birch - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#NEWPORT_NOTE">960</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - C<span class="smaller">ASUS</span> B<span class="smaller">ELLI</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#CASUS_BELLI">955</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - D<span class="smaller">EVIL</span>, T<span class="smaller">HE</span>, - H<span class="smaller">IS</span> D<span class="smaller">UE</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - Philip Curtiss - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_895a">895</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - D<span class="smaller">INNER OF</span> H<span class="smaller">ERBS</span>,” - “B<span class="smaller">ETTER IS A</span>. Picture by - </td> - <td class="author"> - Edmund Dulac - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum" colspan="2"> - <a href="#i_801">Facing page 801</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - G<span class="smaller">ARAGE IN THE</span> - S<span class="smaller">UNSHINE</span>, A - </td> - <td class="author"> - Joseph Ernest - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_921">921</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Picture by Harry Raleigh. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - G<span class="smaller">HOSTS</span>,” - “D<span class="smaller">EY</span> A<span class="smaller">IN’T</span> - N<span class="smaller">O</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - Ellis Parker Butler - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#DEY_AINT_NO_GHOSTS">837</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Pictures by Charles Sarka. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - H<span class="smaller">OME</span>. I. A<span class="smaller">N</span> - A<span class="smaller">NONYMOUS</span> N<span class="smaller">OVEL</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#HOME">801</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Illustrations by Reginald Birch. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - H<span class="smaller">OMER AND</span> - H<span class="smaller">UMBUG</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - Stephen Leacock - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#HOMER_AND_HUMBUG">952</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - N<span class="smaller">EMOURS</span>: A - T<span class="smaller">YPICAL</span> F<span class="smaller">RENCH</span> - P<span class="smaller">ROVINCIAL</span> T<span class="smaller">OWN</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - Roger Boutet de Monvel - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_844">844</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Pictures by Bernard Boutet de Monvel. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - P<span class="smaller">ADEREWSKI AT</span> - H<span class="smaller">OME</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - Abbie H. C. Finck - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_900">900</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Picture from a portrait by Emil Fuchs. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - P<span class="smaller">ARIS</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - Theodore Dreiser - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_904">904</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Pictures by W. J. Glackens. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - P<span class="smaller">ROGRESSIVE</span> - P<span class="smaller">ARTY</span>, T<span class="smaller">HE</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - Theodore Roosevelt - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_826a">826</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Portrait of the author. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - S<span class="smaller">CULPTURE</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - Charles Keck - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#SCULPTURE">917</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - S<span class="smaller">ENIOR</span> W<span class="smaller">RANGLER</span>, - T<span class="smaller">HE</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#THE_SENIOR_WRANGLER">958</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject2"> - <span class="mleft1">Snobbery—America vs. England.</span><br /> - Our Tender Literary Celebrities. - </td> - <td class="author"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - S<span class="smaller">UMMER</span> H<span class="smaller">ILLS</span>,” - <span class="smaller">THE</span>, I<span class="smaller">N</span> - “T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">IRCUIT OF</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - John Burroughs - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_878a">878</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Portrait of the author by Alvin L. Coburn. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - S<span class="smaller">UNSET ON THE</span> - M<span class="smaller">ARSHES</span>. - From the painting by - </td> - <td class="author"> - George Inness - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum" colspan="2"> - <a href="#i_824">Facing page 824</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - T<span class="smaller">RADE OF THE</span> - W<span class="smaller">ORLD</span> P<span class="smaller">APERS</span>, - T<span class="smaller">HE</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - James Davenport Whelpley - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject2"> - XVIII. The Foreign Trade of the United States - </td> - <td class="author"> - - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#THE_FOREIGN_TRADE_OF_THE_UNITED_STATES">886</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - T. T<span class="smaller">EMBAROM</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - Frances Hodgson Burnett - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_929a">929</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3"> - Drawings by Charles S. Chapman. - </td> - <td class="pgnum" colspan="2"> - - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - W<span class="smaller">HITE</span> L<span class="smaller">INEN</span> - N<span class="smaller">URSE</span>, T<span class="smaller">HE</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - Eleanor Hallowell Abbott - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#THE_WHITE_LINEN_NURSE">857</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3"> - Pictures, printed in tint, by Herman Pfeifer. - </td> - <td class="pgnum" colspan="2"> - - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - Y<span class="smaller">EAR</span>, T<span class="smaller">HE</span> - M<span class="smaller">OST</span> - I<span class="smaller">MPORTANT</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - Editorial - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#THE_MOST_IMPORTANT_YEAR">951</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class="s4 center mtop2 break-before">VERSE</p> - -<table class="toc mtop1" summary="Verses, October"> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - B<span class="smaller">EGGAR</span>, T<span class="smaller">HE</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - James W. Foley - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#THE_BEGGAR">877</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - E<span class="smaller">MERGENCY</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - William Rose Benét - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_916a">916</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - H<span class="smaller">USBAND</span> S<span class="smaller">HOP</span>, - T<span class="smaller">HE</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - Oliver Herford - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_956">956</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Picture by Oliver Herford. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - M<span class="smaller">OTHER</span>, T<span class="smaller">HE</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - Timothy Cole - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_920">920</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Picture by Alpheus Cole. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - M<span class="smaller">YSELF</span>,” - “I S<span class="smaller">ING OF</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - Louis Untermeyer - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#i_960a">960</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - P<span class="smaller">ARENTS</span>, O<span class="smaller">UR</span> - </td> - <td class="author"> - Charles Irvin Junkin - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#OUR_PARENTS">959</a> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject3" colspan="3"> - Pictures by Harry Raleigh. - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="subject"> - S<span class="smaller">OCRATIC</span> - A<span class="smaller">RGUMENT</span>. - </td> - <td class="author"> - John Carver Alden - </td> - <td class="pgnum"> - <a href="#SOCRATIC_ARGUMENT">960</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="HOME">HOME</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1">AN ANONYMOUS NOVEL</p> - -<p class="center">(TO BE COMPLETED IN FOUR LONG INSTALMENTS)</p> - -</div> - -<h3 class="nobreak" id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h3> - -<p class="p0"><span class="drop-cap">R</span>ED HILL drowses through the fleeting hours as though not only time, -but mills, machinery, and railways were made for slaves. Hemmed in -by the breathing silences of scattered woods, open fields, and the -far reaches of misty space, it seems to forget that the traveler, -studying New England at the opening of the nineteenth century through -the windows of a hurrying train, might sigh for a vanished ideal, and -concede the general triumph of a commercial age.</p> - -<p>For such a one Red Hill held locked a message, and the key to the lock -was the message itself: “Turn your back on the paralleled rivers and -railroads, and plunge into the byways that lead into the eternal hills, -and you will find the world that was and still is.”</p> - -<p>Let such a traveler but follow a lane that leads up through willow and -elderberry, sassafras, laurel, wild cherry, and twining clematis—a -lane alined with slender wood-maples, hickory, and mountain-ash, and -flanked, where it gains the open, with scattered juniper and oak, and -he will come out at last on the scenes of a country’s childhood.</p> - -<p>At right angles to the lane, a broad way cuts the length of the hill, -and loses itself in a dip at each end toward the valleys and the new -world. The broad way is shaded by one of two trees, the domed maple or -the stately elm. At the summit of its rise stands an old church the -green shutters of which blend with the caressing foliage of primeval -trees. Its white walls and towering steeple dominate the scene. White, -too, are the houses that gleam from behind the verdure of unbroken -lawns and shrubbery—all but one, the time-stained brick of which glows -blood-red against the black green of clinging ivy.</p> - -<p>Not all these homes are alive. Here a charred beam tells the story of -a fire, there a mound of trailing vines tenderly hides from view the -shame of a ruin, and there again stands a tribute to the power of the -new age—a house the shutters of which are closed and barred. White -now only in patches, its scaling walls have taken on the dull gray of -neglected pine.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_802" id="Page_802">[Pg 802]</a></span></p> - -<p>For generations the houses of Red Hill have sent out men, for -generations they have taken them back. Their cupboards guard trophies -from the seven seas, paid for with the Yankee nutmeg, swords wrought -from plowshares and christened with the blood of the oppressor, a long -line of collegiate sheepskins, and last, but by no means least, recipes -the faded ink and brittle paper of which sum the essence of ages of -culinary wisdom.</p> - -<p>Some of these clustered homes live the year round at full swing, but -the life of some is cut down to a minimum in the winter, only to spring -up afresh in summer, like the new stalk from a treasured bulb. Of such -was the little kingdom of Red Hill. Upon its long, level crest it bore -only three centers of life and a symbol: Maple House, the Firs, and Elm -House, half hidden from the road by their distinctive trees, but as -alive as the warm eyes of a veiled woman; and the church.</p> - -<p>The supper call had sounded, and the children’s answering cries had -ceased. Along the ribbon of the single road scurried an overladen -donkey. Three lengths of legs bobbed at varying angles from her fat -sides. Behind her hurried a nurse, aghast for the hundredth time at the -donkey’s agility, never demonstrated except at the evening hour.</p> - -<p>Half-way between Maple House and the Firs stood two bare-legged boys, -working their toes into the impalpable dust of the roadway and rubbing -the grit into their ankles in a final orgy of dirt before the evening -wash. They called derisively to the donkey-load of children, bound to -bed with the setting sun.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h3> - -</div> - -<p>O<span class="smaller">N</span> a day in early spring Alan Wayne was summoned to Red Hill. Snow -still hung in the crevices of East Mountain. On the hill the ashes, -after the total eclipse of winter, were meekly donning pale green. The -elms of Elm House were faintly outlined in verdure, and stood like -empty sherry-glasses waiting for warm wine. Farther down the road the -maples stretched out bare, black limbs whose budding tufts of leaves -served only to emphasize the nakedness of the trees. Only the firs, in -a phalanx, scoffed at the general spring cleaning, and looked old and -sullen in consequence.</p> - -<p>The colts, driven by Alan Wayne, flashed over the brim of Red Hill to -the level top. Coachman Joe’s jaw was hanging in awe, and so had hung -since Mr. Alan had taken the reins. For the first time in their five -years of equal life the colts had felt the cut of a whip, not in anger, -but as a reproof for breaking. Coachman Joe had braced himself for the -bolt, his hands itching to snatch the reins. But there had been no -bolting, only a sudden settling down to business.</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t of got here quicker if he’d let ’em bolt,” said he in -subsequent description to the stable-hand and the cook. He snatched up -a pail of water and poured it steadily on the ground. “Jest like that. -He knew what was in the colts the minute he laid hands on ’em, and when -he pulls ’em up at the barn door there wasn’t a drop left in their -buckets, was there, Arthur?”</p> - -<p>“Nary a drop,” said Arthur, stable-hand.</p> - -<p>“And his face,” continued the coachman. “Most times Mr. Alan has no -eyes to speak of, but to-day and that time Miss Nance stuck him with -the hat-pin—’member, cook?—his eyes spread like a fire and eat up his -face. This is a black day for the Hill. Somethin’ ’s going to happen. -You mark me.”</p> - -<p>In truth Mr. Alan Wayne had been summoned in no equivocal terms and, -for all his haste, it was with nervous step he approached the house.</p> - -<p>There was no den, no sanctuary beyond a bedroom, for any one at Maple -House. No one brought work to Red Hill save such work as fitted into -swinging hammocks and leafy bowers. Library opened into living-room and -hall, hall into drawing-room, and drawing-room into the cool shadows -and high lights of half-hidden mahogany and china closets. And here -and there and everywhere doors opened out on to the Hill. It was a -place where summer breezes entered freely and played, sure of a way -out. Hence it was that Maple House as a whole became a tomb on that -memorable spring morning when the colts first felt a master hand—a -tomb where Wayne history was to be made and buried as it had been -before.</p> - -<p>Maple House sheltered a mixed brood. J. Y. Wayne, seconded by Mrs. J. -Y., was the head of the family. Their daugh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_803" id="Page_803">[Pg 803]</a></span>ter, Nance Sterling, and -her babies represented the direct line, but the orphans, Alan Wayne and -Clematis McAlpin, were on an equal footing as children of the house. -Alan was the only child of J. Y.’s dead brother. Clematis was also of -Wayne blood, but so intricately removed that her exact relation to the -rest of the tribe was never figured out twice to the same conclusion. -Old Captain Wayne, retired from the regular army, was an uncle in a -different degree to every generation of Waynes. He was the only man on -Red Hill who dared call for a whisky and soda when he wanted it.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_803" name="i_803"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_803.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawn by Reginald Birch</p> - <p class="caption">“ALONG THE RIBBON OF THE SINGLE ROAD SCURRIED AN OVERLADEN - DONKEY”</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">When Alan reached the house, Mrs. J. Y. was in her garden across the -road, surveying winter’s ruin, and Nance with her children had borne -the captain off to the farm to see that oft-repeated wonder and always -welcome forerunner of plenty, the quite new calf.</p> - -<p>Clematis McAlpin, shy and long-limbed, just at the awkward age when -woman misses being either boy or girl, had disappeared. Where, nobody -knew. She might be bird’s-nesting in the swamp or crying over the -“Idylls of the King” in the barn loft. Certainly she was not in the -house. J. Y. Wayne had seen to that. Stern and rugged of face, he -sat in the library alone and waited for Alan. He heard a distant -screen-door open and slam. Steps echoed through the lonely house. Alan -came and stood before him.</p> - -<p>Alan was a man. Without being tall, he looked tall. His shoulders did -not seem broad till you noticed the slimness of his hips. His neck -looked too thin till you saw the strong set of his small head. In a -word, he had the perfect proportion that looks frail and is strong. -As he stood before his uncle, his eyes grew dull. They were slightly -blood-shot in the corners, and with their dullness the clear-cut lines -of his face seemed to take on a perceptible blur.</p> - -<p>J. Y. began to speak. He spoke for a long quarter of an hour, and then -summed up all he had said in a few words:</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_804" id="Page_804">[Pg 804]</a></span></p> -<p>“I’ve been no uncle to you, Alan; I’ve been a father. I’ve tried to -win you, but you were not to be won. I’ve tried to hold you, but it -takes more than a Wayne to hold a Wayne. You have taken the bit with a -vengeance. You have left such a wreckage behind you that we can trace -your life back to the cradle by your failures, all the greater for your -many successes. You’re the first Wayne that ever missed his college -degree. I never asked what they expelled you for, and I don’t want to -know. It must have been bad, bad, for the old school is lenient, and -proud of men that stand as high as you stood in your classes and on the -field. Money—I won’t talk of money, for you thought it was your own.”</p> - -<p>For the first time Alan spoke.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean, sir?” With the words his slight form straightened, -his eyes blazed, there was a slight quivering of the thin nostrils, and -his features came out clear and strong.</p> - -<p>J. Y. dropped his eyes.</p> - -<p>“I may have been wrong, Alan,” he said slowly, “but I’ve been your -banker without telling you. Your father didn’t leave much. It saw you -through junior year.”</p> - -<p>Alan placed his hands on the desk between them and leaned forward.</p> - -<p>“How much have I spent since then—in the last three years?”</p> - -<p>J. Y. kept his eyes down.</p> - -<p>“You know more or less, Alan. We won’t talk about that. I was trying -to hold you, but to-day I give it up. I’ve got one more thing to tell -you, though, and there are mighty few people that know it. The Hill’s -battles have never entered the field of gossip. Seven years before you -were born, my father—your grandfather—turned me out. It was from this -room. He said I had started the name of Wayne on the road to shame and -that I could go with it. He gave me five hundred dollars. I took it and -went. I sank low with the name, but in the end I brought it back, and -to-day it stands high on both sides of the water. I’m not a happy man, -as you know, for all that. You see, though I brought the name back in -the end, I never saw your grandfather again, and he never knew.</p> - -<p>“Here are five hundred dollars. It’s the last money you’ll ever have -from me; but whatever you do, whatever happens, remember this: Red Hill -does not belong to a Lansing or to a Wayne or to an Elton. It is the -eternal mother of us all. Broken or mended, Lansings and Waynes have -come back to the Hill through generations. City of refuge or harbor of -peace, it’s all one to the Hill. Remember that.”</p> - -<p>He laid the crisp notes on the desk. Alan half turned toward the door, -but stepped back again. His eyes and face were dull once more. He -picked up the bills and slowly counted them.</p> - -<p>“I shall return the money, sir,” he said and walked out.</p> - -<p>He went to the stables and ordered the pony and cart for the afternoon -train. As he came out he saw Nance, the children, and the captain -coming slowly up Long Lane from the farm. He dodged back into the -barn through the orchard and across the lawn. Mrs. J. Y. stood in the -garden directing the relaying of flower-beds. Alan made a circuit. As -he stepped into the road, swift steps came toward him. He wheeled, and -faced Clem coming at full run. He turned his back on her and started -away. The swift steps stopped so suddenly that he looked around. Clem -was standing stock-still, one awkward, lanky leg half crooked as though -it were still running. Her skirts were absurdly short. Her little -fists, brown and scratched, pressed her sides. Her dark hair hung in a -tangled mat over a thin, pointed face. Her eyes were large and shadowy. -Two tears had started from them, and were crawling down soiled cheeks. -She was quivering all over like a woman struck.</p> - -<p>Alan swung around, and strode up to her. He put one arm about her thin -form and drew her to him.</p> - -<p>“Don’t cry, Clem,” he said, “don’t cry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”</p> - -<p>For one moment she clung to him and buried her face against his coat. -Then she looked up and smiled through wet eyes.</p> - -<p>“Alan, I’m <i>so</i> glad you’ve come!”</p> - -<p>Alan caught her hand, and together they walked down the road to the -old church. The great door was locked. Alan loosened the fastening of -a shutter, sprang in through the window, and drew Clem after him. They -climbed to the belfry. From the belfry one saw the whole world, with -Red Hill as its center. Alan was disappointed. The Hill was still half -naked, almost bleak. Maple House and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_806" id="Page_806">[Pg 806]</a></span> Elm House shone brazenly white -through budding trees. They looked as though they had crawled closer -to the road during the winter. The Firs, with its black border of last -year’s foliage, looked funereal. Alan turned from the scene, but Clem’s -little hand drew him back.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_805" name="i_805"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe34" src="images/i_805.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawn by Reginald Birch</p> - <p class="caption1a">“HER SKIRTS WERE ABSURDLY SHORT. HER LITTLE FISTS, BROWN AND SCRATCHED, -PRESSED HER SIDES”</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">Clematis McAlpin had happened between generations. Alan, Nance, Gerry -Lansing, and their friends had been too old for her, and Nance’s -children were too young. There were Elton children of about her age, -but for years they had been abroad. Consequently, Clem had grown to -fifteen in a sort of loneliness not uncommon with single children who -can just remember the good times the half-generation before them used -to have by reason of their numbers. This loneliness had given her in -certain ways a precocious development while it left her subdued and shy -even when among her familiars. But she was shy without fear, and her -shyness itself had a flower-like sweetness that made a bold appeal.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it wonderful, Alan?” she said. “Yesterday it was cold and it -rained and the Hill was black—<i>black</i>, like the Firs. To-day all the -trees are fuzzy with green, and it’s warm. Yesterday was so lonely, and -to-day you are here.”</p> - -<p>Alan looked down at the child with glowing eyes.</p> - -<p>“And, do you know, this summer Gerry Lansing and Mrs. Gerry are coming. -I’ve never seen her since that day they were married. Do you think it’s -all right for me to call her Mrs. Gerry, like everybody does?”</p> - -<p>Alan considered the point gravely.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I think that’s the best thing you could call her.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps when I’m really grown up I can call her Alix. I think Alix is -such a <i>pretty</i> name, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>Clem flashed a look at Alan, and he nodded; then, with an impulsive -movement she drew close to him in the half-wheedling way of woman about -to ask a favor.</p> - -<p>“Alan, they let me ride old Dubbs when he isn’t plowing. The old donkey -she’s so fat now she can hardly carry the babies. Some day when you’re -not in a <i>great</i> hurry will you let me ride with you?”</p> - -<p>Alan started down the ladder.</p> - -<p>“Some day, perhaps, Clem,” he muttered. “Not this summer. Come on.” -When they had left the church, he drew out his watch and started. “Run -along and play, Clem.” He left her and hurried to the barn.</p> - -<p>Joe was waiting.</p> - -<p>“Have we time for the long road, Joe?” asked Alan as he climbed into -the cart.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, sir, especially if you drive, Mr. Alan.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to drive. Let him go and jump in.”</p> - -<p>The coachman gave the pony his head, climbed in, and took the reins. -The cart swung out, and down the lane.</p> - -<p>“Alan! Alan!”</p> - -<p>Alan recognized Clem’s voice and turned. She was racing across a corner -of the pasture. Her short skirts flounced madly above her ungainly -legs. She tried to take the low stone wall in her stride. Her foot -caught in a vine, and she pitched headlong into the weeds and grass at -the roadside.</p> - -<p>Alan leaped from the cart and picked her up, quivering, sobbing, and -breathless.</p> - -<p>“Alan,” she gasped, “you’re not going away?”</p> - -<p>Alan half shook her as he drew her thin body close to him.</p> - -<p>“Clem,” he said, “you mustn’t. Do you hear? You mustn’t. Do you think I -<i>want</i> to go away?”</p> - -<p>Clem stifled her sobs and looked up at him with a sudden gravity in her -elfish face. She threw her bare arms around his neck.</p> - -<p>“Good-by, Alan.”</p> - -<p>He stooped and kissed her.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h3> - -</div> - -<p>I<span class="smaller">F</span> Alix Deering had not barked her pretty shins against the -center-board in Gerry Lansing’s sailing-boat on West Lake, it is -possible that she would in the end have married Alan Wayne instead of -Gerry Lansing.</p> - -<p>When two years before Alan’s dismissal Nance had brought Alix, an old -school friend, to Red Hill for a fortnight, everybody had thought what -a splendid match Alix and Alan would make. But it happened that Alan -was very much taken up at the time with memory and anticipation of a -certain soubrette, and before he awoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_807" id="Page_807">[Pg 807]</a></span> to Alix’s wealth of charms the -incident of the shins robbed him of opportunity.</p> - -<p>Gerry, dressed only in a bathing-suit, his boat running free before a -brisk breeze, had swerved to graze the Point, where half of Red Hill -was encamped, when he caught sight of a figure lying on the outermost -flat rock. He took it to be Nance.</p> - -<p>“Jump!” he yelled as the boat neared the rock.</p> - -<p>The figure started, scrambled to its feet, and sprang. It was Alix, -still half asleep, who landed on the slightly canted floor of the boat. -Her shins brought up with a thwack against the center-board, and she -fell in a heap at Gerry’s feet. Her face grew white and strained; for a -second she bit her lip, and then, “I <i>must</i> cry,” she gasped, and cried.</p> - -<p>Gerry was big, strong, and placid. Action came slowly to him, but when -it came it was sure. He threw one knee over the tiller, and gathered -Alix into his arms. She lay like a hurt child, sobbing against his -shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Poor little girl,” he said, “I know how it hurts. Cry now, because in -a minute it will all be over. It will, dear. Shins are like that.” And -then before she could master her sobs and take in the unconscious humor -of his comfort, the boat struck with a crash on Hidden Rock.</p> - -<p>The nearest Gerry had ever come to drowning was when he had fallen -asleep lying on his back in the middle of West Lake. Even with a -frightened girl clinging to him, it gave him no shock to find himself -in the water a quarter of a mile from shore. But with Alix it was -different. She gasped, and in consequence gulped down a large mouthful -of the lake. Then she broke into hysterical laughter and swallowed -more. Gerry held her up, and deliberately slapped her across the mouth. -In a flash anger sobered her. Her eyes blazed.</p> - -<p>“You coward,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>Gerry’s face was white and stern.</p> - -<p>“Put one hand on my shoulder and kick with your feet,” he said. “I’ll -tow you to shore.”</p> - -<p>“Put me on Hidden Rock,” said Alix; “I prefer to wait for a boat.”</p> - -<p>“It will take an hour for a boat to get here,” answered Gerry. “I’m -going to tow you in. If you say another word I shall slap you again.”</p> - -<p>In a dead silence they plowed slowly to shore, and when Gerry found -bottom, he stood up, took Alix in his arms, and strode well up the bank -before he set her down.</p> - -<p>During the long swim she had had time to think, but not to forgive. -She stamped her sodden feet, shook out her skirts, and then looked -Gerry up and down. With his crisp, light hair; blue eyes, wide apart -and well open; and six feet of well-proportioned bulk, Gerry was good -to look at, but Alix’s angry eyes did not admit it. They measured him -scornfully; but it was not the look that hurt him so much as the way -she turned from him with a little shrug of dismissal and started along -the shore for camp.</p> - -<p>Gerry reached out and caught hold of her arm. She swung around, her -face quite white.</p> - -<p>“I see,” she said in a low voice, “you want it now.”</p> - -<p>Gerry held her with his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he answered, “I want it now.”</p> - -<p>“Why did you yell at me to jump into your horrible boat?”</p> - -<p>“I took you for Nance.”</p> - -<p>“You took me for Nance,” repeated Alix with a mimicry and in a tone -that left no doubt as to the fact that she was in a nasty temper. “And -<i>why</i>,” she went on, her eyes blazing and her slight figure trembling, -“did you strike me—slap me across the face?”</p> - -<p>“Because I love you,” replied Gerry, steadily.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” gasped Alix. Her slate-gray eyes went wide open in unfeigned -amazement, and suddenly the tenseness that is the essence of attack -went out of her body. Instead of a self-possessed and very angry young -woman, she became her natural self—a girl fluttering before her first -really thrilling situation.</p> - -<p>There was something so childlike in her sudden transition that Gerry -was moved out of himself. For once he was not slow. He caught hold of -her and drew her toward him.</p> - -<p>But Alix was not to be plucked like a ripe plum. She freed herself -gently but firmly, and stood facing him. Then she smiled, and with the -smile she gained the upper hand. Gerry suddenly became awkward and -painfully aware of his bare arms and legs. He felt exceptionally naked.</p> - -<p>“When did it begin?” murmured Alix.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_808" id="Page_808">[Pg 808]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What?” said Gerry.</p> - -<p>“It,” said Alix. “When—how long have you loved me?”</p> - -<p>Gerry’s face turned a deep red, but he raised his eyes steadily to -hers. “It began,” he said simply, “when I took you in my arms and you -laid your face against my shoulder and cried like—like a little kid.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Alix again, and blushed in her turn. She had lost the upper -hand and knew it. Gerry’s arms went around her, and this time she -raised her face and let him kiss her.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_808" name="i_808"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_808.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawn by Reginald Birch</p> - <p class="caption">“‘CLEM,’ HE SAID, ‘DO YOU THINK I <i>WANT</i> TO GO AWAY?’”</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">“Now,” she said as they started for the camp, “I suppose I must call -you Gerry.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Gerry, solemnly. “And I shall call you Little Miss Oh!”</p> - -<p>So casual an engagement might easily have come to a casual end, but -Gerry Lansing was quietly tenacious. Once moved, he stayed moved. No -woman had ever stirred him before; he did not imagine that any other -woman would stir him again.</p> - -<p>To Alix, once the shock of finding herself engaged was passed, came -full realization and a certain amount of level-headed calculation. She -knew herself to be high-strung, nervous, and impulsive, a combination -that led people to consider her lightly. On the day of the wreck Gerry -had shown himself to be a man full grown. He had mastered her; she -thought he could hold her.</p> - -<p>Then came calculation. Alix was out of the West. All that money could -do for her in the way of education and culture had been done, but -no one knew better than she that her culture was a mere veneer in -comparison with the ingrained flower of the Lansings’ family oak. Here -was a man she could love, and with him he brought her the old homestead -on Red Hill and an older brownstone front in New York the position of -which was as unassailable socially as it was inconvenient as regards -the present center of the city’s life. Alix reflected that if there was -a fool to the bargain it was not she.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_809" id="Page_809">[Pg 809]</a></span></p> - -<p>All Red Hill and a few Deerings gathered for the wedding, and many were -the remarks passed on Gerry’s handsome bulk and Alix’s scintillating -beauty; but the only saying that went down in history came from Alan -Wayne when Nance, just a little troubled over the combination of Gerry -and Alix, asked him what he thought of it.</p> - -<p>Alan’s eyes narrowed, and his thin lips curved into a smile as he gave -his verdict:</p> - -<p>“Andromeda, consenting, chained to the rock.”</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h3> - -</div> - -<p>T<span class="smaller">O</span> the surprise of his friends, Alan Wayne gave up debauch and found -himself employment by the time the spring that saw his dismissal from -Maple House had ripened into summer. He was full of preparation for his -departure for Africa when a summons from old Captain Wayne reached him.</p> - -<p>With equal horror of putting up at hotels or relatives’ houses, the -captain, upon his arrival in town, had gone straight to his club, and -forthwith become the sensation of the club’s windows. Old members -felt young when they caught sight of him, as though they had come -suddenly on a vanished landmark restored. Passing gamins gazed on his -short-cropped gray hair, staring eyes, flaring collar, black string -tie, and flowing broadcloth, and remarked:</p> - -<p>“Gee! look at de old spoit in de winder!”</p> - -<p>Alan heard the remark as he entered the club, and smiled.</p> - -<p>“How do you do, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Huh!” grunted the captain. “Sit down.” He ordered a drink for his -guest and another for himself. He glared at the waiter. He glared at a -callow youth who had come up and was looking with speculative eye at a -neighboring chair. The waiter retired almost precipitously. The youth -followed.</p> - -<p>“In my time,” remarked the captain, “a club was for privacy. Now it’s a -haven for bell-boys and a playground for whipper-snappers.”</p> - -<p>“They’ve made me a member, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Have, eh!” growled the captain, and glared at his nephew. Alan took -inspection coolly, a faint smile on his thin face. The captain turned -away his bulging eyes, crossed and uncrossed his legs, and finally -spoke. “I was just going to say when you interrupted,” he began, “that -engineering is a dirty job. Not, however,” he continued after a pause, -“dirtier than most. It’s a profession, but not a career.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Alan. “They’ve got a few in the army, and they -seem to be doing pretty well.”</p> - -<p>“Huh, the army!” said the captain. He subsided, and made a new start. -“What’s your appointment?”</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t amount to an appointment. Just a job as assistant to -Walton, the engineer the contractors are sending out. We’re going to -put up a bridge somewhere in Africa.”</p> - -<p>“That’s it. I knew it,” said the captain. “Going away. Want any money?”</p> - -<p>The question came like solid shot out of a four-pounder. Alan started, -colored, and smiled all at the same time.</p> - -<p>“No, thanks, sir,” he replied; “I’ve got all I need.”</p> - -<p>The captain hitched his chair forward, and glared out on the avenue.</p> - -<p>“The Lansings,” he began, like a boy reciting a piece, “are devils for -drink, the Waynes for women. Don’t you ever let ’em worry you about -drink. Nowadays the doctors call us non-alcoholic. In my time it was -just plain strong heads for wine. I say, don’t worry about drink. -There’s a safety-valve in every Wayne’s gullet. But women, Alan!” -The captain slued around his bulging eyes. “You look out for them. -As your great-grandfather used to say, ‘To women, only perishable -goods—sweets, flowers, and kisses.’ And you take it from me, kisses -aren’t always the cheapest. They say God made everything down to little -apples and Jersey lightning, but when He made women the devil helped.” -The captain’s nervousness dropped from him as he deliberately drew out -his watch and fob. “Good thing he did, too,” he added as a pleasing -afterthought. He leaned back in his chair. A complacent look came over -his face.</p> - -<p>Alan got up to say good-by. The captain rose, too, and clasped the hand -Alan held out.</p> - -<p>“One more thing,” he said. “Don’t forget there’s always a Wayne to back -a Wayne for good or bad.” There was a suspicion of moisture in his eye -as he hurried his guest off.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_810" id="Page_810">[Pg 810]</a></span></p> - -<p>Back in his rooms, Alan found letters awaiting him. He read them, and -tore all up except one. It was from Clem. She wrote:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Dear Alan: Nance says you are going very far away. I am sorry. It -has been raining here very much. In the hollows all the bridges are -under water. I have invented a new game. It is called “steamboat.” -I play it on old Dubbs. We go down into the valley, and I make -him go through the water around the bridges. He puffs just like a -steamboat, and when he gets out, he smokes all over. He is <i>too</i> -fat. I hope you will come back very soon.</p> - -<p class="right mright2">C<span class="smaller">LEM</span>.</p></div> - -<p>That evening Clem was thrown into a transport by receiving her first -telegram. It read:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>You must not play steamboat again; it is dangerous.</p> - -<p class="right mright2">A<span class="smaller">LAN</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<p>She tucked it in her bosom and rushed over to the Firs to show it to -Gerry.</p> - -<p>Gerry and Alix were spending the summer at the Firs, where Mrs. -Lansing, Gerry’s widowed mother, was still nominally the hostess. They -had been married two years, but people still spoke of Alix as Gerry’s -bride, and, in so doing, stamped her with her own seal. To strangers -they carried the air of a couple about to be married at the rational -close of a long engagement. No children or thought of children had -come to turn the channel of life for Alix. On Gerry, marriage sat as -an added habit. It was beginning to look as though he and Alix drifted -together not because they were carried by the same currents, but -because they were tied.</p> - -<p>Where duller minds would have dubbed Gerry the Ox, Alan had named him -the Rock, and Alan was right. Gerry had a dignity beyond mere bulk. -He had all the powers of resistance, none of articulation. Where a -pin-prick would start an ox, it took an upheaval to move Gerry. An -upheaval was on the way, but Gerry did not know it. It was yet afar off.</p> - -<p>To the Lansings marriage had always been one of the regular functions -of a regulated life, part of the general scheme of things. Gerry was -slowly realizing that his marriage with Alix was far from a mere -function, had little to do with a regular life, and was foreign to -what he had always considered the general scheme of things. Alix had -developed quite naturally into a social butterfly. Gerry did not -picture her as chain-lightning playing on a rock, as Alan would have -done; but he did in a vague way feel that bits of his impassive self -were being chipped away.</p> - -<p>Red Hill bored Alix, and she showed it. The first summer after the -marriage they had spent abroad. Now Alix’s thoughts and talk turned -constantly toward Europe. She even suggested a flying trip for the -autumn, but Gerry refused to be dragged so far from golf and his club. -He stuck doggedly to Red Hill till the leaves began to turn, and then -consented to move back to town.</p> - -<p>On their last night at the Firs, Mrs. Lansing, who was complimentary -Aunt Jane to Waynes and Eltons, entertained Red Hill as a whole to -dinner. With the arrival of dessert, to Alix’s surprise, Nance said, -“Port all around, please, Aunt Jane.”</p> - -<p>Lansings, Waynes, and Eltons were heavy drinkers in town, but it was a -tradition, as Alix knew, that on Red Hill they dropped it—all but the -old captain. It was as though, amid the scenes of their childhood, they -became children, and just as a Frenchman of the old school will not -light a cigarette in the presence of his father, so they would not take -a drink for drink’s sake on Red Hill.</p> - -<p>So Alix looked on interestedly as the old butler set glasses and -started the port. When it had gone the round, Nance stood up, and with -her hands on the table’s edge leaned toward them all. For a Wayne, she -was very fair. As they looked at her, the color swept up over her bare -neck. Its wave reached her temples, and seemed to stir the clustering -tendrils of her hair. Her eyes were grave and bright with moisture. Her -lips were tremulous.</p> - -<p>“We drink to Alan,” she said; “to-day is Alan’s birthday.”</p> - -<p>She sat down. They all raised their glasses. Little Clem had no wine. -She put a thin hand on Gerry’s arm.</p> - -<p>“Please, Gerry! Please!”</p> - -<p>Gerry held down his glass. Clematis dipped in the tip of her little -finger, and, as they all drank, gravely carried the drop of wine to her -lips.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_811" id="Page_811">[Pg 811]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h3> - -</div> - -<p>A<span class="smaller">S</span> Judge Healey, gray-haired, but erect, walked up the avenue his keen -glance fell on Gerry Lansing standing across the street before an art -dealer’s window. Gerry’s eyes were fastened on a picture that he had -long had in mind for a certain nook in the library of the town house.</p> - -<p>It was the second anniversary of his wedding, and though it was already -late in the afternoon, Gerry had not yet chosen his gift for Alix. He -turned from the picture with a last long look and a shrug, and passed -on to a palatial jeweler’s farther up the street.</p> - -<p>For many years Judge Healey had been foster-father to Red Hill in -general and to Gerry in particular. With almost womanly intuition -he read what was in Gerry’s mind before the picture, and acting on -impulse, the judge crossed the street and bought it.</p> - -<p>While the judge was still in the picture shop, Gerry came out of the -jeweler’s and started briskly for home. He had purchased a pendant of -brilliants, extravagant for his purse, but yet saved to good taste by a -simple originality in design.</p> - -<p>He waited until the dinner-hour, and then slipped his gift into Alix’s -hand as they walked down the stairs together. She stopped beneath the -hall light.</p> - -<p>“I can’t wait, dear; I simply can’t,” she said, and snapped open the -case.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she gasped. “How dear! How perfectly dear! You old sweetheart!”</p> - -<p>She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him twice; then she flew -away to the drawing-room in search of Mrs. Lansing and the judge, the -sole guests at the little anniversary dinner. Gerry straightened his -tie and followed.</p> - -<p>Alix’s tongue was rippling, her whole body was rippling, with -excitement and pleasure. She dangled her treasure before their eyes. -She laid it against her warm neck and ran to a mirror. The light in her -eyes matched the light in the stones. The judge took the jewel and laid -it in the palm of his strong hand. It looked in danger of being crushed.</p> - -<p>“A beautiful thing, Gerry,” he said, “and well chosen. Some poet -jeweler dreamed that twining design, and set the stones while the dew -was still on the grass.”</p> - -<p>After dinner the four gathered in the library, but they were hardly -seated when Alix sprang up. Her glance had followed Gerry’s startled -gaze. He was staring at the coveted picture he had been looking at in -the gallery that afternoon. It hung in the niche in which his thoughts -had placed it. Alix took her stand before it. She glanced inquiringly -at the others. Mrs. Lansing nodded at the judge. Alix turned back to -the picture, and gravity stole into her face. Then she faced the judge -with a smile.</p> - -<p>“We live,” she said, “in a Philistine age, don’t we? But I’ve never let -my Philistinism drive pictures from their right place in the heart. -Pictures in art galleries—” she shrugged her pretty shoulders—“I have -not been trained up to them. To me they are mounted butterflies in a -museum, cut flowers crowded at the florist’s. But this picture and that -nook—they have waited for each other. You see the picture nestling -down for a long rest, and it seems a small thing, and then it catches -your eye and holds it, and you see that it is a little door that opens -on a wide world. It has slipped into the room and become a part of -life.”</p> - -<p>A strange stillness followed Alix’s words. To the judge and to Gerry -it was as though the picture had opened a window to her mind. Then she -closed the window.</p> - -<p>“Come, Gerry,” she said, turning, “make your bow to the judge and bark.”</p> - -<p>Gerry was excited, though he did not show it.</p> - -<p>“You have dressed my thoughts in words I can’t equal,” he said, and -strolled out to the little veranda at the back of the house. He -wanted to be alone for a moment and think over this flash of light -that had followed a dark day. For the first time in a long while Alix -had revealed herself. He did not begrudge the judge his triumph. He -knew instinctively that coming from him instead of from the judge the -picture would not have struck that intimate spark.</p> - -<p>The next day Gerry gave his consent to Alix’s plan for a flying trip -abroad, but with a reservation. The reservation was that she should -leave him behind.</p> - -<p>Judge Healey heard of this arrangement only when it was on the point -of being put into effect. In fact, he was only just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_812" id="Page_812">[Pg 812]</a></span> in time at the -steamer to wave good-by to Alix. Leaning over the rail, with her high -color, moist red lips, and excited big eyes making play under a golden -crown of hair and over a huge armful of roses, Alix presented a picture -not easily forgotten.</p> - -<p>The judge turned to Gerry.</p> - -<p>“She ought not to be going without you, my boy.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s all right,” said Gerry, lightly. “She’s well chaperoned. It’s -a big party, you know.”</p> - -<p>But during the weeks that followed the judge saw it was not all right. -Gerry had less and less time for golf and more and more for whisky and -soda. The judge was troubled, and felt a sort of relief when from far -away Alan Wayne cropped into his affairs and gave him something else to -think about.</p> - -<p>When Angus McDale of McDale & McDale called without appointment, the -judge knew at once that he was going to hear something about Alan.</p> - -<p>“Lucky to find you in,” puffed McDale. “It isn’t business exactly or -I’d have ’phoned. I was just passing by.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what is it?” asked the judge, offering his visitor a fresh cigar.</p> - -<p>“It’s this. That boy, Alan Wayne—sort of protégé of yours, isn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, in a way—yes,” said the judge, slowly, frowning. “What has Alan -done now?”</p> - -<p>“It’s like this,” said McDale. “Six months ago we sent Mr. Wayne out -on contract as assistant to Walton. Walton no sooner got on the ground -than he fell sick. He put Wayne in charge, and then he died. Now, this -is the point. Mr. Wayne seems to have promoted himself to Walton’s pay. -He had the cheek to draw his own as well. He won’t be here for weeks, -but his accounts came in to-day. I want to know if you see any reason -why we shouldn’t have that money back, to say the least.”</p> - -<p>The judge’s face cleared.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t he tell you why he drew Walton’s pay?”</p> - -<p>“Not a word. Said he’d explain accounts when he got here, but that sort -of thing takes a lot of explaining.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the judge, “I can tell you. Walton’s pay went to his -widow, through me. I’ve been doing some puzzling on this case already. -Now will you tell me how Alan got the money without drawing on you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there was plenty of money lying around. The job cost ten per cent. -less than Walton’s estimate. If he’d come back, we’d have hauled him -over the coals for that blunder. There was the usual reserve for work -in inaccessible regions, and then the people we did the job for paid -ten days’ bonus for finishing that much ahead of contract time.”</p> - -<p>The judge mused.</p> - -<p>“Was the job satisfactory to the people out there?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it was,” said McDale, bluntly; “most satisfactory. But there was -a funny thing there, too. They wrote that while they did not approve of -Mr. Wayne’s time-saving methods, the finished work had their absolute -acceptance.”</p> - -<p>The judge was silent for a moment.</p> - -<p>“You want my advice?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes; not for our own sake, but for Wayne’s.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the judge, “I’m going to give it to you for your sake. -When you stumble across a boy that can cut ten per cent. off the -working and time estimates of an old hand like Walton, you bind him -to you with a long contract at any salary he wants. And just one -thing more: when Alan Wayne steals a cent from you, or fifty thousand -dollars, you come to me, and I’ll pay it.”</p> - -<p>McDale’s eyes narrowed, and he puffed nervously at his cigar. He got up -to take his leave.</p> - -<p>“Judge,” he said, “your head is on right, and your heart’s in the right -place, as well. I begin to see that widow business. Wayne sized us up -for a hard-headed firm when it comes to paying out what we don’t have -to, and we are. It wasn’t law, but he was right. Walton’s work was done -just as if he’d been alive. Even a Scotchman can see that. You needn’t -worry. A man that you’ll back for fifty thousand is good enough for -McDale & McDale.”</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h3> - -</div> - -<p>I<span class="smaller">T</span> was Alix who discovered Alan as the <i>Elenic</i> steamed slowly down the -Solent. He was already comfortably established in his chair, with a -small pile of fiction beside him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_814" id="Page_814">[Pg 814]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_813" name="i_813"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_813.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawn by Reginald Birch</p> - <p class="caption1a">“‘IN MY TIME,’ REMARKED THE CAPTAIN, ‘A CLUB WAS FOR PRIVACY. NOW IT’S -A HAVEN FOR BELL-BOYS AND A PLAYGROUND FOR WHIPPER-SNAPPERS’”</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">She paused before she approached him. Alan had always interested her. -Perhaps it was because he had kept himself at a distance; but, then, -he had a way of keeping his distance from almost everybody. Alix had -thought of him heretofore as a modern exquisite subject to atavic fits -that, in times past, had led him into more than one barbarous escapade. -It was the flare of daring in these shameful outbursts that had saved -him from a suspicion of effeminacy. Now, in London she had by chance -heard things of him that forced her to a readjustment of her estimate. -In six months Alan had turned himself into a mystery.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said, coming up behind him, “how are you?”</p> - -<p>Alan turned his head slowly, and then threw off his rugs and sprang to -his feet.</p> - -<p>“The sky is clear,” he said; “where did you drop from?” His eyes -measured her. She was ravishing in a fur toque and coat which had yet -to receive their baptism of import duty.</p> - -<p>“Oh,” said Alix, “my presence is humdrum. Just the usual returning from -six weeks abroad. But you! You come from the haunts of wild beasts, and -from all accounts you have been one.”</p> - -<p>“Been one! From all accounts!” exclaimed Alan, a puzzled frown on his -face. “Just what do you mean?”</p> - -<p>They started walking.</p> - -<p>“I mean that even in Africa one can’t hide from Piccadilly. In -Piccadilly you are already known not as Mr. Alan Wayne, a New York -social satellite, but as a whirlwind in shirt-sleeves. Ten Per Cent. -Wayne, in short.” She looked at him with teasing archness. She could -see that he was worried.</p> - -<p>“Satellite is rather rough,” remarked Alan. “I never was that.”</p> - -<p>“All bachelors are satellites in the nature of things—satellites to -other men’s wives.”</p> - -<p>“Have you a vacancy?” said Alan.</p> - -<p>The turn of the talk put Alix in her element. She had never been an -ingénue. She had been born with an intuitive defense. Finesse was her -motto, and artificiality was her foil. It had never been struck from -her hands. On the other hand, Alan knew that every woman who accepts -battle can be reached, even if not conquered. It is the approaches to -her heart that a woman must defend. Once those are passed, the citadel -turns traitor.</p> - -<p>They both knew they were embarking upon a dangerous game, but Alix had -played it often. No pretty woman takes her European degree without -ample occasion for practice, and Alix had been through the European -mill. She threw out her daintily shod feet as she walked. She was full -of life. She felt like skipping. The light of battle danced merrily in -her eyes. She made no other reply.</p> - -<p>“I met lots of people we both know,” she said at last.</p> - -<p>“Which one of them passed on the news that I had taken to the ways of a -wild beast?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that was the Honorable Percy. I caught only a few words. He was -telling about a man known as Ten Per Cent. Wayne and the only time he’d -ever seen the shirt-sleeve policy work with natives. When I learned it -was Africa, I linked up with you at once and screamed, and he turned to -me and said, ‘You know Mr. Wayne?’ And I said I had thought I did, but -I found I only knew him <i>tiré à quatre épingles</i>, and wouldn’t he draw -his picture over again. But just then Lady Merle signaled the retreat, -and when the men came out, somebody else snaffled Collingeford before I -got a chance.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Collingeford,” said Alan. “I remember.” He frowned and was silent.</p> - -<p>“Alan,” said Alix after a moment, “let me warn you. I see a new -tendency in you, but before it goes any further than a tendency, let -me tell you that a thoughtful man is a most awful bore. When I caught -sight of you I thought, ‘What a delightful little party!’ But if you’re -going to be pensive, there are others—”</p> - -<p>Alan glanced at her.</p> - -<p>“Alix,” he said, mimicking her tone, “I see in you the makings of -an altogether charming woman. I’m not speaking of the painstaking -veneer,—I suppose you need that in your walk of life,—but what’s -under it. There may be others, as you say,—pretty women have taken -to wearing men for bangles,—but don’t you make a mistake. I’m not a -bangle. I’ve just come from the unclothed world of real things. To me a -man is just a man, and, what’s more, a woman is just a woman.”</p> - -<p>“How un-American!” said Alix.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_815" id="Page_815">[Pg 815]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It’s more than that,” said Alan; “it’s pre-American.”</p> - -<p>Alix was thoughtful in her turn. Alan caught her by the arm and -turned her toward the west. A yawl was just crossing the disk of the -disappearing sun. Alix felt a thrill at his touch.</p> - -<p>“It’s a sweet little picture, isn’t it?” she said. “But you mustn’t -touch me, Alan. It can’t be good for us.”</p> - -<p>“So you feel it, too,” said Alan, and took his hand from her arm.</p> - -<p>During the voyage they were much together, not in dark corners, but -waging their battle in the open—two swimmers that fought each other, -forgetting to fight the tide that was bearing them out to sea. Alan -was not a philanderer to snatch an unrequited kiss. To him a kiss was -the seal on surrender. But to Alix the game was its own goal. As she -had always played it, nobody had ever really won anything. However, it -did not take her long to appreciate that in Alan she had an opponent -who was constantly getting under her guard and making her feel -things—things that were alarming in themselves, like the jump of one’s -heart into the throat or the intoxication that goes with hot, racing -blood.</p> - -<p>Alan’s power over women was in voice and words. If he had been hideous, -it would have been the same. With his tongue he carried Alix away, and -gave her that sense of isolation which lulls a woman into laxity. One -night as they sat side by side, a single great rug across their knees, -Alan laid his hand under cover on hers. A quiver went through Alix’s -body. Her closed hand stirred nervously, but she did not really draw it -away.</p> - -<p>“Alan,” she said, “I’ve told you not to. Please don’t! It’s -common—this sort of thing.”</p> - -<p>Alan tightened his grip.</p> - -<p>“You say it’s common,” he said, “because you’ve never thought it out. -Lightning was common till somebody thought it out. I sit beside you -without touching you, and we are in two worlds. I grip your hand like -this, and the abyss between us is closed. While I hold you, nothing can -come between.”</p> - -<p>Alix’s hand opened and settled into his. Alan went on:</p> - -<p>“Words talk to the mind, but through my hand my body talks to yours in -a language that was old before words were born. If I am full of dreams -of you and a desert island, I don’t have to tell you about it, because -you are with me. The things I want, you want. There are no other things -in life; for while I hold you, our world is one and it is all ours. -Nothing else can reach us.”</p> - -<p>For a while they sat silent, then Alix recovered herself.</p> - -<p>“After all,” she said, “we’re not on a desert island, but on a ship, -with eyes in every corner.”</p> - -<p>Alan leaned toward her.</p> - -<p>“But if we were, Alix! If we were on a desert island, you and I—”</p> - -<p>For a moment Alix looked into his burning eyes. She felt that there was -fire in her own eyes too—a fire she could not altogether control. She -disengaged herself and sprang up. Alan rose slowly and stood beside -her. He did not look at her parted lips and hot cheeks; he had suddenly -become languid.</p> - -<p>“That’s it,” he drawled—“eyes in every corner. I wonder how many -morals would stand without other people’s eyes to prop them up?”</p> - -<p>Alix left him. She felt baffled, as though she had tried desperately -to get a grip on Alan, and her hand had slipped. She felt that it was -essential to get a grip on him. She had never played the losing side -before, and she was troubled.</p> - -<p>Premonition does not come to a woman without cause. Toward the end of -the voyage Alix faced, wide-eyed, the revelation that the stakes of the -game she and Alan had played were body and soul.</p> - -<p>“Alan,” she said one night, with drooping head, “I’ve had enough. I -don’t want to play any more. I want to quit.” She lifted tear-filled -eyes to him. The foil of artificiality had been knocked from her hand. -She was all woman, and defenseless.</p> - -<p>Alan felt a trembling in all his limbs.</p> - -<p>“I want to quit, too, Alix,” he said in his low, vibrating voice,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_816" id="Page_816">[Pg 816]</a></span> “but -I’m afraid we can’t. You see, I’m beaten, too. While I was just in love -with your body, we were safe enough; but now I’m in love with you. It’s -the kind of love a man can pray for in vain. No head in it; nothing but -heart. Honor and dishonor become mere names. Nothing matters to me but -you.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_816" name="i_816"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_816.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawn by Reginald Birch</p> - <p class="caption1a">“’HE’D SAIL FOR AFRICA TO-MORROW AND THINK FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE OF -HIS ESCAPE FROM YOU AS A CLOSE SHAVE’”</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">Tears crawled slowly down Alix’s cheeks. She stood with her elbows -on the rail and faced the ocean, so no one might see. Her hands were -locked. In her mind her own thoughts were running. Somehow she could -understand Alan without listening. If only Gerry had done this thing to -her, she was thinking, the pitiless, wracking misery would have been -joy at white heat. She was unmasked at last; but Gerry had not unmasked -her. Not once since the day of the wreck and their engagement had Gerry -unmasked himself.</p> - -<p>Alan was standing with his side to the rail, his eyes leaving her face -only to keep track of the promenaders, so that no officious friend -could take her by surprise. He went on talking.</p> - -<p>“Our judgment is calling to us to quit, but it is calling from days -ago,” he said. “We wouldn’t listen then, and it’s only the echo we -hear now. We can try to quit if you like; but when I am alone, I shall -call for you, and when you are alone, you will call for me. We shall -always be alone except when we are near each other. We can’t break the -tension, Alix. It will break us in the end.”</p> - -<p>The slow tears were still crawling down Alix’s cheeks. In all her life -she had never suffered so before. She felt that each tear paid the -price of all her levity.</p> - -<p>“Alan,” she said with a quick glance at him, “did you know when we -began that it was going to be like this?”</p> - -<p>“No,” he answered. “I have trifled with many women, and I was ready to -trifle with you. No one had ever driven you, and I wanted to drive you. -I thought I had divorced passion and love. I thought perhaps you had, -too. But love is here. I am not driving you. We are being driven.”</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</h3> - -</div> - -<p>A<span class="smaller">LIX</span> and Alan were in the grip of a fever that is hard to break save -through satiety and ruin. They were still held apart by generations -of sound tradition, but against this bulwark the full flood of -modern life,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_817" id="Page_817">[Pg 817]</a></span> as they lived it, was directed. In Alan there was a -counter-strain, a tradition of passion that predisposed him to accept -the easy tenets of the growing sensual cult. As he found it more and -more difficult to turn his thoughts away from Alix, he strove to regain -the clear-headedness that only a year before had held him back from -definite moral surrender.</p> - -<p>With her things had not gone so far. From the security of the untempted -she had watched her chosen world play with fire, and only now, when -temptation assailed her, did she realize the weakness that lies in -every woman once her outposts have fallen and her bare heart becomes -engaged in the battle.</p> - -<p>One early morning Nance sent for Alan. He found her alone. She had been -crying. He came to her where she stood by the fire, and she turned and -put her arms around his neck. She tried to smile, but her lips twitched.</p> - -<p>“Alan,” she said, “I want you to go away.”</p> - -<p>Alan was touched. He caught her wrists and took her arms from about his -neck.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t do that sort of thing to me, Nance. I’m not fit for it.” -He made her sit down on a great sofa before the fire and sat down -beside her. “You remind me to-day of the most beautiful thing I ever -heard said of you—by a spiteful friend.”</p> - -<p>“What was it?” said Nance, turning her troubled eyes to him.</p> - -<p>“She said, ‘She is only beautiful in her own home.’ I never understood -it before. It’s a great thing to be beautiful in one’s own home.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Alan,” said Nance, catching his hand and holding it against her -breast, “it <i>is</i> a great thing. It’s the greatest thing in life. That’s -why I sent for you—because you are wrecking forever your chance of -being beautiful in your own home. And worse than that, you are wrecking -Alix’s chance. Of course you are blind. Of course you are mad. I -<i>understand</i>, Alan, but I want to hold you close to my heart until you -see—until the fever is cooled. You and Alix cannot do this thing. It -isn’t as though her people and ours were of the froth of the nation. -You and she started life with nothing but Puritan to build on. You -may have built just play-houses of sand, but deep down the old rock -foundation must endure. You must take your stand on that.”</p> - -<p>Her eyes had been fixed in the fire, but now she turned them to his -face. Alan sat with head hanging forward, his gaze and thoughts far -beyond the confines of the room. Then he shook himself and got up to go.</p> - -<p>“I wish we could, Nance,” he said gravely, and then added half to -himself, half to her, “I’ll try.”</p> - -<p>For some days Alan had been prepared to go away and take Alix with -him, should she consent. Upon his arrival he had had an interview with -McDale & McDale, in the course of which that firm opened its eyes and -its pocket wider than it ever had before.</p> - -<p>“You are out for money, Mr. Wayne,” had been the feeble remonstrance of -the senior member.</p> - -<p>“Just money,” replied Alan. “If you owed as much as I do, you would be -out for it, too. Of course you’re not. What do you want? You’ve got my -guaranty—ten per cent. under office estimates for work and time.”</p> - -<p>When Alan left McDale & McDale’s offices he had contracted more or less -on his own terms, and McDale, Jr., said to the senior:</p> - -<p>“He’s only twenty-six—a boy. How did he beat us?”</p> - -<p>“By beating Walton’s record first,” replied McDale, Sr. “And how he did -that, time will show.”</p> - -<p>As he walked slowly back from Nance’s, Alan was thinking that, after -all, there was no reason why he should not cut and run—no reason -except Alix.</p> - -<p>He reached his rooms. As he crossed the threshold a premonition seized -him. He felt as though some one were there. He glanced hurriedly about. -The rooms were still in the disorder in which he had left them, and -they were empty. Then he saw that he had stepped on a note that had -been dropped through the letter-slip. He picked it up. A thrill went -through him as he recognized Alix’s handwriting. There was no stamp. -It must have been delivered by hand. He tore it open and read: “You -said that a moment’s notice was all you asked. I will take the Montreal -express with you to-day.”</p> - -<p>Alan’s blood turned to liquid fire. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_818" id="Page_818">[Pg 818]</a></span> note conjured before him a -vision of Alix. He crushed it, and held it to his lips and laughed, not -jeeringly, but in pure, uncontrolled excitement.</p> - -<p class="mtop2">I<span class="smaller">T</span> was not a coincidence that Gerry had sought out Alix at the very -hour that Nance was summoning Alan. Gerry and Nance were driven by the -same forewarning of catastrophe. Gerry had felt it first, but he had -been slow to believe, slower to act. He had no precedent for this sort -of thing. His whole being was in revolt against the situation in which -he found himself. It was after a sleepless night, a most unheard of -thing with him, that he decided he could let things go no longer. He -went to Alix’s room, knocked, and entered.</p> - -<p>Alix was up, though the hour was early for her. Fresh from her bath, -she sat in a sheen of blue dressing-gown before the mirror doing her -own hair. Gerry glanced about him and into the bath-room, looking for -the maid.</p> - -<p>“Good morning,” said Alix. “She’s not here. Did you want to see her?”</p> - -<p>Gerry winced at the levity. He wondered how Alix could play the game -she was playing and be gay. Alix finished doing her hair.</p> - -<p>“There,” she said with a final pat, and turned to face Gerry.</p> - -<p>He was standing beside an open window. He could feel the cold air on -his hands. He felt like putting his head out into it. His head was hot.</p> - -<p>“Alix,” he said suddenly without looking at her, “I want you to drop -Alan.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t want to drop Alan,” replied Alix, lightly.</p> - -<p>Gerry whirled around at her tone. His nostrils were quivering. To his -amazement, his hands fairly itched to clutch her beautiful throat. He -could hardly control his voice.</p> - -<p>“Stop playing, Alix,” he gulped. “There’s never been a divorcée among -the Lansings nor a wife-beater, and one is as near this room as the -other right now.”</p> - -<p>Gerry regretted the words as soon as he had said them, but Alix was not -angry. She looked at him through narrowed eyes. She speculated on the -sensation of being once again roughly handled by this rock of a man. -Only once before had she seen Gerry angry and the sight had fascinated -her then, as it did now. There was something tremendous and impressive -in his anger and struggle for control—a great torrent held back by a -great strong dam. She almost wished it would break through. She could -almost find it in her to throw herself on the flood and let it carry -her whither it would. She said nothing.</p> - -<p>Gerry bit his lips and turned from her.</p> - -<p>“And Alan, of all men!” he went on. At the words the current of her -thoughts was changed. She found herself suddenly on the defensive. “Do -you think you are the first woman he has played with and betrayed?” -Gerry’s lip was curved to a sneer. “A philanderer, a man who surrounds -himself with tarnished reputations.”</p> - -<p>A dull glow came into Alix’s cheeks.</p> - -<p>“Philanderers are of many breeds,” she said. “There are those who -have the wit to philander with woman, and those who can rise only -to a whisky or a golf-club. Whatever else Alan may be, he is not a -time-server.”</p> - -<p>Once aroused, Alix had taken up the gantlet with no uncertain hand. Her -first words carried the war into the enemy’s camp, and they were barbed.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” said Gerry, dully. He had not anticipated a defense.</p> - -<p>“I mean what you might have deduced with an effort. What are you but a -philanderer in little things where Alan is in great? What have you ever -done to hold me or any other woman? I respected you once for what you -were going to be. That has died. Did you think I was going to make you -into a man?”</p> - -<p>Gerry stood, breathing hard, a great despondency in his heart. Alix -went on pitilessly:</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_819" id="Page_819">[Pg 819]</a></span></p> -<p>“What have you become? A monumental time-server on the world, and you -are surprised that a worker reaches the prize that you can not attain! -‘All things come to him who waits.’ That’s a trite saying; but how -about this? There are lots of things that come to him who only waits -that he could do without. The trouble with you is that you have built -your life altogether on traditions. It is a tradition that your women -are faithful; so you need not exert yourself to holding yours. It is a -tradition that you can do no wrong; so you need not exert yourself to -doing anything at all. You are playing with ghosts, Gerry. Your party -was over a generation ago.”</p> - -<p>Alix had calmed down. There was still time for Gerry to choke her -to good effect. The hour could yet be his. But he did not know -it. Smarting under the lash of Alix’s tongue, he made a final and -disastrous false step.</p> - -<p>“You try to humiliate me by placing me back to back with Alan?” he -said, with his new-born sneer. Alix appraised it with calm eyes, and -found it rather attractive. “Well, let me tell you that Alan is so -small a man that if I dropped out of the world to-day, he’d sail for -Africa to-morrow and think for the rest of his life of his escape from -you as a close shave.”</p> - -<p>Alix sprang to her feet. She was trembling. Gerry felt a throb of -exultation. It was his turn to wound.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” said Alix, very quietly; but it was the quiet of -suppressed passion at white heat.</p> - -<p>“I mean that Alan is the kind of man who finds other men’s wives an -economy. He would take everything you have that’s worth taking, but not -you.”</p> - -<p>Alix’s eyes blazed at him from her white face. “Please go away,” she -said. He started to speak. “Please go away,” she repeated. Her lips -were quivering, and her face twitched in a way that was terrifying to -Gerry. He hurried out, repeating to himself over and over: “You have -made Alix cry. You have made Alix cry.”</p> - -<p>Alix toyed with the silver on her dressing-table until he had gone, and -then she swept across the room to her little writing-desk and wrote the -note that Alan had found half an hour later in his rooms.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h3> - -</div> - -<p>G<span class="smaller">ERRY</span> stood in the hall outside Alix’s room for a moment, hoping to -hear a sob, a cry, anything for an excuse to go back. Instead he heard -the scratch of a pen; but he was too troubled to deduce anything from -that. He went slowly down the stairs and out into the street. The -biting winter air braced him. He started to walk rapidly. At the end of -an hour he found himself standing on a deserted pier. He took off his -hat and let the wind cool his head.</p> - -<p>“I have been a brute,” he said to himself. “I have made a woman -cry—Alix!” He turned and walked slowly back to the avenue and into -his club, but he still felt uneasy. A waiter brought a whisky and soda -and put it at his elbow. Gerry turned on him.</p> - -<p>“Who told you to bring that?” Then he felt ashamed of his petulance. -“It’s all right, George,” he said more genially than he had spoken for -many a day; “but I don’t want it. Take it away.”</p> - -<p>He sat for a long time, and at last came to a resolution. Alix loved -roses. He would send her enough to bank her room, and he would follow -them home. He went up the avenue to his florist’s, and stood outside -trying to decide whether it should be one mass of blood red or a color -scheme. Suddenly the plate glass caught a reflection and threw it in -his face. Gerry turned. A four-wheeler was passing. He could not see -the occupant, but on top was a large, familiar trunk marked with a -yellow girdle. On the trunk was a familiar label. He stared at it, and -the label stared back at him, and finally danced before his mazed eyes -as the cab disappeared into the traffic.</p> - -<p>Gerry stood for a long while, stunned. He saw a lady bow to him from -a carriage, and afterward he remembered that he had not bowed back. -Somebody ran into him. He looked back at the flowers massed in the -window, remembered that he did not need them now, and drew slowly -away. Two men hailed him from the other side of the street. Gerry -braced himself, nodded to them, and hailed a passing hansom. From the -direction Alix’s cab had taken he knew the station for which she was -bound. As he arrived on the platform they were giving the last call -for the Montreal express. He caught sight of Alix hurrying through -the gates, and followed. As she reached the first Pullman, somebody -rapped on the window of the drawing-room. Gerry saw Alan’s face pressed -against the pane. He watched Alix stop, turn, and climb the steps of -the car, and then he wheeled and hurried from the station.</p> - -<p>Where could he go? Not to his club and Alan’s. His face would betray -the scandal with which the club would be buzzing to-morrow. Not to his -big, comfortable house. It would be too gloomy. Even in disaccord, Alix -had imparted to its somber oak and deep shadows the glow of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_820" id="Page_820">[Pg 820]</a></span> buoyant -life. When she was there, one felt as though there were flowers in the -house. Gerry was seized with a great desire to hide from his world, his -mother, himself. He pictured the scare-heads in the papers. That the -name of Lansing should be found in that galley! It was too much. He -could not face it.</p> - -<p>He bought a morning paper, full of shipping news, and, getting into a -taxi, gave the address of his bank. On the way he studied the sailings’ -column. He found what he wanted—the <i>Gunter</i>, due to sail that -afternoon for Brazil, Pernambuco the first stop.</p> - -<p>At the bank Gerry drew out the balance of his current account. It -amounted to something over two thousand dollars. He took most of it -in Bank of England notes. Then he started home to pack, but before he -reached the house a vision of the servants, flurried after helping -their mistress off, commiserating him to one another, pitying him -to his face perhaps, or, in the case of the old butler, suppressing -a great emotion, was too much for him. He drove instead to a big -department store, and in an hour had bought a complete outfit. He -lunched at one of the quiet restaurants that divide down-town from -up-town.</p> - -<p>He had avoided buying a ticket. As the <i>Gunter</i> warped out, the purser -came to him.</p> - -<p>“I understand you have no ticket.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Gerry, drawing a roll of bills. “How much is the passage to -Pernambuco?”</p> - -<p>The purser fidgeted.</p> - -<p>“This is irregular, sir,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Is it?” said Gerry, indifferently.</p> - -<p>“I have no ticket-forms,” said the purser, weakening.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want a ticket,” said Gerry. “I want a good room and three -square meals a day.”</p> - -<p>Long, quiet days on a quiet sea are a master sedative to a troubled -mind. Gerry had a great deal to think through. He sat by the hour -with hands loosely clasped, his eyes far out on the ocean, tracing -the course of his married life, and measuring the grounds for Alix’s -arraignment. Gerry was just and generous to others’ faults, but not -to his own. He had forgotten the sting of Alix’s words, and, to his -growing amazement, saw in himself their justification. A time-server he -certainly had been.</p> - -<p>The landfall of Pernambuco awoke him from reveries and introspection. -He did not look upon this palm-strewn coast as a land of new -beginnings; he sought merely a Lethean shore.</p> - -<p>The ship crawled in from an oily sea to the long strip of harbor behind -the reef. Above, the sun blazed from a bowl of unbroken blue; on land, -the multicolored houses spread like a rainbow under a dark cloud of -brown-tiled roofs. Beyond the trees was a line of high, stuccoed -houses, each painted a different color, all weather-stained, and some -with rusted balconies that threatened to topple on to the passer-by. -One bore the legend, “Hôtel d’Europe.” There Gerry installed himself.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</h3> - -</div> - -<p>B<span class="smaller">ETWEEN</span> the hour of writing her note to Alan and the moment when she -stepped on the train Alix had had no time to think. She was still -driven by the impulse of anger that Gerry’s words had aroused. She did -not reflect that the wound was only to her pride.</p> - -<p>Alan held open the door of the drawing-room. She passed in, and he -closed it. She did not feel as though she were in a train. On the -little table stood a vase. It held a single perfect rose. Under the -vase was a curious doily, strayed from Alan’s collection of exotic -things. A cushion lay tossed on the green sofa, not a new cushion, -but one that had been broken in to comforting. Alix took in every -detail of the arrangement of the tiny room with her first breath. What -forethought, what a note of rest with which to meet a troubled and -hurried heart! But how insidious to frame an ignoble flight in such a -homelike setting! She felt a slight revolt at the travesty.</p> - -<p>Alan was standing with blazing eyes and working face, like an eager -hound in leash. Alix threw back her veil and looked at him. With a -quick stride forward he caught her to him, and kissed her mouth until -she gasped for breath. With a flash she remembered his own words, -“If ever I kiss you, I shall bring your soul out between your lips.” -To Alix’s amazement, she did not feel an answering fire. Her body -was being lashed with a living flame, and her body was cold. In that -instant this seemed a terrible thing. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_821" id="Page_821">[Pg 821]</a></span> had sold her birthright for -a price, and the price was turning to dead leaves. She made an effort -to kiss Alan in return, but with the effort shame came over her. There -was so much in Alan’s kiss! The kiss had brought her soul out between -her lips. Her soul stood naked before her, and one’s naked soul is an -ugly thing. The kiss disrobed her, too, and from that last bourn of -shame Alix suddenly revolted.</p> - -<p>Gasping, she pushed Alan from her. Their eyes met. His were burning, -hers were frightened. She moved slowly backward to the door, and with -her hand behind her opened the latch. Alan did not move. He knew -that if he could not hold her with his eyes, he could not hold her -at all. The train started. Alix passed through the door and rushed -to the platform. The porter was about to drop the trap on the steps. -Alix slipped by him. With all her force she pushed open the door and -jumped. The train was moving very slowly, but Alix reeled, and would -have fallen had it not been for a passing baggageman. He caught her, -and still in his arms, Alix looked back. Alan’s white face was at the -window. He looked steadily at her.</p> - -<p>“Ye almost wint with him, miss,” said the baggageman, with a full -brogue and a twinkling eye.</p> - -<p>Alix was tired and hungry when she got back home, but excitement kept -her up. She felt that she stood on the threshold of new effort and a -new life. After all, she thought, it was she who had made her dear old -Gerry into a time-server. She could have made him into anything else if -she had tried. She longed to tell him so. Perhaps he would catch her -and crush her in his arms as Alan had done. She laughed at herself for -wanting him to. She rang for the butler.</p> - -<p>“Where’s your master, John?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, ma’am. Mr. Gerry hasn’t come back since he went out this -morning.” To John, Mr. Lansing was a person who had been dead for some -time. His present overlords were Mr. and Mrs. Gerry and Mrs. Lansing -when she was in town.</p> - -<p>“Telephone to the club, and if he is there, tell him I want to see -him,” said Alix, and turned to her welcome tea. The sandwiches seemed -unusually small to her ravenous appetite.</p> - -<p>Gerry was not at the club. Alix dressed resplendently for dinner. -Never had she dressed for any other man with the care that she dressed -for Gerry that night. But Gerry did not come. At half-past nine Alix -ordered the table cleared.</p> - -<p>“I’ll not dine to-night,” she said to John. “When your master comes, -show him in here.” She sat on in the library, listening for Gerry’s -step in the hall.</p> - -<p>From time to time John came into the room to replenish the fire. On one -of these occasions Alix told him he might go to bed; but an hour later -he returned and stood in the door. Alix looked very small, curled up in -a great leathern chair by the fire.</p> - -<p>“It’s after one o’clock, ma’am,” said John. “Mr. Gerry won’t be coming -in to-night.” Alix made no answer. John held his ground. “It’s time for -you to go to bed, ma’am. Shall I call the maid?”</p> - -<p>It was a long time since John had taken any apparent interest in his -mistress. Alix had avoided him. She had felt that the old servant -disapproved of her. More than once she had thought of discharging him, -but he had never given her grounds that would justify her before Gerry. -Now he was ordering her to bed, and instead of being angry, she was -soothed. She wondered how she could ever have thought of discharging -him. He seemed strong and restful, more like part of the old house than -a servant. Alix got up.</p> - -<p>“No, don’t call the maid. I won’t need her,” she said. Then she added, -“Good night, John,” as she passed out.</p> - -<p>John held wide the door, and bowed with a deference that was a touch -more sincere than usual. “Good night,” he answered, as though he meant -it.</p> - -<p>Alix was exhausted, but it was long before she fell asleep. She cried -softly. She wanted to be comforted. She had dressed so beautifully, she -had been so beautiful, and Gerry had not come home. As she cried, her -disappointment grew into a great trouble.</p> - -<p>She awoke early from a feverish sleep. Immediately a sense of weight -assailed her. She rang, and learned that Gerry had not yet come home. -Then his words of yesterday suddenly came to her, “If I dropped out -of the world to-day—” Alix stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. Why had -she remembered those words? She lay for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_822" id="Page_822">[Pg 822]</a></span> long time, thinking. Her -breakfast was brought to her, but she did not touch it. It was almost -noon in the cloudy Sunday morning when she roused herself from apathy. -She sprang from the bed. She summoned Judge Healey with a note and Mrs. -Lansing with a telegram. The telegram was carefully worded:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Please come and stay for a while. Gerry is away.</p> - -</div> - -<p>The judge found Alix radiating the freshness of a beautiful woman -careful of her person; but it was the freshness of a pale flower. Alix -was grave, and her gravity had a sweetness that made the judge’s heart -bound. He felt an awakening in her that he had long watched for. She -told him all the story of the day before in a steady monotone that -omitted nothing and gave the facts only their own weight.</p> - -<p>When she had finished, the judge patted her hand. “You would make a -splendid witness, my dear,” he said. “Now, what you want is for me to -find Gerry and bring him back, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Alix, “if you can.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense! Of course I can. Men don’t drop out of the world so easily -nowadays. But I still want to know a thing or two. Are you sure Gerry -knew nothing of your—er—excursion to the station?”</p> - -<p>Alix shook her head.</p> - -<p>“From the time he left my room and the house he has not been back.”</p> - -<p>“Has he been to the club?”</p> - -<p>Alix colored faintly. “I see,” said the judge, quickly. “I’ll ask -there. I’ll go now.” He went off, and all that day he sought in vain -for a trace of Gerry. He went to all his haunts in the city; he had -telephoned to those outside. At night he returned to Alix, but it was -Mrs. Lansing who received him in the library.</p> - -<p>The judge was tired, and his buoyancy had deserted him. He told her of -his failure. Mrs. Lansing was thoughtful, but not greatly troubled.</p> - -<p>“Gerry,” she said, “has a level head. He may have gone away, but that -is all. He can take care of himself.” She went to tell Alix that there -was no news. When she came back, the judge turned to her.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he asked, “What did she say?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, except that she wanted to know if you had tried the bank.”</p> - -<p>The judge struck his fist into his left hand. “Never thought of it,” -he said. “That child has a head!” He went to the telephone. From the -president of the bank he traced the manager, from the manager, the -cashier. Yes, Gerry had been at the bank on Saturday. The cashier -remembered it because Mr. Lansing had drawn a certain account in full. -He would not say how much.</p> - -<p>“There,” said the judge, with a sigh of relief, “that’s something. It -takes a steady nerve to draw a bank-account in full. You must take the -news up-stairs. I’m off. I’ll follow up the clue to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>There was a new look of content mingled with the worry in Mrs. -Lansing’s face that made the judge say, as he held out his hand in -farewell, “Things better?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lansing understood him.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered, and added, “we have been crying together.”</p> - -<p>There had been strength in Mrs. Lansing’s calm. She had been waiting, -and now the waiting was over. Alix had given herself, tearful and -almost wordless, into arms that were more than ready, and had then -poured out her heart in a broken tale that would have confounded any -court of justice, but which between women was clearer than logic.</p> - -<p>At the end Mrs. Lansing said nothing. Instead, she petted Alix, carried -her off to bed, and kept her there for three days. In her waking hours -Alix added spasmodic bits to her confession—sage reflections after -the event, dreamy “I wonders” that speculated in the past and in the -measure of her emotions.</p> - -<p>On the fourth day Alix got up, but on the fifth she stayed in bed. Mrs. -Lansing found her pale and frightened. She had been crying.</p> - -<p>“Alix,” she whispered, kneeling beside the bed, “what is it?”</p> - -<p>Alix told her amid sobs.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Lansing, throwing her arms about her, “don’t -cry. Don’t worry. The strength will come with the need. In the end -you’ll be glad. So will Gerry. So will all of us.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t that,” said Alix, faintly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_823" id="Page_823">[Pg 823]</a></span> “Oh, it isn’t that! I’m just -thinking and thinking how terrible it would have been if I had run -away—really run away! I keep imagining how awful it would have been. -It is a nightmare.”</p> - -<p>“Call it a nightmare if you like, sweetheart, but just remember that -you are awake.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_823" name="i_823"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe40" src="images/i_823.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawn by Reginald Birch</p> - <p class="caption1a">“’I USED TO THINK I COULD GO HOME, THAT IT WAS JUST A QUESTION OF BUYING -A TICKET. BUT—’”</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">“Yes,” said Alix, softly, “I am awake now. Mother, I want to go to Red -Hill. I know it’s early, but I want to go now. I want to watch the Hill -come to life and dress up for the summer. It will amuse me. It’s long -since I have watched for the first buds and the first swallows. I won’t -mind the melting snow and the mud. It’s so long since I’ve seen clean -country mud. I want to smell it.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know how bleak the Hill can be before spring,” objected Mrs. -Lansing.</p> - -<p>“Will it be any bleaker with me there than when you were alone?” asked -Alix.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lansing came over to her and kissed her.</p> - -<p>“No, dear,” she said.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</h3> - -</div> - -<p>I<span class="smaller">N</span> the squalid Hôtel d’Europe Gerry occupied a large room that -overlooked the quay. Even if there had been a better hotel in town, he -would not have moved. Here he looked out on a scene of never-ceasing -movement and color. The setting changed with the varying light. The -false rains of the midsummer season came up in black horses of cloud, -driven by a furious wind. They passed with a whirl and a veritable -clatter of heavy drops hurled against the earth in a splendid volley. -The long strip of the quay emptied at the first wet shot. The -tatterdemalion crowd invaded every doorway and nook of shelter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_824" id="Page_824">[Pg 824]</a></span> with -screams and laughter. Then came the sun again, and back came the throng -to the fresh-washed quay.</p> - -<p>Gerry missed his club, but for that he found a substitute. Cluny’s, -next door to the hotel, was a strange hall of convivial pleasure. A -massive square door, the masonry of which centuries had hardened and -blackened to stone, gave on to a long hallway that ended in a wider -dungeon. Here stood a bar and half a dozen teak tables. The floor was -of stone flags.</p> - -<p>The clientele had the cleavage of oil and water. One part stood to -their drink at the bar, had it, and went out. The other sat to their -glasses at the tables, and sat late. Among these was a pale, thin man -of about Gerry’s age, with a mouth slightly twisted to humor until -toward evening drink loosened it to mere weakness. One afternoon he -nodded to Gerry, and Gerry left the bar for the tables. After that they -sat together. The man was an American—the American consul. Gerry liked -him, pitied him, and forgot to pity himself. One night he invited the -consul to his room. They sat in the balcony, a bottle of whisky and a -siphon between them. Gerry started to put his glass on the rail.</p> - -<p>“Don’t do it,” said the consul, with his twisted smile; “it might carry -away.” He went on more seriously. “It’s rotten. The whole place is -rotten. There’s a blight on the men and the women and on the children. -God!”</p> - -<p>Gerry put down his glass untouched. “Why don’t you go home?”</p> - -<p>The consul took a long drink, eyed the empty glass, and spoke into it.</p> - -<p>“I used to think just like that. ’Why don’t you go home?’ I used to -think I could go home, that it was just a question of buying a ticket -and climbing aboard a liner. But—” he broke off, and glanced at Gerry -as he refilled his glass.</p> - -<p>“But what?” said Gerry.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the consul, “I’m just drunk enough to tell you. I’m only -proud in the mornings before I’m thoroughly waked up. I used to drive a -pen for a Western daily at twenty-five dollars a week. It was good pay, -and I married on it. I and the girl lived like the corn-fed hogs of our -native State. Life was one sunshine, and when the baby came, we joined -hands, and said good-by to sorrow forever. Then her people got busy -and landed me this job. The pay was three thousand, and if you want to -see how big three thousand dollars a year can look, just go and stand -behind any old kind of plow in Kansas. I jumped at it. We sold out our -little outfit and raked up just enough to see me out here. The girl and -the kid went to visit her people. I was to save up out of the first -quarter’s pay and send for them. That was three years ago.”</p> - -<p>“Do you see that steamer out there?” said Gerry. “Well, she’s bound for -home. I want to give you the chance that comes after the last chance. I -want you to let me send you home.”</p> - -<p>The consul looked around. His pendulous lip twisted into a smile.</p> - -<p>“So you took all that talk for the preamble to a touch!” he said.</p> - -<p>“No, I didn’t,” said Gerry, indignantly.</p> - -<p>“Well, well, never mind,” said the consul. “There’s nothing left to go -back to, and there’s nothing left to go back. That little account in -the bank, and what it may do for some poor devil, is the only monument -I’ll ever build.”</p> - -<p>The whisky-bottle was almost empty, but Gerry’s glass was still -untouched. The consul pointed at it.</p> - -<p>“You can still leave it alone? I don’t know where you come from, or -what you’re loafing in this haven of time-servers for, but I’m going to -give you a bit of advice: you take that steamer yourself.”</p> - -<p>Gerry colored.</p> - -<p>“I can’t,” he stammered. “There’s nothing left for me either to go home -to.” He said nothing more. The consul had suddenly turned drowsy.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="HOME_I_CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</h3> - -</div> - -<p>A<span class="smaller">LMOST</span> a month had passed since Gerry landed on his Lethean shore, and -it had served him well. But that night on the balcony woke him up. -The world seemed to have time-servers in small regard. First Alix and -now this consul chap. Gerry began to think of his mother. He strolled -over to the cable station. The offices were undergoing repairs. The -ground floor was unfurnished save for a table and one chair. In the -chair sat a chocolate-colored employee with a long bamboo on the floor -beside him. Gerry’s curiosity was aroused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_825" id="Page_825">[Pg 825]</a></span>. He went in and wrote his -message to his mother, just a few words telling her he was all right. -The chocolate gentleman folded the message, slipped it into the split -end of the bamboo, and stuck it up through a hole in the ceiling to the -floor above.</p> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_824" name="i_824"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe36_25" src="images/i_824.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Loaned by George Inness, Jr. Color-Tone, engraved for - T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> by - H. Davidson</p> - <p class="caption">SUNSET ON THE MARSHES</p> - <p class="caption1">FROM THE PAINTING BY GEORGE INNES</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_824_large.jpg" id="i_824_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">Gerry went out and rambled over the city. Night came on. He was -restless. He wished he had not sent the message. It was forming itself -into a link. He dined badly at a restaurant, and then wandered back to -the quay. Arriving steamers were posted on a blackboard under a street -lamp. The mail from New York was due to-morrow. The consul’s papers -would be full of the latest New York society scandal—his scandal.</p> - -<p>A long, raking craft was taking on its meager provisions. Gerry engaged -its captain in a pantomime parley. The boat was bound for Penedo to -take on cotton. Gerry decided to go to Penedo. Two of the crew went -back with him to get his baggage. The hotel was closed. Gerry was the -only guest, and he had his key. He had paid his weekly bill that day, -so there was no need to wake any one up. In half an hour he and his -belongings were stowed on the deck of the <i>Josephina</i>, and she was -drifting slowly down to the bar.</p> - -<p>Four days later they were off the mouth of the San Francisco. They -doubled in, and tacked their way up to Penedo. There was no life in -Penedo. It was desolate and lonely compared with the Hôtel d’Europe and -the lively quay; so when a funny little stern-wheeler started up the -river on its weekly trip to Piranhas, Gerry went with it.</p> - -<p>Gerry chartered a ponderous canoe. At first he had a man to paddle -him up and down and sometimes across the wide half-mile of water; but -before long he learned to handle the thing himself. The heavy work -soon trimmed his splendid muscles into shape. He supplied the hostelry -with a variety of fish.</p> - -<p>One morning he woke earlier than usual. The wave of life was running -high in his veins. He sprang up and, still in his pajamas, hurried out -for his morning swim. The break of day was gloriously chilly. A cool -breeze, hurrying up from sea, was steadily banking up the mist that -hung over the river. Gerry sprang into his canoe and pushed off. He -drove its heavy length up-stream, not in the teeth of the current, for -no man could do that, but skirting the shore, seizing on the help of -every eddy, and keeping an eye out for the green, swirling mound that -meant a pinnacle of rock just short of the surface. He went farther up -the river than ever before. His muscles were keyed to the struggle. -He passed the last jutting bend that the best boatmen on the river -could master, and found himself in a bay protected by a spit of sand, -rock-tipped and foam-tossed where it reached the river’s channel.</p> - -<p>Gerry ran the canoe upon the shore and stepped on to the spit of sand. -In that moment just to live was enough. Then the sun broke out, and -helped the wind clear the last bank of mist from the river. As he -looked, a sharp cry broke on his astonished ears.</p> - -<p>Almost at the end of the tongue of sand stood a girl. Her hair was -blowing about her slim shoulders. Over one of them she gazed, startled, -at Gerry. He drew back, mumbling apologies that she could not have -understood even if she could have heard them. Then she plunged with a -clean, long dive into the river. But before she plunged she laughed. -Gerry heard the laugh. With an answering call he threw himself into the -water, and swam as he never swam before.</p> - -<p class="s5 center mtop2">(To be continued)</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_825" name="i_825"> - <img class="padtop1 mbot3 w12em" src="images/i_825.jpg" alt="End of HOME, Part I" /></a> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_826" id="Page_826">[Pg 826]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_826a" name="i_826a"> - <img class="padtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_826a.jpg" alt="Headpiece, THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY" /></a> -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="THE_PROGRESSIVE_PARTY" title="THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY">THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor"><span class="s6 vat">[1]</span></a></h2> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1">BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0 mbot2">T<span class="smaller">HE</span> National Progressive Party was born in Chicago, August 5, 1912, -at a convention which nominated Roosevelt for the presidency. -Since that time, though defeated in the national election, it has -figured more and more in the legislative and political activities -of State and Nation. In fact progressivism is the one altogether -incalculable element in the political situation of this country -at a time when all men are peering, puzzled and anxious, into -the mists of the future. At T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span>’<span class="smaller">S</span> request Mr. -Roosevelt prepared the following paper for the thoughtful attention -of the people of this land. It is crowded with suggestion.—T<span class="smaller">HE</span> -E<span class="smaller">DITOR.</span></p></div> - -<div class="dc"> - <a id="i_826b" name="i_826b"> - <img class="w8em" src="images/i_826b.jpg" alt="F" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="p0"><span class="hide-first1">F</span><span class="smaller">UNDAMENTALLY</span> -the reason for the existence of the Progressive party is -found in two facts: first, the absence of real distinctions between -the old parties which correspond to those parties and, second, the -determined refusal of the men in control of both parties to use the -party organizations and their control of the Government for the purpose -of dealing with the problems really vital to our people.</p> - -<p>As to the first fact, it is hardly necessary to point out that the -two old parties to-day no longer deal in any real sense with the -issues of fifty and sixty years ago. At that time there was a very -genuine division-line between the Republicans and the Democrats. The -Republicans of those years stood for a combination of all that was -best in the political philosophies of both Jefferson and Hamilton; and -under Lincoln they represented the extreme democratic movement which -was headed by Jefferson and also that insistence upon national union -and governmental efficiency which were Hamilton’s great contributions -to our political life in the formative period of the republic. The -Republicanism of that day was something real and vital, and the -Republican party under Lincoln was the radical party of the country, -abhorred and distrusted by the reactionaries and ultraconservatives, -especially in the great financial centers, precisely as is now true of -the Progressives. The Democratic party of that day, on the contrary, -was no longer the party either of Jefferson or of Jackson, whose points -of unlikeness were at least as striking as their points of likeness, -and in the world of politics stood for slavery and for such development -of the extreme particularistic doctrine euphoniously known as “States’ -rights,” as to mean, when carried to its logical extreme, total -paralysis of governmental functions and ultimately disunion.</p> - -<p>The outbreak of the Civil War and its successful conclusion forced the -majority of the conservative class of the North into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_827" id="Page_827">[Pg 827]</a></span> the Republican -ranks; for when national dissolution is an issue, or even when any -serious disaster is threatened, all other issues sink out of sight when -compared with the vital need of sustaining the National Government. -There is no possibility of even approximating to social and industrial -justice if the National Government shows itself impotent to deal with -malice domestic and foreign levy.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, after the Civil War, the Democratic party found its -position one of mere negation or mere antagonism to the Republican -party. The Democrats in the Northern States had very different -principles in the East and the West, and both in the East and the West -alike they had nothing in common with the Democrats of the South save -the bond of hatred to Republicanism.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="OLD_PARTIES_AND_NEW_ISSUES">OLD PARTIES AND NEW ISSUES</h3> - -</div> - -<p>U<span class="smaller">NDER</span> such conditions it was inevitable that after the issues raised by -the war were settled, and as year by year they tended more and more to -become nebulous memories, the new issues which arose should divide the -parties each within itself rather than serve as a basis for true party -division. The bonds were those of name, custom, and tradition rather -than of principle. Each party could pride itself on fervent fixity of -opinion as regards the issues that were dead, but each party showed -complete indecision of purpose in dealing with the problems that were -living. A party which alternately nominated Mr. Bryan and Mr. Parker -for President, and a party wherein Messrs. Penrose, La Follette, and -Smoot stand as the three brothers of leadership, can by no possibility -supply the need of this country for efficient and coherent governmental -action as regards the really vital questions of the day. Each party -contains within its leadership and membership men who are hopelessly -sundered by whatever convictions they really hold and who act together -simply for reasons of personal or party expediency. It is impossible to -secure the highest service for the people from any party which, like -the Democracy, is wedded to States’ rights, as against those peoples’ -rights which can be obtained only by the exercise of the full power of -the National Government. On the other hand it is utterly hopeless to -expect any sincerity of devotion to any principle of concern to the -people as a whole from a party the machinery of which is usurped and -held by the powers that prey, in the political and business world; and -this has been the case with the Republican party since the bosses in -June, 1912, at Chicago stole from the rank and file their right to make -their own platform and nominate their own candidates.</p> - -<p>So much for the incongruous jumble of conflicting principles and -policies within each party and the lack of real points of difference -between them. Their showing on this point is so bad that by sheer force -of habit our people have grown to accept as a matter of course and -without surprise the situations to which it gives rise. For instance, -in New York State there was very little genuine surprise among the -people as a whole when in the legislature the Republican adherents of -the Republican boss and the Democratic adherents of the Democratic -boss, after deliberate caucus and conference, repudiated their -preëlection pledges as to primary legislation, and joined with hearty -good will to defeat the measure which both had promised to support. It -would be difficult to imagine a better instance of the way in which -our present party conditions insure the absolute powerlessness of the -people when faced by a bipartizan combine of the two boss-ridden party -machines, whose hostility each to the other is only nominal compared to -the hostility of both to the people at large.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="SOCIAL_AND_ECONOMIC_CHANGES">SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGES</h3> - -</div> - -<p>T<span class="smaller">HE</span> second fundamental fact of the situation partly depends upon this -first fact. Where neither party ventures to have any real convictions -upon the vital issues of the day it is normally impossible to use -either as an instrument for meeting these vital issues. Most of these -issues, at least in their present form, have become such during the -lifetime of the present generation. There are, of course, issues of -which this is not true. The need of fortifying the Panama Canal and of -building and maintaining a thoroughly efficient navy of adequate size, -find their justification in the policy of Washington, for instance, -and neither policy can be antago<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_828" id="Page_828">[Pg 828]</a></span>nized save by those who are the -heirs of Washington’s bitterest and most insidious opponents. Again, -the questions arising in connection with our international relations -must to-day, as always, be settled exactly along the lines of general -policy laid down by Washington, under penalty of risking grave national -discredit and disgrace.</p> - -<p>But most of the issues which nine times out of ten most concern the -average man and average woman of our republic have reached their -present form only within the lifetime of the men who are now of -middle age. They are due to the profound social and economic changes -of the last half-century, to the exhaustion of the soil and of our -natural resources, to the rapid growth of manufacturing towns and -great trading cities, and to the relative lowering of the level of -life in many country districts, both from the standpoint of interest -and the standpoint of profit. Whether we approach the problem having -in view only the interests of the wage-worker or of the farmer or of -the small business man, or having in view the interests of the public -as a whole, we are obliged to face certain new facts. One is that in -their actual workings the old doctrines of extreme individualism and -of a purely competitive industrial system have completely broken down. -Another is that if we are to grapple efficiently with the evils of -to-day, it will be necessary to invoke the use of governmental power -to a degree hitherto unknown in this country, and, in the interest of -the democracy, to apply principles which the purely individualistic -democracy of a century ago would not have recognized as democratic.</p> - -<p>It is utterly useless to try to meet our needs by recreating the -vanished conditions which rendered it possible for this vanished -individualistic democracy to preach and practise what it did, and -which preaching and practising of an extreme individualism, be it -remembered, laid the corner of the very conditions against which we -are in revolt to-day. The present-day need of our people is to achieve -the purpose our predecessors in the democratic movement had at heart, -even though it be necessary to abandon or reverse the methods by which -they in their day sought to realize, and indeed often did realize, that -purpose. The Progressive party is the only political instrumentality -in existence to-day which recognizes the need of achieving this purpose -by the new methods which under the changed industrial and social -conditions are alone effective.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="COLLECTIVE_ACTION_AND_THE_INDIVIDUAL">COLLECTIVE ACTION AND THE INDIVIDUAL</h3> - -</div> - -<p>T<span class="smaller">HIS</span> means increased efficiency of governmental action. It does not -mean in the slightest degree any impairment or weakening of individual -character. The combination of efficient collective action and of -individual ability and initiative is essential to the success of the -modern state. It is in civil life as it is in military life. No amount -of personal prowess will make soldiers collectively formidable unless -they possess also the trained ability to act in common for a common -end. On the other hand, no perfection of military organization will -atone for the lack of the fighting edge in the man in the ranks. The -same principle applies in civil life. We not merely recognize but -insist upon the fact that in the life career of any man or any woman -the prime factor as regards success or failure must be his or her -possession of that bundle of qualities and attributes which in their -aggregate we denominate as character; and yet that, in addition, there -must be proper social conditions surrounding him or her.</p> - -<p>Recognition of and insistence upon either fact must never be permitted -to mean failure to recognize the other and complementary fact. The -character of the individual is vital, and yet, in order to give it fair -expression, it must be supplemented by collective action through the -agencies of government. Our critics speak as if we were striving to -weaken the strength of individual initiative. Yet these critics, who -for the most part are either men of wealth who do not think deeply on -subjects unconnected with the acquisition of wealth, or else men of a -cloistered intellectualism, are themselves in practice the very men -who are most ready to demand the exercise of collective power in its -broadest manifestation; that is, through the police force, when there -is danger of disorder or violence.</p> - -<div class="figlarge break-before"> - <a id="i_828" name="i_828"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe35_5" src="images/i_828.jpg" alt="Roosevelt. - From a photograph; copyright by Pach Bros. Color-tone engraved for - The Century by H. Davidson" /></a> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_828_large.jpg" id="i_828_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">The growth in the complexity of community life means the partial -substitution of collectivism for individualism, not to destroy, but -to save individualism. A very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_829" id="Page_829">[Pg 829]</a></span> primitive country community hardly -needs a constable at all. As it changes into a village and then into -a city, it becomes necessary to organize a police force, and this not -because the average man has deteriorated in individual initiative and -prowess, but because social conditions have so changed as to make -collective action necessary. When New York was a little village, a -watchman with a lantern and a stave was able to grapple with the only -type of law-breaker that had yet been developed. Nowadays, in place of -this baggy-breeched, stave-and-lantern carrier, we have the complex -machinery of our police department, with a personnel ranging from -a plain-clothes detective to a khaki-clad mounted officer with an -automatic-repeating pistol. As the complexity of life has grown, as -criminals have become more efficient and possessed of a greater power -of combined action, it has been necessary for the government to keep -the peace by the development of the efficient use of its own police -powers. It is just the same with many matters wholly unconnected with -criminality. The government has been forced to take the place of the -individual in a hundred different ways; in, for instance, such matters -as the prevention of fires, the construction of drainage systems, the -supply of water, light, and transportation. In a primitive community -every man or family looks after his or its interest in all these -matters. In a city it would be an absurdity either to expect every -man to continue to do this, or to say that he had lost the power of -individual initiative because he relegated any or all of these matters -to the province of those public officers whose usefulness consists in -expressing the collective activities of all the people.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="THE_SOCIAL_GOAL">THE SOCIAL GOAL</h3> - -</div> - -<p>I<span class="smaller">N</span> other words, the multiplication of activities in a highly civilized -and complex community is such that the enormous increase in collective -activity is really obtained not as a substitute for, but as an -addition to, an almost similar increase in the sphere of individual -initiative and activity. There are, of course, cases of substitution; -but, speaking roughly and on the whole, the statement as above made -is accurate. The increase of collective activity for social and -industrial purposes does not mean in any shape or way a deadening -of individual character and initiative such as would follow on the -effort virtually to apply the doctrines of the Marxian socialists; -for “socialist” is a term so vague, and includes so many men working -wisely for justice, that it is necessary to qualify it in order to -define it. We are striving in good faith to produce conditions in -which there shall be a more general division of material well-being, -to produce conditions under which it shall be difficult for the -very rich to become so very rich, and easier for the men without -capital, but with the right type of character, to lead a life of -self-respecting and hard-working well-being. The goal is a long way -off, but we are striving toward it; and the goal is not socialism, but -so much of socialism as will best permit the building thereon of a -sanely altruistic individualism, an individualism where self-respect -is combined with a lively sense of consideration for and duty toward -others, and where full recognition of the increased need of collective -action goes hand in hand with a developed instead of an atrophied power -of individual action.</p> - -<p>Now, it is fairly easy to gain a more or less half-hearted acceptance -of these views as right in the abstract. All that the Progressive party -is endeavoring to do is to apply them in the concrete.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="THE_REPUBLICAN_DIFFERENCE">THE REPUBLICAN DIFFERENCE</h3> - -</div> - -<p>W<span class="smaller">E</span> are sundered from the men who now control and manage the Republican -party by the gulf of their actual practices and of the openly avowed -or secretly held principles which rendered it necessary for them to -resort to these practices. The rank and file of the Republicans, as -was shown in the spring primaries of 1912, are with us; but they have -no real power against the bosses, and the channels of information are -so choked that they are kept in ignorance of what is really happening. -The doctrines laid down by Mr. Taft as law professor at Yale give the -theoretical justification for the practical action of Mr. Penrose and -Mr. Smoot. The doctrines promulgated by Mr. Nicholas Murray Butler, -when he writes Mr. Barnes’s platform, serve to salve the consciences -of those who, although they object to boss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_830" id="Page_830">[Pg 830]</a></span>ism on esthetic grounds, -yet sincerely feel that governmental corruption is preferable to the -genuine exercise of popular power. This acquiescence in wrong-doing -as the necessary means of preventing popular action is not a new -position. It was the position of many upright and well-meaning Tories -who antagonized the Declaration of Independence and the movement which -made us a nation. It was the position of a portion of the very useful -Federalist party, which at the close of the eighteenth century insisted -upon the vital need of national union and governmental efficiency, but -which was exceedingly anxious to devise methods for making believe to -give the people full power while really putting them under the control -of a propertied political oligarchy.</p> - -<p>The control of the Republican National Convention in June, 1912, in -the interest of Mr. Taft was achieved by methods full of as corrupt -menace to popular government as ballot-box stuffing or any species of -fraud or violence at the polls. Yet it was condoned by multitudes of -respectable men of wealth and respectable men of cultivation because -in their hearts they regarded genuine control by what they called “the -mob”—that is, the people—as an evil so great that compared with -it corruption and fraud became meritorious. The Republican party of -to-day has given absolute control of its destinies into the hands of -a National Committee composed of fifty-three irresponsible and on the -whole obscure politicians. It has specifically provided that these men, -who have no responsibility whatever to the public, can override the -lawfully expressed will of the majority in any state primary. It has -perpetuated a system of representation at national conventions which -gives a third of the delegates to communities where there is no real -Republican vote, where no delegation for or against any man really -represents anything, and where, in consequence, the National Committee -can plausibly seat any delegates it chooses without exciting popular -indignation. In sum, these fifty-three politicians have the absolute -and unchallenged control of the National Convention. They do not have -to allow the rank and file of the party any representation in that -convention whatever, and, as has been shown in actual practice, they -surrender to them any control whatever, on the occasion when they deem -it imperatively necessary, merely as a matter of expediency and favor, -and not as a matter of right or principle.</p> - -<p>It is difficult to understand how under these conditions -self-respecting men who in good faith uphold popular government can -continue in the party. But it is entirely obvious why those in control -of the party and its main supporters in the political, financial, -and newspaper worlds advocate the system. They do it from precisely -the same motives that actuate them in opposing direct primaries, in -opposing the initiative and the referendum, in opposing the right of -the people to control their own officials, in opposing the right of -the people as against the right of the judges to determine what the -Constitution, the fundamental law of the land, shall permit in the -way of legislation for social and industrial justice. All persons who -sincerely disbelieve in the right and the capacity of the people for -self-rule naturally, and from their point of view properly, uphold a -system of party government like that which obtains under the Republican -National Committee. For precisely similar reasons they antagonize -every proposal to give the people command of their own governmental -machinery. For precisely similar reasons they uphold the divine right -of the judiciary to determine what the people shall be permitted to -do with their own government in the way of helping the multitudes of -hard-working men and women of whose vital needs these well-meaning -judges are entirely ignorant.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="THE_DEMOCRATIC_DIFFERENCE">THE DEMOCRATIC DIFFERENCE</h3> - -</div> - -<p>F<span class="smaller">ROM</span> the Democratic party as at present constituted we are radically -divided both because of the utter incoherence within that party -itself, and because the doctrines to which it is at present committed -are either fundamentally false or else set forth with a rhetorical -vagueness which makes it utterly futile to attempt to reduce them to -practice. The Democratic party can accomplish nothing of good unless it -deliberately repudiates its campaign pledges—unless it deliberately -breaks the promises it solemnly made in order to acquire power. Such -repudiation necessarily means an intellectual dishonesty so great -that no skill in rhetorical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_831" id="Page_831">[Pg 831]</a></span> dialectics can cover or atone for it. -To win power by definite promises, and then seek to retain it by the -repudiation of those promises, would show a moral unfitness such as -not to warrant further trust of any kind. Therefore we must proceed -upon the assumption that the leaders of the Democracy meant what they -said when they were seeking to obtain office. Their only performance so -far, at the time that this article is written, is in connection with -the tariff and with a discreditable impotence in foreign affairs. As -a means of helping to solve great industrial and social problems, the -tariff is merely a red herring dragged across the trail to divert our -people from the real issues. The present tariff bill has been handled -by precisely the same improper methods by which the Payne-Aldrich -law was enacted. The only safe way of treating the tariff, that of -a permanent non-partizan, expert tariff commission, providing for -a schedule by schedule reunion, was deliberately repudiated. The -Payne-Aldrich tariff was a thoroughly bad bill; and therefore I am all -the more sorry to see the principles of evil tariff-making which it -crystallized repeated in the Underwood-Wilson bill.</p> - -<p>The Democratic party specifically asserted that by correcting the -evils of the tariff they would reduce the cost of living, help the -wage-worker and farmer, and take the most important step necessary -to the solution of the trust problem. So far, there has not been the -smallest evidence that these results will follow their action; and -unless such results do follow from it, the Democratic tariff policy -will be proved an empty sham.</p> - -<p>I have read with care Mr. Wilson’s chapter in the “New Freedom” -in which he professes to set forth his attitude as regards the -trusts. The chapter does not contain, as far as I can find, one -specific proposal for affirmative action. It does contain repeated, -detailed, and specific misrepresentations of the Progressive -position—misrepresentations so gross that all that is necessary in -order to refute them is to challenge Mr. Wilson to produce a single -line from the Progressive National platform, or from the speeches of -the men who stood on that platform, which will bear out his assertions. -Aside from these specific misrepresentations, there are various -well-phrased general statements implying, approval of morality in -the abstract, but no concrete proposal for affirmative action. A -patient and sincere effort to find out what Mr. Wilson means by the -“New Freedom” leaves me in some doubt whether it has any meaning at -all. But if there is any meaning, the phrase means and can mean only -freedom for the big man to prey unchecked on the little man, freedom -for unscrupulous exploiters of the public and of labor to continue -unchecked in a career of cutthroat commercialism, wringing their -profits out of the laborers whom they oppress and the business rivals -and the public whom they outwit. This is the only possible meaning that -the phrase can have if reduced to action. It is, however, not probable -that it has any meaning at all. It certainly can have no meaning of -practical value if its coiner will not translate it out of the realm of -magniloquent rhetoric into specific propositions affecting the intimate -concerns of our social and industrial life to-day. To discriminate -against a very few big men because of their efficiency, without regard -to whether their efficiency is used in a social or anti-social manner, -may perhaps be included in Mr. Wilson’s meaning; but this would be -absolutely useless from every aspect, and harmful from many aspects, -while all the other big unscrupulous men were left free to work their -wicked will. The line should be drawn on conduct, not on size. The -man who behaves badly should be brought to book, whether he is big or -little; but there should be no discrimination against efficiency, if -the results of the efficiency are beneficial to the wage-earners and -the public.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="THE_PEOPLE_S_RIGHTS">THE PEOPLE’S RIGHTS</h3> - -</div> - -<p>W<span class="smaller">E</span> have waited for a year to see such propositions made, and until -they are made and put into actual practice, and until we see how they -work, the phrase “New Freedom” must stand as any empty flourish of -rhetoric, having no greater and no smaller value than all the similar -flourishes invented by clever phrase-makers whose concern is with -diction and not action. The problems connected with the trusts, the -problems connected with child labor, and all similar matters, can be -solved only by affirmative national action.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_832" id="Page_832">[Pg 832]</a></span> No party is progressive -which does not set the authority of the National Government as supreme -in these matters. No party is progressive which does not give to the -people the right to determine for themselves, after due opportunity -for deliberation, but without endless difficulty and delay, what the -standards of social and industrial justice shall be; and, furthermore, -the right to insist upon the servants of the people, legislative and -judicial alike, paying heed to the wishes of the people as to what the -law of the land shall be. The Progressive party believes with Thomas -Jefferson, with Andrew Jackson, with Abraham Lincoln, that this is a -government of the people, to be used for the people so as to better the -condition of the average man and average woman of the nation in the -intimate and homely concerns of their daily lives; and thus to use the -government means that it must be used after the manner of Hamilton and -Lincoln to serve the purposes of Jefferson and Lincoln.</p> - -<p>We are for the people’s rights. Where these rights can best be obtained -by exercise of the powers of the State, there we are for States’ -rights. Where they can best be obtained by the exercise of the powers -of the National Government, there we are for national rights. We are -not interested in this as an abstract doctrine; we are interested in -it concretely. Wisconsin possesses advanced laws in the interest of -labor. There are other States in this respect more backward, where -wage-workers, and especially women and child wage-workers, are left -at the mercy of greedy and unscrupulous capitalists. Wherever this -operates unjustly to favor the capitalists of other less advanced -States at the expense of Wisconsin, and therefore for business reasons -to make state legislatures fearful of passing laws for the proper -safeguarding of the life, health, and liberty of the wage-workers, then -we believe that the National Government should step in and by national -action secure in the interest of the wage-workers uniform conditions -throughout the Union. We hold it to be the duty of the National -Government to put all the governmental resources of our people, -national and state, behind the movement for the wise and sane uplifting -of the men and women whose lives are hardest.</p> - -<p>We believe in the principle of a living wage. We hold that it is -ruinous for all our people, if some of our people are forced to subsist -on a wage such that body and soul alike are stunted. We believe in -safeguarding the body of the wage-worker, and in providing for his -widow and children if he falls a victim to industrial accident. We -believe in shortening the labor day to the point that will tell most -for the laborer’s efficiency both as wage-worker and as citizen. In the -Progressive National platform we inserted the following plank:</p> - -<p class="center mtop2">SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL JUSTICE</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>The supreme duty of the nation is the conservation of human -resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial -justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in state and -nation for:—</p> - -<p>Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial -accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary -unemployment, and other injurious effects incident to modern -industry;</p> - -<p>The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various -occupations, and the exercise of the public authority of state and -nation, including the federal control over interstate commerce and -the taxing power, to maintain such standards;</p> - -<p>The prohibition of child labor;</p> - -<p>Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide a living scale -in all industrial occupations;</p> - -<p>The prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an -eight-hour day for women and young persons;</p> - -<p>One day’s rest in seven for all wage workers;</p> - -<p>The eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four-hour industries;</p> - -<p>The abolition of the convict contract labor system; substituting -a system of prison production for governmental consumption only; -and the application of prisoners’ earnings to the support of their -dependent families;</p> - -<p>Publicity as to wages, hours and conditions of labor; full reports -upon industrial accidents and diseases, and the opening to public -inspection of all tallies, weights, measures and check systems on -labor products;</p> - -<p>Standards of compensation for death by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_833" id="Page_833">[Pg 833]</a></span> industrial accident and -injury and trade diseases which will transfer the burden of lost -earnings from the families of working people to the industry, and -thus to the community;</p> - -<p>The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, -irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system -of social insurance adapted to American use;</p> - -<p>The development of the creative labor power of America by lifting -the last load of illiteracy from American youth and establishing -continuation schools for industrial education under public control -and encouraging agricultural education and demonstration in rural -schools;</p> - -<p>The establishment of industrial research laboratories to put the -methods and discoveries of science at the service of American -producers.</p> - -<p>We favor the organization of the workers, men and women, as a means -of protecting their interests and of promoting their progress.</p></div> - -<p>These propositions are definite and concrete. They represent for the -first time in our political history the specific and reasoned purpose -of a great party to use the resources of the government in sane fashion -for industrial betterment.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="COUNTRY_PROBLEMS">COUNTRY PROBLEMS</h3> - -</div> - -<p>W<span class="smaller">E</span> do not believe in confining governmental activity to the city. We -believe that the problem of life in the open country is well nigh the -gravest problem before this nation. The eyes and thoughts of those -working for social and industrial reform have been turned almost -exclusively toward the great cities, and toward the solution of the -questions presented by their teeming myriads of people and by the -immense complexity of their life. Yet nothing is more certain than -that there can be no permanent prosperity unless the men and women who -live in the open country prosper. The problems of the farm, of the -village, of the country church, and the country school, the problems of -getting most value out of and keeping most value in the soil, and of -securing healthy and happy and well-rounded lives for those who live -upon it, are fundamental to our national welfare. The first step ever -taken toward the solution of these problems was taken by the Country -Life Commission appointed by me, opposed with venomous hostility by -the foolish reactionaries in Congress, and abandoned by my successor. -Congress would not even print the report of this commission, and it -was the public-spirited, far-sighted action of the Spokane Chamber of -Commerce which alone secured the publication of the report. The farmers -must organize as business men and wage-workers have organized, and the -Government must help them organize.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="THE_BUSINESS_WORLD">THE BUSINESS WORLD</h3> - -</div> - -<p>I<span class="smaller">N</span> dealing with business, the Progressive party is the only party which -has put forth a rational and comprehensive plan. We believe that the -business world must change from a competitive to a coöperate basis. We -absolutely repudiate the theory that any good whatever can come from -confining ourselves solely to the effort to reproduce the dead-and-gone -conditions of sixty years ago—conditions of uncontrolled competition -between competitors most of whom were small and weak. The reason that -the trusts have grown to such enormous size is to be found primarily in -the fact that we relied upon the competitive principle and the absence -of governmental interference to solve the problems of industry. Their -growth is specifically and precisely due to the practice of the archaic -doctrines advocated by President Wilson under the pleasingly delusive -title of the “New Freedom.”</p> - -<p>We hold that all such efforts to reproduce dead-and-gone conditions -are bound to result in failure or worse than failure. The breaking-up -of the Standard Oil Trust, for example, has not produced the very -smallest benefit. It has merely resulted in enormously increasing -the already excessive profits of a small number of persons. Not the -smallest benefit would accrue—on the contrary, harm would result—if -in dealing with the Steel Corporation we merely substituted for one -such big corporation four or five smaller corporations of the stamp of -the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. The “Survey” published a study of the -conditions of life and labor among the wage-workers of this company -which it is not too much to de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_834" id="Page_834">[Pg 834]</a></span>scribe as appalling. The effort to -remedy conditions in connection with the trusts by the establishment, -instead of one big company, of four such companies engaged in cutthroat -competition, cannot work the smallest betterment, and would probably -work appreciable harm. That kind of “new” freedom is nothing whatever -but the old, old license for the powerful to prey on the feeble.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="COMPETITION_AND_CORPORATIONS">COMPETITION AND CORPORATIONS</h3> - -</div> - -<p>T<span class="smaller">HERE</span> is a very real need of governmental action, but it should be -action along a totally different line. The result of the unlimited -action of the competition system is seen at this moment in the -bituminous coal-mines of West Virginia, where the independent -operators, in the ferocity of their unregulated competition, and partly -because they are forbidden to combine even for useful purposes, seek -their profit in the merciless exploitation of the wage-workers who -toil for them. The law, in the strict spirit of the “new freedom,” -forbids them to combine for a useful purpose, and yet offers no check -upon their dealing with their employees in a spirit of brutal greed. -What is needed is thoroughgoing, efficient, and, if necessary, drastic -supervision and control of the great corporations doing an interstate -business, by means of a Federal administrative body akin in its -functions to the Interstate Commerce Commission. This body should have -power not only to enforce publicity, but to secure justice and fair -treatment to investors, wage-workers, business rivals, consumers, and -the general public alike.</p> - -<p>Such an industrial commission should do as the Interstate Commerce -Commission should do, that is, remember always its dual duty, the -duty to the corporation and individual controlled no less than to the -public. It is an absolute necessity that the investors, the owners, of -an honest, useful, and decently managed concern, should have reasonable -profit. It is impossible to run business unless this is done. Unless -the business man prospers, there will be no prosperity for the rest of -the community to share. He must have certainty of law and opportunity -for honest and reasonable profit under the law.</p> - -<p>Experience has proved that we cannot afford to leave the great -corporations to determine for themselves without governmental -supervision how they shall treat their employees, their rivals, their -customers, and the general public. But experience has no less shown -that it is as fatal for the agents of government to be unjust to the -corporation as to fail to secure justice from them. In dealing with -railways, for example, it is just as important that rates should not -be too low as that they should not be too high. The living wage and -the living rate are interdependent. In dealing with useful, honestly -organized, and honestly managed railways, rates must be kept high -enough to permit of proper wages and proper hours of labor for the men -on the railroad, and to permit the company to pay compensation for the -lives and limbs of those employees who suffer in doing its business; -and at the same time to secure a reasonable reward to the investors—a -reward sufficient to make them desirous to continue in this type -of investment. Precisely the same course of action which should be -followed in dealing with the railroads should also be followed by the -Interstate Industrial Commission in dealing with the great industrial -corporations engaged in interstate business.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="TAXATION">TAXATION</h3> - -</div> - -<p>W<span class="smaller">E</span> believe that great fortunes, even when accumulated by the man -himself, are of limited benefit to the country, and that they are -detrimental rather than beneficial when secured through inheritance. -We therefore believe in a heavily progressive inheritance tax—a tax -which shall bear very lightly on small or ordinary inheritances, but -which shall bear very heavily upon all inheritances of colossal size. -We believe in a heavily graded income tax, along the same lines, but -discriminating sharply in favor of earned, as compared with unearned, -incomes.</p> - -<p>It would be needless and burdensome to set forth in detail all the -matters, national, state, and municipal, to which we would apply -our principles. We believe that municipalities should have complete -self-government as regards all the affairs that are exclusively their -own, including the important matter of taxation, and that the burden -of municipal taxation should be so shifted as to put the weight of -land<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_835" id="Page_835">[Pg 835]</a></span> taxation upon the unearned rise in value of the land itself -rather than upon the improvements, the buildings; the effort being to -prevent the undue rise of rent. We regard it as peculiarly the province -of the government to supervise tenement-houses, to secure proper -living conditions, and to erect parks and playgrounds in the congested -districts, and to use the schools as social centers.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="THE_PEOPLE_AND_THE_LAW">THE PEOPLE AND THE LAWS</h3> - -</div> - -<p>W<span class="smaller">E</span> hold that all the agencies of government belong to the people, that -the Constitution is theirs, and that the courts are theirs. The people -should exercise their power, not to overthrow either the Constitution -or the courts, but to overthrow those who would pervert them into -agents against the popular welfare. We believe that where a public -servant misrepresents the people, the people should have the right -to remove him from office, and that where the legislature enacts a -law which it should not enact or fails to enact a law which it should -enact, the people should have the right on their own initiative to -supply the omission. We do not believe that either power should be -loosely or wantonly used, and we would provide for its exercise in a -way which would make its exercise safe; but the power is necessary, and -it should be provided.</p> - -<p>We hold, moreover, with the utmost emphasis, that the people themselves -should have the right to decide for themselves after due deliberation -what laws are to be placed upon the statute-books and what construction -is to be placed upon the constitutions, national and state, by the -courts, so far as concerns all laws for social and industrial justice. -This proposal has nothing whatever to do with any ordinary case at -law. It has nothing to do with the exercise by the judge of judicial -functions, or with his decision in any issue merely between man and -man. It has to do only with the exercise by the court of political -and legislative functions. We believe that it is wise to continue the -American practice of using the courts as a check upon the legislature -in this manner, but only so long as it is possible, in the event of -conflict between the legislature and the court, to call in as arbiter -the people who are the masters of both legislature and court, and whose -own vital interests are at issue. The court and the legislature alike -are the servants of the people, and they are dealing with the interests -of the people; and the people, the masters of both, have the right to -decide between them when their own most intimate concerns are at stake.</p> - -<p>The present process of constitutional amendment is too long, too -cumbrous, and too uncertain to afford an adequate remedy, and, -moreover, after the amendment has been carried, the law must once more -be submitted to the same court which was, perhaps, originally at fault, -in order to decide whether the new law comes within the amendment. -Provision should be made by which, after due deliberation, the people -should be given the right themselves to decide whether or not a -given law passed in the exercise of the police power for social or -industrial betterment and declared by the court to be unconstitutional, -shall, notwithstanding this, become part of the law of the land. This -proposal has caused genuine alarm and been treated as revolutionary; -but opposition to it can proceed only from complete misunderstanding -both of the proposal and of the needs of the situation. Of course, -however, the selfish opposition of the great corporation lawyers and -of their clients is entirely intelligent; for these men alone are the -beneficiaries of the present reign of hidden, of invisible, government, -and they rely primarily on well-meaning but reactionary courts to -thwart the forward movement.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="NO_DIVINE_RIGHTS_OF_JUDGES">NO DIVINE RIGHT OF JUDGES</h3> - -</div> - -<p>C<span class="smaller">ONCRETELY</span> to illustrate just what we mean, our assertion is that the -people have the right to decide for themselves whether or not they -desire a workmen’s compensation law, or a law limiting the number of -hours of women in industry, or deciding whether in unhealthy bakeshops -wage-workers shall be employed more than a certain length of time per -day, or providing for the safeguarding of dangerous machinery, or -insisting upon the payment of wages in cash, or assuming and exercising -full power over the conduct of corporations—the power denied by the -court in connection with the Knight Sugar Case, but finally secured to -the people by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_836" id="Page_836">[Pg 836]</a></span> decision in the Northern securities case. Every one -of these laws has been denied to the people, again and again, both by -national and by state judges in various parts of the Union.</p> - -<p>We hold emphatically that these matters are not properly matters for -final judicial decision. The judges have no special opportunity and no -special ability to determine the justice or injustice, the desirability -or undesirability, of legislation of such a character. Indeed, in most -cases, although not in all, the judges in the higher courts are so out -of touch with the conditions of life affected by social and industrial -legislation on behalf of the humble that they are peculiarly unfit to -say whether the legislation is wise or the reverse. Moreover, whether -they are fit or unfit, it is not their province to decide what the -people ought or ought not to desire in matters of this kind. They are -not law-makers; they were not elected or appointed for such purpose. -They are not censors of the public in this matter. We do not purpose to -exalt the legislature at their expense. We do not accept the view so -common in other countries that the legislature should be the supreme -source of power. On the contrary, our experience has been that the -legislature is quite as apt to act unwisely as any other governmental -body; and it is because of this fact that the experiment of so-called -commission government in cities is being so widely tried. We respect -the judges, we think that they are more apt on the whole to be good -public servants than any other men in office; but we as emphatically -refuse to subscribe to the doctrine of the divine right of judges as -to the doctrine of the divine right of kings. We are not specially -concerned with the question as to which of two public servants, the -court or the legislature, shall have the upper hand of the other; but -we are vitally concerned in seeing that the people have the upper hand -over both. Any argument against our position on this point is merely -an argument against democracy.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="THE_KEYSTONE_OF_PROGRESSIVISM">THE KEYSTONE OF PROGRESSIVISM</h3> - -</div> - -<p>M<span class="smaller">OREOVER</span>, any professed adherence to our other doctrines, while at the -same time this doctrine is repudiated, means nothing. During the last -forty years the beneficiaries of reaction have found in the courts -their main allies; and this condition, so unfortunate for the courts, -no less than for the people, has been due to our governmental failure -to furnish methods by which an appeal can be taken directly to the -people when, in any such case as the cases I have above enumerated, -there is an issue between the court and the legislature. It is idle to -profess devotion to our Progressive proposals for social and industrial -betterment if at the same time there is opposition to the one -additional proposal by which they can be made effective. It is useless -to advocate the passing of laws for social justice if we permit these -laws to be annulled with impunity by the courts, or by any one else, -after they have been passed. This proposition is a vital point in the -Progressive program.</p> - -<p>To sum up, then, our position is, after all, simple. We believe that -the government should concern itself chiefly with the matters that are -of most importance to the average man and average woman, and that it -should be its special province to aid in making the conditions of life -easier for these ordinary men and ordinary women, who compose the great -bulk of our people. To this end we believe that the people should have -direct control over their own governmental agencies; and that when this -control has been secured, it should be used with resolution, but with -sanity and self-restraint, in the effort to make conditions of life and -labor a little easier, a little fairer and better for the men and women -of the nation.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> -Copyright, 1913, by The Century Co. All rights reserved. -The republication of this article, either in whole or in part, is -expressly prohibited, except through special arrangement with The -Century Co.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter mtop3"> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_836" name="i_836"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe50" src="images/i_836.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Half-tone plate engraved by C. W. Chadwick</p> - <p class="caption">ALPHONSE DAUDET</p> - <p class="caption1">A PORTRAIT SKETCH, DRAWN FROM THE LIFE, BY JOHN ALEXANDER</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_836_large.jpg" id="i_836_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_837" id="Page_837">[Pg 837]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="DEY_AINT_NO_GHOSTS">“DEY AIN’T NO GHOSTS”</h2> - -</div> - -<p class="s3 center mbot1">BY ELLIS PARKER BUTLER</p> - -<p class="s6 center">Author of “Pigs is Pigs,” “Long Sam ’Takes Out,’” etc.</p> - -<p class="s4 center">WITH PICTURES BY CHARLES SARKA</p> - -<p class="p0 mtop2"><span class="drop-cap">O</span>NCE ’pon a time dey was a li’l’ black boy whut he name was Mose. -An’ whin he come erlong to be ’bout knee-high to a mewel, he ’gin to -git powerful ’fraid ob ghosts, ’ca’se dat am sure a mighty ghostly -location whut he lib’ in, ’ca’se dey’s a grabeyard in de hollow, an’ a -buryin’-ground on de hill, an’ a cemuntary in betwixt an’ between, an’ -dey ain’t nuffin’ but trees nowhar excipt in de clearin’ by de shanty -an’ down de hollow whar de pumpkin-patch am.</p> - -<p>An’ whin de night come’ erlong, dey ain’t no sounds <i>at</i> all whut -kin be heard in dat locality but de rain-doves, whut mourn out, -“Oo-<i>oo</i>-o-o-o!” jes dat trembulous <i>an’</i> scary, an’ de owls, whut -mourn out, “Whut-<i>whoo</i>-o-o-o!” more trembulous an’ scary dan dat, an’ -de wind, whut mourn out, “You-<i>you</i>-o-o-o!” mos’ scandalous’ trembulous -an’ scary ob all. Dat a powerful onpleasant locality for a li’l’ black -boy whut he name was Mose.</p> - -<p>’Ca’se dat li’l’ black boy he so specially black he can’t be seen in de -dark <i>at</i> all ’cept by de whites ob he eyes. So whin he go’ outen de -house <i>at</i> night, he ain’t dast shut he eyes, ’ca’se den ain’t nobody -can see him in de least. He jes as invidsible as nuffin’. An’ who -know’ but whut a great, big ghost bump right into him ’ca’se it can’t -see him? An’ dat shore w’u’d scare dat li’l’ black boy powerful’ bad, -’ca’se yever’body knows whut a cold, damp pussonality a ghost is.</p> - -<p>So whin dat li’l’ black Mose go’ outen de shanty at night, he keep’ -he eyes wide open, you may be shore. By day he eyes ’bout de size ob -butter-pats, an’ come sundown he eyes ’bout de size ob saucers; but -whin he go’ outen de shanty at night, he eyes am de size ob de white -chiny plate whut set on de mantel; an’ it powerful’ hard to keep eyes -whut am de size oh dat from a-winkin’ an’ a-blinkin’.</p> - -<p>So whin Hallowe’en come’ erlong, dat li’l’ black Mose he jes mek’ -up he mind he ain’t gwine outen he shack <i>at</i> all. He cogitate’ he -gwine stay right snug in de shack wid he pa an’ he ma, ’ca’se de -rain-doves tek notice dat de ghosts are philanderin’ roun’ de country, -’ca’se dey mourn out, “Oo-<i>oo</i>-o-o-o!” an’ de owls dey mourn out, -“Whut-<i>whoo</i>-o-o-o!” an’ de wind mourn out, “You-<i>you</i>-o-o-o!” De eyes -ob dat li’l’ black Mose dey as big as de white chiny plate whut set on -de mantel by side de clock, an’ de sun jes a-settin’.</p> - -<p>So dat all right. Li’l’ black Mose he scrooge’ back in de corner by -de fireplace, an’ he ’low’ he gwine stay dere till he gwine <i>to</i> bed. -But byme-by Sally Ann, whut live’ up de road, draps in, an’ Mistah -Sally Ann, whut is her husban’, he draps in, an’ Zack Badget an’ de -school-teacher whut board’ at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house drap in, an’ a -powerful lot ob folks drap in. An’ li’l’ black Mose he seen dat gwine -be one s’prise-party, an’ he right down cheerful ’bout dat.</p> - -<p>So all dem folks shake dere hands an’ ’low “Howdy,” an’ some ob dem -say: “Why, dere’s li’l’ Mose! Howdy, li’l’ Mose!” An’ he so please’ -he jes grin’ an’ grin’, ’ca’se he ain’t reckon whut gwine happen. So -byme-by Sally Ann, whut live up de road, she say’, “Ain’t no sort o’ -Hallowe’en lest we got a jack-o’-lantern.” An’ de school-teacher, -whut board at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, she ’low’, “Hallowe’en jes no -Hallowe’en <i>at</i> all ’thout we got a jack-o’-lantern.” An’ li’l’ black -Mose he stop’ a-grinnin’, an’ he scrooge’ so far back in de corner he -’mos’ scrooge frough de wall. But dat ain’t no use, ’ca’se he ma say’, -“Mose, go on down to de pumpkin-patch an’ fotch a pumpkin.”</p> - -<p>“I ain’t want to go,” say’ li’l’ black Mose.</p> - -<p>“Go on erlong wid yo’,” say’ he ma, right commandin’.</p> - -<p>“I ain’t want to go,” say’ Mose ag’in.</p> - -<p>“Why ain’t yo’ want to go?” he ma ask’.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_838" id="Page_838">[Pg 838]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_838" name="i_838"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe41_25" src="images/i_838.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawn by Charles Sarka</p> - <p class="caption">“‘WHUT YO’ WANT TO SAY UNTO ME?’ <i>IN</i>QUIRE’ LI’L’ - BLACK MOSE”</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">“’Ca’se I’s afraid ob de ghosts,” say’ li’l’ black Mose, an’ dat de -particular truth an’ no mistake.</p> - -<p>“Dey ain’t no ghosts,” say’ de school-teacher, whut board at Unc’ Silas -Diggs’s house, right peart.</p> - -<p>“’Ca’se dey ain’t no ghosts,” say’ Zack Badget, whut dat ’fear’d -ob ghosts he ain’t dar’ come to li’l’ black Mose’s house ef de -school-teacher ain’t ercompany him.</p> - -<p>“Go ’long wid your ghosts!” say’ li’l’ black Mose’s ma.</p> - -<p>“Wha’ yo’ pick up dat nomsense?” say’ he pa. “Dey ain’t no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>An’ dat whut all dat s’prise-party ’low: dey ain’t no ghosts. An’ dey -’low dey mus’ hab a jack-o’-lantern or de fun all sp’iled. So dat li’l’ -black boy whut he name is Mose he done got to fotch a pumpkin from de -pumpkin-patch down de hollow. So he step’ outen de shanty an’ he stan’ -on de door-step twell he get’ he eyes pried open as big as de bottom ob -he ma’s wash-tub, mostly, an’ he say’, “Dey ain’t no ghosts.” An’ he -put’ one foot on de ground, an’ dat was de fust step.</p> - -<p>An’ de rain-dove say’, “Oo-<i>oo</i>-o-o-o!”</p> - -<p>An’ li’l’ black Mose he tuck anudder step.</p> - -<p>An’ de owl mourn’ out, “Whut-<i>whoo</i>-o-o-o!”</p> - -<p>An’ li’l’ black Mose he tuck anudder step.</p> - -<p>An’ de wind sob’ out, “You-<i>you</i>-o-o-o!”</p> - -<p>An’ li’l’ black Mose he tuck one look ober he shoulder, an’ he shut he -eyes so tight dey hurt round de aidges, an’ he pick’ up he foots an’ -run. Yas, sah, he run’ right peart fast. An’ he say’: “Dey ain’t no -ghosts. Dey ain’t no ghosts.” An’ he run’ erlong de paff whut lead’ -by de buryin’-ground on de hill, ’ca’se dey ain’t no fince eround dat -buryin’-ground <i>at</i> all.</p> - -<p>No fince; jes de big trees whut de owls an’ de rain-doves sot in an’ -mourn an’ sob, an’ whut de wind sigh an’ cry frough. An’ byme-by -somefin’ jes <i>brush’</i> li’l’ Mose on de arm, which mek’ him run jes -a bit more faster. An’ byme-by somefin’ jes <i>brush’</i> li’l’ Mose on -de cheek, which mek’ him run erbout as fast as he can. An’ byme-by -somefin’ <i>grab’</i> li’l’ Mose by de aidge of he coat, an’ he fight’ an’ -struggle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_839" id="Page_839">[Pg 839]</a></span>’ an’ cry’ out: “Dey ain’t no ghosts. Dey ain’t no ghosts.” -An’ dat ain’t nuffin’ but de wild brier whut grab’ him, an’ dat ain’t -nuffin’ but de leaf ob a tree whut brush’ he cheek, an’ dat ain’t -nuffin’ but de branch ob a hazel-bush whut brush’ he arm. But he -downright scared jes de same, an’ he ain’t lose no time, ’ca’se de wind -an’ de owls an’ de rain-doves dey signerfy whut ain’t no good. So he -scoot’ past dat buryin’-ground whut on de hill, an’ dat cemuntary whut -betwixt an’ between, an’ dat grabeyard in de hollow, twell he come’ -to de pumpkin-patch, an’ he rotch’ down an’ tek’ erhold ob de bestest -pumpkin whut in de patch. An’ he right smart scared. He jes de mostest -scared li’l’ black boy whut yever was. He ain’t gwine open he eyes -fo’ nuffin’, ’ca’se de wind go, “You-<i>you</i>-o-o-o!” an’ de owls go, -“Whut-<i>whoo</i>-o-o-o!” an’ de rain-doves go, “Oo-<i>oo</i>-o-o-o!”</p> - -<p>He jes speculate’, “Dey ain’t no ghosts,” an’ wish’ he hair don’t stand -on ind dat way. An’ he jes cogitate’, “Dey ain’t no ghosts,” an’ wish’ -he goose-pimples don’t rise up dat way. An’ he jes ’low’, “Dey ain’t no -ghosts,” an’ wish’ he backbone ain’t all trembulous wid chills dat way. -So he rotch’ down, an’ he rotch’ down, twell he git’ a good hold on dat -pricklesome stem of dat bestest pumpkin whut in de patch, an’ he jes -yank’ dat stem wid all he might.</p> - -<p>“<i>Let loosen my head!</i>” say’ a big voice all on a suddent.</p> - -<p>Dat li’l’ black boy whut he name is Mose he jump’ ’most outen he skin. -He open’ he eyes, an’ he ’gin’ to shake like de aspen-tree, ’ca’se whut -dat a-standin’ right dar behint him but a ’mendjous big ghost! Yas, -sah, dat de bigges’, whites’ ghost whut yever was. An’ it ain’t got no -head. Ain’t got no head <i>at</i> all! Li’l’ black Mose he jes drap’ on he -knees an’ he beg’ an’ pray’:</p> - -<p>“Oh, ’scuse me! ’Scuse me, Mistah Ghost!” he beg’. “Ah ain’t mean no -harm <i>at</i> all.”</p> - -<p>“Whut for you try to take my head?” ask’ de ghost in dat fearsome voice -whut like de damp wind outen de cellar.</p> - -<p>“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me!” beg’ li’l’ Mose. “Ah ain’t know dat was yo’ -head, an’ I ain’t know you was dar <i>at</i> all. ’Scuse me!”</p> - -<p>“Ah ’scuse you ef you do me dis favor,” say’ de ghost. “Ah got -somefin’ powerful <i>im</i>portant to say unto you, an’ Ah can’t say hit -’ca’se Ah ain’t got no head; an’ whin Ah ain’t got no head, Ah ain’t -got no mouf, an’ whin Ah ain’t got no mouf, Ah can’t talk <i>at</i> all.”</p> - -<p>An’ dat right logical fo’ shore. Can’t nobody talk whin he ain’t got no -mouf, an’ can’t nobody have no mouf whin he ain’t got no head, an’ whin -li’l’ black Mose he look’, he see’ dat ghost ain’t got no head <i>at</i> -all. Nary head.</p> - -<p>So de ghost say’:</p> - -<p>“Ah come on down yere fo’ to git a pumpkin fo’ a head, an’ Ah pick’ dat -<i>ix</i>act pumpkin whut yo’ gwine tek, an’ Ah don’t like dat one bit. No, -sah. Ah feel like Ah pick yo’ up an’ carry yo’ away, an’ nobody see you -no more for yever. But Ah got somefin’ powerful <i>im</i>portant to say unto -yo’, an’ if yo’ pick up dat pumpkin an’ sot it on de place whar my head -ought to be, Ah let you off dis time, ’ca’se Ah ain’t been able to talk -fo’ so long Ah right hongry to say somefin’.”</p> - -<p>So li’l’ black Mose he heft up dat pumpkin, an’ de ghost he bend’ down, -an’ li’l’ black Mose he sot dat pumpkin on dat ghostses neck. An’ right -off dat pumpkin head ’gin’ to wink an’ blink like a jack-o’-lantern, -an’ right off dat pumpkin head ’gin’ to glimmer an’ glow frough de mouf -like a jack-o’-lantern, an’ right off dat ghost start’ to speak. Yas, -sah, dass so.</p> - -<p>“Whut yo’ want to say unto me?” <i>in</i>quire’ li’l’ black Mose.</p> - -<p>“Ah want to tell yo’,” say’ de ghost, “dat yo’ ain’t need yever be -skeered of ghosts, ’ca’se dey ain’t no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>An’ whin he say dat, de ghost jes vanish’ away like de smoke in July. -He ain’t even linger round dat locality like de smoke in Yoctober. He -jes dissipate’ outen de air, an’ he gone <i>in</i>tirely.</p> - -<p>So li’l’ Mose he grab’ up de nex’ bestest pumpkin an’ he scoot’. An’ -whin he come’ to de grabeyard in de hollow, he goin’ erlong same as -yever, on’y faster, whin he reckon’ he’ll pick up a club <i>in</i> case he -gwine have trouble. An’ he rotch’ down an rotch’ down an’ tek’ hold of -a likely appearin’ hunk o’ wood what right dar. An’ whin he grab’ dat -hunk of wood—</p> - -<p>“<i>Let loosen my leg!</i>” say’ a big voice all on a suddent.</p> - -<p>Dat li’l’ black boy ’most jump’ outen he skin, ’ca’se right dar in de -paff is six<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_840" id="Page_840">[Pg 840]</a></span> ’mendjus big ghostes, an’ de bigges’ ain’t got but one -leg. So li’l’ black Mose jes natchully handed dat hunk of wood to dat -bigges’ ghost, an’ he say’:</p> - -<p>“’Scuse me, Mistah Ghost; Ah ain’t know dis your leg.”</p> - -<p>An’ whut dem six ghostes do but stand round an’ confabulate? Yas, sah, -dass so. An’ whin dey do so, one say’:</p> - -<p>“’Pears like dis a mighty likely li’l’ black boy. Whut we gwine do fo’ -to <i>re</i>ward him fo’ politeness?”</p> - -<p>An’ anudder say’:</p> - -<p>“Tell him whut de truth is ’bout ghostes.”</p> - -<p>So de bigges’ ghost he say’:</p> - -<p>“Ah gwine tell yo’ somefin’ <i>im</i>portant whut yever’body don’t know: Dey -<i>ain’t</i> no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>An’ whin he say’ dat, de ghostes jes natchully vanish away, an’ li’l’ -black Mose he proceed’ up de paff. He so scared he hair jes yank’ -at de roots, an’ whin de wind go’, “Oo-<i>oo</i>-o-o-o!” an de owl go’, -“Whut-<i>whoo</i>-o-o-o!” an’ de rain-doves go, “You-<i>you</i>-o-o-o!” he jes -tremble’ an’ shake’. An’ byme-by he come’ to de cemuntary whut betwixt -an’ between, an’ he shore is mighty skeered, ’ca’se dey is a whole -comp’ny of ghostes lined up along de road, an’ he ’low’ he ain’t gwine -spind no more time palaverin’ wid ghostes. So he step’ offen de road -fo’ to go round erbout, an’ he step’ on a pine-stump whut lay right dar.</p> - -<p>“<i>Git offen my chest!</i>” say’ a big voice all on a suddent, ’ca’se dat -stump am been selected by de captain ob de ghostes for to be he chest, -’ca’se he ain’t got no chest betwixt he shoulders an’ he legs. An’ -li’l’ black Mose he hop’ offen dat stump right peart. Yes, <i>sah</i>; right -peart.</p> - -<p>“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me!” dat li’l’ black Mose beg’ an’ plead’, an’ de -ghostes ain’t know whuther to eat him all up or not, ’ca’se he step’ -on de boss ghostes’s chest dat a-way. But byme-by they ’low they let -him go ’ca’se dat was an accident, an’ de captain ghost he say’, “Mose, -you Mose, Ah gwine let you off dis time, ’ca’se you ain’t nuffin’ but a -misabul li’l’ tremblin’ nigger; but Ah want you should <i>re</i>mimber one -thing mos’ particular’.”</p> - -<p>“Ya-yas, sah,” say’ dat li’l’ black boy; “Ah, ’ll remimber. Whut is dat -Ah got to remimber?”</p> - -<p>De captain ghost he swell’ up, an’ he swell’ up, twell he as big as a -house, an’ he say’ in a voice whut shake’ de ground:</p> - -<p>“Dey ain’t no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>So li’l’ black Mose he bound to remimber dat, an’ he rise’ up an’ mek’ -a bow, an’ he proceed’ toward home right libely. He do, indeed.</p> - -<p>An’ he gwine along jes as fast as he kin, whin he come’ to de aidge -ob de buryin’-ground whut on de hill, an’ right dar he bound to -stop, ’ca’se de kentry round about am so populate’ he ain’t able to -go frough. Yas, sah, seem’ like all de ghostes in de world habin’ a -conferince right dar. Seem’ like all de ghosteses whut yever was am -havin’ a convintion on dat spot. An’ dat li’l’ black Mose so skeered he -jes fall’ down on a’ old log whut dar an’ screech’ an’ moan’. An’ all -on a suddent de log up and spoke:</p> - -<p>“<i>Get offen me! Get offen me!</i>” yell’ dat log.</p> - -<p>So li’l’ black Mose he git’ offen dat log, an’ no mistake.</p> - -<p>An’ soon as he git’ offen de log, de log uprise, an’ li’l’ black Mose -he see’ dat dat log am de king ob all de ghostes. An’ whin de king -uprise, all de congergation crowd round li’l’ black Mose, an’ dey am -about leben millium an’ a few lift over. Yas, sah; dat de reg’lar -annyul Hallowe’en convintion whut li’l’ black Mose interrup’. Right dar -am all de sperits in de world, an’ all de ha’nts in de world, an’ all -de hobgoblins in de world, an’ all de ghouls in de world, an’ all de -spicters in de world, an’ all de ghostes in de world. An’ whin dey see -li’l’ black Mose, dey all gnash dey teef an’ grin’ ’ca’se it gettin’ -erlong toward dey-all’s lunch-time. So de king, whut he name old -Skull-an’-Bones, he step’ on top ob li’l’ Mose’s head, an’ he say’:</p> - -<p>“Gin’l’min, de convintion will come to order. De sicretary please note -who is prisint. De firs’ business whut come’ before de convintion am: -whut we gwine do to a li’l’ black boy whut stip’ on de king an’ maul’ -all ober de king an’ treat’ de king dat disrespictful’.”</p> - -<p>An’ li’l’ black Mose jes moan’ an’ sob’:</p> - -<p>“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me, Mistah King! Ah ain’t mean no harm <i>at</i> all.”</p> - -<p>But nobody ain’t pay no <i>at</i>tintion to him <i>at</i> all, ’ca’se yevery one -lookin’ at a monstrous big ha’nt whut name Bloody Bones, whut rose up -an’ spoke.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_842" id="Page_842">[Pg 842]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_841" name="i_841"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe34_5" src="images/i_841.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawn by Charles Sarka</p> - <p class="caption">“’YERE’S DE PUMPKIN’”</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_841_large.jpg" id="i_841_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">“Your Honor, Mistah King, an’ gin’l’min <i>an’</i> ladies,” he say’, “dis am -a right bad case ob <i>lazy majesty</i>, ’ca’se de king been step on. Whin -yivery li’l’ black boy whut choose’ gwine wander round <i>at</i> night an’ -stip on de king ob ghostes, it ain’t no time for to palaver, it ain’t -no time for to prevaricate, it ain’t no time for to cogitate, it ain’t -no time do nuffin’ but tell de truth, an’ de whole truth, an’ nuffin’ -but de truth.”</p> - -<p>An’ all dem ghostes sicond de motion, an’ dey confabulate out -loud erbout dat, an’ de noise soun’ like de rain-doves goin’, -“Oo-<i>oo</i>-o-o-o!” an’ de owls goin’, “Whut-<i>whoo</i>-o-o-o!” an’ de wind -goin’, “You-<i>you</i>-o-o-o!” So dat risolution am passed unanermous, an’ -no mistake.</p> - -<p>So de king ob de ghostes, whut name old Skull-an’-Bones, he place’ he -hand on de head ob li’l’ black Mose, an’ he hand feel like a wet rag, -an’ he say’:</p> - -<p>“Dey ain’t no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>An’ one ob de hairs whut on de head ob li’l’ black Mose turn’ white.</p> - -<p>An’ de monstrous big ha’nt whut he name Bloody Bones he lay he hand on -de head ob li’l’ black Mose, an’ he hand feel like a toadstool in de -cool ob de day, an’ he say’:</p> - -<p>“Dey ain’t no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>An’ anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li’l’ black Mose turn’ white.</p> - -<p>An’ a heejus sperit whut he name Moldy Pa’m place’ he hand on de head -ob li’l’ black Mose, an’ he hand feel like de yunner side ob a lizard, -an’ he say’:</p> - -<p>“Dey ain’t no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>An’ anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li’l’ black Mose turn’ white -<i>as</i> snow.</p> - -<p>An’ a perticklar bend-up hobgoblin he put’ he hand on de head ob li’l’ -black Mose, an’ he mek’ dat same <i>re</i>mark, an’ dat whole convintion ob -ghostes an’ spicters an’ ha’nts an’ yiver’thing, which am more ’n a -millium, pass by so quick dey-all’s hands feel lak de wind whut blow -outen de cellar whin de day am hot, an’ dey-all say, “Dey ain’t no -ghosts.” Yas, sah, dey-all say dem wo’ds so fas’ it soun’ like de wind -whin it moan frough de turkentine-trees whut behind de cider-priss. -An’ yivery hair whut on li’l’ black Mose’s head turn’ white. Dat whut -happen’ whin a li’l’ black boy gwine meet a ghost convintion dat-a-way. -Dat’s so he ain’ gwine forgit to remimber dey ain’t no ghostes. ’Ca’se -ef a li’l’ black boy gwine imaginate dey <i>is</i> ghostes, he gwine be -skeered in de dark. An’ dat a foolish thing for to imaginate.</p> - -<p>So prisintly all de ghostes am whiff away, like de fog outen de holler -whin de wind blow’ on it, an’ li’l’ black Mose he ain’ see no ’ca’se -for to remain in dat locality no longer. He rotch’ down, an’ he raise’ -up de pumpkin, an’ he perambulate’ right quick to he ma’s shack, an’ he -lift’ up de latch, an’ he open’ de do’, an’ he yenter’ in. An’ he say’:</p> - -<p>“Yere’s de pumpkin.”</p> - -<p>An’ he ma an’ he pa, an’ Sally Ann, whut live up de road, an’ Mistah -Sally Ann, whut her husban’, an’ Zack Badget, an’ de school-teacher -whut board at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, an’ all de powerful lot of -folks whut come to de doin’s, dey all scrooged back in de cornder -ob de shack, ’ca’se Zack Badget he been done tell a ghost-tale, -an’ de rain-doves gwine, “Oo-<i>oo</i>-o-o-o!” an’ de owls am gwine, -“Whut-<i>whoo</i>-o-o-o!” and de wind it gwine, “You-<i>you</i>-o-o-o!” an’ -yiver’body powerful skeered. ’Ca’se li’l’ black Mose he come’ -a-fumblin’ an’ a-rattlin’ at de do’ jes whin dat ghost-tale mos’ -skeery, an’ yiver’body gwine imaginate dat he a ghost a-fumblin’ an’ -a-rattlin’ at de do’. Yas, sah. So li’l’ black Mose he turn’ he white -head, an’ he look’ roun’ an’ peer’ roun’, an’ he say’:</p> - -<p>“Whut you all skeered fo’?”</p> - -<p>’Ca’se ef anybody skeered, he want’ to be skeered, too. Dat’s natural. -But de school-teacher, whut live at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, she say’:</p> - -<p>“Fo’ de lan’s sake, we fought you was a ghost!”</p> - -<p>So li’l’ black Mose he sort ob sniff an’ he sort ob sneer, an’ he ’low’:</p> - -<p>“Huh! dey ain’t no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>Den he ma she powerful took back dat li’l’ black Mose he gwine be so -uppetish an’ contrydict folks whut know ’rifmeticks an’ algebricks an’ -gin’ral countin’ widout fingers, like de school-teacher whut board at -Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house knows, an’ she say’:</p> - -<p>“Huh! whut you know ’bout ghosts, anner ways?”</p> - -<p>An’ li’l’ black Mose he jes kinder stan’ on one foot, an’ he jes kinder -suck’ he thumb, an’ he jes kinder ’low’:</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_843" id="Page_843">[Pg 843]</a></span></p> -<p>“I don’ know nuffin’ erbout ghosts, ’ca’se dey ain’t no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>So he pa gwine whop him fo’ tellin’ a fib ’bout dey ain’ no ghosts whin -yiver’body know’ dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at -Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, she tek’ note de hair ob li’l’ black Mose’s -head am plumb white, an’ she tek’ note li’l’ black Mose’s face am de -color ob wood-ash, so she jes retch’ one arm round dat li’l’ black boy, -an’ she jes snuggle’ him up, an’ she say’:</p> - -<p>“Honey lamb, don’t you be skeered; ain’ nobody gwine hurt you. How you -know dey ain’t no ghosts?”</p> - -<p>An’ li’l’ black Mose he kinder lean’ up ’g’inst de school-teacher whut -board at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, an’ he ’low’:</p> - -<p>“’Ca’se—’ca’se—’ca’se I met de cap’n ghost, an’ I met de gin’ral -ghost, an’ I met de king ghost, an’ I met all de ghostes whut yiver was -in de whole worl’, an’ yivery ghost say’ de same thing: ’Dey ain’t no -ghosts.’ An’ if de cap’n ghost an’ de gin’ral ghost an’ de king ghost -an’ all de ghostes in de whole worl’ don’ know ef dar am ghostes, who -does?”</p> - -<p>“Das right; das right, honey lamb,” say’ de school-teacher. And she -say’: “I been s’picious dey ain’ no ghostes dis long whiles, an’ now I -know. Ef all de ghostes say dey ain’ no ghosts, dey <i>ain’</i> no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>So yiver’body ’low’ dat so ’cep’ Zack Badget, whut been tellin’ de -ghost-tale, an’ he ain’ gwine say “Yis” an’ he ain’ gwine say “No,” -’ca’se he right sweet on de school-teacher; but he know right well he -done seen plinty ghostes in he day. So he boun’ to be sure fust. So he -say’ to li’l’ black Mose:</p> - -<p>“’T ain’ likely you met up wid a monstrous big ha’nt what live’ down de -lane whut he name Bloody Bones?”</p> - -<p>“Yas,” say’ li’l’ black Mose; “I done met up wid him.”</p> - -<p>“An’ did old Bloody Bones done tol’ you dey ain’ no ghosts?” say Zack -Badget.</p> - -<p>“Yas,” say’ li’l’ black Mose, “he done tell me perzackly dat.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if <i>he</i> tol’ you dey ain’t no ghosts,” say’ Zack Badget, “I got -to ’low dey ain’t no ghosts, ’ca’se he ain’ gwine tell no lie erbout -it. I know dat Bloody Bones ghost sence I was a piccaninny, an’ I done -met up wif him a powerful lot o’ times, an’ he ain’ gwine tell no -lie erbout it. Ef dat perticklar ghost say’ dey ain’t no ghosts, dey -<i>ain’t</i> no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>So yiver’body say’:</p> - -<p>“Das right; dey ain’ no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>An’ dat mek’ li’l’ black Mose feel mighty good, ’ca’se he ain’ lak -ghostes. He reckon’ he gwine be a heap mo’ comfortable in he mind sence -he know’ dey ain’ no ghosts, an’ he reckon’ he ain’ gwine be skeered of -nuffin’ never no more. He ain’ gwine min’ de dark, an’ he ain’ gwine -min’ de rain-doves whut go’, “Oo-<i>oo</i>-o-o-o!” an’ he ain’ gwine min’ -de owls whut go’, “Who-<i>whoo</i>-o-o-o!” an’ he ain’ gwine min’ de wind -whut go’, “You-<i>you</i>-o-o-o!” nor nuffin’, nohow. He gwine be brave as -a lion, sence he know’ fo’ sure dey ain’ no ghosts. So prisintly he ma -say’:</p> - -<p>“Well, time fo’ a li’l’ black boy whut he name is Mose to be gwine up -de ladder to de loft to bed.”</p> - -<p>An’ li’l’ black Mose he ’low’ he gwine wait a bit. He ’low’ he gwine -jes wait a li’l’ bit. He ’low’ he gwine be no trouble <i>at</i> all ef he -jes been let wait twell he ma she gwine up de ladder to de loft to bed, -too. So he ma she say’:</p> - -<p>“Git erlong wid yo’! Whut yo’ skeered ob whin dey ain’t no ghosts?”</p> - -<p>An’ li’l’ black Mose he scrooge’, and he twist’, an’ he pucker’ up de -mouf, an’ he rub’ he eyes, an’ prisintly he say’ right low:</p> - -<p>“I ain’ skeered ob ghosts whut am, ’ca’se dey ain’ no ghosts.”</p> - -<p>“Den whut <i>am</i> yo’ skeered ob?” ask he ma.</p> - -<p>“Nuffin’,” say’ de li’l’ black boy whut he name is Mose; “but I jes -feel kinder oneasy ’bout de ghosts whut ain’t.”</p> - -<p>Jes lak white folks! Jes lak white folks!</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_843" name="i_843"> - <img class="padtop1 mbot3 w5em" src="images/i_843.jpg" alt="End of DEY AIN'T NO GHOSTS" /></a> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_844" id="Page_844">[Pg 844]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_844" name="i_844"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_844.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">A GLIMPSE OF THE GABLED HOUSETOPS OF NEMOURS</p> - -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="NEMOURS_A_TYPICAL_FRENCH_PROVINCIAL_TOWN">NEMOURS: A -TYPICAL FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWN</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mbot1">BY ROGER BOUTET DE MONVEL</p> - -<p class="s4 center">WITH PICTURES BY BERNARD B. DE MONVEL</p> - -</div> - -<p class="p0 mtop2"><span class="drop-cap">I</span>T is only a little provincial town, like many others in France. It has -no famous monument, and the immediate neighborhood is neither imposing -nor celebrated. And yet this little town, with its quiet streets, its -modest houses, its limpid river, and its Champs de Mars, where in -fine weather the prominent citizens come to discuss the events of the -day, has a tranquil and intimate charm of its own, and the country -thereabouts is so rich in smiling, changing views,—moist fields along -the water’s-edge, wild heaths, and villages bathed in sunlight,—that -the whole makes a picture that wins one’s heart at first sight.</p> - -<p>Nemours lies in the department of Seine-et-Marne, that old part of -France which used to be called La Brie, on the road leading from -Fontainebleau to Montargis. As you approach the outlying houses, -you come upon the first bridge that crosses the canal, on the -sluggish waters of which glide unwieldy boats, heavily laden with -wood, blocks of stone, or fine sand, and towed by mules or donkeys. -Once over the bridge, to the right lies the main street, the Rue de -Paris—naturally,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_845" id="Page_845">[Pg 845]</a></span> for what town of the provinces is without its Rue -de Paris? And what Rue de Paris has not, on one side, a window with -a tempting display of delicacies, and on the other, the shops of the -haberdasher, the grain-seller, the ironmonger, the harness-maker, and -the barber, who, in his shirt-sleeves, stands at his door waiting for -customers; and last, the Café du Progrès, where, gathered about little -tables, the men drink, and hold forth on the future of France. Then you -cross a second stream, bordered with old lime-trees and overshadowed -by the high walls of the convent. Here is the Hôtel de l’Ecu, which -still has the royal arms on its worn façade, and in front of which the -mail-coaches used to stop; here is the market-place; the church, which -dates from the thirteenth century; and, before the church, the statue -of the great man of the neighborhood, Etienne Bezout, the distinguished -mathematician.</p> - -<p>If the truth must be told, Etienne Bezout’s fame is hardly world-wide; -but since, in the matter of celebrities, one takes what one can get, -for many long years the townspeople have been glad to have this old -worthy—with his eighteenth-century wig, and his finger pointing -heavenward in an attitude of wisdom and abstraction—preside over their -weekly markets and the meetings of their fire-company, as well as at -their outpourings from mass, from funerals, weddings, and christenings.</p> - -<p>Beyond the market-place there is yet a third bridge, the great bridge -overlooking the river Loing. A few steps farther, and you are amused -by the droll sight of the washerwomen as they beat out their linen, -gossiping and shrieking on the bank, like so many frogs at the edge of -a marsh. Over there is the old pond, where the cows linger, and farther -still stands the feudal castle, with its square tower. Beyond this we -look down on the garden of M. le Curé, the tanneries, the convent, the -town mill, and, last of all, on the river, which, though choked with -weeds, is charmingly picturesque by reason of its tiny islands, its -bubbling waterfalls, and its Normandy poplars. Just across the bridge -lie the suburbs of the little town, with its working-men’s houses, -quaint roofs, and farm-yards; and then again the open country and the -green fields.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_845" name="i_845"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_845.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">THE CANAL AT NEMOURS WITH ITS BORDER OF NORMANDY - POPLARS</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_846" id="Page_846">[Pg 846]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_846" name="i_846"> - <img class="mtop2 illowe50" src="images/i_846.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">“AFTER ALL, EACH MAN ENJOYS LIFE IN HIS OWN WAY”</p> - -</div> - -<p class="mtop2">But to see Nemours as it should be seen, to catch the peculiar charm -of this little corner of the provinces which Balzac has made famous -in his “Ursule Mirouet,” we must retrace our steps. We must wander -through certain fascinating old streets, with rough cobblestones and -irregular sidewalks; the Rue du Prieuré, for instance, where the -booths of the sabot-makers stand side by side with the tiny shops of -the chair-caners; the Rue de l’Hospice, where old women in caps sit in -their doorways knitting, and where the little orphan children march, -two by two, under the guidance of the sisters of charity. We must -glance at the gabled houses in the Place au Blé and the Place St.-Jean, -or follow the Quai des Fosses, with its rows of flower-beds, where the -trees make green arches along the edge of the river. Now we will steal -into the courtyard of the old castle, which during the crusades was the -fortress of the “great and mighty lords” of that part of the country, -afterward the dwelling-place of the dukes of Nemours. Later, it was -the bailiff’s court down to the time of the Revolution; since when it -has gradually been transformed into a theater and dancing-hall, where -nowadays traveling companies of actors stop to play “The Two Orphans” -or “A Woman’s Punishment.” To-day the castle has a museum, for, just -as any self-respecting town must have a “great man,” it must also have -a museum, whether there is anything to put in it or not. Hence, it was -an important day when the mayor of Nemours, adorned with his tricolored -scarf, surrounded by the town councilors, and preceded by a flourish of -trumpets, instituted this indispensable glory.</p> - -<p>As we said before, the little town of Nemours has not been the scene of -any startling event, but, like most of our provincial towns, it belongs -to our past and is a part of our history. Its old walls have looked on -some imposing ceremonies and have witnessed the arrival and departure -of some celebrated personages. Did not Louis XIV himself condescend to -enter Nemours in November, 1696? Later, in 1773, did not the Comtesse -d’Artois choose it as a meeting-place with her sister, the Comtesse de -Provence? One can imagine the militia of Nemours forming in line in -the streets, the windows ablaze with lights, the thundering of cannon, -the waving of flags, the sheriffs in their uni<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_847" id="Page_847">[Pg 847]</a></span>forms of state, and the -townspeople, on bended knees, offering to these great personages their -homage and the freedom of the city.</p> - -<p>Indeed, this meeting between the sisters must still stand as the most -memorable incident in the annals or Nemours, for although in our day -politics play a more important part than formerly, we must yet admit -that official ceremonies have lost much of their old-time grandeur.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_847" name="i_847"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe33" src="images/i_847.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1a">A FRENCH COUNTRY CART RETURNING HOME ON MARKET-DAY FROM - MARKET</p> - -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">If we wish to understand the charm of the tranquil life of the -provinces, we must visit some of the townspeople of Nemours, and see -them at their daily tasks in the privacy of their own homes. In common -with the most important world capitals, this tiny town has its own -manner of living, its own customs and traditions. We should follow -yonder stout gentleman as, umbrella in hand, he takes his daily walk -with deliberate steps along the quay; we should say “Good afternoon” to -M. le Curé, whose cassock we see among the trees of his quiet garden; -we should also have a chat with the shoemaker at the corner; and, above -all, we should not fail to have our beard trimmed by the barber in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_848" id="Page_848">[Pg 848]</a></span> the -Rue Neuve. He is such a kindly fellow, this barber.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_848" name="i_848"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_848.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">“THE ONE NOISY TIME IN THE WEEK IS MARKET-DAY”</p> - -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">Just beyond the barber’s shop is the hatter’s, and he too seems well -content with his lot. Not that his shop is spacious or his customers -abundant. One wonders how many hats he sells in a week, for, in the -memory of man, no one has ever seen two customers at the same time -in his shop. Nevertheless, whenever you go into the Chappellerie des -Elégants, you are certain to find M. Baudoin at his post behind the -counter, alert and smiling, eager to show you all the novelties of -the season. Above all things, do not venture to hint that his hats -are not the very latest creations as to shape and style, as you would -only surprise him, and inflict pain without standing a chance of -convincing him. M. Baudoin is confident that he can compete with the -most fashionable hatters in Paris, for has he not the best hats that -are made? Besides, can Paris compare with Nemours? You would never make -him believe it. He is proud of his native town, and despite his varied -experience with men and things, he has never seen a finer city. This is -the true provincial spirit.</p> - -<p>M. Baudoin is no longer young. A few years more, and he will sell out -his business, and with the proceeds of that sale, combined with his -savings (for, like all good Frenchmen, he has been thrifty), will be -able to end his peaceful life in ease and comfort. A little house in -the suburbs, very new and very white; a tiny garden, with three or -four fruit-trees, flower-beds with trim borders, and the inevitable -fountain—this is M. Baudoin’s dream of an ideal old age.</p> - -<p>This is, likewise, the dream of M. Robichon, the clock-maker; of M. -Troufleau, the tailor; and of M. Camus, the grain-merchant, all of whom -have spent their lives quietly in their little shops, selling from time -to time a hat, a watch, or a bag of grain. For the most part, they -have been happy. Their sons will have a modest inheritance, and will -carry on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_849" id="Page_849">[Pg 849]</a></span> the trade of their fathers, unless one, fired with unusual -ambition, should some day become a country doctor or lawyer’s clerk.</p> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_849" name="i_849"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_849.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Color-Tone, engraved for - T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> by - H. Davidson</p> - <p class="caption">“THE LITTLE ORPHAN CHILDREN MARCH TWO BY TWO”</p> - <p class="caption1">DRAWN BY BERNARD B. DE MONVEL</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_849_large.jpg" id="i_849_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">Such are the people, born in the little town or its immediate vicinity. -In addition to this native population, there is a colony of residents -who have come from Paris or elsewhere and, attracted by the charm of -the place, have bought country houses in the neighborhood.</p> - -<p>Although only two hours’ distance by rail from Paris, Nemours is a -typical corner of the provinces, where members of the lower middle -class, and even persons of independent means, come in search of rest -and quiet; merchants who have retired from business, army officers on -half-pay, professors grown gray in service, and, oddly enough, a large -number of artists, painters, sculptors, and actors. Some come for the -summer only; others live in or near Nemours all the year round.</p> - -<p>It is not every French provincial town that can rival Nemours in one -respect: beside one of the new and dreadful houses its owner has seen -fit to erect a kind of ruin, an imitation in miniature of an old -fortified castle, with simulated remains of battlements, sham doors of -the middle ages, barred windows, etc. He has even taken the trouble -to have a real bullet embedded in the wall of his precious ruin—a -bullet fired, it is said, by the Prussians during their campaign in -France! Above the bullet, the date of the memorable event is placed in -large letters—1814! The bullet looks not unlike a tennis-ball; the -ruin itself seems to be made of papier-mâché; and, with the new house -by the side of the sham ruin, the <i>tout ensemble</i> of this delightful -little property is a triumph of the grotesque. It is certain that it is -not this new and expensive quarter which lends to Nemours its strange -charm, any more than in other French towns, or in Paris itself, where -the modern attempts at architecture are veritable eyesores.</p> - -<p>After all, each man enjoys life in his own way; and so M. Chevillard, -a retired lawyer, who does not own any ruins, and who, strange to say, -does not desire any, has a passion of an entirely different kind. -M. Chevillard’s passion is fishing. He has chosen Nemours as his -abiding-place simply because its three watercourses abound in pike and -roach; but that fact does not imply that M. Chevillard catches many -of them. Nevertheless, every day we may see him seated placidly on -his camp-stool, on the bank of the river, near the bridge, wearing an -enormous straw hat, which the suns of many summers have tanned a rich -golden-brown, the shade of well-toasted bread. He holds a fishing-rod -in his hand; the line falls into the water, and its tiny red cork -moves gently to and fro with the current. When this red cork drifts -toward the dark shadows under the bridge, M. Chevillard jerks his rod -up quickly, and we hear the line whistle in the air; then, in the -twinkling of an eye, the cork falls back on the surface of the water, -and the game begins again; and so it goes on all day and every day.</p> - -<p>The strange thing is, however, that nearly every one in Nemours has -this same passion for fishing. All along the river, the canal, and the -smaller stream, we see rows of yellow hats, and, under them, any number -of kindly men and women of all ages, who sit calmly from morning till -night, watching their lines.</p> - -<p>In addition to this large body of fishermen, there are sportsmen; -but do not imagine that they are any more successful. Formerly, this -part of the country abounded in game; but of late years, owing to -the increasing number of these sportsmen, the pheasants have rapidly -diminished. As the cost of a hunting license in France is moderate, the -humblest grocer may have the privilege of stringing a cartridge-case -across his chest, and, attired in brown linen, with his grandfather’s -old gun on his shoulder, may revel in the joys of the chase. It is not -the humble grocer alone, however, who is responsible for the terrible -slaughter of birds. All the other grocers, his friends and neighbors, -would feel themselves disgraced if they did not follow his example; so, -along with the grocers come the ironmongers, the harness-makers, and -the innkeepers, in such overwhelming numbers that within a week after -the opening of the shooting season not a hair or a feather is left to -tell the tale.</p> - -<p>Greatly disturbed by this state of affairs, the sportsmen of Nemours -decided to found a society for the protection of game. Alas! within a -few months serious differences arose in the society, which was promptly -divided into two rival factions. Each faction had its own territory;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_850" id="Page_850">[Pg 850]</a></span> -and from that moment bird-shooting was forgotten by both parties in -their eagerness to chase each other. The chief idea of each faction -was to guard jealously its own territory; and fierce injunctions were -sent to those imprudent sportsmen who ventured to trespass on forbidden -ground. As the respective shooting territories grow smaller each year, -and the two societies show no signs of being reconciled, there is grave -reason to fear that some fine day, not knowing how else to utilize -their powder and shot, the sportsmen of Nemours may be forced to fire -at one another!</p> - -<p>For my own part, I do not imagine that these gentlemen have as yet any -idea of resorting to such extreme measures; but, peaceful and serene -as the little town is, it has its own private quarrels. Just as there -are two sportsmen’s societies, so there are two clubs—two rival clubs, -known, quite properly, as the Union Club and the Peace Club, where -every evening, before dinner, the half-pay captains and the retired -merchants come to play whist at a penny a point. The members are -kindly men, honest and peaceful; but there is not one of them who is -not firmly convinced that any other club but his own is the resort of -ill-bred fellows, not fit associates for himself or his friends. There -is an abundance of gossip in this little town, and gossip travels fast -at card-tables as well as tea-tables. However, only a certain set among -the residents care to lend an ear to the local small-talk.</p> - -<p>During the summer, many artists come in quest of rest or an industrious -solitude. They are the ones who really enjoy and appreciate more -than any one else the strange, sweet charm of this little provincial -town, where every house has its garden, and every garden its flowers; -where the peaceful days go by with a slow and regular rhythm, and the -silence is broken only by the sound of the angelus or the ring of the -blacksmith’s anvil.</p> - -<p>The one noisy time in the week is market-day, when the throngs of -covered wagons, drawn by strong cart-horses, the peasant women in -their white caps and the men in their blue blouses bringing in cattle, -poultry, fruit, and vegetables, make a lively and attractive scene; -when the air is full of the crack of whips and the tinkle of bells, -and gay with songs, cries, and laughter. But it may not be long before -the country carts will give way to automobiles, the white caps to -beflowered hats, and the blouses to jackets of the latest cut.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_AUTO-COMRADE">THE AUTO-COMRADE</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1">BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER</p> - -<p class="s6 center mbot2">Author of “Romantic Germany,” “Romantic America,” etc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="dc"> - <a id="i_850" name="i_850"> - <img class="w6em" src="images/i_850.jpg" alt="H" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="p0"><span class="hide-first1">H</span><span class="smaller">UMAN</span> -nature abhors a vacuum, especially a vacuum inside itself. Offer -the ordinary man a week’s vacation all alone, and he will look as -though you were offering him a cell in Sing Sing.</p> - -<p>“There are a great many people,” says that wise and popular oracle, -Ruth Cameron, “to whom there is no prospect more terrifying than that -of a few hours with only their own selves for company. To escape that -terrible catastrophe, they will make friends with the most fearful bore -or read the most stupid story.... If such people are marooned a few -hours, not only without human companionship, but even without a book or -magazine with which to screen their own stupidity from themselves, they -are fairly frantic.”</p> - -<p>If any one hates to be alone with himself, the chances are that he has -not much of any self to be alone with. He is in as desolate a condition -as a certain Mr. Pease of Oberlin, who, having lost his wife and -children, set up his own tombstone and chiseled upon it this epitaph:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_851" id="Page_851">[Pg 851]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container s5"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse mleft3">“Here lies the pod.</div> - <div class="verse">The Pease are shelled and gone to God.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="p0">Now, pod-like people are always solitary wherever other people are -not; and there is, of course, nothing much more distressing than -solitariness. These people, however, through sheer ignorance, fall into -a confusion of thought. They suppose that solitude and solitariness -are the same thing. To the artist in life there is just one difference -between these two: it is the difference between heaven and its -antipodes. For, to the artist in life, solitude is solitariness plus -the Auto-comrade.</p> - -<p>As it is the Auto-comrade who makes all the difference, I shall try to -describe his appearance. His eyes are the most arresting part of him. -They never peer stupidly through great, thick spectacles of others’ -making. They are scarcely ever closed in sleep, and sometimes make -their happiest discoveries during the small hours. Indeed, these hours -are probably called small because the Auto-comrade often turns his eyes -into the lenses of a moving-picture machine that is so entertaining -that it compresses the hours to seconds. These eyes, through constant, -alert use, have become sharp. They can pierce through the rinds of the -toughest personalities, and even penetrate on occasion into the future. -They can also take in whole panoramas of the past in one sweeping -look. For they are of that “inner” variety through which Wordsworth, -winter after winter, used to survey his daffodil-fields. “The bliss of -solitude,” he called them.</p> - -<p>The Auto-comrade has an adjustable brow. It can be raised high enough -to hold and reverberate and add rich overtones to the grandest chords -of thought ever struck by a Plato, a Buddha, or a Kant. The next -instant it may easily be lowered to the point where Hy Mayer’s latest -cartoon or the tiny cachinnation of a machine-made Chesterton paradox -will not ring entirely hollow. As for his voice, it can at times be -more musical than Melba’s or Caruso’s. Without being raised above a -whisper, it can girdle the globe. It can barely breathe some delicious -new melody; yet the thing will float forth not only undiminished, but -gathering beauty, significance, and incisiveness in every land it -passes through.</p> - -<p>The Auto-comrade is an erect, wiry young figure of an athlete. As he -trades at the Seven-League Boot and Shoe Concern, it never bothers him -to accompany you on the longest tramps. His feet simply cannot be tired -out. As for his hands, they are always alert to give you a lift up the -rough places on the mountain-side. He has remarkable presence of body. -In any emergency he is usually the best man on the spot.</p> - -<p>A popular saw asserts that “looks do not count.” But in this case -they do count. For the Auto-comrade looks exactly like himself. He -is at once seer, creator, accomplisher, and present help in time of -trouble. But his every-day occupation is that of entertainer. He is the -joy-bringer—the Prometheus of pleasure. In his vicinity there is no -such thing as ennui or lonesomeness. Emerson wrote:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container s5"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“When I would spend a lonely day</div> - <div class="verse">Sun and moon are in my way.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="p0">But for pals of the Auto-comrade, not only sun, moon, etc., are in the -way, but all of his own unlimited resources. For every time and season -he has a fittingly varied repertory of entertainment.</p> - -<p>Now and again he startles you with the legerdemain feat of snatching -brand-new ideas out of the blue, like rabbits out of a hat. While you -stand at the port-hole of your cabin and watch the rollers rushing -back to the beloved home-land you are quitting, he marshals your -friends and acquaintances into a long line for a word of greeting or -a rapid-fire chat, just as though you were some idol of the people, -and were steaming past the Statue of Liberty on your way home from -lion-slaughter in Africa, and the Auto-comrade were the factotum at -your elbow who asks, “What name, please?”</p> - -<p>After the friends and acquaintances, he even brings up your <i>bêtes -noires</i> and dearest enemies for inspection and comment. Strangely -enough, viewed in this way, these persons no longer seem so -contemptible or pernicious or devilish as they once did. At this point -your factotum rubs your eye-glasses bright with the handkerchief he -always carries about for slate-cleaning purposes, and, lo! you even -begin to discover hitherto unsuspected good points about the chaps.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_852" id="Page_852">[Pg 852]</a></span></p> - -<p>Then there are always your million and one favorite melodies which -nobody but that all-around musical amateur, the Auto-comrade, can so -exquisitely whistle, hum, strum, fiddle, blat, or roar. There is also -a universeful of new ones for him to improvise. And he is the jolliest -sort of fellow-musician, because, when you play or sing a duet with -him, you can combine with the exciting give-and-take and reciprocal -stimulation of the duet the godlike autocracy of the solo, with its -opportunity for uninterrupted, uncoerced, wide self-expression. -Sometimes, however, in the first flush of escape with him to the wilds, -you are fain to clap your hand over his mouth in order the better -to taste the essentially folkless savor of solitude. For music is a -curiously social art, and Browning was right when he said, “Who hears -music, feels his solitude peopled at once.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps you can find your entertainer a small lump of clay or -modeling-wax to thumb into bad caricatures of those you love and -good ones of those you hate, until increasing facility impels him to -try and model not a Tanagra figurine, for that would be unlike his -original fancy, but a Hoboken figurine, say, or a sketch for some Elgin -(Illinois) marbles.</p> - -<p>If you care anything for poetry and can find him a stub of pencil and -an unoccupied cuff, he will be most completely in his element; for -if there is any one occupation more closely identified with him than -another, it is that of poet. And though all Auto-comrades are not -poets, all poets are Auto-comrades. Every poem which has ever thrilled -this world or another has been written by the Auto-comrade of some -so-called poet. This is one reason why the so-called poets think so -much of their great companions. “Allons! after the great companions!” -cried old Walt to his fellow-poets. If he had not overtaken, and -held fast to, his, we should never have heard the “Leaves of Grass” -whispering “one or two indicative words for the future.” The bards -have always obeyed this call. And they have known how to value their -Auto-comrades, too. See, for example, what Keats thought of his:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at the -end of a Journey or a Walk; though the Carpet were of Silk, the -Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and Sofa stuffed with -Cygnet’s down; the food Manna, the Wine beyond Claret, the Window -opening on Winander mere, I should not feel—or rather my Happiness -would not be so fine, as my Solitude is sublime. Then instead of -what I have described, there is a sublimity to welcome me home—The -roaring of the wind is my wife and the Stars through the window -pane are my Children.... I feel more and more every day, as my -imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone -but in a thousand worlds—No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic -greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the office -which is equivalent to a King’s body-guard.... I live more out of -England than in it. The Mountains of Tartary are a favorite lounge, -if I happen to miss the Alleghany ridge, or have no whim for Savoy.</p></div> - -<p>This last sentence not only reveals the fact that the Auto-comrade, -equipped as he is with a wishing-mat, is the very best cicerone in the -world, but also that he is the ideal tramping companion. Suppose you -are mountain-climbing. As you start up into “nature’s observatory,” he -kneels in the dust and fastens wings upon your feet. He conveniently -adjusts a microscope to your hat-brim, and hangs about your neck an -excellent telescope. He has enough sense, as well, to keep his mouth -shut. For, like Hazlitt, he “can see no wit in walking and talking.” -The joy of existence, you find, rarely tastes more cool and sweet and -sparkling than when you and your Auto-comrade make a picnic thus, -swinging in a basket between you a real, live thought for lunch. On -such an occasion you come to believe that Keats, on another occasion, -must have had his Auto-comrade in mind when he remarked to his friend -Solitude that</p> - -<div class="poetry-container s5"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse mleft5">“... it sure must be</div> - <div class="verse">Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,</div> - <div class="verse">When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The Auto-comrade can sit down with you in thick weather on a barren -lighthouse rock and give you a breathless day by hanging upon the walls -of fog the mellow screeds of old philosophies, and causing to march -and countermarch over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_853" id="Page_853">[Pg 853]</a></span> against them the scarlet and purple pageants of -history. Hour by hour, too, he will linger with you in the metropolis, -that breeder of the densest solitudes,—in market or morgue, subway, -library, or lobby,—and hour by hour unlock you those chained books of -the soul to which the human countenance offers the master key.</p> - -<p>Something of a sportsman, too, is the Auto-comrade. He it is who makes -the fabulously low score at golf—the kind of score, by the way, that -is almost invariably born to blush unseen. And he will uncomplainingly, -even zestfully, fish from dawn to dusk in a solitude so complete that -there is not even a fin to break it. But if there are fish, he finds -them. He knows how to make the flies float indefinitely forward through -yonder narrow opening, and drop, as light as thistledown, in the center -of the temptingly inaccessible pool. He knows without looking exactly -how thick and prehensile are the bushes and branches that lie in wait -for the back cast, and he can calculate to a grain how much urging the -sulky four-pounder and the blest tie that binds him to the four-ounce -rod will stand.</p> - -<p>He is one of the handiest possible persons to have along in the woods. -When you take him on a canoe-trip with others, and the party comes to -“white water,” he turns out to be a dead shot at rapid-shooting. He -is sure to know what to do at the supreme moment when you jam your -setting-pole immutably between two rocks and, with the alternative -of making a hole in the water, are forced to let it go and grab your -paddle. And before you have time to reflect that the pale-face in the -bow can be depended upon to do just one thing at such a time, and -that is the exact opposite of what you are urging him to do, you are -hung up on a slightly submerged rock at the head of the chief rapid -just in time to see the rest of the party disappear around the lower -bend. At such a time, simply look to the Auto-comrade. He will carry -you through. Also there is no one like him at the moment when, having -felled your moose, leaned your rifle against a tree, and bent down the -better to examine him, the creature suddenly comes back to life.</p> - -<p>In tennis, when you wake up to find that your racket has just smashed -a lob on the bounce from behind the court, making a clean ace between -your paralyzed opponents, you ought to know that the racket was guided -by that superior sportsman; and if you are truly modest, you will -admit that the miraculous triple play wherewith your team whisked the -base-ball championship out of the fire in the fourteenth inning was -pulled off by the unaided efforts of a certain Young Men’s Christian -Association of Auto-comrades.</p> - -<p>There are other games about which he is not so keen: solitaire, for -instance. For solitaire is a social game that soon loses its zest if -there be not some devoted friend or relative sitting by and simulating -that pleasurable absorption in the performance which you yourself only -wish that you could feel.</p> - -<p>This great companion can keep you from being lonely even in a crowd. -But there is a certain kind of crowd that he cannot abide. Beware how -you try to keep him in a crowd of unadulterated human porcupines! You -know how the philosopher Schopenhauer once likened average humanity to -a herd of porcupines on a cold day, who crowd stupidly together for -warmth, prick one another with their quills, are mutually repelled, -forget the incident, grow cold again, and repeat the whole thing ad -infinitum.</p> - -<p>In other words, the human porcupine is the person considered at the -beginning of this one-sided discussion who, to escape the terrible -catastrophe of confronting his own inner vacuum, will make friends with -the most hideous bore. This creature, however, is much more rare than -the misanthropic Schopenhauer imagined. It takes a long time to find -one among such folk as lumbermen, Gipsies, shirt-waist operatives, -fishermen, masons, trappers, sailors, tramps, and teamsters. If the -philosopher had only had the pleasure of knowing those teamsters who -sent him into paroxysms of rage by cracking their whips in the alley, -I am sure that he would never have spoken so harshly of their minds -as he did. The fact is that porcupines are not extremely common among -the very “common” people. It may be that there is something stupefying -about the airs which the upper classes, the best people, breathe and -put on, but the social climber is apt to find the human porcupine in -increasing herds as he scales the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_854" id="Page_854">[Pg 854]</a></span> heights. This curious fact would -seem incidentally to show that our misanthropic philosopher must have -moved exclusively in some of the best circles.</p> - -<p>Now, if there is one thing above all others that the Auto-comrade -cannot away with, it is the flaccid, indolent, stodgy brain of -the porcupine. If people have let their minds slump down into -porcupinishness, or have never taken the trouble to rescue them from -that ignominious condition—well, the Auto-comrade is no snob; when -all’s said, he is a rather democratic sort of chap, though he has to -draw the line somewhere, you know, and he really must beg to be excused -from rubbing shoulders with such intellectual rabble, for instance, -as blocks upper Fifth Avenue on Sunday noons. He prefers instead the -rabble which, on all other noons of the week, blocks the lower end of -that variegated thoroughfare.</p> - -<p>Such exclusiveness lays the Auto-comrade open, of course, to the charge -of inhospitality. But “is not he hospitable,” asks Thoreau, “who -entertains good thoughts?” Personally, I think he is. And I believe -that this sort of hospitality does more to make the world worth living -in than much conventional hugging to your bosom of porcupines whose -language you do not speak, yet with whom it is embarrassing to keep -silence.</p> - -<p>If the Auto-comrade mislikes the porcupine, however, the feeling -is returned with exorbitant interest. The alleged failings of -auto-comradeship have always drawn grins, fleers, nudges, and jokes -from the auto-comradeless. It is time the latter should know that the -joke is really on him; for he is the most forlorn of mankind. The other -is never at a loss. He is invulnerable, being one whom “destiny may not -surprise nor death dismay.” But the porcupine is liable at any moment -to be deserted by associates who are bored by his sharp, hollow quills. -He finds himself the victim of a paradox which decrees that the hermit -shall “find his crowds in solitude” and never be alone; but that the -flocker shall every now and then be cast into inner darkness, where -“there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”</p> - -<p>The laugh is on the porcupine; but the laugh turns almost into a tear -when one stops to realize the nature of his plight. Why, the poor -wretch is actually obliged to be near some one else in order to enjoy -a sense of vitality! In other words, he needs somebody else to do his -living for him. He is a vicarious citizen of the world, holding his -franchise only by courtesy of Tom, Dick, and Harry.</p> - -<p>All the same, it is rather hard to pity him very profoundly while he -continues to feel quite so contemptuously superior as he usually does. -Why, the contempt of the average porcupine for pals of the Auto-comrade -is akin to the contempt which the knights of chivalry felt for those -paltry beings who were called clerks because they possessed the queer, -unfashionable accomplishment of being able to read and write.</p> - -<p>I remember that the loudest laugh achieved by a certain class-day -orator at college came when he related how the literary guy and the -tennis-player were walking one day in the woods, and the literary guy -suddenly exclaimed: “Ah, leave me, Louis! I would be alone.” Even apart -from the stilted language in which the orator clothed the thought of -the literary guy, there is, to the porcupine, something irresistibly -comic in such a situation. It is to him as though the literary guy had -stepped up to the nearest policeman and begged for the room at Sing -Sing already referred to.</p> - -<p>Indeed, the modern porcupine is as suspicious of pals of the -Auto-comrade as the porcupines of the past were of sorcerers and -witches—folk, by the way, who probably consorted with spirits no more -malign than Auto-comrades. “What,” asked the porcupines of one another, -“can they be up to, all alone there in those solitary huts? What honest -man would live like that? Ah, they must be up to no good. They must be -consorting with the Evil One. Well, then, away with them to the stake -and the river!”</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact, it probably was not the Evil One that these poor -folk were consorting with, but the Good One. For what is a man’s -Auto-comrade, anyway, but his own soul, or the same thing by what other -name soever he likes to call it with which he divides the practical, -conscious part of his brain, turn and turn about, share and share -alike? And what is a man’s own soul but a small stream of the infinite, -eternal water of life? And what is heaven but a vast harbor where -myriad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_855" id="Page_855">[Pg 855]</a></span> streams of soul flow down, returning at last to their Source -in the bliss of perfect reunion? I believe that many a Salem witch was -dragged to her death from sanctuary; for church is not exclusively -connected with stained glass and collection-baskets. Church is also -wherever you and your Auto-comrade can elude the starched throng and -fall together, if only for a moment, on your knees.</p> - -<p>Like the girl you left behind you, your Auto-comrade has much to gain -by contrast with your flesh-and-blood associates, especially if this -contrast is suddenly brought home to you after a too long separation -from him. I shall never forget the thrill that was mine early one -morning after two months of close, uninterrupted communion with one -of my best and dearest friends. At the very instant when the turn of -the road cut off that friend’s departing hand-wave, I was aware of -a welcoming, almost boisterous shout from the hills of dream, and, -turning quickly, beheld my long-lost Auto-comrade rushing eagerly down -the slopes toward me.</p> - -<p>Few joys may compare with the joy of such a sudden, unexpected reunion. -It is like “the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land.” No, this -simile is too disloyal to my friend. Well, then, it is like a beaker -full of the warm South when you are leaving a good beer country and are -trying to reconcile yourself to ditch-water for the next few weeks. At -any rate, similes or not, there were we two together again at last. -What a week of weeks we spent, pacing back and forth on the veranda -of our log cabin, where we overlooked the pleasant sinuosities of the -Sebois and gazed out together over golden beech and ghostly birch and -blood-red maple banners to the purple mountains of the Aroostook. And -how we did take stock of the immediate past, chuckling to find that -it had not been a quarter so bad as I had stupidly supposed. What -gilded forest trails were those which we blazed into the glamourous -land of to-morrow! And every other moment these recreative labors -would be interrupted while I pressed between the pages of a note-book -some butterfly or sunset leaf or quadruply fortunate clover which my -Auto-comrade found and turned over to me. Between two of those pages, -by the way, I afterward found the argument of this paper.</p> - -<p>Then, when the first effervescence of our meeting had lost a little of -its first, fine, carbonated sting, what Elysian hours we spent over -the correspondence of those other two friends, Goethe and Schiller! -Passage after passage we would turn back to re-read and muse over. -These we would discuss without any of the rancor or dogmatic insistence -or one-eyed stubbornness that usually accompany the clash of mental -steel on mental steel from a different mill. And without making any one -else lose the thread or grow short-breathed or accuse us passionately -of reading ahead, we would, on the slightest provocation, out-Fletcher -Fletcher chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. And we would -underline and bracket and side-line and overline the ragged little -paper volume, and scribble up and down its margins, and dream over its -foot-notes, to our hearts’ content.</p> - -<p>Such experiences, though, are all too rare with me. Why? Because my -Auto-comrade is a rather particular person and will not associate with -me unless I toe his mark.</p> - -<p>“Come,” I propose to him, “let us go on a journey.”</p> - -<p>“Hold hard,” says he, and looks me over appraisingly. “You know the -rule of the Auto-comrades’ Union. We are supposed to associate with -none but fairly able persons. Are you a fairly able person?”</p> - -<p>If it turns out that I am not, he goes on a rampage, and begins to -talk like an athletic trainer. The first thing he demands is that his -would-be associate shall keep on hand a jolly good store of surplus -vitality. You are expected to supply him exuberance somewhat as you -supply gasolene to your motor.</p> - -<p>Now, of course, there are in the world not a few invalids and other -persons of low physical vitality whose Auto-comrades happen to have -sufficient gasolene to keep them both running, if only on short -rations. Most of these cases, however, are pathological. They have hot -boxes at both ends of the machine, and their progress is destined all -too soon to cease and determine. The rest of these cases are the rare -exceptions which prove the rule. For unexuberant yet unpathological -pals of the Auto-comrade are as rare as harmonious households in which -the efforts of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_856" id="Page_856">[Pg 856]</a></span> devoted and blissful wife support an able-bodied -husband.</p> - -<p>The rule is that you have got to earn exuberance for two. “Learn to -eat balanced rations right,” thunders the Auto-comrade, laying down -the law; “exercise, perspire, breathe, bathe, sleep out of doors, and -sleep enough, rule your liver with a rod of iron, don’t take drugs or -nervines, cure sickness beforehand, do an adult’s work in the world, -have at least as much fun as you ought to have.”</p> - -<p>“That,” he goes on, “is the way to develop enough physical exuberance -so that you will be enabled to overcome your present sad addiction to -mob intoxication. And, provided your mind is not in as bad condition as -your body, this physical over-plus will transmute some of itself into a -spiritual exuberance. This will enable you to have more fun with your -mind than an enthusiastic kitten has with its tail. It will enable you -to look before and after, and purr over what is, as well as to discern, -with pleasurable longing, what is not, and set forth confidently to -capture it.”</p> - -<p>But if, by any chance, you have allowed your mind to get into the sort -of condition which the old-fashioned German scholar used to allow his -body to get into, it develops that the Auto-comrade hates a flabby -brain almost as much as he hates a flabby body. He soon makes it -clear that he will not have much to do with any one who has not yet -mastered the vigorous and highly complex art of not worrying. Also, -he demands of his companion the knack of calm, consecutive thought. -This is one reason why so many more Auto-comrades are to be found in -crow’s-nests, Gipsy-vans, and shirt-waist factories than on upper -Fifth Avenue. For, watching the stars and the sea from a swaying -masthead, taking light-heartedly to the open road, or even operating -a rather unwholesome sewing-machine all day in silence, is better for -consecutiveness of mind than a never-ending round of offices, clubs, -servants, committee meetings, teas, dinners, and receptions, to each of -which one is a little late.</p> - -<p>No matter what the ignorant or the envious may say, there is -nothing really unsocial in a moderate indulgence in the art of -auto-comradeship. A few weeks of it bring you back a fresher, keener -appreciator of your other friends and of humanity in general than you -were before setting forth. In the continuous performance of the psalm -of life such contrasts as this of solos and choruses have a reciprocal -advantage.</p> - -<p>But auto-comradeship must not be overdone, as it was overdone by the -medieval monks. Its delights are too delicious, its particular vintage -of the wine of experience too rich, for long-continued consumption. -Consecutive thought, though it is one of man’s greatest pleasures, is -at the same time almost the most arduous labor that he can perform. -And after a long spell of it, both the Auto-comrade and his companion -become exhausted and, perforce, less comradely.</p> - -<p>Besides the incidental exhaustion, there is another reason why this -beatific association must have its time-limit; for, unfortunately, -one’s Auto-comrade is always of the same sex as oneself, and in youth, -at least, if the presence of the complementary part of creation is long -denied, there comes a time when this denial surges higher and higher -in subconsciousness, then breaks into consciousness, and keeps on -surging until it deluges all the tranquillities, zests, surprises, and -excitements of auto-comradeship, and makes them of no effect.</p> - -<p>This is, perhaps, a wise provision for the salvation of the human -digestion. For, otherwise, many a man, having tasted of the fruit of -the tree of the knowledge of auto-comradeship, might thereupon be -tempted to retire to his hermit’s den hard by and endeavor to sustain -himself for life on apple-sauce.</p> - -<p>Most of us, however, long before such extremes have been reached, -are sure to rush back to our kind for the simple reason that we are -enjoying auto-comradeship so much that we want some one else to enjoy -it with.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_857" id="Page_857">[Pg 857]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_WHITE_LINEN_NURSE">THE WHITE LINEN NURSE</h2> - -</div> - -<p class="s4 center">HOW RAE MALGREGOR UNDERTOOK GENERAL HEARTWORK FOR A -FAMILY OF TWO</p> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1">BY ELEANOR HALLOWELL ABBOTT</p> - -<p class="s6 center">Author of “Molly Make-Believe,” etc.</p> - -<p class="s4 center mtop1 mbot1">IN THREE PARTS: PART THREE</p> - -<p class="s5 center">WITH PICTURES BY HERMAN PFEIFER</p> - -<p class="s4 center mtop2">SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING INSTALMENTS</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">O<span class="smaller">N</span> the day of her graduation from the training-school, the White -Linen Nurse was overcome by hysteria. For weeks she had been -working too hard, and two or three cases with which she had been -connected having gone wrong, she had racked herself with an absurd -sense of responsibility. Now, in her distracted state, the visible -sign of her self-contempt was the perfectly controlled expression -of her trained-nurse face.</p> - -<p>From a scene in her room with her two room-mates, in which -confidences are exchanged, she rushed to the office of the -Superintendent of Nurses, and hysterically demanded her own face. -The Senior Surgeon was sent for, and after tartly telling the girl -she was a fool, finally took her with him and his little crippled -daughter for a thirty-mile trip into the country, where he had been -summoned on a difficult case.</p> - -<p>On their return, the Senior Surgeon lost control of the machine on -a steep hill, and the three were thrown out.</p> - -<p>On recovering consciousness, the White Linen Nurse and the Child -find the Senior Surgeon pinned under their motor-car, and after -receiving instructions as to its management, the Nurse runs the car -into a brook, and the Senior Surgeon becomes aware for the first -time that the car is afire. Momentarily unnerved by the thought of -the peril in which he has been, the Senior Surgeon clings to the -White Linen Nurse, and finally proposes that, since she has decided -to give up professional nursing, she take up General Heartwork -for him and his daughter. The proposal is in fact a proposal of -marriage, and after a frank discussion of the situation (which is -one of the most significant and powerful pieces of work of the -author), the White Linen Nurse accepts.</p> - -<p>In the course of the discussion the Senior Surgeon confesses an -inherited tendency for drink, and adds that he leaves liquor alone -for eleven months in the year, but always goes off to Canada every -June for a hunting-trip, on which he drinks heavily. She insists -that he go this year and that they marry before his departure, and -not on his return, as he wishes. She wins her way, and the Senior -Surgeon goes alone. Disquieting letters from her recall him before -the end of the month.</p> - -</div> - -<p class="p0 mtop2"><span class="drop-cap">N</span>OBODY -looks very well in the dawn. Certainly the Senior Surgeon -didn’t. Heavily, as a man wading through a bog of dreams, he stumbled -out of his cabin into the morning. Under his drowsy, brooding eyes -appalling shadows circled. Behind his sunburn, deeper than his tan, -something sinister and uncanny lurked wanly like the pallor of a soul. -Yet the Senior Surgeon had been most blamelessly abed and asleep since -griddle-cake-time the previous evening.</p> - -<p>Only the mountains and the forest and the lake had been out all night. -For seventy miles of Canadian wilderness only the mountains and the -forest and the lake stood actually convicted of having been out all -night. Dank and white with its vaporous vigil, the listless lake -kindled wanly to the new day’s breeze. Blue with cold, a precipitous -mountain peak lurched craggedly home through a rift in the fog. -Drenched with mist, bedraggled with dew, a green-feathered pine-tree -lay guzzling insatiably at a leaf-brown pool. As monotonous as a sob, -the waiting birch canoe <i>slosh-sloshed</i> against the beach.</p> - -<p>There was no romantic smell of red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_858" id="Page_858">[Pg 858]</a></span> roses in this June landscape; just -tobacco smoke, and the faint reminiscent fragrance of fried trout, and -the mournful, sizzling, pungent consciousness of a camp-fire quenched -for a whole year with a tinful of wet coffee-grounds.</p> - -<p>Gliding out cautiously into the lake as though the mere splash of -a paddle might shatter the whole glassy surface, the Indian guide -propounded the question that was uppermost in his mind.</p> - -<p>“Cutting your trip a bit short this year, ain’t you, Boss?” he quizzed -tersely.</p> - -<p>Out from his muffling Mackinaw collar the Senior Surgeon parried the -question with an amazingly novel sense of embarrassment.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered with studied lightness. “There are one -or two things at home that are bothering me a little.”</p> - -<p>“A woman, eh?” said the Indian guide, laconically.</p> - -<p>“A <i>woman</i>?” thundered the Senior Surgeon. “A—woman? Oh, ye gods, no! -It’s wall-paper.”</p> - -<p>Then suddenly and unexpectedly in the midst of his passionate -refutation the Senior Surgeon burst out laughing, boisterously, -hilariously, like a crazy school-boy. Bluntly from an overhanging ledge -of rock the echo of his laugh came mocking back at him. Down from some -unvisioned mountain fastness the echo of that echo came wafting faintly -to him.</p> - -<p>The Senior Surgeon’s laugh was made of teeth and tongue and palate -and a purely convulsive physical impulse; but the echo’s laugh was -a fantasy of mist and dawn and inestimable balsam-scented spaces, -where little green ferns and little brown beasties and soft-breasted -birdlings frolicked eternally in pristine sweetness.</p> - -<p>Seven miles farther down the lake, at the beginning of the rapids, -the Indian guide spoke again. Racking the canoe between two rocks, -paddling, panting, pushing, sweating, the Indian guide lifted his voice -high, piercing, above the swirling roar of waters.</p> - -<p>“Eh, Boss,” he shouted, “I ain’t never heard you laugh before!”</p> - -<p>Neither man spoke again more than once or twice during the long, -strenuous hours that were left to them. The Indian guide was very busy -in his stolid mind trying to figure out just how many rows of potatoes -could be planted fruitfully between his front door and his cowshed. I -don’t know what the Senior Surgeon was trying to figure out.</p> - -<p>It was just four days later, from a rolling, musty-cushioned hack, that -the Senior Surgeon disembarked at his own front gate.</p> - -<p>Even though a man likes home no better than he likes—tea, few men -would deny the soothing effect of home at the end of a long, fussy -railroad journey. Five o’clock, also, of a late June afternoon is a -peculiarly wonderful time to be arriving home, especially if that home -has a garden about it, so that you are thereby not rushed precipitously -upon the house itself, as upon a cup without a saucer, but can toy -visually with the whole effect before you quench your thirst with the -actual draft.</p> - -<p>Very, very deliberately, with his clumsy rod-case in one hand, and -his heavy grip in the other, the Senior Surgeon started up the long, -broad gravel path to the house. For a man walking as slow as he was, -his heart was beating most extraordinarily fast. He was not accustomed -to heart-palpitation. The symptom worried him a trifle. Incidentally, -also, his lungs felt strangely stifled with the scent of June. Close -at his right, an effulgent white-and-gold syringa-bush flaunted its -cloying sweetness into his senses. Close at his left, a riotous bloom -of phlox clamored red-blue-purple-lavender-pink into his dazzled -vision. Multicolored pansies tiptoed velvet-footed across the grass. In -soft, murky mystery a flame-tinted smoke-tree loomed up here and there -like a faintly rouged ghost. Over everything, under everything, through -everything, lurked a certain strange, novel, vibrating consciousness of -occupancy—bees in the rose-bushes, bobolinks in the trees, a woman’s -work-basket in the curve of the hammock, a doll’s tea-set sprawling -cheerfully in the middle of the broad gravel path.</p> - -<p>It was not until the Senior Surgeon had actually stepped into the tiny -cream-pitcher that he noticed the presence of the doll’s tea-set. It -was what the Senior Surgeon said as he stepped out of the cream-pitcher -that summoned the amazing apparition from a ragged, green hole in the -privet hedge. Startlingly white, startlingly professional,—dress, -cap, apron,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_859" id="Page_859">[Pg 859]</a></span> and all,—a miniature white linen nurse sprang suddenly -out at him like a tricky dwarf in a moving-picture show. Just at that -particular moment the Senior Surgeon’s nerves were in no condition -to wrestle with apparitions. Simultaneously, as the clumsy rod-case -dropped from his hand, the expression of enthusiasm dropped from the -face of the miniature white linen nurse.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear! have <i>you</i> come home!” wailed the -familiar, shrill little voice.</p> - -<p>Sheepishly the Senior Surgeon picked up his rod-case. The noises in his -head were crashing like cracked bells. Desperately, with a boisterous -irritability, he sought to cover also the lurching <i>pound, pound, -pound</i> of his heart.</p> - -<p>“What in hell are you rigged out like that for?” he demanded stormily.</p> - -<p>With equal storminess the Little Girl protested the question.</p> - -<p>“Peach said I could,” she attested passionately. “Peach said I could, -she did! She did! I tell you, I didn’t want her to marry us that day. -I was afraid, I was. I cried, I did. I had a convulsion; they thought -it was stockings. So Peach said, if it would make me feel any gooderer, -I could be the cruel new stepmother, and <i>she’d</i> be the unloved -offspring, with her hair braided all yellow fluffikins down her back.”</p> - -<p>“Where <i>is</i>—Miss Malgregor?” asked the Senior Surgeon, sharply.</p> - -<p>Irrelevantly the Little Girl sank down on the gravel walk and began to -gather up her scattered dishes.</p> - -<p>“And it’s fun to go to bed now,” she confided amiably, “’cause every -night I put Peach to bed at eight o’clock, and she’s so naughty always -I have to stay with her. And then all of a sudden it’s morning—like -going through a black room without knowing it.”</p> - -<p>“I said, where <i>is</i> Miss Malgregor?” repeated the Senior Surgeon, with -increasing sharpness.</p> - -<p>Thriftily the Little Girl bent down to lap a bubble of cream from the -broken pitcher.</p> - -<p>“Oh, she’s out in the summer-house with the Wall-Paper Man,” she -mumbled indifferently.</p> - -<p>Altogether jerkily the Senior Surgeon started up the walk for his own -perfectly formal and respectable brownstone mansion. Deep down in -his lurching heart he felt a sudden most inordinate desire to reach -that brownstone mansion just as quickly as possible, but abruptly even -to himself he swerved off instead at the yellow sassafras-tree and -plunged quite wildly through a mass of broken sods toward the rickety, -no-account, cedar summer-house.</p> - -<p>Startled by the crackle and thud of his approach, the two young figures -in the summer-house jumped precipitously to their feet, and, limply -untwining their arms from each other’s necks, stood surveying the -Senior Surgeon in unspeakable consternation,—the White Linen Nurse and -a blue-overalled lad most unconscionably mated in radiant youth and -agonized confusion.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my Lord, sir!” gasped the White Linen Nurse—“oh, my Lord, sir! I -wasn’t looking for <i>you</i> for another week!”</p> - -<p>“Evidently not,” said the Senior Surgeon, incisively. “This is -the second time this evening that I’ve been led to infer that my -home-coming was distinctly inopportune.”</p> - -<p>Very slowly, very methodically, he put down first his precious rod-case -and then his grip. His brain seemed fairly foaming with blood and -confusion. Along the swelling veins of his arms a dozen primitive -instincts went surging to his fists.</p> - -<p>Then quite brazenly before his eyes the White Linen Nurse reached out -and took the lad’s hand again.</p> - -<p>“Oh, forgive me, Dr. Faber!” she faltered. “This is my brother.”</p> - -<p>“Your <i>brother</i>? What? Eh?” choked the Senior Surgeon. Bluntly he -reached out and crushed the young fellow’s fingers in his own. “Glad to -see you, son,” he muttered, with a sickish sort of grin, and, turning -abruptly, picked up his baggage again and started for the big house.</p> - -<p>Half a step behind him his bride followed softly.</p> - -<p>At the edge of the piazza he turned for an instant and eyed her a -bit quizzically. With her big, credulous blue eyes, and her great -mop of yellow hair braided childishly down her back, she looked -inestimably more juvenile and innocent than his own little shrewd-faced -six-year-old, whom he had just left domestically ensconced in the -middle of the broad gravel path.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_860" id="Page_860">[Pg 860]</a></span></p> - -<p>“For Heaven’s sake, Miss Malgregor,” he asked—“for Heaven’s sake, why -didn’t you tell me that the Wall-Paper Man was your brother?”</p> - -<p>Very contritely the White Linen Nurse’s chin went burrowing down into -the soft collar of her dress, and as bashfully as a child one finger -came stealing up to the edge of her red, red lips.</p> - -<p>“I was afraid you’d think I was—cheeky, having any of my family come -and live with us so soon,” she murmured almost inaudibly.</p> - -<p>“Well, what did you think I’d think you were if he wasn’t your -brother?” asked the Senior Surgeon, sardonically.</p> - -<p>“Very economical, I hoped,” beamed the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>“All the same,” snapped the Senior Surgeon, with an irrelevance -surprising even to himself—“all the same, do you think it sounds quite -right and proper for a child to call her stepmother ’Peach’?”</p> - -<p>Again the White Linen Nurse’s chin went burrowing down into the soft -collar of her dress.</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose it <i>is</i> usual,” she admitted reluctantly. “The -children next door, I notice, call theirs ’Crosspatch.’”</p> - -<p>With a gesture of impatience, the Senior Surgeon proceeded on up the -steps, yanked open the old-fashioned shuttered door, and burst quite -breathlessly and unprepared upon his most amazingly reconstructed -house. All in one single second chintzes, muslins, pale blond maples, -riotous canary-birds stormed revolutionarily upon his outraged eyes. -Reeling back utterly aghast before the sight, he stood there staring -dumbly for an instant at what he considered, and rightly too, the -absolute wreck of his black-walnut home.</p> - -<p>“It looks like—hell!” he muttered feebly.</p> - -<p>“Yes, <i>isn’t</i> it sweet?” conceded the White Linen Nurse, with -unmistakable joyousness. “And your library—” Triumphantly she threw -back the door to his grim workshop.</p> - -<p>“Good God!” stammered the Senior Surgeon, “you’ve made it pink!”</p> - -<p>Rapturously the White Linen Nurse began to clasp and unclasp her hands.</p> - -<p>“I knew you’d love it,” she said.</p> - -<p>Half dazed with bewilderment, the Senior Surgeon started to brush an -imaginary haze from his eyes, but paused midway in the gesture, and -pointed back instead to a dapper little hall-table that seemed to be -exhausting its entire blond strength in holding up a slender green -vase with a single pink rose in it. Like a caged animal buffeting for -escape against each successive bar that incased it, the man’s frenzied -irritation hurled itself hopefully against this one more chance for -explosive exit.</p> - -<p>“What—have—you—done—with the big—black—escritoire that -stood—<i>there</i>?” he demanded accusingly.</p> - -<p>“Escritoire? Escritoire?” worried the White Linen Nurse. “Why—why, I’m -afraid I must have mislaid it.”</p> - -<p>“Mislaid it?” thundered the Senior Surgeon. “Mislaid it? It weighed -three hundred pounds!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it did?” questioned the White Linen Nurse, with great blue-eyed -interest. Still mulling apparently over the fascinating weight of the -escritoire, she climbed up suddenly into a chair, and with the fluffy, -broom-shaped end of her extraordinarily long braid of hair went angling -wildly off into space after an illusive cobweb.</p> - -<p>Faster and faster the Senior Surgeon’s temper began to search for a new -point of exit.</p> - -<p>“What do you suppose the servants think of you?” he stormed, “running -round like that, with your hair in a pigtail, like a kid?”</p> - -<p>“Servants?” cooed the White Linen Nurse. “Servants?” Very quietly she -jumped down from the chair and came and stood looking up into the -Senior Surgeon’s hectic face. “Why, there aren’t any servants,” she -explained patiently. “I’ve dismissed every one of them. We’re doing our -own work now.”</p> - -<p>“Doing ’our own work?’” gasped the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>Worriedly the White Linen Nurse stepped back a little.</p> - -<p>“Why, wasn’t that right?” she pleaded. “Wasn’t it <i>right</i>? Why, I -thought people always did their own work when they were first married.” -With sudden apprehensiveness she glanced round over her shoulder at -the hall clock, and, darting out through a side door, returned almost -instantly with a fierce-looking knife.</p> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_860" name="i_860"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe30" src="images/i_860.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Color-Tone, engraved for - T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> by H. C. - Merrill and H. Davidson</p> - <p class="caption1a">“‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?’ HE FAIRLY SCREAMED AT HER. ‘JUST KEEPING - YOU COMPANY, SIR,’ YAWNED THE WHITE LINEN NURSE”</p> - <p class="caption1">DRAWN BY HERMAN PFEIFER</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_860_large.jpg" id="i_860_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">“I’m so late now, and everything,” she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_861" id="Page_861">[Pg 861]</a></span> confided, “could you peel the -potatoes for me?”</p> - -<p>“No, I couldn’t,” said the Senior Surgeon, shortly. Equally shortly he -turned on his heel, and, reaching out once more for his rod-case and -grip, went on up the stairs to his own room.</p> - -<p>One of the pleasantest things about arriving home very late in the -afternoon is the excuse it gives you for loafing in your own room while -other people are getting supper. No existent domestic sound in the -whole twenty-four hours is as soothing at the end of a long journey as -the sound of <i>other</i> people getting supper.</p> - -<p>Stretched out at full length in a big easy-chair by his bedroom window, -with his favorite pipe bubbling rhythmically between his gleaming -white teeth, the Senior Surgeon studied his new “solid-gold bed” and -his new sage-green wall-paper and his new dust-colored rug, to the -faint, far-away accompaniment of soft-thudding feet and a girl’s laugh -and a child’s prattle and the <i>tink, tink, tinkle</i> of glass, china, -silver,—all scurrying consciously to the service of one man, and that -man himself.</p> - -<p>Very, very slowly, in that special half-hour an inscrutable little -smile printed itself experimentally across the right-hand corner of the -Senior Surgeon’s upper lip.</p> - -<p>While that smile was still in its infancy, he jumped up suddenly and -forced his way across the hall to his dead wife’s room,—the one -ghost-room of his house and his life,—and there, with his hand on the -turning door-knob, tense with reluctance, goose-fleshed with strain, -his breath gasped out of him whether or no with the one word, “Alice!”</p> - -<p>And, behold! there was no room there!</p> - -<p>Lurching back from the threshold as from the brink of an elevator-well, -the Senior Surgeon found himself staring foolishly into a most -sumptuous linen-closet, tiered like an Aztec cliff with home after home -for pleasant, prosy blankets and gaily fringed towels and cheerful -white sheets reeking most conscientiously of cedar and lavender. -Tiptoeing cautiously into the mystery, he sensed at one astonished, -grateful glance how the change of a partition, the readjustment of a -proportion, had purged like a draft of fresh air the stale gloom of -an ill-favored memory. Yet so inevitable did it suddenly seem for a -linen-closet to be built right there, so inevitable did it suddenly -seem for the child’s meager playroom to be enlarged just there, that -to save his soul he could not estimate whether the happy plan had -originated in a purely practical brain or a purely compassionate heart.</p> - -<p>Half proud of the brain, half touched by the heart, he passed on -exploringly through the new playroom out into the hall again.</p> - -<p>Quite distinctly now through the aperture of the back stairs the -kitchen voices came wafting up to him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” wailed his Little Girl’s peevish voice, “now -that—that man’s come back again, I suppose we’ll have to eat in the -dining-room all the time!”</p> - -<p>“‘That man’ happens to be your darling father,” admonished the White -Linen Nurse’s laughing voice.</p> - -<p>“Even so,” wailed the Little Girl, “I love you best.”</p> - -<p>“Even so,” laughed the White Linen Nurse, “I love <i>you</i> best.”</p> - -<p>“Just the same,” cried the Little Girl, shrilly—“just the same, let’s -put the cream-pitcher ’way up high somewhere, so he can’t step in it.”</p> - -<p>As though from a head tilted suddenly backward the White Linen Nurse’s -laugh rang out in joyous abandon.</p> - -<p>Impulsively the Senior Surgeon started to grin; then equally -impulsively the grin soured on his lips. So they thought he was -clumsy? Eh? Resentfully he stared down at his hands, those wonderfully -dexterous, yes, ambidexterous, hands that were the aching envy of all -his colleagues. Interruptingly as he stared, the voice of the young -Wall-Paper Man rose buoyantly from the lower hallway.</p> - -<p>“Supper’s all ready, sir!” came the clear, cordial summons.</p> - -<p>For some inexplainable reason, at that particular moment almost nothing -in the world could have irritated the Senior Surgeon more keenly than -to be invited to his own supper, in his own house, by a stranger. -Fuming with a new sense of injury and injustice, he started heavily -down the stairs to the dining-room.</p> - -<p>Standing patiently behind the Senior Surgeon’s chair with a laudable -desire to assist his carving in any possible emergency that might -occur, the White Linen Nurse experienced her first direct marital -rebuff.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_862" id="Page_862">[Pg 862]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What do you think this is, an autopsy?” demanded the Senior Surgeon, -tartly. “For Heaven’s sake, go and sit down!”</p> - -<p>Quite meekly the White Linen Nurse subsided into her place.</p> - -<p>The meal that ensued could hardly have been called a success, though -the room was entrancing, the cloth snow-white, the silver radiant, the -guinea-chicken beyond reproach.</p> - -<p>Swept and garnished to an alarming degree, the young Wall-Paper Man -presided over the gravy and did his uttermost, innocent country-best to -make the Senior Surgeon feel perfectly at home.</p> - -<p>Conscientiously, as in the presence of a distinguished stranger, the -Little Crippled Girl most palpably from time to time repressed her -insatiable desire to build a towering pyramid out of all the salt-and -pepper-shakers she could reach.</p> - -<p>Once when the young Wall-Paper Man forgot himself to the extent of -putting his knife in his mouth, the White Linen Nurse jarred the whole -table with the violence of her warning kick.</p> - -<p>Once when the Little Crippled Girl piped out impulsively, “Say, Peach, -what was the name of that bantam your father used to fight against the -minister’s bantam?” the White Linen Nurse choked piteously over her -food.</p> - -<p>Twice some one spoke about this year’s weather. Twice some one -volunteered an illuminating remark about last year’s weather. Except -for these four diversions, restraint indescribable hung like a horrid -pall over the feast.</p> - -<p>Next to feeling unwelcome in your friend’s house, nothing certainly -is more wretchedly disconcerting than to feel unwelcome in your own -house. Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to grab up all the knives -within reach and ram them successively into his own mouth, just to -prove to the young Wall-Paper Man what a—what a devil of a good fellow -he was himself. Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to tell the White -Linen Nurse about the pet bantam of his own boyhood days, that he bet a -dollar could lick any bantam her father ever dreamed of owning. Grimly -the Senior Surgeon longed to talk dolls, dishes, kittens, yes, even -cream-pitchers, to his little daughter; to talk anything, in fact, to -<i>any one</i>; to talk, sing, shout <i>anything</i> that would make him, at -least for the time being, one at heart, one at head, one at table, with -this astonishingly offish bunch of youngsters: but grimly instead, out -of his frazzled nerves, out of his innate spiritual bashfulness, he -merely roared forth, “Where are the potatoes?”</p> - -<p>“Potatoes?” gasped the White Linen Nurse. “Potatoes? Oh, potatoes?” she -finished more blithely. “Why, yes, of course. Don’t you remember you -didn’t have time to peel them for me? I was <i>so</i> disappointed!”</p> - -<p>“You were so disappointed?” snapped the Senior Surgeon. “You? You?”</p> - -<p>Janglingly the Little Crippled Girl knelt right up in her chair and -shook her tiny fist right in her father’s face.</p> - -<p>“Now, Lendicott Faber,” she screamed, “don’t you start in sassing my -darling little Peach!”</p> - -<p>“Peach?” snorted the Senior Surgeon. With almost supernatural calm he -put down his knife and fork and eyed his offspring with an expression -of absolutely inflexible purpose. “Don’t you ever,” he warned -her—“ever, ever, let me hear you call—this woman ‘Peach’ again!”</p> - -<p>A trifle faint-heartedly the Little Crippled Girl reached up and -straightened her absurdly diminutive little white cap, and pursed her -little mouth as nearly as possible into an expression of ineffable -peace.</p> - -<p>“Why, Lendicott Faber!” she persisted heroically.</p> - -<p>“Lendicott!” exclaimed the Senior Surgeon. “What are <i>you</i> -‘Lendicotting’ <i>me</i> for?”</p> - -<p>Hilariously with her own knife and fork the Little Crippled Girl began -to beat upon the table.</p> - -<p>“Why, you dear silly!” she cried—“why, if I’m the new marma, I’ve -<i>got</i> to call you Lendicott, and Peach has <i>got</i> to call you Fat -Father.”</p> - -<p>Frenziedly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair and jumped to his -feet. The expression on his face was neither smile nor frown, nor war -nor peace, nor any other human expression that had ever puckered there -before.</p> - -<p>“God!” he said, “this gives me the willies!” and strode tempestuously -from the room.</p> - -<p>Out in his own workshop, fortunately, whatever the grotesque new -pinkness, whatever the grotesque new perkiness, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_863" id="Page_863">[Pg 863]</a></span> great free -walking-spaces had not been interfered with. Slamming his door -triumphantly behind him, he resumed once more the monotonous pace, -pace, pace that for eighteen years had characterized his first night’s -return to civilization.</p> - -<p>Sharply around the corner of his battered old desk the little path -started, wanly along the edge of his dingy book-shelves the little -path furrowed, wistfully at the deep bay-window, where his favorite -lilac-bush budded whitely for his departure, and rusted brownly for his -return, the little path faltered, and went on again, on and on and on, -into the alcove where his instruments glistened, up to the fireplace, -where his college trophy-cups tarnished. Listlessly the Senior Surgeon -began anew his yearly vigil. Up and down, up and down, round and round, -on and on and on, through interminable ducks to unattainable dawns, -a glutted, bacchanalian soul sweating its own way back to sanctity -and leanness. Nerves always were in that vigil—raw, rattling nerves -clamoring vociferously to be repacked in their sedatives. Thirst also -was in that vigil; no mere whimpering tickle of the palate, but a -drought of the tissues, a consuming fire of the bones. Hurt pride was -also there, and festering humiliation.</p> - -<p>But more rasping, this particular night, than nerves, more poignant -than thirst, more dangerously excitative even than remorse, hunger -rioted in him—hunger, the one worst enemy of the Senior Surgeon’s -cause, the simple, silly, no-account, gnawing, drink-provocative hunger -of an empty stomach. And one other hunger was also there—a sudden -fierce new lust for life and living, a passion bare of love, yet pure -of wantonness, a passion primitive, protective, inexorably proprietary, -engendered strangely in that one mad, suspicious moment at the edge of -the summer-house when every outraged male instinct in him had leaped to -prove that, love or no love, the woman was his.</p> - -<p>Up and down, up and down, round and round, eight o’clock found the -Senior Surgeon still pacing.</p> - -<p>At half-past eight the young Wall-Paper Man came to say good-by to him.</p> - -<p>“As long as sister won’t be alone any more, I guess I’ll be moving on,” -beamed the Wall-Paper Man. “There’s a dance at home Saturday night, -and I’ve got a girl of my own,” he confided genially.</p> - -<p>“Come again,” urged the Senior Surgeon. “Come again when you can stay -longer.” With one honest prayer in stock, and at least two purely -automatic social speeches of this sort, no man needs to flounder -altogether hopelessly for words in any ordinary emergency of life. With -no more mental interruption than the two-minute break in time, the -Senior Surgeon then resumed his bitter-thoughted pacing.</p> - -<p>At nine o’clock, however, patrolling his long, rangy book-shelves, -he sensed with a very different feeling through his heavy oak door -the soft, whirring swish of skirts and the breathy twitter of muffled -voices. Faintly to his acute ears came the sound of his little -daughter’s temperish protest, “I won’t! I won’t!” and the White Linen -Nurse’s fervid pleading, “Oh, you must! you must!” and the Little -Girl’s mumbled ultimatum, “Well, I won’t unless <i>you</i> do.”</p> - -<p>Irascibly he crossed the room and yanked the door open abruptly upon -their surprise and confusion. His nerves were very sore.</p> - -<p>“What in thunder do you want?” he snarled.</p> - -<p>Nervously for an instant the White Linen Nurse tugged at the Little -Girl’s hand. Nervously for an instant the Little Girl tugged at the -White Linen Nurse’s hand. Then with a swallow like a sob the White -Linen Nurse lifted her glowing face to his.</p> - -<p>“K—kiss us good night!” said the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>Telescopically all in that startling second, vision after vision -beat down like blows upon the Senior Surgeon’s senses. The pink, -pink flush of the girl; the lure of her; the amazing sweetness; the -physical docility—oh, ye gods, the docility! Every trend of her -birth, of her youth, of her training, forcing her now, if he chose it, -to unquestioning submission to his will and his judgment! Faster and -faster the temptation surged through his pulses. The path from her lips -to her ear was such a little path; the plea so quick to make, so short, -“I want you <i>now</i>!”</p> - -<p>“K—kiss us good night!” urged the big girl’s unsuspecting lips. “Kiss -us good night!” mocked the Little Girl’s tremulous echo.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_864" id="Page_864">[Pg 864]</a></span></p> - -<p>Then explosively, with the noblest rudeness of his life, “No, I won’t!” -said the Senior Surgeon, and slammed the door in their faces.</p> - -<p>Falteringly up the stairs he heard the two ascending, speechless with -surprise, perhaps, stunned by his roughness, still hand in hand, -probably, still climbing slowly bedward, the soft, smooth, patient -footfall of the White Linen Nurse and the jerky, laborious <i>clang, -clang, clang</i> of a little dragging, iron-braced leg.</p> - -<p>Up and down, round and round, on and on and on, the Senior Surgeon -resumed his pacing. Under his eyes great shadows darkened. Along the -corners of his mouth the lines furrowed like gray scars. Up and down, -round and round, on and on and on and on.</p> - -<p>At ten o’clock, sitting bolt upright in her bed, with her worried eyes -straining bluely out across the Little Girl’s somnolent form into -unfathomable darkness, the White Linen Nurse in the throb of her own -heart began to keep pace with that faint, horrid <i>thud, thud, thud</i> in -the room below. Was he passing the bookcase now? Had he reached the -bay-window? Was he dawdling over those glistening scalpels? Would his -nerves remember the flask in that upper desk drawer? Up and down, round -and round, on and on, the harrowing sound continued.</p> - -<p>Resolutely at last she scrambled out of her snug nest, and, hurrying -into her great warm, pussy-gray wrapper, began at once very -practically, very unemotionally, with matches and alcohol and a shiny -glass jar, to prepare a huge steaming cup of malted milk. Beefsteak was -vastly better, she knew, or eggs, of course; but if she should venture -forth to the kitchen for real substantials the Senior Surgeon, she felt -quite positive, would almost certainly hear her and stop her. So very -stealthily thus, like the proverbial assassin, she crept down the front -stairs with the innocent malted-milk cup in her hand, and then with her -knuckles just on the verge of rapping against the grimly inhospitable -door, went suddenly paralyzed with uncertainty whether to advance or -retreat.</p> - -<p>Once again through the somber, inert wainscoting, exactly as if a soul -had creaked, the Senior Surgeon sensed the threatening, intrusive -presence of an unseen personality. Once again he strode across the -room and jerked the door open with terrifying anger and resentment.</p> - -<p>As though frozen there on his threshold by her own bare little feet, -as though strangled there in his doorway by her own great mop of gold -hair, as stolid and dumb as a pink-cheeked graven image, the White -Linen Nurse thrust the cup out awkwardly at him.</p> - -<p>Absolutely without comment, as though she trotted on purely -professional business and the case involved was of mutual concern to -them both, the Senior Surgeon took the cup from her hand and closed the -door again in her face.</p> - -<p>At eleven o’clock she came again, just as pink, just as blue, just as -gray, just as golden. And the cup of malted milk she brought with her -was just as huge, just as hot, just as steaming, only this time she had -smuggled two raw eggs into it.</p> - -<p>Once more the Senior Surgeon took the cup without comment and shut the -door in her face.</p> - -<p>At twelve o’clock she came again. The Senior Surgeon was unusually -loquacious this time.</p> - -<p>“Have you any more malted milk?” he asked tersely.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, sir!” beamed the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>“Go and get it,” said the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>Obediently the White Linen Nurse pattered up the stairs and returned -with the half-depleted bottle. Frankly interested, she recrossed the -threshold of the room and delivered her glass treasure into the hands -of the Senior Surgeon as he stood by his desk. Raising herself to her -tiptoes, she noted with eminent satisfaction that the three big cups on -the other side of the desk had all been drained to their dregs.</p> - -<p>Then very bluntly before her eyes the Senior Surgeon took the -malted-milk bottle and poured its remaining contents out quite wantonly -into his waste-basket. Then equally bluntly he took the White Linen -Nurse by the shoulders and marched her out of the room.</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake,” he said, “get out of this room, and stay out!”</p> - -<p><i>Bang!</i> the big door slammed behind her. Like a snarling fang, the lock -bit into its catch.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_865" id="Page_865">[Pg 865]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. Even just to herself, all alone -there in the big black hall, she was perfectly polite. “Y-e-s, sir,” -she repeated softly.</p> - -<p>With a slightly sardonic grin on his face, the Senior Surgeon resumed -his pacing up and down, round and round, on and on and on.</p> - -<p>At one o’clock, in the dull, clammy chill of earliest morning, he -stopped long enough to light his hearthfire. At two o’clock he stopped -again to pile on a trifle more wood. At three o’clock he dallied for an -instant to close a window. The new day seemed strangely cold. At four -o’clock dawn, the wonder, the miracle, the long-despaired-of, quickened -wanly across the east; then suddenly, more like a phosphorescent breeze -than a glow, the pale, pale yellow sunshine came wafting through the -green gloom of the garden. The vigil was over.</p> - -<p>Stumbling out into the shadowy hall to greet the new day and the new -beginning, the Senior Surgeon almost tripped and fell over the White -Linen Nurse, sitting all huddled up and drowsy-eyed in a gray little -heap on his outer threshold. The sensation of stepping upon a human -body is not a pleasant one. It smote the Senior Surgeon nauseously -through the nerves of his stomach.</p> - -<p>“What are you doing here?” he fairly screamed at her.</p> - -<p>“Just keeping you company, sir,” yawned the White Linen Nurse. Before -her hand could reach her mouth again, another great childish yawn -overwhelmed her. “Just—watching with you, sir,” she finished more or -less inarticulately.</p> - -<p>“Watching with me?” snarled the Senior Surgeon, resentfully. “Why -should you watch with me?”</p> - -<p>Like the frightened flash of a bird the heavy lashes went swooping down -across the pink cheeks and lifted as suddenly again.</p> - -<p>“Because you’re my—<i>man</i>,” yawned the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>Almost roughly the Senior Surgeon reached down and pulled the White -Linen Nurse to her feet.</p> - -<p>“God!” said the Senior Surgeon. In his strained, husky voice the word -sounded like an oath. Grotesquely a little smile went scudding zigzag -across his haggard face. With an impulse absolutely alien to him he -reached out abruptly again and raised the White Linen Nurse’s hand to -his lips. “<i>Good</i> God was what I meant—Miss Malgregor,” he grinned a -bit sheepishly.</p> - -<p>Quite bruskly then he turned and looked at his watch.</p> - -<p>“I’d like my breakfast just as soon now as you can possibly get it,” he -ordered peremptorily, in his own morbid, pathological emergency no more -stopping to consider the White Linen Nurse’s purely normal fatigue than -he in any pathological emergency of hers would have stopped to consider -his own comfort, safety, or, perhaps, even life.</p> - -<p>Joyously then like a prisoner just turned loose, he went swinging up -the stairs to recreate himself with a smoke and a shave and a great -splashing, cold shower-bath.</p> - -<p>Only one thing seemed really to trouble him now. At the top of the -stairs he stopped for an instant and cocked his head a bit worriedly -toward the drawing-room, where from some slow-brightening alcove -bird-carol after bird-carol went fluting shrilly up into the morning.</p> - -<p>“Is that those damned canaries?” he asked briefly.</p> - -<p>Very companionably the White Linen Nurse cocked her own towsled head on -one side and listened with him for half a moment.</p> - -<p>“Only four of them are damned canaries,” she corrected very gently. -“The fifth one is a parrakeet that I got at a mark-down because it was -a widowed bird and wouldn’t mate again.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?” jerked the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse, and started for the kitchen.</p> - -<p>No one but the Senior Surgeon himself breakfasted in state at five -o’clock that morning. Snug and safe in her crib up-stairs the Little -Crippled Girl slumbered peacefully on through the general disturbance. -And as for the White Linen Nurse herself, what with chilling and -rechilling melons, and broiling and unbroiling steaks, and making -and remaking coffee, and hunting frantically for a different-sized -water-glass or a prettier-colored plate, there was no time for anything -except an occasional hurried, surreptitious nibble half-way between the -stove and the table.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_866" id="Page_866">[Pg 866]</a></span></p> - -<p>Yet in all that raucous, early morning hour together neither man -nor girl suffered toward the other the slightest personal sense of -contrition or resentment; for each mind was trained equally fairly, -whether reacting on its own case or another’s, to differentiate pretty -readily between mean nerves and a mean spirit.</p> - -<p>Only once, in fact, across the intervening chasm of crankiness did -the Senior Surgeon hurl a smile that was even remotely self-conscious -or conciliatory. Glancing up suddenly from a particularly sharp and -disagreeable speech, he noted the White Linen Nurse’s red lips mumbling -softly one to the other.</p> - -<p>“Are you specially—religious, Miss Malgregor?” he grinned quite -abruptly.</p> - -<p>“No, not specially, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. “Why, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s only,” grinned the Senior Surgeon, dourly—“it’s only that -every time I’m especially ugly to you, I see your lips moving as though -in ‘silent prayer,’ as they call it; and I was just wondering if there -was any special formula you used with me that kept you so everlastingly -damned serene. Is there?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” demanded the Senior Surgeon, quite bluntly.</p> - -<p>“Do I <i>have</i> to tell?” gasped the White Linen Nurse. A little -tremulously in her hand the empty cup she was carrying rattled against -its saucer. “Do I <i>have</i> to tell?” she repeated pleadingly.</p> - -<p>A delirious little thrill of power went fluttering through the Senior -Surgeon’s heart.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you <i>have</i> to tell me,” he announced quite seriously.</p> - -<p>In absolute submission to his demand, though with very palpable -reluctance, the White Linen Nurse came forward to the table, put down -the cup and saucer, and began to finger a trifle nervously at the cloth.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m sure I didn’t mean any harm, sir,” she stammered; “but all I -say is,—honest and truly all I say is,—’Bah! he’s nothing but a man, -nothing but a man, nothing but a man!’ over and over and over. Just -that, sir.”</p> - -<p>Uproariously the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair and jumped to his -feet.</p> - -<p>“I guess, after all, I’ll have to let the little kid call you ‘Peach’ -one day a week,” he acknowledged jocosely.</p> - -<p>With great seriousness then he tossed back his great, splendid head, -shook himself free apparently from all unhappy memories, and started -for his workroom, a great, gorgeously vital, extraordinarily talented, -gray-haired boy, lusting joyously for his own work and play again after -a month’s distressing illness.</p> - -<p>From the edge of the hall he turned round and made a really boyish -grimace at her.</p> - -<p>“Now, if I only had the horns or the cloven hoof that you think I -have,” he called, “what an easy time I’d make of it, raking over all -the letters and ads. that are stacked up on my desk!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>Only once did he come back into the kitchen or dining-room for -anything. It was at seven o’clock, and the White Linen Nurse was still -washing dishes.</p> - -<p>As radiant as a gray-haired god he towered up in the doorway. The -boyish rejuvenation in him was even more startling than before.</p> - -<p>“I’m feeling so much like a fighting-cock this morning,” he said, “I -think I’ll tackle that paper on—that I have to read at Baltimore next -month.” A little startlingly the gray lines furrowed into his cheeks -again. “For Heaven’s sake, see that I’m not disturbed by anything!” he -admonished her warningly.</p> - -<p>It must have been almost eight o’clock when the ear-splitting scream -from up-stairs sent the White Linen Nurse plunging out panic-stricken -into the hall.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Peach! Peach!” yelled the Little Girl’s frenzied voice, “come -quick and see what Fat Father’s doing <i>now</i>, out on the piazza!”</p> - -<p>Jerkily the White Linen Nurse swerved off through the French door that -opened directly on the piazza. Had the Senior Surgeon hanged himself, -she tortured, in some wild, temporary aberration of the “morning after”?</p> - -<p>But stanchly and reassuringly from the farther end of the piazza the -Senior Surgeon’s broad back belied her horrid terror. Quite prosily -and in apparently perfect health he was standing close to the railing -of the piazza. On a table directly beside him rested four empty -bird-cages.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_867" id="Page_867">[Pg 867]</a></span> Just at that particular moment he was inordinately busy -releasing the last canary from the fifth cage. Both hands were smouched -with ink, and behind his left ear a fountain-pen dallied daringly.</p> - -<p>At the very first sound of the White Linen Nurse’s step the Senior -Surgeon turned and faced her with a sheepish sort of defiance.</p> - -<p>“Well, <i>now</i>, I imagine,” he said—“well, now I imagine I’ve really -made you mad.”</p> - -<p>“No, not mad, sir,” faltered the White Linen Nurse—“no, not mad, sir, -but very far from well.” Coaxingly, with a perfectly futile hand, she -tried to lure one astonished yellow songster back from a swaying yellow -bush. “Why, they’ll die, sir!” she protested. “Savage cats will get -them.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a choice of their lives or mine,” said the Senior Surgeon, -tersely.</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir,” droned the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>Quite snappishly the Senior Surgeon turned upon her.</p> - -<p>“For Heaven’s sake, do you think canary-birds are more valuable than I -am?” he demanded stentoriously.</p> - -<p>Most disconcertingly before his glowering eyes a great sad, round tear -rolled suddenly down the White Linen Nurse’s flushed cheek.</p> - -<p>“N-o-o, not more valuable,” conceded the White Linen Nurse, “but more -c-cunning.”</p> - -<p>Up to the roots of the Senior Surgeon’s hair a flush of real contrition -spread hotly.</p> - -<p>“Why—Rae,” he stammered, “why, what a beast I am! Why—why—” In -sincere perplexity he began to rack his brains for some adequate -excuse, some adequate explanation. “Why, I’m sure I didn’t mean to make -you feel badly,” he persisted. “Only I’ve lived alone so long that I -suppose I’ve just naturally drifted into the way of having a thing -if I wanted it and—throwing it away if I didn’t. And canary-birds, -now? Well, really—” He began to glower all over again. “Oh, hell!” he -finished abruptly, “I guess I’ll go on down to the hospital, where I -belong!”</p> - -<p>A little wistfully the White Linen Nurse stepped forward.</p> - -<p>“The hospital?” she said. “Oh, the hospital. Do you think that perhaps -you could come home a little bit earlier than usual to-night, and—and -help me catch just one of the canaries?”</p> - -<p>“What?” gasped the Senior Surgeon. Incredulously with a very inky -finger he pointed at his own breast. “What? I?” he demanded. “I? Come -home early from the hospital to help <i>you</i> catch a canary?”</p> - -<p>Disgustedly, without further comment, he turned and stalked back again -into the house.</p> - -<p>The disgust was still in his walk as he left the house an hour later. -Watching his exit down the long gravel path, the Little Crippled Girl -commented audibly on the matter.</p> - -<p>“Peach! Peach!” she called, “what makes Fat Father walk so—surprised?”</p> - -<p>People at the hospital also commented upon him.</p> - -<p>“Gee!” giggled the new nurses, “we bet he’s a Tartar! But isn’t his -hair cute? And, say, is it really true that that Malgregor girl was -pinned down perfectly helpless under the car and he wouldn’t let -her out till she’d promised to marry him? Isn’t it awful? Isn’t it -romantic?”</p> - -<p>“Why, Dr. Faber’s back!” fluttered the old nurses. “Isn’t he wonderful? -Isn’t he beautiful? But, oh, say,” they worried, “what do you suppose -Rae ever finds to talk with him about? Would she ever dare talk -<i>things</i> to him,—just plain every-day things,—hats, and going to the -theater, and what to have for breakfast?” They gasped. “Why, yes, of -course,” they reasoned more sanely. “Steak? Eggs? Even oatmeal? Why, -people had to eat, no matter how wonderful they were. But evenings?” -they speculated more darkly. “But evenings?” In the whole range of -human experience was it even so much as remotely imaginable that, -evenings, the Senior Surgeon and Rae Malgregor sat in the hammock and -held hands? “Oh, gee!” blanched the old nurses.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, Dr. Faber,” greeted the Superintendent of Nurses from -behind her austere office desk.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, Madam,” said the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>“Have you had a pleasant trip?” quizzed the Superintendent of Nurses.</p> - -<p>“Exceptionally so, thank you,” said the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_868" id="Page_868">[Pg 868]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And—Mrs. Faber, is she well?” persisted the Superintendent of Nurses, -conscientiously.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mrs.</i> Faber?” gasped the Senior Surgeon. “<i>Mrs.</i> Faber? Oh, yes; why, -of course. Yes, indeed, she’s extraordinarily well. I never saw her -better.”</p> - -<p>“She must have been very lonely without you this past month,” rasped -the Superintendent of Nurses, perfectly polite.</p> - -<p>“Yes, she was,” replied the flushed Senior Surgeon. “She—she suffered -keenly.”</p> - -<p>“And you, too?” drawled the Superintendent of Nurses. “It must have -been very hard for you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it was,” replied the Senior Surgeon. “I suffered keenly, too.”</p> - -<p>Distractedly he glanced back at the open door. An extraordinarily large -number of nurses, internes, orderlies, seemed to be having errands up -and down the corridor that allowed them a peculiarly generous length of -neck to stretch into the Superintendent’s office.</p> - -<p>“Great Heavens!” snapped the Senior Surgeon, “what’s the matter with -everybody this morning?” Tempestuously he started for the door. “Hurry -up my cases, please, Miss Hartzen!” he ordered. “Send them to the -operating-room, and let me get to work.”</p> - -<p>At eleven o’clock, absolutely calm, absolutely cool, as pure as a girl -in his white operating-clothes; cleaner, skin, hair, teeth, hands, than -any girl who ever walked the face of the earth, in a white-tiled room -as free from germs as himself, with three or four small glistening -instruments, and half a dozen breathless assistants almost as spotless -as himself, with his sleeves rolled back the whole length of his arms, -and the faintest possible little grin twitching oddly at one corner of -his mouth, he “went in,” as they say, to a new-born baby’s tortured, -twisted spine, and took out fifty years, perhaps, of hunchbacked pain -and shame and morbid passions flourishing banefully in the dark shades -of a disordered life.</p> - -<p>At half-past twelve he did an appendix operation on the only son of -his best friend; at one o’clock he did another appendix operation. -Whom it was on didn’t matter; it couldn’t have been worse on any one. -At half-past one no one remembered to feed him. At two, in another -man’s operation, he saw the richest merchant in the city go wafted -out into eternity on the fumes of ether taken for the lancing of a -sty. At three o’clock, passing the open door of one of the public -waiting-rooms, an Italian peasant woman rushed out and spat in his -face because her tubercular daughter had just died at the sanatorium -where the Senior Surgeon’s money had sent her. Only in this one wild, -defiling moment did the lust for alcohol surge up in him again, surge -clamorously, brutally, absolutely mercilessly, as though in all the -world only interminable raw whisky was hot enough to cauterize a -polluted consciousness. At half-past three, as soon as he could change -his clothes again, he rebroke and reset an acrobat’s priceless leg. At -five o’clock, more to rest himself than anything else, he went up to -the autopsy amphitheater to look over an exhibit of enlarged hearts -whose troubles were permanently over.</p> - -<p>At six o’clock, just as he was leaving the great building, with all -its harrowing sights, sounds, and smells, a peremptory telephone call -from one of the younger surgeons of the city summoned him back into the -stuffy office again.</p> - -<p>“Dr. Faber?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“This is Merkley.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Can you come immediately and help me with that fractured-skull case I -was telling you about this morning? We’ll have to trepan right away!”</p> - -<p>“Trepan <i>nothing</i>!” grunted the Senior Surgeon. “I’ve got to go home -early to-night—and help catch a canary.”</p> - -<p>“Catch a what?” gasped the younger surgeon.</p> - -<p>“A canary,” grinned the Senior Surgeon, mirthlessly.</p> - -<p>“A <i>what</i>?” roared the younger man.</p> - -<p>“Oh, shut up, you damned fool! Of course I’ll come,” said the Senior -Surgeon.</p> - -<p>There was no “boy” left in the Senior Surgeon when he reached home that -night.</p> - -<p>Gray with road-travel, haggard with strain and fatigue, it was long, -long after the rosy sunset-time, long, long after the yellow supper -light, that he came dragging up through the sweet-scented dusk of the -garden and threw himself down without greeting of any sort on the top -step of the piazza, where the White<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_869" id="Page_869">[Pg 869]</a></span> Linen Nurse’s skirts glowed -palely through the gloom.</p> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_868" name="i_868"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe31" src="images/i_868.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Color-Tone, engraved for - T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> by H. C. - Merrill and H. Davidson</p> - <p class="caption1a">“HE WAS INORDINATELY BUSY RELEASING THE LAST CANARY”</p> - <p class="caption1">DRAWN BY HERMAN PFEIFER</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_868_large.jpg" id="i_868_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">“Well, I put a canary-bird back into its cage for you,” he confided -laconically. “It was a little chap’s soul. It sure would have gotten -away before morning.”</p> - -<p>“Who was the man that tried to turn it loose <i>this</i> time?” asked the -White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t <i>say</i> that anybody did,” growled the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>“Oh,” said the White Linen Nurse. “Oh.” Quite palpably a little shiver -of flesh and starch went rustling through her. “I’ve had a wonderful -day, too,” she confided softly. “I’ve cleaned the attic and darned nine -pairs of your stockings and bought a sewing-machine and started to make -you a white silk negligée shirt for a surprise.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?” jerked out the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>The jerk seemed to liberate suddenly the faint vibration of dishes and -the sound of ice knocking lusciously against a glass.</p> - -<p>“Oh, have you had any supper, sir?” asked the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>With a prodigious sigh the Senior Surgeon threw his head back against -the piazza railing and stretched his legs a little farther out along -the piazza floor.</p> - -<p>“Supper?” he groaned. “No; nor dinner, nor breakfast, nor any other -blankety-blank meal as far back as I can remember.” Janglingly -in his voice, fatigue, hunger, nerves, crashed together like the -slammed notes of a piano. “But I wouldn’t move now,” he snarled, -“if all the blankety-blank-blank foods in Christendom were piled -blankety-blank-blank high on all the blankety-blank-blank tables in -this whole blankety-blank-blank house.”</p> - -<p>Ecstatically the White Linen Nurse clapped her hands.</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s just exactly what I hoped you’d say!” she cried. “’Cause -the supper’s right <i>here</i>!”</p> - -<p>“Here?” snapped the Senior Surgeon. Tempestuously he began all over -again: “I tell you I wouldn’t lift my little finger if all the -blankety-blank-blank-blank-blank—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, goody, then!” said the White Linen Nurse. “’Cause now I can feed -you! I sort of miss fussing with the canary-birds,” she added wistfully.</p> - -<p>“Feed me?” roared the Senior Surgeon. Again something started a lump of -ice tinkling faintly in a thin glass. “<i>Feed</i> me?” he began all over -again.</p> - -<p>Yet with a fragrant strawberry half as big as a peach held out suddenly -under his nose, just from sheer, irresistible instinct he bit out at -it, and nipped the White Linen Nurse’s finger instead.</p> - -<p>“Ouch, sir!” said the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>Mumblingly down from an up-stairs window, as from a face flatted -smouchingly against a wire screen, a peremptory summons issued.</p> - -<p>“Peach! <i>Peach!</i>” called an angry little voice, “if you don’t come to -bed now I’ll—I’ll say my curses instead of my prayers!”</p> - -<p>A trifle nervously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her feet.</p> - -<p>“Maybe I’d better go,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Maybe you had,” said the Senior Surgeon, quite definitely.</p> - -<p>At the edge of the threshold the White Linen Nurse turned for an -instant.</p> - -<p>“Good night, Dr. Faber,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“Good night, Rae Malgregor—Faber,” said the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>“Good night <i>what</i>?” gasped the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>“Good night, Rae Malgregor—Faber,” repeated the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>Clutching at her skirts as though a mouse were after her, the White -Linen Nurse went scuttling up the stairs.</p> - -<p>Very late on into the night the Senior Surgeon lay there on his piazza -floor, staring out into his garden. Very companionably from time to -time, like a tame firefly, a little bright spark hovered and glowed -for an instant above the bowl of his pipe. Puff, puff, puff; doze, -doze, doze; throb, throb, throb, on and on and on and on into the -sweet-scented night.</p> - -<p>So the days passed, and the nights, and more days, and more -nights—July, August, on and on and on. Strenuous, nerve-racking, -heartbreaking surgical days, broken maritally only by the pleasant, -soft-worded greeting at the gate, or the practical, homely appeal of -good food cooked with heart as well as with hands, or the tingling, -inciting masculine consciousness of there being a woman’s blush in the -house. Strenuous, house-working, child-nursing, home-making domestic -days, broken maritally only by the jaded, harsh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_870" id="Page_870">[Pg 870]</a></span> word at the gate, -the explosive criticism of food, the deadening depressing feminine -consciousness of there being a man’s vicious temper in the house.</p> - -<p>Now and again, in one big automobile or another, the White Linen Nurse -and the Senior Surgeon rode out together, always and forever with the -Little Crippled Girl sitting between them, the other woman’s little -crippled girl. Now and again in the late summer afternoons the White -Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon strolled together through the -rainbow-colored garden, always and forever with the Little Crippled -Girl, the other woman’s little crippled girl, tagging close behind them -with her little sad, clanking leg. Now and again in the long sweet -summer evenings the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon sat on the -clematis-shadowed porch together, always and forever with the Little -Crippled Girl, the other woman’s little crippled girl, mocking them -querulously from some vague upper window.</p> - -<p>Now and again across the mutually ghost-haunted chasm that separated -them flashed the incontrovertible signal of sex and sense, as when a -new interne, grossly bungling, stood at the hospital window with a -colleague to watch the Senior Surgeon’s car roll away as usual with its -two feminine passengers.</p> - -<p>“What makes the chief so stingy with that big handsome girl of his?” -queried the new interne a bit resentfully. “He won’t ever bring her -into the hospital, won’t ever ask any of us young chaps out to his -house, and some of us come mighty near to being eligible, too. Who’s -he saving her for, anyway? A saint? A miracle-worker? A millionaire -medicine-man? They don’t exist, you know.”</p> - -<p>“I’m saving her for myself,” snapped the Senior Surgeon, most -disconcertingly from the doorway. “She—she happens to be my wife, not -my daughter, thank you.” He hurried home that night as rattled as a -boy, with a big bunch of new magazines and a box of candy as large as -his head tucked courtingly under his arm.</p> - -<p>Now and again across the chasm that separated them flashed the -incontrovertible signal of mutual trust and appreciation, as when once, -after a particularly violent vocal outburst on the Senior Surgeon’s -part, he sobered down very suddenly and said:</p> - -<p>“Rae Malgregor, do you realize that in all the weeks we’ve been -together you’ve never once nagged me about my swearing? Not a word, not -a single word!”</p> - -<p>“I’m not very used to—words,” smiled the White Linen Nurse, a bit -faintly. “All I know how to nag with is—is raw eggs. If we could only -get those nerves of yours padded just once, sir!”</p> - -<p>In August the Senior Surgeon suggested sincerely that the house was -much too big for the White Linen Nurse to run all alone, but conceded -equally sincerely, under the White Linen Nurse’s vehement protest, -that servants, particularly new servants, <i>did</i> creak considerably -round a house, and that maybe “just for the present” at least, until he -finished the very nervous paper he was working on—perhaps it would be -better to stay “just by ourselves.”</p> - -<p>In September the White Linen Nurse wanted very much to go home to Nova -Scotia to her sister’s wedding, but the Senior Surgeon was trying a -very complicated and worrisome new brace on the Little Girl’s leg, and -it didn’t seem quite kind to go. In October she planned her trip all -over again. She was going to take the Little Crippled Girl with her -this time. But with their trunks already packed and waiting in the -hall, the Senior Surgeon came home from the hospital with a septic -finger, and it didn’t seem quite best to leave him.</p> - -<p>“Well, how do you like being married <i>now</i>?” asked the Senior Surgeon, -a bit ironically in his workroom that night, after the White Linen -Nurse had stood for an hour with evil-smelling washes and interminable -bandages, trying to fix that finger the precise, particular way that -he thought it ought to be fixed. “Well, how do you like being married -<i>now</i>?” he insisted trenchantly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I like it all right, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. A little -bit wanly this time she smiled her pluck up into the Senior Surgeon’s -questioning face. “Oh, I like it all right, sir. Oh, of course, sir,” -she confided thoughtfully—“oh, of course, sir, it isn’t quite as fancy -as being engaged, or quite as free and easy as being single; but, -still,” she admitted with desperate honesty—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_871" id="Page_871">[Pg 871]</a></span>“but, still, there’s a -sort of—a sort of a combination importance and—and comfort about it, -sir, like a—like a velvet suit—the second year, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Is that all?” quizzed the Senior Surgeon, bluntly.</p> - -<p>“That’s all so far, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>In November the White Linen Nurse caught a bit of cold that pulled her -down a little. But the Senior Surgeon didn’t notice it specially among -all the virulent ills he lived and worked with from day to day. And -then when the cold disappeared, Indian summer came like a reeking sweat -after a chill. And the house <i>was</i> big, and the Little Crippled Girl -<i>was</i> pretty difficult to manage now and then, and the Senior Surgeon, -no matter how hard he tried not to, did succeed somehow in creating -more or less of a disturbance at least every other day or two.</p> - -<p>And then suddenly, one balmy, gold-and-crimson Indian summer morning, -standing out on the piazza trying to hear what the Little Crippled Girl -was calling from the window and what the Senior Surgeon was calling -from the gate, the White Linen Nurse fell right down in her tracks, -brutally, bulkily, like a worn-out horse, and lay, as she fell, a -huddled white blot across the gray piazza.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Father, come quick! Come quick! Peach has deaded herself!” yelled -the Little Girl’s frantic voice.</p> - -<p>Just with his foot on the step of his car the Senior Surgeon heard -the cry and came speeding back up the long walk. Already there before -him the Little Girl knelt, raining passionate, agonized kisses on her -beloved playmate’s ghastly white face.</p> - -<p>“Leave her alone!” thundered the Senior Surgeon. “Leave her alone, I -say!”</p> - -<p>Bruskly he pushed the Little Girl aside, and knelt to cradle his own -ear against the White Linen Nurse’s heart.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s all right,” he growled, and gathered the White Linen -Nurse right up in his arms—she was startlingly lighter than he had -supposed—and carried her up the stairs and put her to bed like a child -in the great sumptuous guest-room, in a great sumptuous nest of all the -best linens and blankets, with the Little Crippled Girl superintending -the task with many hysterical suggestions and sharp, staccato -interruptions. For once in his life the Senior Surgeon did not stop to -quarrel with his daughter.</p> - -<p>Rallying limply from her swoon, the White Linen Nurse at last stared -out with hazy perplexity from her dimpling white pillows to see the -Senior Surgeon standing amazingly at the guest-room bureau with a -glass and a medicine-dropper in his hand, and the Little Crippled Girl -hanging apparently by her narrow, peaked chin across the foot-board of -the bed.</p> - -<p>Gazing down worriedly at the lace-ruffled sleeve of her night-dress, -the White Linen Nurse made her first public speech to the world at -large.</p> - -<p>“Who put me to bed?” whispered the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>Ecstatically the Little Crippled Girl began to pound her fists on the -foot-board of the bed.</p> - -<p>“Father did!” she cried in unmistakable triumph. “All the little hooks, -all the little buttons! wasn’t it cunning?”</p> - -<p>The Senior Surgeon would hardly have been human if he hadn’t glanced -back suddenly over his shoulder at the White Linen Nurse’s quickly -changing color. Quite irrepressibly, as he saw the red blood come -surging home again into her cheeks, a short, chuckling little laugh -escaped him.</p> - -<p>“I guess you’ll live now,” he remarked dryly.</p> - -<p>Then because a Senior Surgeon can’t stay home on the mere impulse of -the moment from a great rushing hospital just because one member of -his household happens to faint perfectly innocently in the morning, he -hurried on to his work again, and saved a little boy, and lost a little -girl, and mended a fractured thigh, and eased a gunshot wound, and came -dashing home at noon in one of his thousand-dollar hours to feel the -White Linen Nurse’s pulse and broil her a bit of tenderloin steak with -his own thousand-dollar hands; and then went dashing off again to do -one major operation or another, telephoned home once or twice during -the afternoon to make sure that everything was all right, and, finding -that the White Linen Nurse was comfortably up and about again, went -sprinting off fifty miles somewhere on a meningitis consultation, and -came dragging home at last, somewhere near midnight, to a big, black -house brightened only by a single light in the kitchen, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_872" id="Page_872">[Pg 872]</a></span> the -White Linen Nurse went tiptoeing softly from stove to pantry in deft -preparation of an appetizing supper for him.</p> - -<p>Quite roughly again, without smile or appreciation, the Senior Surgeon -took her by the shoulders and turned her out of the kitchen and started -her up the stairs.</p> - -<p>“Are you an idiot?” he said. “Are you an imbecile?” he came back and -called up the stairs to her just as she was disappearing from the upper -landing. Then up and down, round and round, on and on and on, the -Senior Surgeon began suddenly to pace again.</p> - -<p>Only, for some unexplainable reason to the White Linen Nurse up-stairs, -his workroom didn’t seem quite large enough for his pacing this night. -Along the broad piazza she heard his footsteps creak. Far, far into -the morning, lying warm and snug in her own little bed, she heard his -footsteps crackling through the wet-leafed garden paths.</p> - -<p>Yet the Senior Surgeon didn’t look an atom jaded or forlorn when he -came down to breakfast the next morning. He had on a brand-new gray -suit that fitted his big, powerful shoulders to perfection, and the -glad glow of his shower-bath was still reddening faintly in his cheeks -as he swung around the corner of the table and dropped down into his -place, with an odd little grin on his lips directed intermittently -toward the White Linen Nurse and the Little Crippled Girl, who already -waited him there at each end of the table.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Father, <i>isn’t</i> it lovely to have my darling, darling Peach all -well again!” beamed the Little Crippled Girl, with unusual friendliness.</p> - -<p>“Speaking of your ’darling Peach,’” said the Senior Surgeon, -abruptly—“speaking of your ‘darling Peach,’ I’m going to take her away -with me to-day for a week or so.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?” exclaimed the Little Crippled Girl.</p> - -<p>“What? What, sir?” stammered the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>Quite prosily the Senior Surgeon began to butter a piece of toast; -but the little twinkle about his eyes belied in some way the utter -prosiness of the act.</p> - -<p>“For a little trip,” he confided amiably, “a little holiday.”</p> - -<p>A trifle excitedly the White Linen Nurse laid down her knife and fork -and stared at him as blue-eyed and wondering as a child.</p> - -<p>“A holiday?” she gasped. “To a—<i>beach</i>, you mean? Would there be a—a -roller-coaster? I’ve never seen a roller-coaster.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?” laughed the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m going, too! I’m going, too!” piped the Little Crippled Girl.</p> - -<p>Most jerkily the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the table, -and swallowed half a cup of coffee at one single gulp.</p> - -<p>“Going <i>three</i>, you mean?” he glowered at his little daughter. “Going -<i>three</i>?” His comment that ensued was distinctly rough as far as -diction was concerned, but the facial expression of ineffable peace -that accompanied it would have made almost any phrase sound like a -benediction. “Not by a damned sight!” beamed the Senior Surgeon. “This -little trip is just for Peach and me.”</p> - -<p>“But, sir—” fluttered the White Linen Nurse. Her face was suddenly -pinker than any rose that ever bloomed.</p> - -<p>With an impulse absolutely novel to him, the Senior Surgeon turned and -swung his little daughter very gently to his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Your Aunt Agnes is coming to stay with <i>you</i> in just about ten -minutes,” he affirmed. “That’s what’s going to happen to <i>you</i>. And -maybe there’ll be a pony—a white pony.”</p> - -<p>“But Peach is so—pleasant!” wailed the Little Crippled Girl. “Peach is -so pleasant!” she began to scream and kick.</p> - -<p>“So it seems,” growled the Senior Surgeon; “and she’s—dying of it.”</p> - -<p>Tearfully the Little Girl wriggled down to the ground, and hobbled -around and thrust her finger-tip into the White Linen Nurse’s blushiest -cheek.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want Peach to die,” she admitted worriedly; “but I don’t want -anybody to take her away.”</p> - -<p>“The pony is very white,” urged the Senior Surgeon with a diplomacy -quite alien to him.</p> - -<p>Abruptly the Little Girl turned and faced him.</p> - -<p>“What color is Aunt Agnes?” she asked vehemently.</p> - -<p>“Aunt Agnes is pretty white, too,” declared the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>With the faintest possible tinge of su<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_873" id="Page_873">[Pg 873]</a></span>perciliousness the Little Girl -lifted her sharp chin a trifle higher.</p> - -<p>“If it’s just a perfectly plain white pony,” she said, “I’d rather -have Peach. But if it’s a white pony with black blots on it, and if -it can pull a little cart, and if I can whip it with a little switch, -and if it will eat sugar lumps out of my hand, and if its name is—is -’Beautiful, Pretty Thing—’”</p> - -<p>“Its name has always been ‘Beautiful, Pretty Thing,’ I’m quite sure,” -insisted the Senior Surgeon. Inadvertently as he spoke he reached out -and put a hand very lightly on the White Linen Nurse’s shoulder.</p> - -<p>Instantly into the Little Girl’s suspicious face flushed a furiously -uncontrollable flame of jealousy and resentment. Madly she turned upon -her father.</p> - -<p>“You’re a liar!” she screamed. “There <i>is</i> no white pony! You’re a -robber! You’re a—a—drunk! You sha’n’t have my darling Peach!” She -threw herself frenziedly into the White Linen Nurse’s lap.</p> - -<p>Impatiently the Senior Surgeon disentangled the clinging little arms, -and, raising the White Linen Nurse to her feet, pushed her gently -toward the hall.</p> - -<p>“Go to my workroom,” he said. “Quickly! I want to talk with you.”</p> - -<p>A moment later he joined her there, and shut and locked the door behind -him. The previous night’s loss of sleep showed plainly in his face now, -and the hospital strain of the day before, and of the day before that, -and of the day before that.</p> - -<p>Heavily, moodily, he crossed the room and threw himself down in his -desk chair, with the White Linen Nurse still standing before him as -though she were nothing but a white linen nurse. All the splendor was -suddenly gone from him, all the radiance, all the exultant purpose.</p> - -<p>“Well, Rae Malgregor,” he grinned mirthlessly, “the little kid is -right, though I certainly don’t know where she got her information. I -<i>am</i> a liar. The pony’s name is not yet ’Beautiful, Pretty Thing’! I -<i>am</i> a drunk. I was drunk most of June. I <i>am</i> a robber. I have taken -you out of your youth and the love chances of your youth, and shut you -up here in this great, gloomy old house of mine, to be my slave and my -child’s slave and—”</p> - -<p>“Pouf!” said the White Linen Nurse. “It would seem silly now, sir, to -marry a boy.”</p> - -<p>“And I’ve been a beast to you,” persisted the Senior Surgeon. “From the -very first day you belonged to me I’ve been a beast to you, venting -brutally on your youth, on your sweetness, on your patience, all the -work, the worry, the wear and tear, the abnormal strain and stress of -my disordered days and years; and I’ve let my little girl vent also -on you all the pang and pain of <i>her</i> disordered days. And because in -this great, gloomy, racketty house it seemed suddenly like a miracle -from heaven to have service that was soft-footed, gentle-handed, -pleasant-hearted, I’ve let you shoulder all the hideous drudgery, the -care, one horrid homely task after another piling up, up, up, till you -dropped in your tracks yesterday, still smiling!”</p> - -<p>“But I got a good deal out of it, even so, sir!” protested the White -Linen Nurse. “See, sir!” she smiled. “I’ve got real lines in my face -now, like other women. I’m not a doll any more. I’m not a—”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” groaned the Senior Surgeon; “and I might just as kindly have -carved those lines with my knife. But I was going to make it all up to -you to-day,” he hurried.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_874" id="Page_874">[Pg 874]</a></span> “I swear I was! Even in one short little week -I could have done it, you wouldn’t have known me, I was going to take -you away—just you and me. I would have been a saint. I swear I would! -I would have given you such a great, wonderful, child-hearted holiday -as you never dreamed of in all your unselfish life—a holiday all you, -you, you! You could have dug in the sand if you’d wanted to. God! I’d -have dug in the sand if you’d wanted me to. And now it’s all gone from -me, all the will, all the sheer, positive self-assurance that I could -have carried the thing through absolutely selflessly. That little -girl’s sneering taunt, the ghost of her mother in that taunt—God! when -anybody knocks you just in your decency, it doesn’t harm you specially; -but when they knock you in your wanting-to-be-decent, it—it undermines -you somewhere. I don’t know exactly how. I’m nothing but a man again -now, just a plain, everyday, greedy, covetous, physical man on the -edge of a holiday, the first clean holiday in twenty years, that he no -longer dares to take!”</p> - -<p>A little swayingly the White Linen Nurse shifted her standing weight -from one foot to the other.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. “I’d like to have seen a -roller-coaster, sir.”</p> - -<p>Just for an instant a gleam of laughter went scudding zigzag across the -Senior Surgeon’s brooding face, and was gone again.</p> - -<p>“Rae Malgregor, come here!” he ordered quite sharply.</p> - -<p>Very softly, very glidingly, like the footfall of a person who has -never known heels, the White Linen Nurse came forward swiftly, and, -sliding in cautiously between the Senior Surgeon and his desk, stood -there, with her back braced against the desk, her fingers straying -idly up and down the edges of the desk, staring up into his face, all -readiness, all attention, like a soldier waiting further orders.</p> - -<p>So near was she that he could almost hear the velvet heart-throb of -her, the little fluttering swallow, yet by some strange, persistent -aloofness of her, some determinate virginity, not a fold of her gown, -not an edge, not a thread, seemed even to so much as graze his knee, -seemed even to so much as shadow his hand, lest it short-circuit -thereby the seething currents of their variant emotions.</p> - -<p>With extraordinary intentness for a moment the Senior Surgeon sat -staring into the girl’s eyes, the blue eyes too full of childish -questioning yet to flinch with either consciousness or embarrassment.</p> - -<p>“After all, Rae Malgregor,” he smiled at last, faintly—“after all, Rae -Malgregor, Heaven knows when I shall ever get another holiday.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir?” said the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>With apparent irrelevance he reached for his ivory paper-cutter and -began bending it dangerously between his adept fingers.</p> - -<p>“How long have you been with me, Rae Malgregor?” he asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>“Four months—actually with you, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>“Do you happen to remember the exact phrasing of my—proposal of -marriage to you?” he asked shrewdly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, sir!” said the White Linen Nurse. “You called it ’general -heartwork for a family of two.’”</p> - -<p>A little grimly before her steady gaze the Senior Surgeon’s own eyes -fell, and rallied again almost instantly with a gaze as even and direct -as hers.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he smiled, “through the whole four months I seem to have kept -my part of the contract all right, and held you merely as a drudge in -my home. Have you, then, decided once and for all time, whether you are -going to stay on with us or whether you will ‘give notice,’ as other -drudges have done?”</p> - -<p>With a little backward droop of one shoulder the White Linen Nurse -began to finger nervously at the desk behind her, and turning half-way -round, as though to estimate what damage she was doing, exposed thus -merely the profile of her pink face, of her white throat, to the Senior -Surgeon’s questioning eyes.</p> - -<p>“I shall never—give notice, sir!” fluttered the white throat.</p> - -<p>“Are you perfectly sure?” insisted the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>The pink in the White Linen Nurse’s profiled cheek deepened a little.</p> - -<p>“Perfectly sure, sir,” declared the carmine lips.</p> - -<p>Like the crack of a pistol, the Senior Surgeon snapped the ivory -paper-cutter in two.</p> - -<p>“All right, then,” he said. “Rae Malgregor, look at me! Don’t take your -eyes from mine, I say! Rae Malgregor, if I should decide in my own -mind, here and now, that it was best for you, as well as for me, that -you should come away with me now for this week, not as my guest, as I -had planned, but as my wife, even if you were not quite ready for it in -your heart, even if you were not yet remotely ready for it, would you -come because I told you to come?”</p> - -<p>Heavily under her white eyelids, heavily under her black lashes, the -girl’s eyes struggled up to meet his own.</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir,” whispered the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>Abruptly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the desk and -stood up. The important decision once made, no further finessing of -words seemed either necessary or dignified to him.</p> - -<p>“Go and pack your suitcase quickly, then,” he ordered. “I want to get -away from here within half an hour.”</p> - -<p>But before the girl had half crossed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_875" id="Page_875">[Pg 875]</a></span> room he called to her -suddenly. And his face in that moment was as haggard as though a whole -lifetime’s struggle was packed into it.</p> - -<p>“Rae Malgregor,” he drawled mockingly, “this thing shall be—barter -’way through to the end, with the credit always on your side of the -account. In exchange for the gift of yourself—your wonderful self, -and the trust that goes with it, I will give you,—God help me!—the -ugliest thing in my life. And God knows I have broken faith with myself -once or twice, but never have I broken my word to another. From now on, -in token of your trust in me, for whatever the bitter gift is worth to -you, as long as you stay with me, my Junes shall be yours, to do with -as you please.”</p> - -<p>“<i>What</i>, sir?” gasped the White Linen Nurse. “<i>What</i>, sir?”</p> - -<p>Softly, almost stealthily, she was half-way back across the room to -him, when she stopped suddenly and threw out her arms with a gesture of -appeal and defiance.</p> - -<p>“All the same, sir,” she cried passionately—“all the same, sir, -the place is too hard for the small pay I get. Oh, I will do what I -promised,” she declared with increasing passion; “I will never leave -you; and I will mother your little girl; and I will servant your big -house; and I will go with you wherever you say! And I will be to you -whatever you wish; and I will never flinch from any hardship you impose -on me, nor whine over any pain, on and on and on, all my days, all my -years, till I drop in my tracks again, and die, as you say, ‘still -smiling’: all the same,” she reiterated wildly, “the place is too hard! -It always was too hard, it always will be too hard, for such small pay!”</p> - -<p>“For such small pay?” gasped the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>About his heart a horrid, clammy chill began to settle. Sickeningly -through his brain a dozen recent financial transactions began to -rehearse themselves.</p> - -<p>“You mean, Miss Malgregor,” he said a bit brokenly—“you mean that I -haven’t been generous enough with you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir,” faltered the White Linen Nurse. All the storm and passion -died suddenly from her, leaving her just a frightened girl again, -flushing pink-white before the Senior Surgeon’s scathing stare. One -step, two steps, three, she advanced toward him. “Oh, I mean, sir,” -she whispered—“oh, I mean, sir, that I’m just an ordinary, ignorant -country girl, and you—are further above me than the moon from the sea! -I couldn’t expect you to—love me, sir, I couldn’t even dream of your -loving me; but I do think you might like me just a little bit with your -heart!”</p> - -<p>“What?” cried the Senior Surgeon. “What?”</p> - -<p><i>Whacketty-bang</i> against the window-pane sounded the Little Crippled -Girl’s knuckled fists. Darkly against the window-pane squashed the -Little Crippled Girl’s staring face.</p> - -<p>“Father,” screamed the shrill voice. “Father, there’s a white lady -here, with two black ladies, washing the breakfast dishes! Is it Aunt -Agnes?”</p> - -<p>With a totally unexpected laugh, with a totally unexpected desire to -laugh, the Senior Surgeon strode across the room and unlocked his door. -Even then his lips against the White Linen Nurse’s ear made just a -whisper, not a kiss.</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake, hurry!” he said. “Let’s get out of here before any -telephone-message catches me!”</p> - -<p>Then almost calmly he walked out on the piazza and greeted his -sister-in-law.</p> - -<p>“Hello, Agnes!” he said.</p> - -<p>“Hello, yourself!” smiled his sister-in-law.</p> - -<p>“How’s everything?” he inquired politely.</p> - -<p>“How’s everything with you?” parried his sister-in-law.</p> - -<p>Idly for a few moments the Senior Surgeon threw out stray crumbs of -thought to feed the conversation, while smilingly all the while from -her luxuriant East Indian chair his sister-in-law sat studying the -general situation. The Senior Surgeon’s sister-in-law was always -studying something. Last year it was archæology; the year before, -basketry; this year it happened to be eugenics, or something funny like -that; next year, again, it might be book-binding.</p> - -<p>“So you and your pink-and-white shepherdess are going off on a little -trip together?” she queried banteringly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_876" id="Page_876">[Pg 876]</a></span> “The girl’s a darling, -Lendicott. I haven’t had as much sport in a long time as I had that -afternoon last June when I came in my best calling clothes and helped -her paint the kitchen woodwork. And I had come prepared to be a bit -nasty, Lendicott. In all honesty, Lendicott, I might just as well ’fess -up that I had come prepared to be just a little bit nasty.”</p> - -<p>“She seems to have a way,” smiled the Senior Surgeon—“she seems to -have a way of disarming people’s unpleasant intentions.”</p> - -<p>A trifle quizzically for an instant the woman turned her face to the -Senior Surgeon’s. It was a worldly face, a cold-featured, absolutely -worldly face, with a surprisingly humorous mouth that warmed her nature -just about as cheerfully, and just about as effectually, as one open -fireplace warms a whole house. Nevertheless, one often achieved much -comfort by keeping close to “Aunt Agnes’s” humorous mouth, for Aunt -Agnes knew a thing or two, Aunt Agnes did, and the things that she made -a point of knowing were conscientiously amiable.</p> - -<p>“Why, Lendicott Faber,” she rallied him now, “why, you’re as nervous as -a school-boy! Why, I believe—I believe that you’re going courting!”</p> - -<p>More opportunely than any man could have dared to hope, the White -Linen Nurse appeared suddenly on the scene in her little blue serge -wedding-suit, with her traveling-case in her hand. With a gasp of -relief the Senior Surgeon took her case and his own and went on -down the path to his car and his chauffeur, leaving the two women -temporarily alone. When he returned to the piazza, the woman of the -world and the girl not at all of the world were bidding each other a -really affectionate good-by, and the woman’s face looked suddenly just -a little bit old, but the girl’s cheeks were most inordinately blooming.</p> - -<p>In unmistakable friendliness his sister-in-law extended her hand to him.</p> - -<p>“Good-by, Lendicott, old man!” she said, “and good luck to you!” A -little slyly out of her shrewd, gray eyes, she glanced up sidewise at -him. “You’ve got the devil’s own temper, Lendicott dear,” she teased, -“and two or three other vices probably, and if rumor speaks the truth, -you’ve run amuck more than once in your life; but there’s one thing I -will say for you, though it prove you a dear stupid: you never were -overquick to suspect that any woman could possibly be in love with you.”</p> - -<p>“To what woman do you particularly refer?” mocked the Senior Surgeon, -impatiently.</p> - -<p>Quite brazenly to her own heart, which never yet apparently had stirred -the laces that enshrined it, his sister-in-law pointed with persistent -banter.</p> - -<p>“Maybe I refer to myself,” she laughed, “and maybe to the only other -lady present.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” gasped the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>“You do me much honor, Agnes,” bowed the Senior Surgeon. Quite -resolutely he held his gaze from following the White Linen Nurse’s -quickly averted face.</p> - -<p>A little oddly for an instant the older woman’s glance hung on his.</p> - -<p>“More honor perhaps than you think, Lendicott Faber,” she said, and -kept right on smiling.</p> - -<p>“Eh?” jerked the Senior Surgeon. Restively he turned to the White Linen -Nurse.</p> - -<p>Very flushingly on the steps the White Linen Nurse knelt arguing with -the Little Crippled Girl.</p> - -<p>“Your father and I are going away,” she pleaded. “Won’t you please kiss -us good-by?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve only got one kiss,” sulked the Little Crippled Girl.</p> - -<p>“Give it to your father!” pleaded the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>Amazingly, all in a second, the ugliness vanished from the little face. -Dartlingly, like a bird, the child swooped down and planted one large, -round kiss on the astonished Senior Surgeon’s boot.</p> - -<p>“Beautiful Father!” she cried. “I kiss your feet.”</p> - -<p>Abruptly the Senior Surgeon plunged from the step and started down the -walk. His cheek-bones were quite crimson.</p> - -<p>Two or three rods behind him the White Linen Nurse followed -falteringly. Once she stopped to pick up a tiny stick or a stone, and -once she dallied to straighten out a snarled spray of red and brown -woodbine.</p> - -<p>Missing the sound or the shadow of her, the Senior Surgeon turned -suddenly to wait for her. So startled was she by his intentness, so -flustered, so affrighted, that just for an instant the Senior Surgeon -thought that she was going to wheel in her tracks and bolt madly back -to the house. Then quite unexpectedly she gave an odd, muffled little -cry, and ran swiftly to him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_877" id="Page_877">[Pg 877]</a></span> like a child, and slipped her bare hand -trustingly into his. And they went on together to the car.</p> - -<p>With his foot already half lifted to the step, the Senior Surgeon -turned abruptly around, and lifted his hat, and stood staring back -bare-headed for some unexplainable reason at the two silent figures on -the piazza.</p> - -<p>“Rae,” he said perplexedly—“Rae, I don’t seem to know just why, but -somehow I’d like to have you kiss your hand to Aunt Agnes.”</p> - -<p>Obediently the White Linen Nurse withdrew her fingers from his and -wafted two kisses, one to “Aunt Agnes” and one to the Little Crippled -Girl.</p> - -<p>Then the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon climbed up into the -tonneau of the car, where they had never, never sat alone before, -and the Senior Surgeon gave a curt order to his man, and the big car -started off again into interminable spaces.</p> - -<p>Mutely, without a word, without a glance, passing between them, the -Senior Surgeon held out his hand to her once more, as though the -absence of her hand in his was suddenly a lonesomeness not to be -endured again while life lasted.</p> - -<p><i>Whizz, whizz, whizz, whir, whir, whir</i>, the ribbony road began to -roll up again on that hidden spool under the car.</p> - -<p>When the chauffeur’s mind seemed sufficiently absorbed in speed and -sound, the Senior Surgeon bent down a little mockingly and mumbled his -lips inarticulately at the White Linen Nurse.</p> - -<p>“See,” he laughed, “I’ve got a text, too, to keep my courage up. Of -course you <i>look</i> like an angel,” he teased closer and closer to her -flaming face; “but all the time to myself, to reassure myself, I just -keep saying, ’Bah! she’s nothing but a woman, nothing but a woman, -nothing but a woman!’”</p> - -<p>Within the Senior Surgeon’s warm, firm grasp the White Linen Nurse’s -calm hand quickened suddenly like a bud forced precipitously into full -bloom.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t—talk, sir,” she whispered. “Oh, don’t talk, sir! Just -listen!”</p> - -<p>“Listen? Listen to what?” laughed the Senior Surgeon.</p> - -<p>From under the heavy lashes that shadowed the flaming cheeks the soul -of the girl who was to be his peered up at the soul of the man who was -to be hers, and saluted what she saw!</p> - -<p>“Oh, my heart, sir!” whispered the White Linen Nurse. “Oh, my heart, my -heart, my <i>heart</i>.”</p> - -<p class="s5 center mtop2">THE END</p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_BEGGAR">THE BEGGAR</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mbot1">BY JAMES W. FOLEY</p> - -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse"><span class="drop-cap_poetry">A</span>LWAYS beside me as I go my way</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">This beggar, Time, walks with his outstretched palms,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Demanding, not beseeching, of me alms—</div> - <div class="verse">Alms of the precious hours of my day.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">So side by side we walk until my day</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Is growing dusk, and Time’s purse of the years</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Holds alms of mine, bright-jeweled with my tears,</div> - <div class="verse">Since I have given these treasured hours away.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Nor from his swollen purse will he give me</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">One hour, although with spendthrift song and gay</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">I flung him alms, nor ever said him nay.</div> - <div class="verse">A beggar and a miser both is he!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_878" id="Page_878">[Pg 878]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_878a" name="i_878a"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe50" src="images/i_878a.jpg" alt="Headpiece, IN THE CIRCUIT OF THE SUMMER HILLS" /></a> -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="IN_THE_CIRCUIT_OF_THE_SUMMER_HILLS">IN “THE CIRCUIT OF -THE SUMMER HILLS”</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1">BY JOHN BURROUGHS</p> - -<p class="s6 center">Author of “Wake Robin,” “Locusts and Wild Honey,” etc.</p> - -<p class="s4 center">WITH A PORTRAIT</p> - -</div> - -<h3 id="IN_THE_CIRCUIT_OF_THE_SUMMER_HILLS_I">I</h3> - -<div class="dc"> - <a id="i_878b" name="i_878b"> - <img class="w6em" src="images/i_878b.jpg" alt="T" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="p0"><span class="hide-first1">T</span><span class="smaller">O</span> -sit on one’s rustic porch, or at the door of one’s tent, and see the -bees working on the catnip or motherwort or clover, to see the cattle -grazing leisurely in the fields or ruminating under the spreading -trees, or the woodchucks creeping about the meadows and pastures, or -the squirrels spinning along the fences, or the hawks describing great -spirals against the sky; to hear no sound but the voice of birds, -the caw of crows, the whistle of marmots, the chirp of crickets; to -smell no odors but the odors of grassy fields, or blooming meadows, or -falling rain; and amid it all, to lift one’s eyes to the flowing and -restful mountain lines—this is to get a taste of the peace and comfort -of the summer hills.</p> - -<p>This boon is mine when I go to my little gray farm-house on a broad -hill-slope on the home farm in the Catskills. Especially is it mine -when, to get still nearer nature and beyond the orbit of household -sounds and interruptions, I retreat to the big hay-barn, and on an -improvised table in front of the big open barn-doors, looking out into -the sunlit fields where I hoed corn or made hay as a boy, and write -this and other papers.</p> - -<p>The peace of the hills is about me and upon me, and the leisure of the -summer clouds, whose shadows I see slowly drifting across the face of -the landscape. The dissonance and the turbulence and the stenches of -cities, how far off they seem; the noise and the dust and the acrimony -of politics—how completely the hum of the honey-bees and the twitter -of swallows blot them all out!</p> - -<p>In the circuit of the hills, the days take form and character as they -do not in town, or in a country of low horizons. George Eliot says in -one of her letters: “In the country the days have broad open spaces -and the very stillness seems to give a delightful roominess to the -hours.” This is especially true in a hilly and mountainous country, -where the eye has a great depth of perspective opened to it. Take those -extra brilliant days that we so often have in the autumn—what a vivid -sense one gets of their splendor amid the hills! The deep, cradle-like -valleys, and the long flowing mountain lines, make a fit receptacle for -the day’s beauty; they hold and accumulate it, as it were. I think of -Emerson’s line:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container s5"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“O, tenderly the haughty day fills his blue urn with fire.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="p0">The valleys are vast blue urns that hold a generous portion of the -lucid hours.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_879" id="Page_879">[Pg 879]</a></span></p> - -<p>To feel to the full the peace of the hills, one must choose his -hills, and see to it that they are gentle and restful in character. -Abruptness, jagged lines, sharp angles, frowning precipices, while they -may add an element of picturesqueness, interfere with the feeling of -ease and restfulness that the peace of the hills implies. The eye is -disturbed by a confusion of broken and abrupt lines as is the ear by a -volume of discordant sounds. Long, undulating mountain lines, broad, -cradle-like valleys, easy basking hill-slopes, as well as the absence -of loud and discordant sounds, are a factor in the restfulness of any -landscape.</p> - -<p>My landscape is very old geologically, as old as the order of -vertebrate animals, but young historically, having been settled only -about one hundred and fifty years. The original forests still cover -the tops of the mountains with a dark-green mantle, which comes well -down upon their sides, where it is cut and torn and notched into by the -upper fields of the valley farms.</p> - -<p>I call my place Woodchuck Lodge, as I tell my friends, because we are -beleagured by these rodents. There is a cordon of woodchuck-holes all -around us. In the orchard, in the meadows, in the pastures, these -whistling marmots have their dens. Here one might easily have woodchuck -venison for dinner every day, yea, and for supper and breakfast, too, -if one could acquire a taste for it. I tried to dine on a woodchuck -once when I was a boy, but never have felt inclined to repeat the -experiment. If one were born in the woods and lived in the woods, -maybe he could relish a woodchuck. Talk about being autocthonous, and -savoring of the soil—try a woodchuck! The feeding habits of this -animal are as cleanly as those of a sheep or a cow—clover, plantain, -peas, beans, cucumbers, cabbages, apples—all sweet and succulent -things go to the making of his flabby body; yet he spends so much of -his time in pickle in the ground that his flesh is rank with the earth -flavor. He is not lean like a rabbit or a squirrel, nor so firm of -muscle as a ’coon or a ’possum; he is little more than a skin filled -with viscera. He is busy all summer storing up fat in his loose pouch -of a body for fuel during his long winter sleep. This sleep appears -to begin in late September, or after the first white frost. This year -I saw my last specimen on the twenty-eighth of the month as he was -running in great haste to his hole. Evidently he does not like the -pinch of the cold. He is a fair-weather animal and is the epicure -of the meadows and pastures. While the apples are still mellow on -the ground, while the red-thorn is still dropping its fruit, and the -aftermath is still fresh in the meadows, my woodchucks turn their backs -upon the world and retreat to their underground chambers for their six -months’ slumber. I know of no other hibernating animal that retires -from the light of day so early in the season. His active life stretches -from the vernal equinox to the autumnal equinox, and that is about all. -Half the year he is under ground, and at least half of each summer -day. No wonder his flesh is rank with the earth flavor. He appears to -live only to accumulate his winter store of fat. Apparently he comes -out of his den in summer only to feed, and maybe occasionally to bask -in the sunshine. He is never sportive or discursive like the birds and -squirrels. Life is a very serious business with him, and he has reduced -it to the lowest terms—eat, breed, and sleep. If woodchucks ever -engage in any sort of play, like other wild creatures, I have never -seen them, though I once had a tame young ’chuck that would play with -the kitten.</p> - -<p>The woodchuck probably sleeps more than half the time in summer; he -economizes his precious fat. Only once have I seen his tracks on the -snow. This was in late December; and following them up, I found the -woodchuck wandering about the meadow like one half demented. Something -had evidently gone wrong with him. Apparently he had not succeeded -in storing up his usual amount of fat. He showed little fight, and -we picked him up by the tail, put him into the sleigh, and brought -him home. A place under the barn floor was given to him, but he did -not long survive. All the glory of the fall, the heyday of the ’coon -and the squirrels, the woodchuck misses. No golden October, no Indian -summer for him; he has had his day.</p> - -<p>Though the woodchuck’s muscles are flabby, his heart is stout. The -farm-dog can kill him, but he cannot make him show fear or dismay; he -is game to the last. Twice I have seen him from my porch at Woodchuck -Lodge put on so bold a front,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_880" id="Page_880">[Pg 880]</a></span> and become so aggressive, when surprised -in the middle of a field by a big shepherd-dog, that the dog did not -dare attack him, but circled about, seeking some unfair advantage, -only to be met at every point with those threatening, grating teeth. -In one case the woodchuck was far from his hole, and he kept charging -the dog and driving him nearer and nearer the stone wall, where his -own safety lay. An observer inoculated with the idea of animal reason -would have said that the tactics of the ’chuck were premeditated; but -I am sure he was too much engrossed with the task of defending himself -from the jaws of that dog to do any logical thinking or planning. -It was only the fortunes of battle that finally brought the hunter -and the hunted near the hole of safety, when, seeing his chance, the -woodchuck made a sudden, successful dash, too hurried, I fancy, even -to whistle his usual note of defiance. In the other case, the dog was -of a still more timid nature, and when the surprised woodchuck showed -fight, he concluded that he had no business at all with that particular -’chuck, which actually chased him from the meadow. I can still see the -woodchuck’s bristling, expanded tail as he drove fiercely after the -fleeing dog, which, with a tail anything but threatening, escaped over -the wall into the road.</p> - -<p>I find that one may be the principal actor in a little comedy, and not -see the humor of it at all at the time. I know the humor of a race I -had with a ’chuck last summer in my orchard was quite lost upon me till -it was over, and the ’chuck was in his hole, and I was back upon my -porch recovering my wind. The ’chuck was a hundred yards or more from -his den when I leaped over the fence from the road and surprised him. I -pressed him so closely that he took refuge in an apple-tree. Instantly -seeing his mistake, as the missile I hurled struck the tree, he sprang -down and rushed for his hole, a hundred and fifty feet away. But I got -there first. The ’chuck paused twenty feet to one side and regarded me -intently, defiantly. We stood and glared at each other a few moments, -while I recovered my breath. I wanted the scalp of that “varmint.” I -knew that he would make himself believe that I had planted my garden -for his special benefit, and I wanted to anticipate that conclusion. I -was weaponless. Twenty or more feet from me, on the opposite side from -the ’chuck, I saw a stone that would answer my purpose. I calculated -the chances; so did the woodchuck; I sprang for the stone and the -’chuck sprang for his hole, and was in it as my hand touched the stone. -He had won! As I sat on my porch, the recklessness and absurdity of a -man more than threescore and ten running down a woodchuck came over me; -and I have not yielded to such a temptation since.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="IN_THE_CIRCUIT_OF_THE_SUMMER_HILLS_II">II</h3> - -</div> - -<p class="p0">W<span class="smaller">HERE</span> cattle and woodchuck thrive, there thrive I. The pastoral is -in my veins. Clover and timothy, daisies and buttercups indirectly -colored my youthful life; and if the dairy cow did not rock my cradle, -her products sustained the hand that did rock it. Hence I love this -land of wide, open, grassy fields, of smooth, broad-backed hills, -and of long, sweeping mountain lines. The cow fits well into these -scenes. It seems as if her broad, smooth muzzle and her potent tongue -might have shaped the landscape; it is certainly her cropping that has -brought about the hour-glass form of so many of the red-thorn trees, -which give a unique feature to the fields. Her fragrant breath is upon -the air, her hoof-prints are upon the highway; she may not yet have -attained to wisdom, yet surely all her ways are ways of pleasantness -and all her paths are paths of peace. Hence, when her ways and her -paths coincide with mine, I thrive best. From Woodchuck Lodge I look -out upon broad pastures, lands where dairy herds have grazed for a -hundred years, never the same herd for many summers, but all of the -same habits and dispositions. They all scour the pastures in the same -way, scattering, searching out every nook and corner, leaving no yard -of ground unvisited, apparently hunting each day for the sweet morsel -they missed the day before, disposing themselves in picturesque groups -upon the hills; never massed, except under the shade-trees on hot days; -slow-moving, making their paths here and there, lingering under the -red-thorn trees, where the fruit begins to drop in September; tossing -their heads above the orchard wall, where the fragrance of ripening -apples is on the air; in the autumn lying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_881" id="Page_881">[Pg 881]</a></span> upon the cold, damp ground -and ruminating contentedly, with no fear of our ills and pains before -them; wading in the swamps, converging slowly toward the pasture-bars -as milking-time draws nigh, with always some tardy, indifferent ones -that the farm-dog has to hurry up; many colored—white, black, red, -brown—at times showing rare gentleness and affection toward one -another, such as licking one another’s heads or bodies, then spitefully -butting or goring one another; occasionally one of them lifting up her -head and sending her mellow voice over the hills like a horn, as if -to give voice to a vague unrest, or invoking some far-off divinity to -release the imprisoned Io—what a series of shifting rural pictures I -thus have spread out before me! Such an atmosphere of peace and leisure -over it all! The unhurrying and ruminating cattle make the days long; -they make the fields friendly, the hills eloquent, the shade-trees -idyllic. I wake up to hear the farmer summoning them from the field -in the dewy summer dawns, and I listen for his call to them on the -tranquil afternoons. One season an especially musical voice did the -evening calling—a trained voice from beyond the hills. What a pleasure -it was as we swung in our hammocks under apple-trees to hear the free, -sonorous summons, and to see the response of the herd in many-colored -lines converging down the slope to the bar-way!</p> - -<p>When the meadows have gotten a new carpet of tender grass in September, -and the cows are free to range in them, a new series of moving pictures -greets the eye. The grazing forms have a finer setting now, and -contentment and satisfaction are in every movement. How they sweep off -the tender herbage, into what artistic groups they naturally fall, -what pictures of peace and plenty they present! When they lie down to -ruminate, Emerson’s sentence comes to mind: “And the cattle lying on -the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts.” As a matter of -fact, I suppose no more vacant mind could be found in the universe -than that of the cow when she is reposing in a field, chewing her -cud. But she is the cause of tranquil if not of great thoughts in the -lookers-on, and that is enough. Tranquillity attends her wherever she -goes; it beams from her eyes, and lingers in her footsteps.</p> - -<p>I sympathize with Whitman as he expressed himself in these lines:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container s5"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,</div> - <div class="verse">I stand and look at them, long and long.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“They do not sweat and whine about their condition,</div> - <div class="verse">They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,</div> - <div class="verse">They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,</div> - <div class="verse">Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,</div> - <div class="verse">Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,</div> - <div class="verse">Not one is respectable or happy over the whole earth.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="IN_THE_CIRCUIT_OF_THE_SUMMER_HILLS_III">III</h3> - -</div> - -<p class="p0">I<span class="smaller">F</span> one has a bit of the farmer in him, it is a pleasure in the country -to have a real farmer for a neighbor—a man whose heart is in his work, -who is not longing for the town or the city, who improves his fields, -who makes two spears of grass grow where none grew before, whose whole -farm has an atmosphere of thrift and well-being. There are so many -reluctant, half-hearted farmers in our eastern States nowadays, so many -who do only what they have to do in order to survive; who leave the -paternal acres to run to weeds or brush; the paternal fences to fall -into ruins; the paternal orchards untrimmed and unplowed; the paternal -meadows unfertilized, while the fertilizer wastes in the barn-yard; who -get but one spear of grass where their fathers or grandfathers got two -or three; and whose plaint always is that farming does not pay. What is -the matter with our rural population? Has all the good farming blood -gone West, and do only the dregs of it remain?</p> - -<p>It is the man who makes the farm, as truly as it is the man who makes -any other business; it is the man behind the plow, as truly as it is -the man behind the gun, that wins the battle. A half-heart never won -a whole sheaf yet. The average farmer has deteriorated. He may know -more, but he does less than his father. He is like the second or third -steeping of the tea. Did the original settlers and improvers of the -farms, and the generations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_882" id="Page_882">[Pg 882]</a></span> that followed them, leave all their virtue -and grip in the soil? It is certainly true that in my section the last -two generations have lived off the capital of labor and brains which -their ancestors put into the land; only here and there has a man added -anything, only here and there is a farmer who does not wish he had some -other business. If such men had that other business, they would reap -the same poor results. In the long run, you cannot reap where you have -not sown, and the only seed you can sow, in any business that yields -tenfold, is yourself—your own wit, your own industry. Unless you -plant your heart with your corn, it will mostly go to suckers; unless -you strike your own roots into the subsoil of your lands, it will not -bear fruit in your character, or in your bank-account—all of which -is simply saying that thin, leachy land will not bear good crops, and -unless a man has the real farming stuff in him, his farm quickly shows -it.</p> - -<p>My neighbor makes smooth the way of the plow and of the mower. Last -summer I saw him take enough stones and rocks from a three-acre field -to build quite a fortress; and land whose slumbers had never been -disturbed by the plow was soon knee-high with Hungarian grass. How -one likes to see a permanent betterment of the land like that!—piles -of renegade stone and rock. It is such things that make the country -richer. If all New England and New York had had such drastic treatment -years ago, the blight of discouraged farming never would have fallen -upon them, and the prairie States would not have so far distanced the -granite States. A granite soil should grow a better crop of men than -the silt of lake or river bottom, though it yields less corn to the -acre.</p> - -<p>The prairie makes a strong appeal to a man’s indolence and cupidity; -it is a place where he can sit at ease and let his team do most of his -work. But I much doubt whether the western farms ever will lay the -strong hands upon their possessors that our more varied and picturesque -eastern farms lay. Every field in these farms has a character of its -own, and the farms differ from one another as much as the people do. -An eastern farm is the place for a home; the western farm is the -place to grow wheat, pork, and beef. Oh, the flat, featureless, -monotonous, cornstalk-littered middle West! how can the rural virtues -of contentment and domesticity thrive there? There is no spot to make -your nest except right out on the rim of the world; no spot for a walk -or a picnic except in the featureless open of a thousand miles of black -prairie—the roads black, straight lines of mud or dust through the -landscape; the streams slow, indolent channels of muddy water; the -woods, where there are woods, a dull assemblage of straight-trunked -trees; the sky a brazen dome that shuts down upon you; there are no -hills or mountains to lift it up. The prairie draws no strong distinct -lines against the sky; the horizon is vague and baffling. Ah, my -mountains are very old measured by the geologic calendar! Yet how -foreign to our experience or ways of thinking it seems to speak of -mountains as either old or young, as if birth and death apply to them -also. But such is the fact: mountains have their day, which day is the -geologist’s day of millions of years. My mountains were being carved -out of a great plateau by the elements while the prairies were still -under the sea, and while most of the Rocky Mountains and the Alps, and -the Himalayas were gestating in the vast earth-womb. In point of age, -these mountains beside the Catskills are like infants beside their -great-grandfathers. Yet it is a singular contradiction that in their -outlines old mountains look young, and young mountains look old. The -only youthful feature about young mountains is that they carry their -heads very high, and the only old feature about old mountains is that -they have a look of repose and calmness and peace. All the gauntness, -leanness, angularity, and crumbling decrepitude are with the young -mountains; all the smoothness, plumpness, graceful flowing lines of -youth are with the old mountains. Not till the rocks are clothed with -soil made out of their own decay are outlines softened and life made -possible. Youthful mountains like the Alps are battle-marked by the -elements, and their proud heads are continually being laid low by -frost, wind, and snow; they are scarred and broken by avalanches the -season through. Old mountains, such as the Appalachian range, wear an -armor of soil and verdure over their rounded forms<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_883" id="Page_883">[Pg 883]</a></span> on which the arrows -of time have little effect. The turbulent and noisy and stiff-necked -period of youth is far behind them.</p> - -<p>Hundreds of dairy-farms nestle in the laps of the Catskills; and their -huge, grassy aprons, only a little wrinkled here and there, hold as -many grazing herds. Woodchuck Lodge is well upon the knee of one of -the ranges, and the fields we look upon are like green drapery lying -in graceful curves and broad, smooth masses over huge extended limbs. -Patches of maple forest here and there bend over a rounded arm or -shoulder, like a fur cape upon a woman. Here and there also huge, -weather-worn boulders rest upon the ground, dropped there by the moving -ice-sheet tens upon tens of thousands of years ago; and here and there -are streaks of land completely covered with smaller rocks wedged and -driven into the ground. It used to be told me in my youth that the -devil’s apron-string broke as he was carrying a load of these rocks -overhead, and let the mass down upon the ground. The farmers seldom -attempt to clear away these leavings of the devil.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="IN_THE_CIRCUIT_OF_THE_SUMMER_HILLS_IV">IV</h3> - -</div> - -<p class="p0">M<span class="smaller">Y</span> interest in the birds is not as keen as it once was, but they are -still an asset in my life. I must live where I can hear the crows caw, -the robins sing, and the song-sparrow trill. If I can hear also the -partridge drum, and the owl hoot, and the chipmunk cluck in the still -days of autumn, so much the better. The crow is such a true countryman, -so much at home everywhere, so thoroughly in possession of the land, -going his way winter and summer in such noisy contentment and pride -of possession, that I cannot leave him out. The bird I missed most in -California was the crow. I missed his glistening coat in the fields, -his ebony form and hearty call in the sky.</p> - -<p>One advantage of sleeping out of doors, as we do at Woodchuck Lodge, -is that you hear the day ushered in by the birds. Toward autumn you -hear the crows first, making proclamation in all directions that it -is time to be up and doing, and that life is a good thing. There is -not a bit of doubt or discouragement in their tones. They have enjoyed -the night, and they have a stout heart for the day. They proclaim -it as they fly over my porch at five o’clock in the morning; they -call it from the orchard, they bandy the message back and forth in -the neighboring fields; the air is streaked with cheery greetings and -raucous salutations. Toward the end of August, or in early September, -I witness with pleasure their huge mass-meetings or annual congress on -the pasture-hills or in the borders of the woods. Before that time, -you see them singly or in loose bands; but on some day in late summer, -or in early autumn, you see the clans assemble as if for some rare -festival and grand tribal discussion. A multitudinous cawing attracts -your attention when you look hillward and see a swarm of dusky forms -circling in the air, their voices mingling in one dissonant wave of -sound, while loose bands of other dusky forms come from all points of -the compass to join them. Presently many hundred crows are assembled, -alternately lighted upon the ground and silently walking about as if -feeding, or circling in the air, cawing as if they would be heard in -the next township. What they are doing or saying or settling, what -it all means, whether they meet by appointment in the human fashion, -whether it is a jubilee, a parliament, or a convention, I confess I -should like to know. But second thought tells me it is more likely -the gregarious instinct asserting itself after the scatterings and -separations of the summer. The time of the rookery is not far off, when -the inclement season will find all the crows from a large section of -the country massed at night in lonely tree-tops in some secluded wood.</p> - -<p>These early noisy assemblages may be preliminary to the winter union of -the tribe. What an engrossing affair it seems to be with the crows, how -oblivious they appear to all else in the world! The world was made for -crows, and what concerns them is alone important. The meeting adjourns, -from time to time, from the fields to the woods, then back again, the -babel of voices waxing or waning according as they are on the wing -or at rest. Sometimes they meet several days in succession and then -disperse, going away in different directions and irregularly, singly or -in pairs and bands, as men do on similar occasions. No doubt in these -great reunions the crows experience some sort of feeling or emotion, -though one would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_884" id="Page_884">[Pg 884]</a></span> doubtless err in ascribing to them anything like -human procedure. It is not a definite purpose, but a tribal instinct, -that finds expression in their jubilees.</p> - -<p>The crow seems to have a great deal of business besides getting a -living. How social, how communicative he is—what picnics he has in -the fields and woods, how absolutely at home is he at all times and -places! I see them from my window flying by, by twos or threes or more, -on happy, holiday wings, sliding down the air, or diving and chasing -one another, or walking about the fields, their coats glistening in -the sun, the movement of their heads timing the movements of their -feet—what an air of independence and respectability and well-being -attends them always! The pedestrian crow! no more graceful walker ever -trod the turf. How different his bearing from that of a game-bird, and -from any of the falcon tribe. He never tries to hide like the former, -and he is never morose and sulky like the latter. He is gay and social -and in possession of the land; the world is his and he knows it, and -life is good.</p> - -<p>I suppose that if his flesh were edible, like that of the gallinaceous -birds, he would have many more enemies and his whole demeanor would -be different. His complacent, self-satisfied air would vanish. He -would not advertise his comings and goings so loudly. He would be less -conspicuous in the landscape; his huge mass-meetings in September would -be more silent and withdrawn. Well, then, he would not be the crow—the -happy, devil-may-care creature as we now know him.</p> - -<p>His little gaily dressed brother, the jay, does not tempt the sportsman -any more than the crow does, but he tempts other creatures—the owl -and squirrels, and maybe the hawks. Hence his tribe is much less. His -range is also more restricted, and his feeding habits are much less -miscellaneous. Only the woods and groves are his; the fields and rivers -he knows not.</p> - -<p>The crow is a noisy bird. All his tribe are noisy, but the noise -probably has little psychic significance. The raven in Alaska appears -to soliloquize most of the time. This talkativeness of the crow tribe -is probably only a phase of crow life, and signifies no more and no -less than other phases—their color, their cunning, the flick of their -wings, and the like. The barn-yard fowls are loquacious also, but -probably their loquacity is not attended with much psychic activity.</p> - -<p>In the mornings of early summer the out-of-door sleeper is more likely -to be awakened by the song-birds. In June and early July they strike -up about half-past three. “When it is light enough to see that all is -well around you, it is light enough to sing,” they carol. “Before the -early worm is stirring, we will celebrate the coming of day.” During -the summer the song-sparrows have been the first to nudge me in the -morning with their songs. One little sparrow especially would perch on -the telephone-wire above the roadside and go through his repertoire -of five songs with great regularity and joyousness. He will long be -associated in my mind with those early, fragrant, summer dawns. One of -his five songs fell so easily into words that I had only to call the -attention of my friends to it to have them hear the words that I heard: -“If, if, if you please, Mr. Durkee,”—the last word a little prolonged, -and with a rising inflection. Another was not quite so well expressed -by these words: “Please, please, speak to me, sweetheart.” The third -one suggested this sentence: “Then, then, Fitzhugh says, yes, sir!” -The fourth one was something like this: “If, if, if you seize her, do -it quick.” The fifth one baffled me to suggest by words. But in August -his musical enthusiasm began to decline. His different songs lost their -distinctiveness and emphasis. It was as if they had faded and become -blurred with the progress of the season.</p> - -<p>The little birds are insignificant and unobtrusive on the great -background of nature, yet if one learns to distinguish them and to -love them, their songs may become a sort of accompaniment to one’s -daily life. In May, while I was much occupied in repairing and making -habitable an old farm-house, a solitary, mourning, ground-warbler, -which one rarely sees or hears, came and tarried about the place for -a week or ten days, singing most of each forenoon in the orchard -and garden about the house, and giving to my occupation a touch of -something rare and sylvan. He lent to the apple-trees, which I had -known as a boy, an interest that the boy knew not. Then he went away, -whether on the arrival of his mate or not I do not know.</p> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_884" name="i_884"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe35_5" src="images/i_884.jpg" alt="JOHN BURROUGHS" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Photograph, copyright, by Alvin Langdon Coburn. -Color-tone made for T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> by Henry Davidson</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_884_large.jpg" id="i_884_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_885" id="Page_885">[Pg 885]</a></span></p> - -<p class="mtop1">A butternut-tree stands across the road in front of Woodchuck Lodge. -One season the red squirrels stored the butternuts in the wall of one -of the upper rooms of the unoccupied house, to which they gained access -through a hole in the siding. When we moved in, in the summer, the -squirrels soon became uneasy, and one day one of them began removing -the butternuts, not to some other granary or place of safety, but -to the grass and dry leaves on the ground in the orchard. He was -unwittingly planting them by the act of hiding them. The automatic -character of much animal behavior, the extent to which their lives flow -in fixed channels, was well seen in the behavior of this squirrel. -His procedure in transferring the nuts from his den in the house to -the ground in the orchard, a distance of probably one hundred feet, -was as definite and regular as that of a piece of machinery. He would -rush up and over the roof of the house with a nut in his mouth, by -those sharp, spasmodic sallies so characteristic of the movements of -the red squirrel, down the corner of the house to the ground by the -same jerky movements, across some rubbish and open ground in the same -manner, alert and cautious, up the corner of a small building ten feet -high and eight long, over its roof, with arched tail and spread feet, -snickering and jerking, down to the ground on the other side, dashing -to the trunk of an apple-tree ten feet away, up it a few feet to make -an observation, then down to the ground again, and out into the grass, -where he would carefully hide his nut, and cover it with leaves. Then -back to the house again by precisely the same route and with precisely -the same movements, and bring another nut. Day after day I saw him thus -engaged till apparently all the nuts were removed. He probably did not -know he was planting butternut-trees for other red squirrels, but that -was what he was blindly doing. The crows and jays carry away and plant -acorns and chestnuts in the same blind way, thereby often causing a -pine forest to be succeeded by these trees.</p> - -<p>The red squirrel is only an irregular storer of nuts in the autumn. -In this respect he stands half-way between the chipmunk and the gray -squirrel, one of which regularly lays up winter stores and the other -none at all.</p> - -<p>How diverse are the ways of nature in reaching the same end! Both the -chipmunk and the woodchuck lay up stores against the needs of winter, -the latter in the shape of fat upon his own ribs, and the former in -the shape of seeds and nuts in his den in the ground; and I fancy that -one of them is no more conscious of what he is doing than the other. -Animals do not take conscious thought of the future; it is as if -something in their organization took thought for them. One November, -seized with the cruel desire to go to the bottom of the question of -the chipmunk’s winter stores, I dug out one after he had got his house -settled for the season. I found his den three feet below the surface -of the ground—just beyond the frostline—and containing nearly four -quarts of various seeds, most of them the little black grains of wild -buckwheat—two hundred and fifty thousand of them, I estimated—all -cleaned of their husks as neatly as if done by some patent machine.</p> - -<p>How many perilous journeys along stone walls and through weedy tangles -this store of seeds represented! One would say at least a thousand -trips, beset by many dangers from hawks and cats and weasels and other -enemies of the little rodent.</p> - -<p>The chipmunk is provident; he is a wise housekeeper, but one can hardly -envy him those three or four months of inaction in the pitchy darkness -of his subterranean den. His mate is not with him, and evidently the -oblivion of the hibernating sleep, like that of the woodchuck and of -certain mice, is not his. The life of the red and gray squirrels, who -are more or less active all winter, seems preferable. They lay up no -stores and are no doubt often cold and hungry, but the light of day -and the freedom of the snow and of the tree-tops are theirs. Abundant -stores are a good thing for both man and beast, but action, adventure, -struggle are better.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_886" id="Page_886">[Pg 886]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_FOREIGN_TRADE_OF_THE_UNITED_STATES">THE FOREIGN -TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES</h2> - -<p class="s4 center">(“THE TRADE OF THE WORLD” PAPERS)</p> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1">BY JAMES DAVENPORT WHELPLEY</p> - -<p class="s6 center mbot2">Author of “The Commercial Strength of Great Britain,” -“Germany’s Foreign Trade,” etc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="dc"> - <a id="i_886" name="i_886"> - <img class="w6em" src="images/i_886.jpg" alt="Q" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="p0"><span class="hide-first1">Q</span><span class="smaller">UEEN</span> -Elizabeth was the founder of the school of “dollar diplomacy,” -and to this day her memory is revered by the merchant gilds of London. -This great queen paid much attention to the welfare of industry at -home, and sent trade adventurers abroad to open avenues of foreign -commerce; and in the degree with which the rulers and governments of -all lands have observed the necessities and development of the material -interests of their respective countries have nations flourished or -marked time.</p> - -<p>Through a peculiar misuse of the term, the foreign policy of the United -States has been termed “dollar diplomacy,” whereas, partly because of -national tradition and partly through lack of skill and experience, -the diplomacy of America has less relation to the extension of foreign -commerce than that of any other great modern nation. American diplomacy -has been governed more by altruistic ideas, the protection of foreign -peoples against themselves and others, the elimination of money -tributes and indemnities, the recognition of new governments without -conditions, and arbitration of international troubles as a neutral -nation. In these and in many other ways America has played her part -in various international controversies; but in the general scramble -for selfish advantage in all these affairs she has taken little or -no successful part. Yet American diplomacy has been called that of -the “dollar,” and has been credited in the minds of many of her own -citizens, as well as by foreigners, with a mercenary basis.</p> - -<p>The people of a nation have it within their power to advance the -interests of their foreign commerce in two ways: one by intelligent -legislation at home, and the other by intelligent diplomacy abroad. -The shipment of merchandise from one country to another means to the -selling nation a foreign market for the raw material, the employment -of labor to the extent of from thirty to ninety per cent. of the -selling value of the goods, and the payment for this material and -labor by foreigners in money or its equivalent. It is a clear gain -in every phase of the transaction. There is an old frontier adage, -which originated in the early days of the Western boom, to the effect -that “outside money makes the camp.” It is a homely expression that -summarizes the advantages of an export of two billion dollars’ worth -of goods with a comprehensiveness equal to its original application. -It is not too much to say that anything in the shape of legislation or -of increased facilities which assists the outward flow of the products -of labor is of unquestioned advantage to the producing nation. An -unnatural, though perhaps comprehensible, attitude of suspicion toward -successful export has come about in the United States. This has led to -hostility toward special rail and water-rates for export, lower prices -for bulk foreign business, niggardliness of national expenditures -for diplomatic representation and for the work of the Department of -Commerce and its foreign-trade bureau. It might almost be said that the -great and growing figures of foreign trade, issued triumphantly every -year by the government statisticians, have been achieved despite the -obstructions placed in the path of their progress.</p> - -<p>The growth of those figures in their largest aspect is due to organized -private<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_887" id="Page_887">[Pg 887]</a></span> effort, the methods and operations of which are a sealed -book to the government official or the general public, and which -unfortunately have shared in the recent and sweeping condemnation -of the business methods of all big corporations. There has been no -sifting of the wheat from the chaff, the good from the evil, with most -deplorable results, for which both public and corporations are to -blame. The natural result has been that in attempting to regulate the -home activities of “big business” their foreign activities have been -hindered and even checked. Lost ground in foreign directions is more -difficult to regain than at home, for certain artificial and natural -barriers always exist, which favor home markets, while foreign trade -meets well-equipped rivals at least on equal terms, and often with a -handicap.</p> - -<p>In the year 1913 the people of the United States are entering upon a -radical change in the national attitude toward domestic and foreign -commerce. There is a partial reversal of policy toward home industry; -there is also an important experiment afoot in diplomacy. It is too -early to say just how radical these changes will be in the final -reckoning, or what may be the outcome. It is quite possible that -increased freedom of trade may bring good results at home; and if -Congress recognizes the need of a commercial diplomacy auxiliary -to that of the litterateur, the reformer, the peace-advocate, the -missionary, and the general uplifter of mankind, and the administration -provides competent, permanent, and resident commercial diplomats or -attachés to all important American missions, a threatened disadvantage -may be turned into a victory. At present, however, American foreign -trade is the foot-ball of national politics.</p> - -<p>Private enterprise, with its able American representatives abroad, is -the only real guard against serious damage possessed by this great -asset of the nation. The advance of American foreign commerce may be -likened to a more or less friendly conflict with an allied army of -foreign competitors. This is specially true of American trade, for it -is generally a new-comer, and is regarded with dislike and antagonism -to such an extent as to induce combinations of rivals to resist its -advance.</p> - -<p>The strongest efforts of American diplomacy should be directed to -Russia and China to bring about a commercial entente between the -United States and these two countries. The future of China as a market -for foreign enterprise and merchandise will develop slowly, it is -true, but the results will in time prove stupendous. In view of this, -firm foundations should be laid for the structure of international -trade, which will inevitably develop in the course of years. In the -case of Russia there is no time to be lost. Here is a great area of -wonderfully productive territory inhabited by scores of millions of -people. Education is spreading among these people, and their wants -are multiplying. Such foreign trade as has found a lodgment there -is of the kind America wants, and will need more and more as her -productiveness increases and the oversupply of home markets becomes -more noticeable. England, Germany, France, the Low Countries, and those -of Scandinavia are losing no time. Political, financial, commercial, -and industrial bonds are being forged with all possible rapidity to -this awakening nation of industrious people. American interests in -Russia are already large, but their existence is due to private and -not national initiative. As a nation we have not only done much to -discourage the betterment of intercourse with Russia, but have even -actually threatened the existence of American interests therein by -inviting antagonism instead of friendly coöperation. It is not too late -to remedy this unfortunate attitude, but the situation needs prompt, -wise, and fearless handling by those responsible for the foreign policy -of the United States.</p> - -<p>American foreign commerce rests on a basis of international friendship. -Once established, the needs of the respective countries determine the -extent of international trading, modified as it must be, however, by -conditions of transportation and such fiscal restrictions as may be -imposed. Leaving the matter of price and quality to be dealt with by -the industrial exporter, as must be the case, the influence of the -Government remains as the most important outside factor in determining -the prosperity of this trade. Under the control of the Government -come the treaty-making power, with its bid for fa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_888" id="Page_888">[Pg 888]</a></span>vorable reception -of American products; the official attitude toward facilities for the -manufacturing of exports and toward transportation; and assistance in -gathering information for exporters. The important, but more technical, -details of foreign commerce can safely be left to private enterprise in -its effort toward profitable trading. There is no doubt as to the good -intention of government officials and of those who vote the money for -their work: it is, of course, that American consumers shall benefit.</p> - -<p>There are two points of view, however, well illustrated in the attitude -of the British and the United States Government, respectively, as -to the direction in which governmental efforts may be extended in -the furtherance of foreign trade. The British Government pays great -attention to the diplomatic end of the business, and lets private -enterprise follow up any advantage gained. The United States Government -spends vastly more money and effort upon the details of trade, but in -many cases unfortunately attempts to build upon a shifting and insecure -foundation, in that the relations of the two countries may be weak -diplomatically, or there may be lack of knowledge or understanding as -to the general conditions to be met. For some American consul to inform -American manufacturers through the State Department of great openings -for the sale of goods does not mean necessarily that these goods can -be sold; for in some cases American competition would find itself -hopelessly handicapped by the superior trade diplomacy and knowledge -of its adversary, thus nullifying any possible superiority in goods or -prices.</p> - -<p>From a practical point of view, to analyze American foreign trade in -detail would be an endless and useless task. It has grown to be what it -is through exports of food-stuffs and raw materials, followed naturally -by the surplus products of manufacturing. Of imports the same may be -said, reversing the order of the progression. The land furnished the -material, and labor came at its call from all parts of the world. The -logical result of plenty of material, a constantly increasing supply -of labor, combined with national ingenuity and a climate conducive to -the development of nervous energy, is the production of more or less -finished merchandise in such quantities as to keep half the ships of -the world in daily use carrying it to and fro. Whether governmental -intervention has helped or hindered has been the subject of controversy -since this commerce began, and will continue until commerce ends; but -out of it all must come a certain amount of wisdom, gained through -experience, which should be of practical benefit to those on whom rests -the responsibility of official coöperation with private adventure in -foreign lands.</p> - -<p>The three great foreign trading nations of the world are England, -Germany, and the United States, in the order named. In 1912 the foreign -commerce of England amounted to a little less than $6,000,000,000, -that of Germany to more than $4,600,000,000, and that of the United -States to nearly $4,200,000,000. The total foreign trade of these three -countries is proportioned approximately between imports and exports as -follows:</p> - -<table class="s5" summary="Foreign Trade Figures"> - <tr> - <td> - - </td> - <td colspan="3"> - <div class="center mright1">England</div> - </td> - <td colspan="3"> - <div class="center mright1">Germany</div> - </td> - <td colspan="3"> - <div class="center">United<br /> States</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - <div class="mright1">Imports</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">60</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">per</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center mright1">cent.</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">54</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">per</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center mright1">cent.</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">43</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">per</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">cent.</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - <div class="mright1">Exports</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">40</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">“</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center mright1">“</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">46</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">“</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center mright1">“</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">57</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">“</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">“</div> - </td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p>These figures mean that the United States is still a debtor nation. -If the imports of gold brought the imports level with the exports in -value, which they do not, but far from it, the figures would indicate -that the American people were getting cash for their goods instead of -merchandise, as would be the case if merchandise exports and imports -were equal. The most considerable factors that annually balance this -trade are the payments of interest and principal on American securities -held abroad, remittances by American immigrants to foreign lands, money -spent abroad by American tourists, and payments made to foreign-owned -vessels for freight-charges on goods carried to and from America. There -are several other factors in this balance, but the four named are the -most considerable. In the case of England and Germany, as well as many -other prosperous countries whose foreign-trade sheets show an excess -of imports over exports, this excess represents the profit on trading -abroad, and the inflow of returns upon capital invested abroad. In -other words, these nations are creditor, or money-lending, communities. -The imports of all money-lending coun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_889" id="Page_889">[Pg 889]</a></span>tries, like France, England, -Germany, the Netherlands, and others, considerably exceed the exports, -while the exports of all borrowing, developing, or unequally developed -countries, like Russia, the United States, Argentina, Rumania, and many -others, exceed the imports, as the foreign investor must be paid his -interest, and the only source of money for such payment is eventually -either the product of the soil or of industry.</p> - -<p>One hundred years ago, when the population of the United States -was about seven millions, the American people imported annually -considerably less than $100,000,000 worth of merchandise, less than ten -per cent. of which came in free of duty. In 1912, when the population -was more than ninety millions, the importations amounted to nearly -$1,700,000,000, of which about fifty-four per cent. entered duty free. -The average ad valorem rate of import duty on dutiable goods one -hundred years ago was about forty per cent., and on the total imports, -dutiable and free, it was about thirty-five per cent. In 1912 the -average ad valorem on dutiable goods was about the same as one hundred -years before, and on the total imports, both dutiable and free, it was -about nineteen per cent. The progress of American foreign trade in one -hundred years is recorded as follows:</p> - -<table class="s5" summary="American Foreign Trade"> - <tr> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>Year</i></div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>Imports</i></div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>Exports</i></div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>Total Foreign<br /> Trade</i></div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - <div class="center">1810</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  $85,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  $67,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"> $152,000,000</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - <div class="center">1830</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">   63,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">   72,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  135,000,000</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - <div class="center">1850</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  174,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  144,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  318,000,000</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - <div class="center">1870</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  436,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  393,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  829,000,000</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - <div class="center">1890</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  790,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">  858,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">1,648,000,000</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - <div class="center">1912</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">1,818,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">2,363,000,000</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">4,181,000,000</div> - </td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p>In one hundred years the population has increased more than thirteen -times, and the foreign trade more than twenty-five times. In 1810 the -per capita foreign trade of America was about $21, and in 1912 it was -nearly $40. These latter figures are really much more significant than -appears at first glance, for the population of America, as estimated -in 1810, was composed of a larger proportion of effective producing -units than in 1912. Few but white people were counted, the percentage -of women and children was smaller, and virtually every white American -was self-supporting. The estimate of to-day includes, therefore, a -much larger percentage of human beings who, though counted as units -in population, are not so potential in the material activities of -the nation. The $40 per capita of 1912 is much more significant of -the growth of American foreign interests, therefore, than merely the -increase from the $21 of 1810 appears.</p> - -<p>Speaking generally, the foreign trade of the United States has -doubled every twenty years since 1830, regardless of wars, changes of -government, administrative policies, the rise or decline of shipping -interests, the increasing power of foreign competition, or the opening -and development of competitive territory in other parts of the world. -The development of industry in a country is usually written on the -character of the imports and exports, and the changes that take place -in the proportions of raw material and manufactured goods are most -significant. In the case of the United States, these are strikingly -shown in the more or less shifting percentages of a long period in -the growth of the nation—a period fully covering the time the United -States has figured to any marked degree in the economic affairs of the -world. In the last eighty-two years American foreign trade has been -roughly classified by percentages as follows:</p> - -<p class="center mtop1"><i>IMPORTS</i></p> - -<table class="s5" summary="American Import Figures"> - <tr> - <td> - - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>1830</i></div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>1870</i></div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>1912</i></div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Crude food-stuffs and food<br /> - animals - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 11.77</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 12.41</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 13.93</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Food-stuffs partly or<br /> - wholly manufactured - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 15.39</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 22.03</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 11.86</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Crude manufactured<br /> - material - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center">  6.72</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 12.76</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 33.63</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Manufactures for use<br /> - in manufacture - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center">  8.22</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 12.75</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 17.77</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Manufactures ready for<br /> - consumption - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 56.97</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 39.82</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 21.78</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Miscellaneous - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center bb">   .93</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center bb">   .23</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center bb">  1.03</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">100.00</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">100.00</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">100.00</div> - </td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p>The most noticeable features of the statement given above are that -the importation of crude food-stuffs and food animals remain about -the same in their relation to total imports, that the importation of -partly manufactured food-stuffs has decreased, that the importation -of materials for use in manufacture has enormously increased, and -that the importation of manufactured goods ready for consump<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_890" id="Page_890">[Pg 890]</a></span>tion has -decreased by nearly two thirds. All of these figures, both of imports -and exports, are based on values and not on quantities. The latter -would be the most accurate measure of progress, as prices have changed -materially—either fallen or increased, mostly the latter—on many -important staples; but it would be virtually impossible to consider -these matters from a point of view other than that of values, where -everything is grouped under an inclusive total, and in all probability -the change that might follow a quantitative analysis, rather than one -based on values, would not materially alter any conclusions that might -be drawn. The changes in American exports during the same period were -by percentages as follows:</p> - -<p class="center mtop1"><i>EXPORTS</i></p> - -<table class="s5" summary="American Import Figures"> - <tr> - <td> - - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>1830</i></div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>1870</i></div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center"><i>1912</i></div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Crude food-stuffs and food<br /> - animals - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center">  4.65</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 11.12</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center">  4.60</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Food-stuffs partly or<br /> - wholly manufactured - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 16.32</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 13.53</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 14.69</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Crude manufactured<br /> - material - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 62.34</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 56.64</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 33.31</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Manufactures for use<br /> - in manufacture - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center">  7.04</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center">  3.66</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 16.04</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Manufactures ready for<br /> - consumption - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center">  9.34</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 14.96</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center"> 30.98</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="vat"> - Miscellaneous - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center bb">   .31</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center bb">   .09</div> - </td> - <td class="vab"> - <div class="center bb">   .38</div> - </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td> - - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">100.00</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">100.00</div> - </td> - <td> - <div class="center">100.00</div> - </td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p>The noticeable features of the record of American exports for the last -eighty-two years are that the export of food-stuffs has decreased -rather than increased in proportion to business in other commodities; -that the export of crude manufactured material has greatly decreased, -and in fact, with the exception of cotton, has become a negligible -quantity; and that the export of manufactured goods ready for -consumption has increased enormously. Exports of cotton are now the -basis of American export of raw material. Whereas the total production -of cotton in the United States in 1830 was only about 1,000,000 bales, -in 1912 the United States furnished nearly 11,000,000 bales for export, -valued at $625,000,000, amounting to fully five sixths of the value -of all raw material for manufacturing purposes exported by the United -States in that year.</p> - -<p>The export of raw cotton in the case of the United States does not mean -any appreciable backwardness of home manufacture. The importations of -manufactured cotton goods are decreasing annually, so far as cloths are -concerned. In 1912 less than $8,000,000 in cotton cloth was imported -from abroad. The heaviest importation of cotton goods was in laces -and such other things as are specialties of foreign manufacture, in -many cases hereditary trades, or trades dependent upon cheap, trained -female labor, such as is not available in America. America uses -nearly 6,000,000 bales of home-grown cotton every year in her own -factories, and supplies not only the home market with manufactured -goods, but manufactures more than $30,000,000 worth for foreign sale, -in competition with the great spinning and manufacturing countries -of Europe. The growing of cotton is not a raw-material industry in -the strict sense of the word, for, owing to peculiarities of climate, -certain features of the American labor supply, and the great amount -of money this staple crop brings from abroad and distributes in -non-manufacturing districts, it possesses a peculiar and great economic -value to the country. Coal, tobacco, petroleum, and timber are the -more important of the crude materials exported from the United States -in addition to cotton; but the total value of all these is, as stated, -about one sixth of the whole.</p> - -<p>The total value of the exports of domestic merchandise from the United -States in 1912 was about $2,363,000,000. As stated, cotton stands at -the head of the list. The iron and steel industry comes next; the -farmers of the United States furnish the third largest amount of -merchandise for export; and machinery of all kinds, oils, paper, fruit, -and chemicals, are the leaders in American export. The most interesting -changes that have taken place in American foreign trade in the last few -years are those that indicate certain possibilities of the future; in -fact, they are in a way prophetic of what is to happen in the economic -life of the nation. In 1902 93,000 head of cattle were imported, and in -1912 the importations numbered 325,000. In 1902 about 327,000 head of -cattle were exported, and in 1912 only about 46,000. This means that -the American people have nearly reached the point where the home market -absorbs all cattle grown in the country, and that in future<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_891" id="Page_891">[Pg 891]</a></span> other -peoples, who in the past have been dependent upon the United States for -their beef supply, must look elsewhere. The exportation of bread-stuffs -has decreased materially, while importation has quadrupled, thus -telling a story of shortage in food-supply, as did the change in the -cattle movement. This same shortage is shown in like changes in the -trade in meat products, dairy products, eggs, and nearly every other -variety of staple food.</p> - -<p>The United States produces half the copper of the world, but both -exports and imports of this metal are increasing, showing that other -countries are sending copper to this country for treatment. In 1902, -America imported 135,000,000 pounds of tin plates, and in 1912 only -4,500,000 pounds. The exports of tin plates increased during the same -period from 3,500,000 pounds to 183,000,000 pounds. Iron and steel -show a marked decline in imports and an enormous gain in exports. The -American people are no longer importing automobiles to any extent, -but are increasing their sales abroad, and in 1912 sold $28,000,000 -worth to foreign buyers. The importations of coffee virtually hold -their own, amounting in 1912 to nearly 1,000,000,000 pounds; but owing -to increased prices, the value of this importation is nearly double -that of 1902. The exports of the iron and steel industry of the United -States, including the manufactures of these materials as well, now -amount to about $1,000,000 per day. Europe takes the higher class of -goods, and Canada and South America take the rails, structural iron -and steel, heavy castings, and other like products that constitute the -heavy tonnage of the industry.</p> - -<p>The countries taking their largest proportionate share of their imports -from the United States are: Haiti, 69 per cent.; Honduras, 68 per -cent.; Canada, 62 per cent.; Santo Domingo, 61 per cent.; Panama, 56 -per cent.; Mexico, 55 per cent.; Cuba, 53 per cent.; and Costa Rica 51 -per cent. England takes 17.3 per cent. of her imports from the United -States, Germany 13.3 per cent., and France 8.6 per cent. Of the South -American countries, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru take from -20 to 30 per cent. of their imports from the United States, while -others take smaller percentages, ranging from the 13.8 of Argentina -and the 12.8 of Brazil to the 2.8 per cent. of Bolivia. Other countries -draw very slightly upon the United States for their imports, notably -China, which takes only 5 per cent.; India, 3 per cent.; Morocco, less -than 1 per cent.; Servia, 1 per cent.; and about the same for Turkey -and Rumania. The great markets for American products at the present, -in total value of goods sold to the peoples of these countries, are -England, purchasing as she does from America goods to the amount of -$572,000,000; Canada, $285,000,000; Germany, $283,000,000; France, -$119,000,000; the Netherlands, $117,000,000; Italy, $70,000,000; Cuba, -$57,000,000; Mexico, $56,000,000; Russia, $52,000,000; Austria-Hungary, -Argentina, and Belgium, between $45,000,000 and $50,000,000 each, and -Australia, Brazil, and Japan, between $27,000,000 and $32,000,000 each.</p> - -<p>Of the export trade of the United States, 60 per cent. goes to Europe, -23 per cent. to North America, 6 per cent. to South America, 5 per -cent. to Asia, 4 per cent. to Oceanica, and 2 per cent. to Africa. -American producers send more than 90 per cent. of their entire foreign -shipments, or more than $2,000,000,000 worth of goods, to nineteen -countries, and the remaining ten per cent. covers the trade with all -the rest of the world. England buys about 26 per cent. of the total -American export; Canada 15 per cent.; Germany 13 per cent.; France 7 -per cent.; the Netherlands 4 per cent.; Italy, Cuba, and Belgium, each -3 per cent.; Mexico, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Russia, and Brazil, -each 2 per cent.; and Spain, Austria-Hungary, Panama, China, and the -Philippines, each about 1 per cent.</p> - -<p>Official figures of imports and exports are useful as indications from -which deductions may safely be drawn, but they are not an accurate -record of the trade relations of any two countries. In some cases the -indirect trade of the United States with certain countries is much -larger than custom-house figures would indicate, in that American -goods are purchased by other nations, who act as distributors or -intermediaries in conducting the foreign trade of the world. This -is very largely so in American trade with England. That country is -credited with purchases of American goods far in excess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_892" id="Page_892">[Pg 892]</a></span> of the needs -of the British people. These goods are bought by English firms whose -dealings are largely with other foreign countries, and by them sold -to their customers on the Continent of Europe, in Asia, Oceanica, -or elsewhere. A striking example of this is the American trade with -Russia. It is impossible to state exactly the value of American goods -which in time find their way to the Russian consumer, but it is vastly -in excess of the amount of trade between the United States and Russia, -or $52,380,000, as given in government statistics. In the official -statement of exports of American cotton, Russia is credited by the -Department of Commerce figures as receiving 64,590 bales, valued at -$3,796,867.</p> - -<p>American consuls in Russia, and the cotton experts of that country, -estimate that Russia consumes annually nearly $50,000,000 worth of -American raw cotton, an amount nearly equal to the total export to -Russia of all American goods, according to United States government -figures. That the government figures are misleading is due to the fact -that they are figures of direct business only; and direct trade between -the United States and Russia is, for geographical, transportation, and -financial reasons, more or less hampered. American cotton is bought -for Russia in London, Hamburg, Antwerp, Copenhagen, and other great -European markets. The exports are credited in the United States to the -ports mentioned, and while the ultimate destination does not affect -the totals of American foreign trade, it does lead to wide-spread -confusion as to the comparative value of the various foreign markets -for American products. This is particularly unfortunate in the case of -Russia, a country with which the United States has recently had some -difficulty in the matter of a treaty of mutual trade and friendship. -Judging from United States government statistics, American trade -relations with Russia might be regarded as almost negligible; whereas -in fact they are already of the greatest value and importance, to say -nothing of the brilliant prospects of possible trade expansion in the -near future. Even the government figures show a direct sale to Russia -of nearly $50,000,000 worth of American goods, deducting the direct -sales of cotton. With a known consumption of $50,000,000 worth of -American cotton, this gives at least $100,000,000 as the value of -American sales to Russia. Cotton, however, is not the only merchandise -sold indirectly, and if other goods are handled in the same way to an -equal amount, it is possible that the annual sales of American goods to -Russia amount to nearly $200,000,000, or four times the amount allowed -by United States official figures.</p> - -<p>This correction would give Russia fourth instead of ninth place in -the list of great buyers of American goods. This is the most striking -illustration of the deceptive feature of government trade-statistics -in determining the order of importance of foreign buyers of American -goods, though there are other countries which suffer in the estimation -of exporters for the same reason. As has been already stated, it was -peculiarly unfortunate that this was so in the case of Russia, for -those who, for reasons of their own, favored national retaliation -against that country through mutual trade relations used United States -government statistics to support their argument, and the American -public naturally accepted these data at their apparent value. A final -and accurate determination of the value of each foreign country as a -market for American merchandise, a laborious and almost impossible -task, would undoubtedly lead to interesting and unexpected results. -It would not only make many changes in the list of the most important -customers, but would immediately suggest possibilities of more direct -trading, which would stimulate American rail, shipping, and financial -interests, increase profits by cutting out the middleman, and in the -end give added stimulus to American foreign trade.</p> - -<p>One of the most serious difficulties that confront the American -Government in its dealings with foreign nations is the inelasticity -of the American tariff laws. The most sensible and scientific tariff -law which the United States could have,—allowing that the principle -of tariff for revenue and protection is to prevail,—is such rate -of duty as may be deemed advisable, all things considered; an -arrangement whereby a surtax could be imposed upon goods from countries -discriminating against American merchandise, and a trading margin -for treaty-making purposes, ranging from the normal rate of duty, -as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_893" id="Page_893">[Pg 893]</a></span> set forth in the customs laws, to absolute free trade between -the treaty-making powers. There is little or no hope that such a law -can prevail or will be formally advocated by any political party in -power; but it is a hopeful sign that it has been seriously suggested -and discussed by men prominent in the councils of the nation. That -tariff laws will in time be formulated on that basis is likely, but -such a statement reaches further into the domain of prophecy than is -apparently warranted in the present temper of actual legislation. -There is a simple truth, apparently often forgotten or ignored, and -it is that to give is necessary, to be able to take, in all dealings -between nations, as much as between individuals. All trading is in -the end a compromise, presumably mutually beneficent and equally so. -It rests with the wit and ability of the trader to see that he at -least comes out even. It would be interesting to know just how far -the late President McKinley intended to go in his advocacy of better -foreign-trade relations for the United States had not his tragic death -cut short his program. The last speech he made at Buffalo was crowded -with significance of what might come later. It was in a sense as though -he were only preparing the way for an important development of American -fiscal policy in connection with foreign trade. Those who were in his -closest confidence in the days just prior to his death have knowledge -of an evolution that had taken place in his mind—a mind that had given -more thorough thought and study to tariff matters than almost any -other in America at that time. They firmly believe that at the moment -the life of President McKinley ended, he had planned a pronunciamento -in favor of concessions to American foreign-trade interests which -would have startled the country, put the Republican party in line with -the mass of the voters who desired tariff revision, and of which his -Buffalo speech strongly advocating reciprocity in commerce was only the -opening paragraph. Had he lived, this one thing might have made a vast -difference in the subsequent fortunes of the Republican party; but when -he died his place was taken by a man whose marvelous activities did not -include an interest in the tariff. In fact, as he frankly expressed it, -the subject “bored” him, as it does many others, unfortunate for the -country as this may be.</p> - -<p>The American diplomatic service has passed through some remarkable -phases in the last twenty-five years. A few years ago it was quite -frankly used as a means for rewarding political services to the party -in power. No good could possibly come out of such a system. There were -some exceptions to the general rule that American ambassadors and -ministers were either indifferent to or else ignorant of the needs of -the United States in international politics, but they were few and far -between. More recently men have been selected for the most important -places by reason of their wealth and social standing. Some of those -selected made excellent representatives, but owing to the shortness of -their terms of office they had no more than familiarized themselves -with their surroundings than they were either recalled or found it -expedient to return to their native land.</p> - -<p>President Wilson has apparently established a new plan, or rather -revived an old one. He is selecting his foreign representatives -from the class known in Europe as the “intellectuals.” This policy -is adopted at a highly critical time in the history of the foreign -trading of the United States, and at a time when virtually all the -great international questions and controversies are those of respective -economic advantage, one nation over another. It comes also at a -time when the great commercial and industrial rivals of the United -States are pursuing a different policy, one which is perhaps worth -considering. England and Germany to a notable degree, and France, -Russia, and some others of the great Powers to a sufficient degree -to be noticeable, are training men for all diplomatic positions, and -promotions are made even to the highest places almost entirely upon the -merits and suitability of the candidates. The young man who enters the -foreign office service of England or Germany in a subordinate position -has within his power, if he develop accordingly, to become in time an -ambassador to some important country. He is thoroughly tried out, step -by step, as consul and minister before the highest rank is given to -him. He is moved about from one part of the world to another until he -becomes in truth a cosmopolitan not only in thought and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_894" id="Page_894">[Pg 894]</a></span> habit, but -in language and knowledge. The most serious part of the education of -these men is, first, the economics of their own country, and, secondly, -the economics of the country to which they are to be accredited. -This education is practical and not theoretical. This is true to so -great an extent that, when a technical matter of trade enters into -a controversy between the two state departments, the minister or -ambassador is often found fully qualified to fight the battle himself -in aid of the material interests of the country he represents. There -are no more practical men anywhere than a majority of these who now -represent the progressive industrial countries of Europe as foreign -ministers or ambassadors. This particular feature of their equipment -for the office is not unnecessarily paraded, however, for their social -and political qualifications are more in the public eye. It is in the -private talks at the State Department at Washington, in London, Berlin, -Paris, St. Petersburg, or elsewhere, that their real fighting strength -is disclosed. It is not a question of private fortune with them, for -their governments remove any anxiety on that score by an adequate and -even abundant allowance of funds not only for salaries, but for housing -and maintenance. The British ambassador to Washington receives more -in salary and expense allowance than does the President of the United -States in proportion to the necessary expenditures of his office.</p> - -<p>To the American manufacturer, deeply engaged with his cost of -production and the filling of orders, it may appear that too much -stress is laid upon the function of foreign diplomacy in the success of -American business abroad; but it will not be necessary to give emphasis -to its importance with those Americans who have already pioneered their -business into remote parts of the world. They know, through bitter -experience, how inefficiency in an American embassy or legation can -hinder and even destroy the greater possibilities for American success.</p> - -<p>At present, and for years past, the fortunes of American foreign -trading depend, so far as diplomacy is concerned, upon the character, -ability, common sense, and adroitness of the individual government -representative abroad rather than upon the Government or the system as -a whole. Within the year 1912 we had the two extremes: in one country -an able, intelligent, and practical man, working persistently for weeks -to bring about a commercial entente cordiale between the United States -and the country in which he was stationed; and in another country -American interests were forced to appeal to English or other foreign -representatives to help them through a time of stress, because the -American representative considered things commercial as outside of -the province of his labors. Both of these men are out of office now -not because one was useful and the other useless, but because of the -system, or lack of system, which required their places for others.</p> - -<p>An English minister who was stationed in an important country a few -years ago failed when there to secure certain large contracts for -English builders. This same minister is still in the service, but is -now kicking his heels in an unimportant place, where what he does or -does not is of little consequence. A certain German ambassador was -recently denied the place of his choice because he had done so well -where he was that his services were still needed at that point; but -when the crisis has passed, he will get his reward all the more surely.</p> - -<p class="mbot3">The day will come in America when it will be realized that a nation -can well afford to cheapen for export by every means in its power, -and that such cheapness does not necessarily mean discrimination -against the home consumer. There are few signs of the dawn of this day -at the moment, and it will come only when the ultimate and general -overproduction of manufactures forces the attention of the whole nation -upon the need of still greater markets elsewhere. There is one comfort -for the people of the United States, possessed in no such degree by -any other nation at the present time or for several generations to -come, and that is, the abounding possibilities of the North American -continent in its natural resources, and the amazing vitality and -resourcefulness of its inhabitants.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nodisp" id="NEW_MADE_AMERICANS" title="NEW-MADE AMERICANS -A Few Types of Foreign Women Sketched, in New York, from the Life"></h2> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_894a1" name="i_894a1"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe43" src="images/i_894a1.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">LAÏLA, FROM MESOPOTAMIA</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_894a1_large.jpg" id="i_894a1_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> - <p class="caption padtop1"><span class="s2">NEW-MADE AMERICANS</span></p> - <p class="caption1"><span class="s3">A Few Types of Foreign Women Sketched, - in New York, from the Life</span></p> - <p class="caption1"><span class="s3">By W. T. Benda</span></p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_894b" name="i_894b"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe36_5" src="images/i_894b.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">ZOBÉIDA, FROM SYRIA</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_894b_large.jpg" id="i_894b_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_894c" name="i_894c"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe36_25" src="images/i_894c.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">MARGHERITA, FROM ITALY</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_894c_large.jpg" id="i_894c_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<div class="figcontainer"> - -<div class="figsub"> - <a id="i_894d1" name="i_894d1"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe22_5" src="images/i_894d1.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">JENNY, FROM CANADA</p> -</div> - -<div class="figsub"> - <a id="i_894d2" name="i_894d2"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe22_5" src="images/i_894d2.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">ULANA, FROM POLAND</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="figcontainer"> - -<div class="figsub"> - <a id="i_894d3" name="i_894d3"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe22_5" src="images/i_894d3.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">DOLORES, FROM SPAIN</p> -</div> - -<div class="figsub"> - <a id="i_894d4" name="i_894d4"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe22_5" src="images/i_894d4.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">KALINKA, FROM BULGARIA</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="figcontainer"> - -<div class="figsub"> - <a id="i_894d5" name="i_894d5"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe22_5" src="images/i_894d5.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">ALICE, FROM ENGLAND</p> -</div> - -<div class="figsub"> - <a id="i_894d6" name="i_894d6"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe22_5" src="images/i_894d6.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">SARAH, FROM SOUTHERN RUSSIA</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_895" id="Page_895">[Pg 895]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_895a" name="i_895a"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe50" src="images/i_895a.jpg" alt="Headpiece, THE DEVIL, HIS DUE" /></a> -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="THE_DEVIL_HIS_DUE">THE DEVIL, HIS DUE</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1 mbot2">BY PHILIP CURTISS</p> - -</div> - -<div class="dc"> - <a id="i_895b" name="i_895b"> - <img class="w6em" src="images/i_895b.jpg" alt="N" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="p0"><span class="hide-first1">N</span><span class="smaller">OW</span>, -Furniss was a devil. I mean that exactly, and if I might, I should -like to explain it, for I wish to draw a distinction between the -devils and the merely devilish. If argot had not spoiled the phrase, I -might have said that he was a regular devil, as distinguished from the -volunteer, the territorial, the occasional, or the would-be devil.</p> - -<p>The distinction between a regular devil and one who is merely devilish -is exactly the distinction between the professional and the amateur -in all occupations. The devilish do things purely for the éclat of -the doing, while the devils do them because they want the things -done. A professional carpenter carpenters in order that he may have -a table, to be used for his varying ends; an amateur uses his tools -merely for the sake of the chips. That an occasional amateur displays -unusual brilliancy in the accomplishment has nothing to do with the -distinction. The real devils, moreover, regard the devilish purely -with a mild amusement, if they regard them at all. Their only vexation -is that of professional craftsmen at the “pin-money” workers, whose -spasmodic efforts cut into legitimate trade.</p> - -<p>The most powerful proof which I can bring to the statement that Furniss -was a real devil, however, is the one that he did not regard himself as -a devil at all. On the contrary, he regarded himself as an industrious -citizen, fairly successful in the accomplishments of his ends. As -a career, devilishness did not interest him in the slightest. Its -material rewards were all that he sought.</p> - -<p>Now, at midnight, on the thirtieth of October, Furniss, with the best -intentions in the world, was standing in a group in the ball-room of -the Fitchly Country Club, harmlessly singing “Auld Lang Syne.” At one -minute past twelve the engineer turned out all the lights, having -standing instructions to do so, for Fitchly was a goodly town, and on -this particular night the steward had forgotten to make an exception. -The result was that which usually occurs when the lights are turned -out on a perfectly respectable and usually sane gathering of grown men -and women—every bit of asininity in the mob swarmed to the surface. -There were cat calls, screams, and suggestive labials, while all the -naturally executive began groping toward the door and the steward.</p> - -<p>What the others did, however, did not matter. It was generally -understood that they were merely devilish, and no score was to be -counted against them. Furniss, on the other hand, played everything -for stakes, and his tally had to meet with a reckoning. For, when the -lights left their sudden wave of darkness on the mixed and rollicking -group, Furniss quietly and modestly followed the promptings of his -profession, turned slowly, gathered the nearest woman into his arms, -and thoroughly and deliberately kissed her. Who she was he had not the -slightest idea, nor did he, indeed, have any very lively curiosity. -The act was purely professional, perfectly methodic, as automatic -and unemotional as a response in a ritual. Thus, despite Fur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_896" id="Page_896">[Pg 896]</a></span>niss’s -known make-up, the fact would have passed unnoticed had it not been -for two things, first, that, owing to the deliberateness of Furniss -and the quickness of the engineer, the lights went on again before -he was through, and the second that the woman thus discovered in his -arms was the only one in the room whom he would have had the slightest -reason for wanting to kiss. It was a perfect triumph of circumstantial -evidence.</p> - -<p>The sudden hush which fell on the group when the lights were restored -at once displayed the awfulness of Furniss’s depravity, as viewed by -the Fitchly Country Club, in riot assembled. Had any other man been -caught in the same act, with any other woman, there would have been -merely a triumphant outcry of self-acknowledged devilishness. The man -would have bought at the bar below, and the women would have screamed -themselves to their motors; but, by some unusual instinct that was -positively primitive, every man and woman in the room realized that -Furniss was a professional and his act took a much more vital aspect. -By the same perfect precision of instinct not a single iota of blame -was attached to the lady in question, for the accurate conception of -Furniss on the part of the Country Club demonstrated also that she was -only an instrument in a tragedy of the elements. One does not accuse a -person of being an accessory to a cyclone.</p> - -<p>At the vivid and not wholly beautiful picture thus presented by -the electrics, the whole room foolishly and utterly unsuccessfully -attempted to give an imitation of a gathering which knows that nothing -has happened. After the awful hush of the first moment, the women began -quietly conversing in tones unusually subdued; the men began skylarking -and shouting on subjects unusually hollow. The object of instructing -the engineer to turn on the lights again, after midnight, had been to -allow the dance to continue until two in the morning. At one there was -not a single person left in the ball-room, and the waiters were already -sweeping up the fragments. Some fragments, however, they could not -sweep, and these make the following prelude:</p> - -<p>Ten years before, at the age of twenty-five, Furniss had had one chance -in a million of being decent; that is to say, he had nearly married a -good woman, and that woman, needless to explain, was the one whom by -sheer accident he kissed just ten years later. Furthermore, it was the -nearest that he had ever come to marrying anybody, or ever would come, -and it was a hollow victory for the law of chances.</p> - -<p>Furniss was a devil because he came of that stock. It bred true to -type, merely with refinements in each succeeding generation. His father -was a stout, red-faced man of the kind that, thirty years ago, drove -trotting-horses to a red-wheeled run-about, with wooden knobs on the -reins, and loops to hold to—a true example of the days when it took -absolute defiance to be a sporting-man. Furniss himself drove the -best-looking motor-car in Fitchly, and his effect was esthetically -better than his father’s, for, owing to the rigidity of the thing, it -is much easier to have a good taste in motor-cars than in horses. His -mother was a blonde, expensively-dressed woman of the type which goes -through life in the hideous belief that tight-lacing will make feminine -obesity anything but revolting.</p> - -<p>Yet at twenty-five Furniss had had his chances. He went to college -and played foot-ball. He played it well. It is frequently the noblest -thing that men of his stamp ever do, except one. They sometimes get -into the army, and into the cavalry; less frequently into the infantry, -but never, absolutely never, into the engineers. It was, moreover, the -heyday of the college athlete, those golden years of the nineties when -men wore huge white Y’s and H’s on high-necked sweaters at mountain -resorts all summer, and when reputations lasted more than a year. -With one of these reputations Furniss had come out of college, and -tentatively, against its judgment, Fitchly had received him. It was one -of those inconceivable cases when reason and instinct battle. Everybody -knew old man Furniss and had not the slightest illusions about him; -yet here was young Furniss a half-back at Yale! Time has helped us to -understand these things nowadays, but they troubled us then.</p> - -<p>In Furniss’s case reason won over instinct, and Fitchly received him -with open arms which wavered slightly. The only return he made was to -fall mildly in love with Helen Witherspoon. It would be nice to think -that something in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_897" id="Page_897">[Pg 897]</a></span> sweet, old-fashioned manner of this dainty, -refined girl, whose ancestors had been immigrants two hundred years -before Furniss’s, appealed to the brute and barbaric in the foot-ball -hero, and perhaps it did, but a more plausible reason for his falling -in love with her was that every one else was doing it. It was the -temptation of the desired, the invitation of a contest, and of all -things this appealed most to Furniss. Every one was doing it; but in a -very short time it narrowed down to Furniss and Butley Smith, of the -well-known legal firm of Smith, Smith & Smith, which drew up the city -charter and refused to accept criminal practice. She married Smith. -You could hardly call it a disappointed love-affair. It was rather -precision by elimination, and Furniss was eliminated. Furnisses were -all right as half-backs, but we didn’t marry them in Fitchly; at least -Father and Mother Witherspoon didn’t marry them, and in Fitchly they -did the marrying.</p> - -<p>From Furniss’s point of view it was unfortunate, but it was natural. As -an economic system, marriage did not wholly persuade him, anyway.</p> - -<p>So Furniss reverted to type, and did well at it. He lost little of his -athletic good looks, and he was certainly invaluable as a club-man. -Thirty-five found him stocky, but not fat, with a face rather round, -but not repellent; a tiny, trim mustache; the inevitable blue serge -and that almost offensively white linen which one associates with the -broker type—that whiteness which threatens to, but does not quite, -suggest scented soap. It would have been extremely difficult to say -whether or not he had brains. His achievements rather pointed to the -fact that he had, and his tastes to the fact that he had not; but, in -any case, he made money, and whatever might be his misdeeds, he never -bothered any one by telling about them. He manufactured in quantity the -best off-set drill in America, and furthermore, as he held the patents, -the wholesale jobbers who bought the drill troubled not one whit with -his morals. The society of Fitchly shook its head occasionally, but on -the whole kept him along. It would be extremely difficult to drop a man -who had nowhere to drop to; and as he asked nothing of Fitchly, there -was nothing to refuse. This occasion at the Country Club, then, was -the first real instance in which the elements had come in conflict.</p> - -<p>Of the many mixed emotions which accompanied the premature withdrawal -from the Country Club that night, only two will suffice for -illustration, as they marked the extremes—those of Furniss himself -and of Butley Smith, the Menelaus of the ravished Helen. Those of -Furniss, indeed, were no doubt very similar to the emotions of the son -of Priam himself on the occasion of the original Hellenic uprising—an -amusing incident and an unfortunate one, but why this unseemly outcry? -His kissing some one when the lights went out had been a perfectly -consistent act. It was not an emotional impulse; it was, in a way, a -duty to the conventions, and how was he to know that the recipient was -a former sweetheart? He had no desire to repeat the crime. The attitude -of the Country Club had made osculation rather nauseous. It would seem -better breeding not to notice it; and yet, and yet, it was rather funny -that it should have been Helen. It was the first personal illustration -which Furniss had ever had of the dramatic, and he began to ponder. If -you ever wish to reclaim a devil, just try him on the dramatic. It is -the only uplifting influence which sleeps in the souls of most of them.</p> - -<p>The emotions of Butley Smith were less happily chosen. He also felt the -impulse of the drama, but his was the stiff and unnatural drama of the -classic schools, for his cue directed him to punch in the face of the -offending Furniss. It was a glowing idea, but it wasn’t practical, as -associates of Butley brutally pointed out when they drew attention to -the fact that the face of the ex-half-back, and the present associate -of half the prize-fighters in the East, would be an extremely hard one -to pummel, and their logic suggests an admirable course of action for -one who would play a dramatic part in such histories. If you must be an -outraged husband, be one in a novel or a play, where you will always -be able to thrash or horsewhip or shoot the villain within an inch -of his life. The physical incapacity of villains in these circles is -admirable. In real life, unfortunately, they are quite apt to be fully -the equals of the outraged husband, or otherwise the husbands would be -less frequently outraged.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_898" id="Page_898">[Pg 898]</a></span></p> - -<p>The probabilities of this situation were easily comprehended by a legal -mind which spurned a criminal practice, and Butley Smith had to take -his satisfaction in biding his time, reserving, however, the privilege -of biting his lip, to which extent he lived up to the unities. Meantime -the situation in Fitchly did not improve.</p> - -<p>Just how bad the situation was growing, just how fitfully the pot was -boiling, how it was even fanned by his own disregard of it, was utterly -aside from the observation of Furniss. He never knew, for example, -and probably would not have cared if he did, that there had been a -proposition to expel him from the Fitchly Country Club. But, then, as -was pointed out by Carter of the firm of Carter, Pills & Carter, who -did take an occasional criminal case, if an action were instituted -against Furniss, it must necessarily involve the guileless Helen, and, -whatever might be the popular verdict, just how much she could be -called an accomplice would be a decision extremely delicate for the -trained legal mind. It was certain that Furniss’s face had borne no -scratches when the lights went on again.</p> - -<p>So Butley boiled and chafed under his natural injunction against -punching Furniss, and bit his lip, and bided his time, until ultimately -it began to react on Helen, whose original emotions had been as simple -as those of the criminal. He boiled and chafed and bided his time until -the desperate Helen resolved on a terrible step—no less than an actual -move to the walls of Ilium. She wrote a note, and invited Furniss to -meet her in the private dining-room of the Fitchly Inn.</p> - -<p>He went. We will not flatter Furniss. Any note in a feminine -handwriting would have brought him just the same, and his mood was not -of the most elevated. His dim, uncertain stirrings of the dramatic on -the morning of the thirty-first had gone permanently back to sleep, and -on this particular day he had reasons to be distinctly savage, for he -had just lost a forty-thousand-dollar order for the off-set drill, and -he had no active inclinations toward mushrooms. Still, business was -business, and one had to buy luncheon for two, anyway.</p> - -<p>So Helen met him, and Helen pleaded. Aside from the boiling of Butley, -her feminine sense of the just had told her that wrong must be -righted and happy endings must prevail. She had not the rude melodrama -of her consort, which saw a trouncing as the only fit remedy for -non-patrons of husbandry; but she had, nevertheless, an Emersonian -theory of compensation, which perceived that the apparent impunity of -the outrager was contrary to the ultimate laws of existence. So Helen -pleaded, and Paris got mad. He didn’t like Butley, anyway. He would -apologize to Helen, but he wouldn’t to Menelaus. He couldn’t see that -the affair was international, anyway. It seemed to him distinctly -Parisian. But Helen wore a tailored gown with a fringe of lace at her -neck, so Paris surrendered, and the entente cordiale was restored. -He promised to apologize at the Quoits Club that very day, and that -evening, at a prearranged dinner, the nations would banquet in harmony. -Seven stalwart oxen would be killed, a libation poured to the gods, and -for seven hours—</p> - -<p>But just then the waiter brought the bill.</p> - -<p>The bill, with tips, was twenty-four dollars and sixty cents, and with -a sudden recollection of the forty-thousand-dollar order, Furniss -reverted to type. With the usual inconsistency of a man who can lose -large sums with apparent indifference, he raved and fumed at the loss -of a penny. He raved and fumed all the afternoon at his office, and it -was not until well after five that he made an unaccustomed appearance -at the Quoits Club, still raging and fuming, with the only horror that -a man of his type can ever know—the horror of losing money.</p> - -<p>Butley Smith was already at the Quoits Club, as Helen well knew -he would be; but Furniss was an unaccustomed presence. He usually -preferred the Racquets, where the stakes were worth playing, and his -advent in this, the stronghold of strictly civil practice, made a -commotion. The commotion, moreover, soon attracted the attention of -Butley, who was straying through the tables looking for a partner.</p> - -<p>Now, Butley Smith was rated a magnificent card-player, which meant that -he played auction like a stop-watch, and poker like a two-year-old -child. The exact opposite was true, by reputation, of Furniss, and at -sight of him in the stronghold of his own followers, who demanded his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_899" id="Page_899">[Pg 899]</a></span> -redemption, Butley had a sudden golden inspiration. He ceased biting -his lip, and his time was bid. He would beard the lion in his den, and -beard him he did.</p> - -<p>“Furniss,” he said, “are you busy?”</p> - -<p>Furniss looked up in perplexity.</p> - -<p>“Suppose,” continued Butley, “that we throw a few hands of poker.”</p> - -<p>Butley was right. With Furniss of Fitchly that was indeed an audacious -suggestion to give, but, brooding on the circumstances of the last -two months, in the minds of the Quoits Club it instantly assumed -Homeric proportions. The turn of a card, the fall of a die, a woman’s -honor—there was a romance about it that struck clear home to their -devilishness; a veritable thrill went among them. Only Furniss was -mystified; but, then, he was a devil, and naturally did not know how it -felt to be devilish. But he saw light—his own light, a light that is -not on land or sea, only in the waters under the earth.</p> - -<p>“I’m on,” he said, and Butley dealt.</p> - -<p>In a crowded club-room at five o’clock in the afternoon a two-handed -game would ordinarily have been a monstrosity, but this was no -ordinary contest. It was a fight to the very death, and without a word -the spectators gathered at the only points where it is proper for -spectators to gather in a poker-game—without a word and without a -suggestion to join.</p> - -<p>I want to do justice to that game, but the truth is that Butley did not -win a single hand—or just one in the early part.</p> - -<p>“I raise you four,” said Furniss as the clock struck six.</p> - -<p>Butley glanced at his hand.</p> - -<p>“It’s yours,” he said sadly, and regretfully laid down three jacks, -while Furniss rapidly shuffled an ace high into the pack and looked at -his watch.</p> - -<p>Six o’clock had been fixed as the hour for stopping, as both had -confessed the common engagement for dinner, and Butley rose with the -sad, sweet air of one defeated, but still game. Knowing Furniss of -Fitchly, the onlookers applauded. But Furniss was busily counting his -chips.</p> - -<p>“Twenty—twenty-two—twenty-four—twenty-four-fifty”—the last chip! A -sudden warm triumph came over him. Like a flash, he drew ten cents from -his pocket.</p> - -<p>“Butley,” he exclaimed, “I’ll match you for a dime.”</p> - -<p>Was it a challenge to game on all fields? Was it a contemptuous fling -at the triviality of the winnings? Or was it really the recognition of -the instincts of one sportsman by another? Butley did not know; but if -Furniss was flinging down the glove, he would still pick it up again. -Any one would die game for ten cents, and with the debonair air of the -devilish, Butley drew forth a coin and slapped it down on the table. -Two heads. Furniss had won, and Butley had paid for the luncheon.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, most astounding of all, the unities were suddenly -restored, for across the table, with a genial, companionable smile, -Furniss was extending the right hand of fellowship.</p> - -<p>“Butley,” he said, and honestly, with the thought of twenty-four-sixty, -“if there is anything that I have to apologize for, you can take this -for my apology.”</p> - -<p>Now at this point there settles down a despondency like a pall. Oh, how -one might wish that one could leave them there with that happy scene -as a curtain, and that devils were not, and that they were all merely -devilish. But this is the story of Furniss.</p> - -<p>For after the prearranged dinner that evening, while Furniss and Butley -were making a four at bridge with the hosts, fair Helen, who played -bridge not at all, was strumming faint chords in the music-room. And -during his partner’s play, while Butley was racking his mathematical -memory to recall every card that had ever been played in the world, -this Furniss pushed in through the curtains, and Helen looked up.</p> - -<p>“You apologized?” she asked him, softly, still playing the bass.</p> - -<p>He nodded.</p> - -<p>She looked down, then up again wistfully.</p> - -<p>“For my sake?”</p> - -<p>“For your sake,” lied Furniss, his eyes like a babe’s.</p> - -<p>She took both hands from the keyboard and faced him, while Furniss -leaned over. She did not move back, and a slow, gentle smile reflected -his own while Furniss deliberately kissed her.</p> - -<p>In the card-room Menelaus was recalling the bid.</p> - -<p>“One lily,” he said with elation.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_900" id="Page_900">[Pg 900]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_900" name="i_900"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe50" src="images/i_900.jpg" alt="Headpiece, PADEREWSKI AT HOME" /></a> -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="PADEREWSKI_AT_HOME">PADEREWSKI AT HOME</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1">BY ABBIE H. C. FINCK</p> - -<p class="s4 center mbot2">WITH A PORTRAIT BY EMIL FUCHS</p> - -</div> - -<p class="p0"><span class="drop-cap">R</span>IOND-BOSSON, -Paderewski’s beautiful place at Morges, on the Swiss side -of Lake Geneva, has become one of the show-places of Europe not only on -account of its famous owner, but also for its orchards, greenhouses, -and the chicken farm, which is one of Mme. Paderewska’s chief cares. -Better still, it is a charming home, where the world’s greatest pianist -and his wife spend the happiest part of their lives, the time when he -is free to compose, to practise, and to surround himself with friends, -to whom in gracious hospitality both manage to devote much time. -Neither appears officially before luncheon; but Mme. Paderewska, shaded -by a sunbonnet, accompanied by several dogs, and followed by a retinue -of workmen, is one of the frequent morning sights about the premises. -She oversees everything, the house,—notably the kitchen, in which -both she and Paderewski are greatly interested,—the chickens, and the -growing of the fruit and vegetables. Besides this, she attends to her -husband’s enormous correspondence, and is always ready with help and -advice to smooth difficulties out of his way.</p> - -<p>The Paderewskis are very fond of animals, especially dogs and parrots. -The wild birds, too, receive Mme. Paderewska’s care, and by her special -orders birdhouses have been placed on every tree on the place. She has -her reward, for the air is filled with the melody of their songs. With -all the other demands on her time, she finds leisure for collecting -material for a cook-book, which promises to be a valuable work, many of -its recipes being the result of her personal experience.</p> - -<p>Paderewski spends most of the morning and afternoon hours in his own -study. He finds some time for exercise during the day, grass-cutting -on lawn and fields being his favorite outdoor work; and although his -priceless hands have to be protected by gloves, he gets a good deal of -fun as well as benefit from being a “farm-hand.” At luncheon-time he -appears, after a hard morning’s work, looking well, happy, and boyish, -dressed, like Mark Twain, in pure white, and ready to chat delightfully -on any subject, whether it be gastronomy, American politics, his own -interesting South-American experiences, or other topics.</p> - -<p>Paderewski’s love of the picturesque made him long to own one of the -splendid old châteaux that abound in that part of Switzerland; but -the more practical counsels of his wife prevailed, and their home is -simply a comfortable modern house, standing at the top of a large, -sloping, green field. It is built somewhat in the chalet type, of -red brick, with many balconies, and a stately front terrace, and it -commands a magnificent prospect, first of the rose-garden, then of the -wide sweep of green, bordered by huge trees—lindens, chestnuts, and -evergreens. Farther on is the lake, with a splendid view of Mont Blanc -for a background. Flowers abound: orange-trees in tubs, geraniums, -heliotrope, mignonette, and chiefly roses, which not only fill the -formal rose-garden, but scramble over the fences of the chicken-yards, -a mass of pink-and-red bloom; while in the orchard, between the -espalier-grown fruit-trees, there is almost an equal number of tall -rose-bushes, all in bloom in July.</p> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_900a" name="i_900a"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe41" src="images/i_900a.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Half-tone plate engraved for T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> - by H. Davidson</p> - <p class="caption">IGNACE PADEREWSKI</p> - <p class="caption1">FROM A CHARCOAL SKETCH BY EMIL FUCHS</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_900a_large.jpg" id="i_900a_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_901" id="Page_901">[Pg 901]</a></span></p> - -<p>There are many portraits of Paderewski at Riond-Bosson, but none except -the pencil-sketch by Burne-Jones has represented both the strength -and the spirituality of his head. This portrait hangs in the salon, -surrounded by old prints, which are one of the master’s hobbies. -Fragonard’s pictures are evidently among his favorites, as they also -occupy a place of honor in the drawing-room. Autographed engravings -by Alma-Tadema, caricatures of Paderewski by well-known artists, and -photographs of famous friends—Modjeska, Saint-Saëns, and Sembrich, -among others—adorn the house from top to bottom; and Paderewski is the -possessor of a remarkable collection of old Swiss prints of towns and -scenery. A few very interesting family photographs hang in the library, -a whole group being of Mme. Paderewska in her childhood and girlhood, a -maiden with beautiful dreamy eyes and a delicate face, framed in dusky -hair.</p> - -<p>There are seven pianos in the house, two being in the drawing-room; -but it is in his own study that Paderewski does all his practising -and composing. His practising would be both an encouragement and a -discouragement to students. Hour after hour he works, with the patience -that none but the greatest possess, polishing and repolishing phrases -that sound perfect even to a practised ear, but which do not satisfy -his critical judgment. Only occasionally does he allow himself the -relaxation of playing even a page of music; after this he returns -relentlessly to octave work, to staccato finger-passages, to separate -phrases from Liszt’s sonatas, to the more difficult portions of his own -magnificent “Variations et fugue,” to snatches of Chopin, or to bits of -Debussy, whose piano-music he likes.</p> - -<p>Paderewski has much admiration for the greatest masters of the French -school: Gounod, Bizet, and especially Saint-Saëns, whom he considers -the greatest living musician. With enthusiasm he tells of Saint-Saëns’s -achievement in playing four Mozart concertos from memory at the age of -seventy-six. He also admires Massenet, particularly his “Jongleur,” -which he calls the French composer’s masterpiece. He feels that -Gounod’s “Faust,” even more than his “Roméo et Juliette,” is immortal, -and that “Carmen” is one of the works which can never grow old, and -of which one cannot tire. He finds Gounod’s influence in Bizet’s -compositions, and still more in those of Tschaikovsky, who in all his -work was dominated by the great Frenchman, the “Faust” waltz even -having colored Tschaikovsky’s symphonic ideas, coming into them either -in conventional waltz time or in the unusual rhythm of five beats, -as in the second movement of the “Symphonie Pathétique.” Still more -pronounced is Tschaikovsky’s debt to Gounod in “Eugen Onegin,” where, -in the love-scene, this same waltz phrase appears reversed, though -almost identical with that in “Faust.” “But I prefer the father,” -Paderewski adds. To him, as to many other lovers of “Faust,” the -“Soldiers’ Chorus” is uninteresting; but he singles out for special -admiration <i>Mefisto’s</i> striking song of the “Veau d’or,” his serenade, -and the “immortally beautiful” love-music.</p> - -<p>Acquaintance with Tschaikovsky’s music means knowing the whole Russian -school, Paderewski says, although the younger Russian musicians -repudiate him and Rubinstein, just as Russian writers turn against -their greatest representative, and call Turgenieff a foreigner, -expatriated, and untrue to Russian characteristics. The first and last -movements of Tschaikovsky’s best-loved symphony, the “Pathétique,” -Paderewski considers sublime; but he regards the other two as rather -commonplace.</p> - -<p>His opinion of the modern French school has not changed since his -talk with Mr. Daniel Gregory Mason, which was published in T<span class="smaller">HE</span> -C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> for November, 1908. Some of the Debussy piano-music -appeals to him; but he still considers “Pelléas” little more than -color, and rather monotonous color.</p> - -<p>“I think I must be very old-fashioned,” he once said, “for I know many -persons no younger than I who like it.” His own “Variations,” in which -some listeners found a surface resemblance to the modern French school, -have no more real relation to it than has the music of Chopin or of -Liszt.</p> - -<p>Paderewski is as great in gastronomy as in music, and he believes -the subject of food is “the most important question” in our country. -Of Americans he says: “They are rich—rich enough to spoil French -cooking,” meaning their frequent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_902" id="Page_902">[Pg 902]</a></span> indifference to quality, a fact which -he deeply deplores; for in this art, to him as to other connoisseurs, -the French are supreme. “You have good fruits, good meats, but nothing -else is good except the scallops, which are the best thing you have. -The fish is abominable.” In saying this he probably had in mind the -cold-storage fish served in our hotels. “You have destroyed your -lobsters, your salmon, your terrapin, your forests. You never think -that another generation is coming.”</p> - -<p>America is not the only country he censures thus sharply. The English -are still more blameworthy, for their food-stuffs are perfection, -and yet nothing tastes good; though he admitted that one could get -excellent dinners in some London restaurants and private houses.</p> - -<p>The sour cherry, which Europe owes to Lucullus, is Paderewski’s -favorite fruit. Following the Roman’s example, he has imported the -choicest varieties for his Swiss home. These trees came from Poland, -and those who ate of the fruit agreed with Paderewski’s statement that -they are “the aristocrats among cherries.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps the most vital subject to the great Pole is his own beloved -country. He is considered an important factor in the Polish-European -politics of the day. Considerable apprehension was felt as to the -possible effect of his speech on his inflammable compatriots at the -Chopin centenary, in 1910, and at the presentation of the magnificent -monument which Paderewski had caused to be erected at Cracow in -commemoration of the Polish victory over the order of Teutonic Knights -at Grunewald, in 1410. One of his countrymen was the sculptor of the -splendid equestrian statue of Wladislaus II. The mere description -of the scenes that followed, of the acclamations of the Poles, the -cheers of thousands for their beloved Paderewski, moves the hearer -deeply; what it must have meant to the man in whose honor those -thousands gathered from all Poland—a man ready to give his heart’s -blood for his country—can be known only to himself and to his wife. -Among the interesting souvenirs of this occasion are autographs of -many distinguished Poles who gathered to do honor to Poland and to -Paderewski. It is hardly strange that the Powers that hold Poland -should have felt that very serious consequences might arise from this -one man’s magnetism, enthusiasm, and patriotism.</p> - -<p>In the speech he made at the Chopin centenary, he advanced an -interesting theory to explain the genius of his country and the unrest -and moodiness of the Poles. He believes that, as a nation, they are -like their music, and live in a perpetual state of <i>tempo rubato</i>, -caused by a physical defect—arrhythmia, or unevenness of heartbeat. -He was not in the best of health; and being unable to play at this -festival, he offered that honor to his American pupil and friend Ernest -Schelling, who passed through the ordeal triumphantly, satisfying not -only his Polish audience, but his sponsor by his interpretation of the -works of Poland’s idol, Chopin.</p> - -<p>Paderewski is not addicted to talking much about himself; but -occasionally he gives his friends a glimpse of the real man. One -autobiographic incident concerns his own playing. Berlin has always -been unjust to Paderewski, not for artistic reasons, but on political -grounds. One well-known critic, after hearing Paderewski play, went to -the artist’s room, his eyes filled with tears of joy, to congratulate -the master; but later, obeying the official <i>mot d’ordre</i> which is -frequently used in the attempt to kill great artists, he wrote most -disagreeably about Paderewski, who, in relating the experience, added -half deprecatingly: “He spoiled me by his call. It is easy to be -spoiled; and he was so pleased the first time that I thought he would -come again.”</p> - -<p>The remarkable songs to the poems of Catulle Mendès, which Paderewski -published a few years ago, were written, he told us, in three weeks; -and in that year, produced in an incredibly short space of time, the -piano sonata and the sketch of the symphony also saw the light. The -scoring of the latter he could not finish until three years later. The -composer is very particular about his manuscript, and if he makes an -error, he rewrites the whole page. At times he could score only one -page; at others, as many as five; and he smilingly says, “I was so -proud of my five pages, even if they were all rests.” He himself has to -study the piano accompaniments to his later songs, and he says that “it -is foolish to make them so difficult.”</p> - -<p>His South-American experiences had been of great interest to him both -from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_903" id="Page_903">[Pg 903]</a></span> point of view of the artist and that of the observer. He -had played ten times in Buenos Aires to growing houses and increasing -enthusiasm, the last of the series being to a $12,000 audience; he -had tasted barbecued beef at a great plantation feast, and found it -very unpalatable; he had studied the agricultural conditions of the -South-American countries, and had been amazed at the natural wealth -of the Argentine Republic, at its forests of trees unknown to us, and -still more at its humus, forty meters deep, which makes a soil so -fertile that it will last for centuries with no enriching. Being a -practical farmer himself, and deeply interested in the good of his own -land and forests, every detail of this extraordinary wealth fascinated -the great pianist.</p> - -<p>Like many other famous artists of to-day, Paderewski finds the making -of records for a phonograph far more trying and fatiguing than playing -in public. He says he would “rather play at twenty concerts than once -for a phonograph.” One of these records was so difficult to make, and -needed so many repetitions to insure perfection in every note, not only -artistically, but acoustically, that he almost dislikes to hear it. It -is safe to predict that his admirers will not share this feeling, and -that his own “Cracovienne,” Mendelssohn’s “Hunting-Song,” and Liszt’s -“Campanella,” to mention only three, will become popular additions -to their collections of records. He has a large number of Oriental -records, in which he is greatly interested. Years ago, when he first -went to San Francisco, he spent much of his spare time at the Chinese -theater listening to their music; so the study of Oriental tunes is no -new thing, although, thanks to the recording machines, it has taken a -new form.</p> - -<p>Never shall we forget our last afternoon at Riond-Bosson, when -Paderewski played for us, giving almost a professional recital, at -which the greatest of all the music he played was his own “Variations -et fugue,” Opus 23. To hear them in the concert-hall, as New York -audiences have heard them, is a great experience; but to hear them in a -room, with three or four enthusiasts as the only listeners, is a much -greater one. Mme. Wilkonska, Paderewski’s sister; Miss Mickiewicz, -granddaughter of the famous Polish poet; Mr. Blake, a young Polish -sculptor, and we two, were the only persons there besides the pianist -and his wife. She stood at his side to turn the leaves for him, -although he hardly glanced at the printed page; but as he had not -played this composition in a long time, and had had only a few hours’ -practice to recall it to memory and fingers, he preferred to have the -music before him. Lovers of music will recall the majestic theme in -octaves upon which Paderewski has built one of the most splendid sets -of variations in all music, one worthy to be compared with Schubert’s -sublime variations on his song of “Death and the Maiden.” He had -thundered out his theme, when two of Mme. Paderewska’s dogs began a -mad romp through the room. Paderewski’s hands dropped from the keys, -and the culprits were summarily put out, little realizing their sins. -They reappeared at doors and windows, scratching and barking; but, once -fairly launched, Paderewski was undisturbed by their small noises, and -played on to the end. After finishing the fugue, he replied, in answer -to questions, that one of the variations was difficult, then mentioned -another, and ended by repeating several of the best variations and also -the splendid fugue.</p> - -<p>We had been privileged to enjoy an experience such as Liszt described -in his book on Chopin, when the other great Polish composer-pianist -let his friends hear his own works interpreted by himself; but at -Riond-Bosson there was no jarring note of Philistinism such as Liszt -found in the aristocratic salons in which Chopin played.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_904" id="Page_904">[Pg 904]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_904" name="i_904"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe50" src="images/i_904.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">A GLIMPSE OF THE SEINE</p> -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="PARIS">PARIS</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1">BY THEODORE DREISER</p> - -<p class="s6 center">Author of “Sister Carrie,” “Jennie Gerhardt,” etc.</p> - -<p class="s4 center">WITH PICTURES BY W. J. GLACKENS</p> - -</div> - -<p class="p0 mtop2"><span class="drop-cap">W</span>HEN the train rolled into the Gare du Nord, it must have been about -eight o’clock in the evening. X. had explained to me that, in order to -make my entrance into Paris properly gay and interesting, we were to -dine at the Café de Paris, then visit the Folies-Bergère, and afterward -have supper at the Abbaye Thélème. Now, as usual, X. was alert and -prepared. He had industriously piled all the bags close to the door, -and was hanging out of a window, doing his best to signal a <i>facteur</i>. -I was to stay in the car and hand all the packages down rapidly while -he ran to secure a taxi and an inspector, and in other ways to clear -away the impediments to our progress. With great executive enthusiasm -he told me that we must be at the Hôtel Normandy by eight-fifteen or -twenty, and that by nine o’clock we must be ready to sit down in the -Café de Paris to an excellent dinner, which he had ordered by telegraph.</p> - -<p>I recall my wonder in entering Paris—the lack of any extended suburbs, -the sudden flash of electric lights and electric cars. Mostly we seemed -to be entering through a tunnel or gully, and then we were there. The -noisy facteurs in their caps and blue aprons were all about the cars. -They ran and chattered and gesticulated, wholly unlike the porters -at Paddington and Waterloo, Victoria and Euston. The one we finally -secured, a husky little enthusiast, did his best to gather all our -packages in one grand mass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_905" id="Page_905">[Pg 905]</a></span> and shoulder them, stringing them on a -single strap. The result of it was that the strap broke right over a -small pool of water, and among other things the canvas bag containing -my blanket and magnificent shoes fell into the water.</p> - -<p>The excited facteur was fairly dancing in anguish, doing his best to -get the packages strung together. Between us we relieved him of about -half of them, and from about his waist he unwrapped another large strap -and strung the remainder on that. Then we hurried on, for nothing would -do but that we must hurry. A taxi was secured, and all our luggage -piled on it. It looked half suffocated under bundles as it swung -away, and we were off at a mad clip through crowded, electric-lighted -streets. I pressed my nose to the window and took in as much as I -could, while X., between calculations as to how much time this would -take and that would take and whether my trunk had arrived safely, -expatiated laconically on French characteristics.</p> - -<p>“You smell this air? It is characteristic of Paris.”</p> - -<p>“The taxis always go like this.” We were racing like mad.</p> - -<p>“There is an excellent type; look at her.”</p> - -<p>“Now you see the chairs out in front. They are this way all over Paris.”</p> - -<p>I was looking at the interesting restaurant life, which never really -seems to be interrupted anywhere in Paris. One can always find a dozen -chairs, if not fifty or a hundred, somewhere out on the sidewalk, under -the open sky or a glass roof, with little stone-topped tables beside -them, the crowd surging to and fro in front. Here one can sit and have -one’s coffee, liqueur, sandwich. Everybody seems to do it; it is as -common as walking in the streets.</p> - -<p>We whirled through street after street, partaking of this atmosphere, -and finally swung up in front of a rather plain hotel, which was close -to the Avenue de l’Opéra, on the corner of the Rue St. Honoré and -the Rue de l’Echelle. Our luggage was quickly distributed, and I was -shown into my room by a maid who could not speak English. I unlocked -my belongings and rapidly changed my clothes, while X., breathing -mightily, fully arrayed, soon appeared, saying that I should await him -at the door below, where he would arrive with our guests. I did so, and -in fifteen minutes he returned, the taxi spinning up out of a steady -stream that was flowing by. I think my head was dizzy with the whirl -of impressions which I was garnering, but I did my best to keep a sane -view of things, and to get my impressions as sharp and clear as I could.</p> - -<p>I am satisfied of one thing in this world, and that is that the -commonest intelligence is very frequently confused or hypnotized or -overpersuaded by certain situations, and that the weaker ones are -ever full of the wildest forms of illusion. We talk about the sanity -of life. I question whether it exists. Mostly it is a succession of -confusing, disturbing impressions which are only rarely valid. This -night I know I was moving in a sort of maze, and when I stepped into -the taxi and was introduced to two ladies, I easily succumbed to what -was obviously their great beauty.</p> - -<p>Greuze has painted over and over the type that I saw before me—soft, -buxom, ruddy womanhood. I think the two may have been respectively -twenty-four and twenty-six. The elder was smaller than the younger, -although both were of good size, and not so ruddy; but both were plump, -round-faced, dimpled, and with a wealth of brownish-black hair, white -teeth, smooth, plump arms, necks, and shoulders. Their chins were -adorably rounded, their lips red, and their eyes laughing and gay. -They began laughing and chattering the moment I entered, extending -their soft, white hands, and saying things in French which I could not -understand. X. was smiling, beaming through his monocle in an amused, -superior way. The older girl was arrayed in pearl-colored silk, with -a black mantilla spangled with silver, and the younger had a dress of -peachblow hue, with a white lace mantilla, that was also spangled, and -they breathed a faint perfume.</p> - -<p>I shall never forget the grand air with which this noble band went into -the Café de Paris. We were in fine feather, and the ladies radiated -a charm and a flavor which immediately attracted attention. This -brilliant café was aglow with lights and alive with people. It is not -large in size, and is triangular in shape. The charm of it comes not so -much from the luxury of the fittings, which are luxu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_906" id="Page_906">[Pg 906]</a></span>rious enough, but -from their exceedingly good taste and the fame of the cuisine. One does -not see a bill of fare here that indicates prices. You order what you -like, and are charged what is suitable. Champagne is not an essential -wine, as it is in some restaurants; you may drink what you please. -There is a delicious sparkle and spirit to the place which can spring -only from a high sense of individuality. Paris is supposed to provide -nothing better than the Café de Paris in so far as food is concerned.</p> - -<p>I turned my attention to the elder of the two ladies, who was quite as -vivacious, if not quite so forceful, as her younger sister. I never -before knew what it meant to sit in a company of this kind, welcomed -as a friend, looked to for gaiety as a companion and admirer, and yet -not able to say a word in the language of the occasion. There were -certain words which could be quickly acquired, such as “beautiful,” -“charming,” “very delightful,” and so on, for which X. gave me the -French equivalent, and then I could make complimentary remarks, which -he would translate for all, and the ladies would say things in reply -which would come to me by the same medium. It went gaily enough, for -the conversation would not have been of a high order if I had been -able to speak French. X. objected to being used constantly as an -interpreter, and when he became stubborn and chatted gaily without -stopping to explain, I was compelled to fall back on the resources of -looks, smiles, and gestures. It interested me to see how quick these -women were to adapt themselves to the difficulties of the situation. -They were constantly laughing and chaffing between themselves, looking -at me and saying obviously flattering things, and then laughing at my -discomfiture in not being able to understand. The elder explained what -certain objects were by lifting them up and insisting on the French -name. X. was constantly telling me of the remarks they made at my -expense, and how sad they thought it was that I could not speak French.</p> - -<p>We departed finally for the Folies-Bergère, where the newest sensation -of Paris, Mistinguett, was playing. She proved to be a brilliant hoyden -to look upon; a gay, slim, yellow-haired tomboy who seemed to fascinate -the large audience by her boyish manners and her wayward air. There -was a brilliant chorus in spangled silks and satins. The vaudeville -acts were about as good as they are anywhere. I did not think that the -performance was any better than one might see in one or two places -in New York, though of course the humor was much broader. Now and -then one of their remarkable <i>bons mots</i> was translated for me by X. -just to give me an inkling of the character of the place. Back of the -seats was a great lobby, or promenade, where some of the demi-monde of -Paris were congregated—beautiful creatures, in many instances, and -as unconventional as you please. I was particularly struck with the -smartness of their costumes and the cheerfulness of their faces. The -companion type in London and New York is somewhat colder-looking. Their -eyes snapped with Gallic intelligence, and they walked as though the -whole world held their point of view and no other.</p> - -<p>From here at midnight we left for the Abbaye Thélème, and there I -encountered the best that Paris has to show in the way of that gaiety -and color and beauty and smartness for which it is famous. One really -ought to say a great deal about the Abbaye Thélème, because it is the -last word, the quintessence, of midnight excitement and international -savoir-faire. The Russian and the Brazilian, the Frenchman, the -American, the Englishman, the German, and the Italian—all these meet -here on common ground. I saw much of restaurant life in Paris while I -was there, but nothing better than this. Like the Café de Paris, it -was very small when compared with restaurants of similar repute in New -York and London. I fancy it was not more than sixty feet square; only -it was not square, but pentagonal, almost circular. To begin with, the -tables were around the walls, with seats which had the wall for the -back; and then, as the guests poured in, the interior space was filled -with tables brought in for the purpose. Later in the morning, when the -guests began to leave, these tables were taken out again, and the space -was devoted to dancing and entertainers.</p> - -<p>As in the Café de Paris, I noticed that it was not so much the quality -of the furnishings as the spirit of the place which was important. -This latter was compounded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_907" id="Page_907">[Pg 907]</a></span> of various elements, success being the -first one, perfection of service another, absolute individuality of -cooking another, and lastly the subtlety and magnetism of sex, which -is capitalized and used in Paris as it is nowhere else in the world. -Until I stepped into this restaurant I never actually realized what it -is that draws a certain moneyed element to Paris. The tomb of Napoleon, -the Panthéon, and the Louvre are not the significant attractions of -that important city. Those things have their value and constitute -an historical and artistic element that is imposing, romantic, and -forceful; but over and above that there is something else, and that -is sex. I did not learn until later what I am going to say now, but -it might as well be said here, for it illustrates the point exactly. -A little experience and inquiry in Paris quickly taught me that the -owners and managers of the more successful restaurants encourage and -help to sustain a certain type of woman whose presence is desirable. -She must be young, beautiful, or attractive, and, above all things, -possessed of temperament. A woman can rise in the café and restaurant -world of Paris quite as she can on the stage, and she can easily be -graduated from the Abbaye Thélème and Maxim’s to the stage; and, on the -other hand, the stage contributes freely to the atmosphere of Maxim’s, -the Abbaye Thélème, and other similar resorts. A large number of the -figures seen here and at the Folies-Bergère and at other places of -the same type are interchangeable. They are in the restaurants when -they are not on the stage, and they are on the stage when they are not -in the restaurants. They rise or fall by a world of strange devices, -and you can hear brilliant or ghastly stories illustrating either -conclusion. Paris—this aspect of it—is a perfect maelstrom of sex, -and it is sustained by the wealth and the curiosity of the stranger, as -well as of the Frenchman.</p> - -<p>The Abbaye Thélème on this occasion presented a brilliant scene. -Outside a small railing near the door several negro singers, a -mandolin-and a guitar-player, and several stage dancers were -congregated. A throng of people was pouring through the doors, all with -their tables previously arranged for. Outside, where a January wind was -blowing, you could hear a perfect uproar of slamming taxi doors, and -the calls of doormen and chauffeurs getting their vehicles in and out -of the way. The company generally, as on all such occasions, was alert -to see who was present and what the general spirit of the occasion was -to be. Instantly I detected a number of Americans; three amazingly -beautiful Englishwomen, such as I had not seen in England, and their -escorts; a few Spaniards or South Americans; and, after that, a variety -of persons whom I took to be largely French, although it was impossible -to tell. The Englishwomen interested me because in all my stay in -Europe I never saw three other women quite so beautiful, and because -in all my stay in England I scarcely saw a good-looking Englishwoman. -X. suggested that they were of that high realm of fashion which rarely -remains in London during the winter, when I was there; that if I -came again in May or June, and went to the races, I would see plenty -of them. Their lovely hair was straw-colored, and their cheeks and -foreheads were a faint pink and cream. Their arms and shoulders were -delightfully bare, and they carried themselves with amazing hauteur. -By one o’clock, when the majority of the guests had arrived, this room -fairly shimmered with white silks and satins, white arms and shoulders, -roses in black hair, and blue and lavender ribbons fastened about hair -of a lighter color. There were jewels in plenty,—opals and amethysts, -turquoises and rubies,—and there was a perfect artillery of champagne -corks. Every table was attended by its silver bucket of ice, and the -mandolins and guitars in their crowded angle were strumming mightily.</p> - -<p>As we seated ourselves, I speculated interestedly as to what drew -all these people from all parts of the world to see this, to be here -together. I do not know where you could go and for a hundred francs see -more of really amazing feminine beauty. I do not know where for the -same money you could buy the same atmosphere of lightness and gaiety -and enthusiasm. This place was fairly vibrating with a wild desire -to live. I fancy the majority of those who were here for the first -time, and particularly of the young, would tell you that they would -rather be here than in any other spot you could name. The place had a -peculiar glitter of beauty which was compounded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_908" id="Page_908">[Pg 908]</a></span> by the managers with -great skill. The waiters were all deft, swift, suave, good-looking; -the dancers who stepped out on the floor after a few moments were of -an orchid-like Spanish type—ruddy, brown, full-bodied, black-haired, -black-eyed. They had on dresses that were as close-fitting as the -scales of a fish, and that glittered with the same radiance. They waved -and rattled and clashed castanets and tambourines and danced wildly and -sinuously to and fro among the tables. Some of them sang, or voices -accompanied them from the raised platform devoted to music.</p> - -<p>After a while red, blue, pink, and green balloons were introduced, -anchored to the champagne bottles, and allowed to float gaily in the -air. Paper parcels of small paste balls of all colors, and as light as -feathers, were distributed for the guests to throw at one another. In -ten minutes a wild artillery battle was raging. Young girls were up -on their feet, their hands full of these colored weapons, pelting the -male strangers of their selection. You would see tall Englishmen and -Americans exchanging a perfect volley of colored spheres with girls of -various nationalities—laughing, chattering, calling, screaming. The -<i>cocotte</i> in all her dazzling radiance was here, exquisitely dressed, -her white arms shimmering.</p> - -<p>After a time, when the audience had worn itself through excitement to -satisfaction or weariness, or both, a few of the tables were cleared -away and the dancing began, occasional guests joining. There were -charming dances in costume from Russia, from Scotland, from Hungary, -and from Spain. I myself waltzed with a Spanish dancer, and had the -wonder of seeing an American girl rise from her table and dance -with more skill and grace than the employed talent. A wine-enthused -Englishman, a handsome youth of twenty-six or more, took the floor -and remained there gaily prancing about from table to table, dancing -alone or with whomsoever would welcome him. What looked like a -dangerous argument started at one time because a high-mettled Brazilian -considered that he had been insulted. A cordon of waiters and the -managers soon adjusted that. It was between three and four in the -morning when we finally left, and I was very tired. It was decided that -we should meet for dinner; and since it was almost daylight, I was -glad when we had seen our ladies to their apartment and returned to our -hotel.</p> - -<p>I shall never forget my first morning in Paris—the morning that I woke -up after about two hours’ sleep or less, prepared to put in a hard -day at sight-seeing, because X. had a program which must be adhered -to. He could be with me only until Monday, when he had to return. It -was fortunately a bright day, a little hazy and chill, but agreeable. -I looked out of the window of my very comfortable room on the fifth -floor, which gave out on a balcony overhanging the Rue St. Honoré, and -watched the crowd of French people below coming to work. It would be -hard to say what makes the difference between a crowd of Englishmen -and a crowd of Frenchmen, but there is a difference. It struck me -that these men and women walked faster, and that their movements were -more spirited than those of the English or Americans. They looked -more like Americans, though, than like the English, and they were -much more cheerful than either, chatting and talking as they came. I -was interested to see whether I could make the maid understand that -I wanted coffee and rolls without talking French, but the wants of -American travelers are an old story to French maids; and no sooner did -I say “<i>Café</i>” and make the sign of drinking from a cup than she said, -“<i>Oh, oui, oui, oui; oh, oui, oui, oui</i>,” and disappeared. Presently -the coffee was brought me, with rolls and butter and hot milk; and I -ate my breakfast as I dressed.</p> - -<p>About nine o’clock X. arrived with his program. I was to walk in -the garden of the Tuileries which was close at hand, where he would -join me later. We were to go for a walk in the Rue de Rivoli as -far as a certain bootmaker’s, who was to make me a pair of shoes -for the Riviera. Then we were to visit a haberdasher’s or two, and -after that go straight about the work of sight-seeing, visiting the -old book-stalls on the Seine, the churches of St.-Etienne-du-Mont, -Notre-Dame, Ste.-Chapelle, thereafter regulating our conduct by the -wishes of several guests who were to appear.</p> - -<p>We started off briskly, and my first adventure in Paris led me straight -to the gardens of the Tuileries, lying west of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_909" id="Page_909">[Pg 909]</a></span> Louvre. If any -one wanted a proper introduction to Paris, I should recommend this -above all others. Such a noble piece of gardening as this is the best -testimony France has to offer as to its taste, discrimination, and -sense of the magnificent. I should say, on mature thought, that we -shall never have anything like it in America. We have not the same -lightness of fancy.</p> - -<p>I recall walking in here and being struck at once with the magnificent -proportions of it all,—the breadth and stately lengths of its walks, -the utter wonder and charm of its statuary,—snow-white marble nudes -standing out on the green grass and marking the circles, squares, and -paths of its entire length. No such charm and beauty could be attained -in America because we would not permit the public use of the nude in -this fashion.</p> - -<p>Everywhere I went in Paris I was struck by the charming unity in the -conduct of business between husband and wife and son and daughter. -We talk much about the economic independence of women in America. It -seems to me that the French have solved it in the only way that it can -be solved. Madame helps her husband in his business and they make a -success of it together. Monsieur Galoyer took the measurements for my -shoes, but madame entered them in a book, and to me the shop was fifty -times as charming for her presence. She was pleasingly dressed, and -the shop looked as though it had experienced the tasteful touches of a -woman’s hand. It was clean and bright and smart, and smacked of good -housekeeping; and this was equally true of book-stalls, haberdashers’ -shops, art-stores, coffee-rooms, and places of public sale generally. -Wherever madame was, and she looked nice, there was a nice store; and -monsieur looked as fat and contented as could reasonably be expected in -the circumstances.</p> - -<p>I shall never forget this first morning’s impression of Paris, although -all my impressions of it were delightful and inspiring, from the -poorest quarter of the Charenton district to the perfections of the -Bois and the region about the Arc de Triomphe. It chanced that this -morning was bright, and I saw the Seine glimmering over the stones -of its shallow banks and racing madly. How much the French have -made of little in the way of a river! It is not very wide—about -half as wide as the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge, and not so wide as -the Harlem River. Here the Seine was as bright as a new button, its -banks properly lined with gray, but not dull-looking, walls, the two -streets which parallel it on each side alive with traffic; at every -few blocks a handsome bridge; every block a row of very habitable, if -not imposing, apartment-houses; at various points views of Notre-Dame, -the Tuileries, the Cours-la-Reine, of the Trocadéro, and the Eiffel -Tower. I followed the Seine from city wall to city wall one day, -from Charenton to Issy, and found every inch of it delightful. I was -never tired of looking at the wine-barges near Charenton; the little -bathing-pavilions and passenger-boats in the vicinity of the Louvre; -the brick-barges, hay-barges, coal-barges, and Heaven knows what else -plying between the city’s heart and points down-stream past Issy. It -gave me the impression of being one of the brightest, cleanest rivers -in the world—a river on a holiday. I saw it once at Issy at what is -known in Paris as the “green hour,” which is five o’clock, when the -sun was going down, and a deep, palpable fragrance wafted from a vast -manufactory of perfume filled the air. Men were poling boats of hay, -and laborers in their great wide-bottomed corduroy trousers, blue -shirts, and inimitable French caps, were trudging homeward, and I felt -as though the world had nothing to offer Paris which it did not already -have. I could have settled in a small house in Issy and worked as a -laborer in a perfume factory, carrying my dinner-pail with me every -morning, with a right good-will, or such was the mood of the moment. As -I write this, the mood comes back.</p> - -<p>This morning, on our way to St.-Etienne-du-Mont and the cathedral, -we examined the book-stalls along the Seine. To enjoy them, one has -to be in an idle mood and love out of doors; for they consist of a -dusty row of four-legged boxes, with lids coming quite to your chest -in height, and reminding one of those high-legged counting-tables -at which clerks sit on tall stools making entries in their ledgers. -These boxes are old and paintless and weather-beaten; and at night the -very dusty-looking keepers, who from early<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_910" id="Page_910">[Pg 910]</a></span> morning until dark have -had their shabby-backed wares spread out where dust and sunlight and -wind and rain can attack them, pack them in the body of the box on -which they are lying and close the lid. You can always see an idler or -two here, perhaps many idlers, between the Quai d’Orsay and the Quai -Voltaire.</p> - -<p>Paris is as young in its mood as any city in the world. It is as wildly -enthusiastic as a child. This morning I noticed here the strange -occurrence of battered-looking old fellows singing to themselves, which -I never noticed anywhere else in this world. Age sits lightly on the -Parisian, I am sure, and youth is a wild fantasy, an exciting realm of -romantic dreams. The Parisian, from the keeper of a market-stall to -the prince of the money world or of art, wants to live gaily, briskly, -laughingly, and he will not let the necessity of earning his living -deny him. I felt it in the churches, the depots, the department stores, -the theaters, the restaurants, the streets—a wild, keen desire for -life, with the blood and the body to back it up. It must be in the soil -and the air, for Paris sings. It is like poison in the veins, and I -felt myself growing positively giddy with enthusiasm. I believe that -for the first six months Paris would be a disease from which one would -suffer greatly and recover slowly. After that you would settle down to -live the life you found there in contentment and with delight, but you -would not be in so much danger of wrecking your very mortal body and -your uncertainly immortal soul.</p> - -<p>Now there was luncheon at Foyot’s, a little restaurant near the -Luxembourg and the Musée de Cluny, where the wise in the matter of food -love to dine, and where, as usual, X. was at his best. Foyot’s, as the -initiated will attest, is a delightful place to lunch or dine, for the -cooking is perfection itself. The French, while entirely discarding -show in many instances, and allowing their restaurants to look as -though they had been put together with an effort, nevertheless attain -an individuality of atmosphere which is delightful. For the life of me -I could not tell why this little restaurant seemed so smart and bright, -for there was nothing either smart or bright about it when I examined -it in detail; and so I was compelled to attribute the impression to -the all-pervading temperament of the owner. Always, in these cases, -there is a man, or a woman, quite remarkable for his point of view; -and although I did not see him, I fancied the owner, whatever his -name, must be such a man. Otherwise you could not take such simple -appointments and make them into anything so pleasing and so individual.</p> - -<p>Later in the day we took a taxi through singing streets, lighted by a -springtime sun, and came finally to the Restaurant Prunier, where it -was necessary to secure a table and order dinner in advance; and thence -to the Théâtre des Capucines in the Rue des Capucines, where tickets -for a farce had to be secured; and thence to a café near the Avenue de -l’Opéra, where we were to meet Madame de J., who, out of the goodness -of her heart, was to help entertain me while I was in the city.</p> - -<p>We came to her out of the whirl of the “green hour,” when the Paris -boulevards in this vicinity were fairly swarming with people—the -gayest world I have ever seen. We have enormous crowds in New York, -but they seem to be going somewhere very much more definitely than -in Paris. With us there is an eager, strident, almost objectionable -effort to get home or to the theater or to the restaurant which one can -easily resent, it is so inconsiderate and indifferent. In London you -do not feel that there are any crowds that are going to the theaters -or the restaurants; and if they are, they are not very cheerful about -it. They are enduring life; they have none of the lightness of the -Parisian world. I think it is all explained by the fact that Parisians -feel keenly that they are living now, and that they wish to enjoy -themselves as they go. The American and the Englishman—the Englishman -much more than the American—have decided that they are going to live -in the future. Only the American is a little angry about his decision, -and the Englishman a little meek or patient. Both feel that life is -intensely grim. But the Parisian, while he may feel or believe it, -decides wilfully to cast it off. He lives by the way, out of books, -restaurants, theaters, boulevards, and the spectacle of life generally. -The Parisians move briskly, and they come out where they can see -one another—out into the great wide-sidewalked boulevards and the -thousands upon thousands of cafés, and make themselves comfortable and -talka<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_911" id="Page_911">[Pg 911]</a></span>tive and gay. It is obvious that everybody is having a good time, -not merely trying to have it; that they are enjoying the wine-like -air, the <i>brasseries</i>, the net-like movements of the cabs, the dancing -lights of the roadways, and the flare of the shops. It may be chill or -drizzling in Paris, but you scarcely feel it. Rain can scarcely drive -the people off the streets; literally it does not, for there are crowds -whether it rains or not, and they are not despondent. This particular -hour that brought us to the bar was essentially thrilling, and I was -interested to see what Madame de J. was like.</p> - -<p>We were sitting at a table, sipping a brandy and soda, when she -entered, a brisk, genial, sympathetic French person whose voice on the -instant gave me a delightful impression of her. It was the loveliest -voice I ever heard, soft and musical, a colorful voice touched with -both gaiety and sadness. Her eyes were light blue, her hair was brown, -and her manner sinuous and insinuating. She seemed to have the spirit -of a delightfully friendly collie or a child, and all the vitality and -alertness that go with either. I had a chance to observe her keenly. -In a moment she turned to me and asked whether I knew either of two -American authors whom she knew, men of considerable repute. Knowing -them both very well, it surprised me to think that she knew them. From -the way she spoke, she seemed to have been on the friendliest terms -with both; and any one by looking at her could have understood why they -should have taken an interest in her.</p> - -<p>If she had been of a somewhat more calculating type, I fancy that, -with her intense charm of face and manner and her intellect and -voice, she would have been very successful. I gained the impression -that she had been on the stage in some small capacity; but she had -been too diffident, not really brazen enough for the grim world in -which the French actress rises. I soon gained the impression that she -was a charming blend of emotion, desire, and refinement which one -sometimes meets with in the demi-monde. She would have done better in -literature or music or art, and she seemed fitted by her moods and her -understanding to be a light in any one of them or all.</p> - -<p>I shall never forget how she looked at me, quite in the spirit of a -gay uncertain child, and how quickly she made me feel that we should -get along very well together. “Why, yes,” she said in her soft voice, -“I will go about with you, although I should not know what is best -to see. But I shall be here, and if you want to come for me, we can -see things together.” Suddenly she reached over and took my hand and -pressed it genially, as though to seal the bargain. Then Madame de J., -promising to join us at the theater, went away.</p> - -<p>I would not say more of this evening except that it gave me another -glimpse of this unquestionably remarkable woman, who was especially -charming in a pale bluish-gray dress and gray furs. She helped -entertain us through what to me was a somewhat dull performance of -a farce in a tongue I did not understand. I was entertained by the -effective character work of the actors, but nothing compensates, as I -found everywhere, for ignorance of French.</p> - -<p>When we came out of this theater at half-past eleven, Madame de J. -was anxious to return to her apartment, and X. said he’d give me an -additional taste of the very vital café life of Paris.</p> - -<p>The strange impression which all this world of restaurant life gave me, -still endures. Obviously, when we arrived at twelve o’clock, the fun -was just getting under way. Some of these places, like the first one -we entered, were no larger than a fair-sized room in an apartment, but -crowded with a gay and even giddy throng of Americans, South Americans, -English, and others. One of the tricks in Paris to make a restaurant -successful is to keep it small, so that it has an air of overflow and -activity. Here, after allowing room for the red-jacketed orchestra, -the piano, and the waiters, there was scarcely space for the forty or -fifty guests who were present. Champagne was twenty francs the bottle, -and champagne was all that was served. It was necessary here, as at all -the restaurants, to contribute to the support of the musicians; and if -a strange young woman should sit at your table for a moment and share -either the wine or the fruit which would be quickly offered, you would -have to pay for that. Peaches were three francs each, and grapes five -francs the bunch. It was plain that all these things are offered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_912" id="Page_912">[Pg 912]</a></span> in -order that the house might thrive and prosper. It was so at all of them.</p> - -<p>The personality of X. supplied a homy quality of comfortable -companionship. He was so full of a youthful zest to live, and so keen -after the shows and customs of the world, that to be near him was to -enjoy the privilege of great company. I never pondered why he was so -popular with women, or why his friends in different walks of life -constituted so great a company. He seemed to have known thousands -of all sorts, and to be at home in all conditions. That persistent, -unchanging atmosphere of “All is well with me,” to maintain which was -as much a duty as a tradition with him, made for exceedingly pleasant -companionship.</p> - -<p>This very remarkable evening X. and I spent wandering from one -restaurant to another in an effort to locate a certain Rillette, a girl -of whom I had heard when we first came to Paris. She had been one of -the most distinguished figures of the stage. Four or five years before -she had held at the Folies-Bergère much the same position recently -attained by Mistinguett, who was just then enthralling Paris; in other -words, she was the sensation of that stormy world of art and romance -of which these restaurants are a part. She was more than that. She -had a wonderful mezzo-soprano voice of great color and richness and a -spirit for dancing that was Greek in its quality. I was anxious to get -at least a glimpse of this exceptional Parisian type, the real spirit -of this fast world, the true artistic poison-flower, the lovely hooded -cobra, before she should be too old or too wretched to be interesting.</p> - -<p>At one café, quite by accident, we encountered Miss F., whom I had not -seen since we left Fishguard, and who was here in Paris doing her best -to outshine the women of the gay restaurants in the matter of dresses, -hats, and beauty. I must say she presented a ravishing spectacle, quite -as wonderful as any of the other women who were to be seen here; but -she lacked, as I was to note, the natural vivacity of the French. We -Americans, despite our high spirits and our healthy enthusiasm for -life, are nevertheless a blend of the English, the German, and some -of the sedate nations of the North, and we are inclined to a physical -and mental passivity which is not common to the Latins. This girl, -vivid creature that she was, did not have the spiritual vibration -which accompanies the Frenchwomen. As far as spirit was concerned, -she seemed superior to most of the foreign types present; but the -Frenchwomen are naturally gayer, their eyes brighter, their motions -lighter. She gave us at once an account of her adventures since I -had seen her. I could not help marveling at the disposition which -set above everything else in the world the privilege of moving in -this peculiar realm, which fascinated her much. As she told me on the -<i>Mauretania</i>, all she hoped for was to become a woman of Machiavellian -finesse, and to have some money. If she had money and attained to real -social wisdom, conventional society could go to the devil; for the -successful adventuress, according to her, was welcome anywhere—that -is, everywhere she would care to go. She did not expect to retain her -beauty entirely; but she did expect to have some money, and meanwhile -to live brilliantly, as she deemed that she was now doing. Her comments -on the various women of her class were as hard and accurate as they -were brilliant. I remember her saying of one woman, with an easy sweep -of her hand, “Like a willow, don’t you think?” Of another, “She glows -like a ruby.” It was true; it was fine character delineation.</p> - -<p>At Maxim’s, an hour later, she decided to go home, so we took her -to her hotel, and then resumed our pursuit of Rillette. After much -wandering, we finally came upon her, about four in the morning, in one -of those showy pleasure-resorts that I have described.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes, there she is!” X. exclaimed, and I looked to a distant table -to see the figure he indicated, that of a young girl seemingly not -more than twenty-four or twenty-five, a white silk neckerchief tied -about her brown hair, her body clothed in a rather nondescript costume -for a world as showy as this. Most of the women wore evening clothes. -She had on a skirt of light-brown wool, a white shirtwaist open in -the front, with the collar turned down, showing her pretty neck. Her -skirt was short, and her sleeves were short, showing a solid fore -arm. Before she noticed X. we saw her take a slender girl in black -for a partner and dance, with others, in the open space between the -tables that circled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_913" id="Page_913">[Pg 913]</a></span> the walls. Her face did not suggest the depravity -which her career would indicate, although it was by no means ruddy; -but she seemed to scorn rouge. Her eyes—eyes are always revealing -in a forceful personage—were large and vague and brown, set beneath -a wide, full forehead—very wonderful eyes. In her idle security and -profound nonchalance, she appeared like a figure out of the Revolution -or the Commune. She would have been magnificent in a riot, marching -up a Parisian street, her white band about her brown hair, carrying a -knife, a gun, or a flag. She would have had the courage, too; for it -was plain that life had lost much of its charm and she nearly all of -her caring. When her dance was done, she came over to us, and extended -an indifferent hand to X. He told me, after their light conversation -in French, that he had chided her to the effect that her career was -ruining her once lovely voice. “I shall find it again at the next -corner,” she said, and walked smartly away.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_913" name="i_913"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_913.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">ONE OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE CAFÉS ON THE BOULEVARDS OF - PARIS</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">“Some one should write a novel about a woman like that,” X. explained. -“She ought to be painted. It is amazing the sufficiency of soul that -goes with that type. There aren’t many like her. She could be the -sensation of Paris again if she wanted to, would try. But she won’t. -See what she said of her voice just now.” He shook his head. I smiled -approvingly, for obviously the appearance of the woman, her full, -compelling eyes, bore him out.</p> - -<p>She was a figure of distinction in this restaurant world, for many knew -her and kept track of her. I watched her from time to time talking -with the guests of one table and another, and the chemical content -which made her exceptional was as obvious as though she were a bottle -and bore a label. To this day she stands out in my mind, in her simple -dress and indifferent manner, as perhaps the one forceful, significant -figure that I saw in all the cafés of Paris or elsewhere.</p> - -<p>I should like to add here, before I part forever with this curious -and feverish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_914" id="Page_914">[Pg 914]</a></span> Parisian restaurant world, that, after much and careful -observation, my conclusion has been that it was too utterly feverish, -artificial, and exotic not to be dangerous and grimly destructive, if -not merely touched upon at long intervals.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_914" name="i_914"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_914.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">A GLIMPSE OF PARISIAN CAFÉ LIFE</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">This world of champagne-drinkers was apparently interested in only -two things—the flare and glow of the restaurants, which were always -brightly lighted and packed with people, and women. In the last -analysis, women were the glittering attraction; and truly one might say -they were glittering. Fine feathers make fine birds, and nowhere more -so than in Paris. But there were many birds who would have been fine -in much less showy feathers. In many instances they craved and secured -a demure simplicity which was even more destructive than the flaring -costumes of the demi-monde. It was strange to see American innocence, -the products of Petosky, Michigan, and Hannibal, Missouri, cheek by -jowl with the most daring and the most flagrant women that the great -metropolis could produce. I did not know until later how hard some of -these women were, how schooled in vice, how weary of everything save -this atmosphere of festivity and the privilege of wearing beautiful -clothes. It was a scorching lesson, and it displayed vice as an upper -and a nether millstone between which youth and beauty are ground or -pressed quickly to a worthless mass. I would defy anybody to live in -this atmosphere as long as five years and not exhibit strongly the -telltale marks of decay.</p> - -<p>Most people come here for a night or two, or a month or two, or once -in a year or so, and then return to the comparatively dull world from -which they emanated, which is fortunate. If they were here a little -while, this deceptive world of delight would lose all its glamour; -for in a very few days you see through the dreary mechanism by which -it is produced: the browbeating of shabby waiters by greedy managers, -the extortionate charges and tricks by which money is lured from the -pockets of the unwary, the wretched rooms and garrets from which some -of these butterflies emanate, to wing here in seeming delight and then -disappear. When the natural glow of youth has gone, then come powder -and paint for the face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_915" id="Page_915">[Pg 915]</a></span> belladonna for the eyes, rouge for the lips, -palms, and nails, and perfumes and ornament and the glitter of good -clothing; but underneath it all one reads the weariness of the eye, the -sickening distaste for bargaining hour by hour and day by day, the cold -mechanism of what was once natural, instinctive coquetry.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_915a" name="i_915a"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe46_25" src="images/i_915a.jpg" alt="“IN ONE OF THOSE SHOWY PLEASURE-RESORTS”" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">You feel constantly that many of these women would sell their souls for -one last hour of delight, and that some of them would then gladly take -poison, as many of them doubtless do, to end it all.</p> - -<p>Consumption, cocaine, and opium maintain their persistent toll. This is -a furnace of desire, this Montmartre district, and it burns furiously -with a hard, white-hot flame until there is nothing left save black -cinders and white ashes. Those who can endure its consuming heat are -quite welcome to its wonders until emotion and feeling and beauty are -no more.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_915b" name="i_915b"> - <img class="padtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_915b.jpg" alt="Tailpiece, PARIS" /></a> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_916" id="Page_916">[Pg 916]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_916a" name="i_916a"> - <img class="w8em mtop3" src="images/i_916ab.jpg" alt="Headpiece, EMERGENCY" /></a> -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="EMERGENCY">EMERGENCY</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mtop1">BY WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT</p> - -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse"><span class="drop-cap_poetry">I</span>’VE borne it out. There wasn’t much to bear,</div> - <div class="verse">By your own tenets; but there was for me,—</div> - <div class="verse">A flaming onslaught; cohorts furiously</div> - <div class="verse">Charging the ramparts; fearful thunders booming;</div> - <div class="verse">Lightning and holocaust, and Terror looming</div> - <div class="verse">With black war-towers on the sky-line there!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">You saw not even a gnat to make one wince</div> - <div class="verse">While your own buoyant thoughts beat up the blue.</div> - <div class="verse">Let me be glad of that. The happier you!</div> - <div class="verse">I found myself alone to face disaster</div> - <div class="verse">Through age-long seconds. While your pulse beat faster</div> - <div class="verse">For mirth, my own—stopped dead, a moment since.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Then, at my elbow—and whole worlds away—</div> - <div class="verse">You turned; and I was snatching at my breath</div> - <div class="verse">After a sudden bout with worse than death,</div> - <div class="verse">With worse than beasts of Ephesus, uprisen</div> - <div class="verse">One moment from my heart that is their prison.</div> - <div class="verse">I bore it out. That’s all there is to say.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">They flash unwarning on our dozing acts,</div> - <div class="verse">The angel or the fiend. It seems to me</div> - <div class="verse">There’s nothing too sublime for Man to be</div> - <div class="verse">(In such clear moments),—naught too foully crawling!</div> - <div class="verse">What “self” is most our own, when this appalling</div> - <div class="verse">Apocalypse lights up the inmost facts?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Something is changed; even though one drops back</div> - <div class="verse">In the next instant to the old routine,</div> - <div class="verse">Forgets the risk and is, as he has been,</div> - <div class="verse">The slowly-trailing, patient slug of Time,</div> - <div class="verse">Neither contemptible nor yet sublime,</div> - <div class="verse">Inching with pain along the beaten track;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Something is changed—the mind paints heavens and hells;</div> - <div class="verse">And I, their dizzy colors in my brain,</div> - <div class="verse">Wonder just what is “sane” and what “insane,”</div> - <div class="verse">And what one can be sure of—where we’re master</div> - <div class="verse">Of our own triumphs, or our own disaster...?</div> - <div class="verse">But that’s enough. Let’s talk of something else!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_916b" name="i_916b"> - <img class="w8em padtop1 mbot3" src="images/i_916ab.jpg" alt="Tailpiece, EMERGENCY" /></a> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nodisp" id="SCULPTURE" title="SCULPTURE, By Charles Keck -(Examples of American Sculpture)"></h2> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_917" name="i_917"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe31" src="images/i_917.jpg" alt="ELIHU VEDDER, from the Bust by Charles Keck" /></a> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_917_large.jpg" id="images" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_918" name="i_918"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe31_25" src="images/i_918.jpg" alt="DRAMA, MUSIC" /></a> - <p class="caption1">FROM THE SCULPTURE BY CHARLES KECK<br /> - OWNED BY MRS. E. D. BRANDEGEE</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_918_large.jpg" id="i_918_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_919" name="i_919"> - <img class="mtop3 mbot3 illowe31_25" src="images/i_919.jpg" alt="YOUTHFUL AMERICA" /></a> - <p class="caption1">THE ALLEGHANY COUNTY SOLDIERS MEMORIAL AT PITTSBURGH<br /> - FROM THE SCULPTURE BY CHARLES KECK</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_919_large.jpg" id="i_919_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_920" id="Page_920">[Pg 920]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_920" name="i_920"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe38_5" src="images/i_920.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawn by Alpheus Cole</p> -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="THE_MOTHER">THE MOTHER</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mbot1">BY TIMOTHY COLE</p> - -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse"><span class="drop-cap_poetry">D</span>EAR solacer and goddess of the hearth,</div> - <div class="verse">O mother! whose enfolding arms and breast</div> - <div class="verse">Cradle the infant world from dawn’s fair birth</div> - <div class="verse">To the sun’s ripening noon with loving girth;</div> - <div class="verse">How oft, in dreaming, of thy sheltering rest,</div> - <div class="verse">Whose ingle-glow now kindles to new worth</div> - <div class="verse">Our souls, we see thy phantom figure blest,</div> - <div class="verse">Still ministrant, in light and beauty dressed.</div> - <div class="verse">Where light is, thitherward the spirit tends:</div> - <div class="verse">Mankind were yet within the womb of night,</div> - <div class="verse">From joy imprison’d save for thy sweet might,</div> - <div class="verse">Save for the flame thy love forever lends.</div> - <div class="verse">While beacon-like thy fire throws its spark,</div> - <div class="verse">We shall not fear, though all the world grow dark.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figlarge"> - <a id="i_921" name="i_921"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe50" src="images/i_921.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Color-Tone, engraved for - T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> by - H. C. Merrill and H. Davidson</p> - <p class="caption">“’YOU’RE ALIVE, THANK HEAVEN!... SHALL I SEND FOR A PARSON?’”</p> - <p class="caption1">DRAWN BY HARRY RALEIGH</p> - <p class="linkedimage"><a href="images/i_921_large.jpg" id="i_921_large" rel="nofollow">⇒<br /> - <span class="smaller">LARGER IMAGE</span></a></p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_921" id="Page_921">[Pg 921]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_921a" name="i_921a"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe30" src="images/i_921a.jpg" alt="Headpiece, A GARAGE IN THE SUNSHINE" /></a> -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="A_GARAGE_IN_THE_SUNSHINE">A GARAGE IN THE SUNSHINE</h2> - -<p class="s3 center mbot1">BY JOSEPH ERNEST</p> - -<p class="s4 center">WITH A PICTURE BY HARRY RALEIGH</p> - -</div> - -<p class="p0 mtop2"><span class="drop-cap">F</span>ALLING in love is specially a critical business for simple-minded -persons who have room in their heads for only one idea at a time. It -has a tendency to shift the basis of their existence in a perilous -degree before they are in the least aware what has happened to them.</p> - -<p>Like most persons who earn their living at the daily risk of their -lives, Teddy Rocco was not burdened with too active an imagination. -He did his regular ninety miles an hour round the motordromes on a -“Yellow Fiend” autocycle with a simple faith in his luck and no higher -aspirations than he could express in this way:</p> - -<p>“No, sir, you won’t find me in this speed game one day longer than it -takes me to clean up the price of a share in a cement garage, with -machine-tools complete, and beat it back to sunny Jax, Florida.”</p> - -<p>It was this ambition that led him, when he was not racing, to give -exhibitions at Santoni’s velodrome at Palmetto Beach, a track known to -the speed profession as the “Devil’s Soup-plate.” It was the same lack -of imagination that enabled him to hear of the introduction of Miss -Sadie Simmons to the soup-plate with feelings of unmingled disgust.</p> - -<p>“A girl!” he ejaculated, and made for Santoni’s office with his -features richly adorned with chain lubricant. “A girl! Yes, and a speed -limit, too, I reckon, and pretty-pretty stunts, and bouquets—what do -you know? Better call it the ’Angel’s Roundabout,’ and be done!”</p> - -<p>The graphite lubricant failed to conceal the scowl on his face as -he burst into the office. The proprietor, a keen purveyor of popular -excitement, was rubbing his hands in Mephistophelian satisfaction over -a new poster.</p> - -<p>“Daredevil Ted Rocco,” it said, and “Wild Will Ryan”; and below, in -big red type that crowded the rest almost off the sheet, “Miss Sadie -Simmons, America’s Queen of the Track.” From which the sagacious reader -will infer that Miss Simmons was new and unproved; otherwise Santoni -would infallibly have billed her as “Crazy Sadie,” in suggestion of -death-defying recklessness.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Teddy!” cried Santoni in his mighty voice. “What you been doing -to your face?”</p> - -<p>“Greasin’ up,” Teddy answered shortly, and cast a malevolent glance at -the bill. “Listen here, San. What’s all this talk about a skirt comin’ -on? We don’t run any musical leg-show here, you know. If you let a dame -on to this track, it’s going to put the speeds on the blink, and then -you’ll need a complete Ziegfeld chorus to hold the crowd. I’ve got a -fine motion-picture of myself bein’ paced by something in bag-tights -and a picture-hat.”</p> - -<p>Santoni frowned warningly, jerked his head toward the half-open door -of his sanctum, and passed a large, embarrassed hand over his heavy -showman’s jowl.</p> - -<p>“I do’ know, Ted,” he growled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_922" id="Page_922">[Pg 922]</a></span> “Maybe she ain’t any funeral, either, if -you can believe her. But if you fancy your chance, you can argue the -point with her yourself, for she’s right here. Miss Simmons!”</p> - -<p>From Santoni’s sanctum came the sound of a chair abruptly pushed back, -and the click of high heels on the floor. The proprietor turned away -under the pretense of affixing the poster to the wall; then the door -opened wide and revealed “America’s Queen of the Track.”</p> - -<p>For a moment she inspected Teddy Rocco with the interest of a -professional rival. He did not look at all like a daredevil just then, -but merely a rather astonished little man with a square mechanic’s -jaw and a compact, wiry figure, his sleeves rolled up and his arms -and face besmeared. There was some reason for his astonishment, too, -for in America’s “Queen,” instead of the superannuated, hard-featured -circus-performer he had expected, he saw a rather shy, spruce little -girl, with bright, black eyes and an absurdly small nose. Her dark hair -hung in two thick, glossy ropes over her shoulders, and her skirt was -short enough to reveal several inches of well-modeled ankle.</p> - -<p>“What is it, Mr. Santoni?” she asked in a small, husky voice.</p> - -<p>“It’s only Ted Rocco,” explained the proprietor. “He don’t think you’ll -be fast enough for this track.”</p> - -<p>The girl stared at Teddy as though he had questioned her respectability.</p> - -<p>“How do you <i>know</i> I won’t?” she demanded.</p> - -<p>They were particularly bright eyes. The daredevil shifted -uncomfortably, and his own eyes wandered over the room as though in -search of succor.</p> - -<p>“It isn’t that, exactly,” he stammered; “but, you see, miss, we let ’em -rip here. My makers pay for speed, and I got to show speed or I don’t -collect.”</p> - -<p>“You aren’t so much,” retorted the “Queen.” “I bet you don’t average -ninety, and I touched ninety myself at Coney last week.”</p> - -<p>The daredevil’s eyes ceased to wander, meeting hers in a stare of blank -incredulity.</p> - -<p>“You did ninety? You!” he said. “For the love of Mike!”</p> - -<p>“Why shouldn’t I? My makers pay for speed, too. And when they send me -along something with more power to it, I guess I’ll lap you every mile. -I think you’re mean to knock me just because I’m not a man.”</p> - -<p>“You see?” said Santoni, shrugging his shoulders.</p> - -<p>Whereupon the daredevil mumbled apologies, and retreated to the garage -in great discomfiture. He sat brooding on a pile of gasolene-cans and -watched Wild Will Ryan circling the track in a private try-out; but -instead of the racing auto-cycle, he saw only two black eyes that -stared reproachfully, and heard a small, curiously deep, and husky -voice that assured him over and over again that he was mean.</p> - -<p>When Ryan dismounted, red-eyed and hoarse from cleaving the air like -a projectile, Ted was still fidgeting with a wrench and muttering -gloomily.</p> - -<p>“Is it a goil?” asked Ryan.</p> - -<p>“Search me. It looks like one—a little brown girl about as big as a -ten-cent cigar. But with a nerve! Tips me the crinkled nose because -I said she might get in the way on a small track. Reckons I don’t -average ninety—me, that’s held five records! And when her dear -manufacturers, understand me, send her the cute little peacherino of a -sixteen-cylinder, eighty-horse dynamite-gun that they’re building for -her to go to finishing-school on, she’s going to make me look like a -pram-pusher with paralysis. Can you beat it?”</p> - -<p>“Never heard of her,” said Ryan. “She must be a new one in this game.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, she’s all kinds of new, take it from me. But if she tries to do -ninety an hour round this saucer, we won’t pick up enough of her to be -worth dressing.”</p> - -<p>Teddy swung off to remove the stains of toil from his face. When he -reappeared, normally dapper, as becomes a successful autocyclist, he -found little Miss Simmons preparing to try the track. Her costume wrung -from him an involuntary exclamation. Her cap, coat, and knickers were -all of gleaming scarlet leather.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t she the dandy?” grinned Ryan, as they stood aside and watched -her. “I reckon she knows the business, at that. She just shooed her -mechanic away, and started in to fix all the juice connections herself. -And look at her now, testing every spoke with her fingers. Some great -kid!”</p> - -<p>“What’s she riding?” asked Teddy.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_923" id="Page_923">[Pg 923]</a></span></p> -<p>“Flying Centaur; new make, I guess. Bet she pulls down a wad for it, -too. Chunky little thing, ain’t she? You wouldn’t think she carried -metal to see her in skirts. If she took a spill at ninety, she’d bounce -some.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, shut your head!” exclaimed Teddy Rocco, with a sudden anger that -puzzled even himself.</p> - -<p>It was not without a tinge of professional jealousy that the two young -men stood in the center of the course and watched Miss Simmons pull her -bright new machine to the starting-point and climb into the saddle. In -Teddy’s mind there was also a certain jealousy of Santoni, who held her -for the start. But with the first healthy rip of the exhaust, and the -first smooth and perfect circle she described round the soup-plate, -these feelings were submerged in professional appreciation.</p> - -<p>Moment by moment she gathered speed, mounting the steep banking -accurately with every lap, until she was roaring and rattling round the -very uppermost edge like a bright-red marble in a basin. Santoni slowly -sauntered over to them, performing a sort of involuntary waltz as he -turned to follow her with his goggle eyes.</p> - -<p>“Maybe she ain’t no funeral, either,” he said.</p> - -<p>“You ought to be lynched for letting her do it, San,” said Teddy. “It -isn’t a girl’s game.”</p> - -<p>“Well, wouldn’t that jar you?” Santoni turned on Ryan with palms -outspread. “First he was sore because he thought she couldn’t ride, and -now he’s sore because she can!”</p> - -<p>Teddy made no reply. A new and strange feeling gripped him by the -throat until he choked. As he watched the track, a picture engraved -itself indelibly on his heart: a tiny scarlet figure astride a machine -that roared round and round with fiendish energy until it hung out -almost horizontally from the steep rim of the banking. Sadie’s black -eyes were narrowed to slits; her roped hair flew out behind her; -her lips were compressed in the lust of speed as she braced her -strong little knees and elbows hard against the leaping of her angry -motor. This was a sort of girl he had never imagined in his wildest -speculations. A girl who understood motors, he thought, could not fail -to be in every other way admirable. From such a girl, for example, a -man need never fear anything less than a square deal.</p> - -<p>When she cut off her ignition and slipped gradually down the banking, -he was the first to assist her to alight.</p> - -<p>“Say, kid, I want to tell you I’m sorry,” he whispered before the -others ran up. “I’m glad you’re going to ride with us.”</p> - -<p>For a moment the “Queen’s” eyes danced with pleasure; then they became -softly diffident again as she turned away to stable her machine.</p> - -<p>“I don’t fancy I’ll let the show down so badly,” she smiled over her -shoulder.</p> - -<p>In truth, the popularity of Sadie Simmons among the crowds that -flocked to the velodrome was immediate and great. She was irresistibly -diminutive and dainty, and silent and retiring in manner when not -racing; but once on her machine, rattling and bouncing round the -circumscribed track with the noise of a whole express-train, she was -transformed into a little red imp of daring unexcelled by the men; and -though they consistently beat her when it came to a test, it was Sadie -whom the crowds cheered and the fans petted.</p> - -<p>A faded woman, of an incurable pessimism, clucked everywhere after -her, like a hen after an adventurous duckling. Except for this -unexhilarating person, whom she addressed as “Aunty,” but who -frequently forgot the suggested relationship and called her “Miss,” -Sadie appeared to be quite alone in the world. She accepted with frank -pleasure the friendly advances of the fans, the comradeship of Wild -Will Ryan, and the wondering worship of Teddy Rocco.</p> - -<p>One morning Ryan emerged from the garage, laughing immoderately, and -pressing a hand to his face.</p> - -<p>“What’s bitin’ you, Irish?” inquired Teddy.</p> - -<p>The big Irishman withdrew his hand, and exhibited a cheek decorated -with the imprint of small and oily fingers on a ground that flamed -scarlet.</p> - -<p>“It’s little Sadie; she’s straight, that’s all,” he replied with a -grin, as though he had discovered a choice witticism.</p> - -<p>Teddy tore off his coat and flung it from him recklessly, and his cheek -flamed suddenly redder than Ryan’s.</p> - -<p>“Yes, and you’ll be stiff when I’m through with you, you big loafer!” -he said savagely.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_924" id="Page_924">[Pg 924]</a></span> “How’d you find that out?”</p> - -<p>Ryan stretched forth a long arm, and swept his colleague into a hug -like a bear’s.</p> - -<p>“Be aisy, little man,” he said. “I just tried to kiss her while she was -fightin’ with a set o’ new piston-rings. I got mine all right—from the -lady.”</p> - -<p>But Teddy tore loose and rushed into the garage, where he found Sadie -still struggling with a recalcitrant piston of her dismounted motor. He -seized a cold chisel from the work-bench.</p> - -<p>“What did that fresh Mick say to you?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>“Drop it at once, Teddy,” commanded Sadie. “When I can’t manage Ryan -with my own hands, I’ll get a gun. Besides, I want you to hold these -rings tight for me, so I can push this piston in.”</p> - -<p>Teddy obeyed, marveling at the strength of the small brown fingers that -had essayed the task unaided. Once more that strange, choking sensation -assailed him, and he felt his eyes unaccountably filling with tears.</p> - -<p>“Sadie, you’re an everlasting little marvel,” he said. “I expect you’ll -marry one of these rich fans; but I wish it was me.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to marry anybody,” the girl replied. “Say, can’t you hold -those rings in without trembling so?”</p> - -<p>“But you got to marry somebody,” Teddy insisted.</p> - -<p>“I don’t have to,—there, that’s well in at last,—at least not for a -long time, till I get good and ready. And then he’ll have to be extra -good and handsome and rich. I’m awfully ambitious, you know.”</p> - -<p>“That’s all right, kid,”—Teddy swallowed a lump in his throat,—“but -take care you don’t put it off too long.”</p> - -<p>The girl looked up from her work with a puzzled air.</p> - -<p>“Take a good slant at me,” explained Teddy. “Don’t you see anything in -my eyes?”</p> - -<p>“They look queer, kind of anxious and strained. They’re like Will -Ryan’s.”</p> - -<p>“Everybody that stays in this game as long as we have gets the same -look. It comes from being scared stiff once or twice, and not being -able to forget it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m never scared,” said Miss Simmons, with a toss of her shapely -little head.</p> - -<p>“You haven’t begun yet. Wait till some one drops in front of you in the -last lap, and you have just half a second to make up your mind whether -you’ll run over him or take a chance among the crowd. One stunt like -that, and you won’t be so pretty.”</p> - -<p>“Then you can ask me again,” said Miss Simmons, with her usual quiet -self-possession. “I can almost see you doing it.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you it’s no game for a girl,” Teddy persisted.</p> - -<p>“Why not? I’d look nicer dead than you.”</p> - -<p>“Touch wood when you say that,” advised Teddy, laying his own hand on -the bench.</p> - -<p>“I won’t,” the girl retorted. “I reckoned all the chances before I came -into the game, and there’s no one to cry over me if I did get killed -except Aunty, and she’s made up her mind to it long ago and become -quite resigned. Besides, I’ve taken chances ever since I can remember. -Did you ever play the carnivals? I was raised in them, if you can call -it that. I did the high dive for years into a sort of canvas bucket -half-full of water, and I don’t think I’ve a scare in me.”</p> - -<p class="p0 mtop2">T<span class="smaller">EDDY</span> R<span class="smaller">OCCO</span> -might have recalled this conversation, with superstitious -interest in its prophetic nature, the week before he left for the prize -meetings; but that, with most other things, was swept out of his mind -when he hunted for Santoni with blood on his face, swearing that he had -always intended to kill the proprietor and might as well get it over.</p> - -<p>It all happened in consequence of Santoni’s attempt to achieve a gala -finish to his season before his stars departed. To that end, he had -employed many banners in decoration of the velodrome, and one of them, -insecurely affixed to its post, came loose while the riders were in -mid-career. It fluttered aimlessly down upon the track, was caught up -in the wind of Ryan’s rush, danced a little behind him, and finally -wrapped itself round Sadie’s front wheel. There was a gasp of horror -from the spectators as the flimsy, yellow cotton wound itself tightly -on the hub.</p> - -<p>For a fraction of a second the heavy cycle, urged by its frantic motor, -slurred along the track with its front wheel jammed; then the tire -burst, the forks snapped like carrots, and Sadie’s tiny red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_925" id="Page_925">[Pg 925]</a></span> figure -shot ahead over the handle-bars, struck the wire fence in front of the -spectators, and fell back limply on the track.</p> - -<p>In that final emergency she had retained presence of mind enough to cut -off the ignition, and below her on the incline her machine lay crumpled -and inert, as silent and shattered as herself.</p> - -<p>Teddy Rocco was fully fifty yards behind; that is, he had a good long -second in which to do his thinking. To his left was Sadie’s machine, -on his right the crowd yelled an inarticulate chorus of fear and -warning, which he heard above the roar of his motor. Dead ahead of him -lay a small, outstretched figure in torn and dusty scarlet leather; -and immediately above the white little face was a clear foot of almost -perpendicular banking.</p> - -<p>With a prayer for speed, he tore his throttle wide open, and steered -straight for that pale, blood-stained face until he could see the dark -lashes on the flickering eyelids; then with a violent swerve he shot up -the incline, and cleared her by inches.</p> - -<p>The spectators cried aloud in terror as his front wheel rose on the -wire mesh in front of them, raced along it for a yard or two, shaved -a fence-post, and slipped back upon the track. The machine lurched -sickeningly into the hollow of the banking in a last effort to recover -its balance.</p> - -<p>Teddy Rocco’s engine had stopped as he cleared the girl, and his toe -was pressed hard into the fork of his front wheel. The braked tire -screeched along the track, and when at last he struck the ground, his -speed was not more than twenty miles an hour. To the crowd it seemed -that he lay just where he had fallen, and they roared aloud in relief, -and in admiration of what appeared to be purely consummate pluck and -skill.</p> - -<p>When Teddy recovered his senses, drank out of a flask that Ryan held -to his lips, and stared about him, the first thing he saw was a tiny -patch of red disappearing over the edge of the track in the arms of the -attendants. Behind walked the faded woman he knew as “Aunty,” wringing -her hands in utterly justified pessimism. At one entrance a knot of -spectators filed sadly out, and among them a frightened woman wept -without restraint.</p> - -<p>Teddy went mad. He wanted to follow the little red patch wherever it -might be bound. Restrained from this, he desired greatly the death of -Santoni.</p> - -<p>“I told him them things was dangerous,” he repeated, with the futile -insistence of an intoxicated man.</p> - -<p>When they laid hands on him again, he fainted, and it was then that -they had the first opportunity to ascertain that his shoulder was -dislocated. With the tenderness of a woman, Ryan picked him up and bore -him away.</p> - -<p class="p0 mtop2">D<span class="smaller">URING</span> -the week before he was due to depart Teddy besieged the hospital -in which lay Sadie’s tortured little form, and sent up flowers daily, -until at last the nurse assured him that she had been able to see -them, and even to hold some of them in her hand. At this he begged and -stormed and wept until he was allowed to see her, despite the fact -that, as they explained to him in vain, it was not visitors’ day.</p> - -<p>But when he stood at her bedside, and she smiled wanly up at him out -of her bandages, and even put forth a very white little hand for him -to shake, a great peace came over him. There was still enough of her, -after all, to be worth dressing.</p> - -<p>“Tough luck, Teddy-Eddy!” she whispered in that deep, small voice of -hers. “Just to think I might never hear the band play for the start -again, or the engine rip when I turn on the juice—it gives me a lot to -worry about. You ought to be glad I didn’t take you at your word that -day in the garage when you wanted to lay Ryan out and asked me to marry -you. Look at what a fix you’d be in now!”</p> - -<p>“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” murmured Teddy. “I’d have -wanted you just the same.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to say you’d marry a wreck like me, Teddy Rocco? I’m all -to pieces; you haven’t a notion how badly I got mashed.”</p> - -<p>“And I don’t care, neither,” said Teddy, stoutly. “You’re alive, thank -Heaven! And you’re Sadie Simmons, and you can smile. Shall I send for a -parson?”</p> - -<p>“What, now?”</p> - -<p>“Only say the word.”</p> - -<p>The girl picked at the sheet for a moment, and her eyes, now ringed -with suf<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_926" id="Page_926">[Pg 926]</a></span>fering and no longer bright, searched his face wonderingly; -but they found no trace of an emotion other than eagerness to be as -good as his word.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” she said at last; “it’ll need thinking over. You know, -it was hitting the wire fence that saved me, Teddy. It was like diving -into a net.”</p> - -<p>“Pretty hard net,” grinned the boy, reminiscently.</p> - -<p>“Lucky for you, or you’d have gone through it. Teddy boy, why didn’t -you run over me? I’m so small! You must have been mad to ride into the -fence like that.”</p> - -<p>“Who told you?” demanded Teddy.</p> - -<p>“Nurse. She says you hadn’t a chance in a thousand to get round me -without breaking your neck. I always liked you, Teddy. I’m glad you’re -brave.”</p> - -<p>“Then why not marry me, Sadie?” The boy came closer, while the nurse -hovered about impatiently. “You can’t come back, you know. However good -they patch you up, you’re done with the game.”</p> - -<p>“Marry you, after what I said about looking for a rich guy? I’m bad -and selfish, and I want so much. And I’m older than you think—nearly -nineteen. I only wore my hair that way for a stall. Would you really -marry me now, when I’m all cut up and no one else would look at me?”</p> - -<p>“Call me and see,” suggested Teddy, quietly.</p> - -<p>“I’ll let you know later, Teddy. It depends—”</p> - -<p>“But I’m going to Dayton to-night to race, and then I go South again. -How am I to know?”</p> - -<p>Sadie considered for a moment with eyes closed. When she opened them -again, her face was very grave.</p> - -<p>“Come past here on your way to the depot,” she said, “and look at this -window above the bed. It’s the fourth from the end. If the blind’s up, -you can bring along your parson.”</p> - -<p>“And if it’s down?”</p> - -<p>“If it’s down, it will mean that you’d better forget all about me.”</p> - -<p>“Then leave it up, Sadie,” he whispered as the nurse bustled up -suggestively. “I’m only two thousand short of buying a garage in -Florida, where I used to work. You’d love to be down there—all -sunshine, pelicans, palms, and sugar-cane, and butterflies as big as -your hand soaring about. You’d get well and strong down there, Sadie, -and I’d be so good to you! Don’t let them pull it down!”</p> - -<p>The nurse came nearer and began to fidget with the pillows.</p> - -<p>“I’ll have to get you to leave now, young man,” she said. “The doctor -will be here in a moment.”</p> - -<p>“Take care of yourself, Teddy,” smiled the girl, waving her hand feebly -as he tore himself away. “Touch wood as you go out.”</p> - -<p>She set her teeth for the doctor’s visit, and said not a word until he -had finished his examination; but her black eyes studied his face in an -agony of suspense. A momentary smile, accompanied by a raising of his -bushy, gray eyebrows, gave her the cue.</p> - -<p>“Doctor, will I get well?” she asked almost under her breath.</p> - -<p>“Why, of course,” replied the doctor. “As well as ever you were, I’m -hoping.”</p> - -<p>“But—but will I be ugly?”</p> - -<p>“Little Miss Vanity!” grinned the doctor. “You ought to be thankful you -have a breath left in your body. No, you won’t be ugly, if you mean -disfigured. Of course there’ll be scars—”</p> - -<p>“Do you think I’ll be able to ride again?” persisted the girl.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know why you shouldn’t be able to ride; but I guess when you -set eyes on the track you won’t want to. As for the rest, the cuts are -pretty clean and not deep. I should say, on the whole, that you’ll -have to look fairly close into the glass to see the one on your cheek, -and your hair will cover the scalp-wound. The others aren’t anywhere -to prevent you from wearing low-cut frocks. Now, are you satisfied, -daughter of Eve?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, thank you, Doctor. If the bone in my arm mends all right, that -is. It’s hurting a whole lot to-day.”</p> - -<p>“That means precisely that it is mending,” said the doctor as he picked -up his bag to depart. “And now that you’re sure of your precious -beauty, you’d better try to get some sleep.”</p> - -<p>Sadie closed her eyes obediently, but her brows were knitted in -thought. When the doctor had moved on, she looked up again with a sigh.</p> - -<p>“Nurse, the light bothers my eyes, and I can’t turn my head,” she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_927" id="Page_927">[Pg 927]</a></span> -“Will you please pull down the blind?”</p> - -<p class="p0 mtop2">W<span class="smaller">HILE</span> -it is still young and overflowing with vitality, the human frame -is able to summon life forces to its aid that can sometimes knit up -broken bones and torn tissues as though by magic power. Teddy Rocco -had seen various striking demonstrations of this quality in his racing -career, but it had never occurred to him that a mere girl might possess -it. He was greatly astonished, therefore, on meeting Ryan at a southern -track, to hear that Sadie was once more riding for the “Flying Centaur” -people.</p> - -<p>“She don’t look a cent worse,” said Ryan. “Same little red suit, same -little smile, same throaty little voice. And she’s making good, too. -Been all over the West, and packed up a nice parcel of the long green. -Not that she’ll ever need it; that kid will marry a million some day. -One of the guys that was following her round was big rich.”</p> - -<p>All that day Teddy rode entirely without judgment, and his old -daredevil dash was not in him. In fact, that was becoming his -consistent experience. Every time he would set his teeth and let his -engine out to the last notch to pass the man in front, a blind seemed -to shut down in front of him, or a little red figure would appear -stretched on the track ahead, and he would let the chance slip by.</p> - -<p>Consequently, when he returned to give exhibitions at the Devil’s -Soup-plate, he was no nearer the white southern garage of his dreams -than he had been the previous season. And the life of a speed-man is -short,—much shorter, as a rule, than that of a boxing champion.</p> - -<p>That garage, gleaming in the sun, with a palm or two in front and -lizards basking in its shadow, had been Teddy’s lodestar for years; -but on the first day of their meeting, Sadie’s brisk little figure -had slipped into the picture, and he could not imagine the place now -without seeing her standing at the door in a white dress, with no hat, -but with a bunch of crimson flowers at her waist.</p> - -<p>“This is my finish,” he told Santoni; “I’m a has-been. I’ve started -seein’ things. I won’t ride after this season.”</p> - -<p>Then he learned, with a shock, that Sadie was to be his -racing-companion once more. She had walked into Santoni’s office and -offered to give exhibitions on the old terms; and Santoni, being too -good a business man, and too stout withal to stand on his head for -joy, had shaken her by both hands, and spent an afternoon in devising a -poster more sensational than any he had previously compassed.</p> - -<p>When he wrote “America’s Foremost Queen of the Track” it seemed to him -weak and colorless; and he threw adjectives into it until Sadie had a -title as long as her arm.</p> - -<p>Teddy slipped away and hid himself when he saw her arrive, with a knot -of admirers, to survey the track. An expensively tailored costume -emphasized her recent prosperity, and her obvious gaiety of manner was -like a snub. When she laughingly pointed out to her companions the -precise spot on which she had struck the providential wire fence, Teddy -shuddered and turned away.</p> - -<p>In the garage he came upon a mechanic overhauling her mount, an -excessively powerful machine with four cylinders, its frame enameled -bright scarlet, and nickeled in an unusual degree. It looked a -sufficiently dangerous mount for a strong and skilful man racing on a -spacious track. He shrank from seeing Sadie ride it in the restricted -circle of the soup-plate.</p> - -<p>When they appeared on the track in the evening, however, he could no -longer ignore her presence. Indeed, she came behind him and slapped him -gaily on the shoulder, such a trim, joyously captivating midget, in her -scarlet leather motor-jacket, that his heart leaped at the sight of her.</p> - -<p>“Who said I couldn’t come back, Teddy Rocco?” she asked, and the -familiar, curious huskiness of her voice thrilled him so that he could -not reply.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to make you look like a never-was to-night, Teddy-Eddy,” she -went on, with a sort of malicious exhilaration in her manner. “I expect -you’re still single?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, cut it out, Sadie!” he pleaded. “I never done you any harm.”</p> - -<p>“Do you love me as much as ever?” asked little Miss Simmons, with an -unwonted feline delight in cruelty. “The villain thought he had the -poor little girl just where he wanted her, didn’t he? But the kind, -handsome doctor rescued her all right; and now she’s going to make the -villain look like thirty cents.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll have to go some,” said Teddy, grinning miserably, as he stooped -to adjust<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_928" id="Page_928">[Pg 928]</a></span> his carbureter. When he mounted his machine he was in a -white-hot, searing temper. If all the women in the world had been laid -side by side on an endless track, he would have ridden over their necks -at that moment with an exquisite pleasure.</p> - -<p>But though he rode with the courage of bitterness and desperation, he -soon found that Sadie had the heels of him. Once or twice when she -shot past him with an almost crazy recklessness, the thought flashed -through his mind that an imperceptible swerve of his handle-bar would -all but inevitably end both their lives, and he weakly throttled down -his engine, fearful lest the subconscious working of his tortured mind -might communicate a tremor to his arm; and every time that Sadie passed -him with a vicious spurt of her diabolical scarlet mount, he caught in -her eye a gleam of impish triumph.</p> - -<p>It was when he found himself riding behind her, with his front wheel -a hand’s-breadth from her hind one, that he realized how utterly his -nerve had failed. Ever and again, under his front wheel appeared a -white, blood-flecked little face, with eyelashes that quivered in -agony. With a sob, he cut out his engine and slid slowly down the track.</p> - -<p>“I’m through,” he said to a mechanic who seized his cycle. “I don’t -think I’ll need her again.”</p> - -<p>For a long time he sat in the gloom of the garage in dumb agony, and -even there the rip of Sadie’s powerful engine followed him above -the cheers of the crowd. Now and then, in the midst of the uproar, -he could hear the voice of Santoni yelling the laps; then there was -a final outburst of cheering. When it died away, Sadie’s motor was -silent. A moment later, as it seemed to him, the door of the workshop -slammed, and he looked up, to see her standing before him, her black -eyes dancing in that strange exhilaration that he had noted before, her -chest heaving with excitement under the vivid scarlet of her jacket.</p> - -<p>“I’ve shaded your track record, Teddy Rocco!” she cried. “I’ve beaten -you to bits! Now say I can’t come back! I’ve come, haven’t I?”</p> - -<p>“I guess,” said Teddy, humbly.</p> - -<p>“And what’s more, I’ve cleaned up three thousand dollars this season, -and I haven’t a scar left on me that you could see in this light. But -you’ll have to take my word for that. We can talk on level terms now, -Teddy. I’m as good as ever I was, don’t you think?”</p> - -<p>“I expect so,” stammered Teddy. “It’s me that’s in bad. I’ve lost -heart, Sadie, and my nerve’s gone. I’ve been scared a time too many.”</p> - -<p>“Then get your machine and rush me away,” cried Sadie, “and marry me -the first minute you can; and we’ll get out of this to Florida in the -morning, and see the garage and the sunshine and the butterflies. It’s -a square deal now, Teddy-Eddy. Stand up and kiss your honey-bird, you -brave, silly, big-hearted, mush-headed little man; for I love you so -much I couldn’t have offered you anything less, and I’ve waited so -long, my heart feels like it will burst!”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_928" name="i_928"> - <img class="w20em padtop1 mbot3" src="images/i_928.jpg" alt="Tailpiece, A GARAGE IN THE SUNSHINE" /></a> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_929" id="Page_929">[Pg 929]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_929a" name="i_929a"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe50" src="images/i_929a.jpg" alt="Headpiece, T. Tembarom" /></a> -</div> - -<h2 class="nopad nobreak" id="T_TEMBAROM">T. TEMBAROM</h2> - -<p class="s3 center">BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT</p> - -<p class="s6 center">Author of “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s,” “The Shuttle,” etc.</p> - -<p class="s6 center mbot2">WITH DECORATIVE PICTURES BY CHARLES S. CHAPMAN</p> - -</div> - -<h3 class="nobreak" id="T_TEMBAROM_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</h3> - -<div class="dc"> - <a id="i_929b" name="i_929b"> - <img class="w10em" src="images/i_929b.jpg" alt="W" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="p0"><span class="hide-first1">W</span>HEN Tembarom repeated the words “and you’re going to listen,” Lady -Joan began to stare at him. It was not the ridiculous boyish drop -in his voice which arrested her attention. It was a fantastic, -incongruous, wholly different thing. He had suddenly dropped his -slouch, and stood upright. Did he realize that he had slung his words -at her as if they were an order given with the ring of authority?</p> - -<p>“I’ve not bucked against anything you’ve said or done since you’ve been -here,” he went on, speaking fast and grimly. “I didn’t mean to. I had -my reasons. There were things that I’d have given a good deal to say to -you and ask you about, but you wouldn’t let me. You wouldn’t give me a -chance to square things for you—if they could be squared. You threw -me down every time I tried.”</p> - -<p>He was too wildly incomprehensible with his changes from humanness -to folly. Remembering what he had attempted to say on the day he had -followed her in the avenue, she was inflamed again.</p> - -<p>“What in the name of New York slang does that mean?” she demanded.</p> - -<p>“Never mind New York,” he answered, cool as well as grim. “A fellow -that’s learned slang in the streets has learned something else as well. -He’s learned to keep his eyes open. He’s on to a way of seeing things. -And what I’ve seen is that you’re so doggone miserable that—that -you’re almost down and out.”</p> - -<p>This time she spoke to him in the voice with the quality of deadliness -in it which she had used to her mother.</p> - -<p>“Do you think that because you are in your own house you can be as -intrusively insulting as you choose?” she said.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t,” he answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_930" id="Page_930">[Pg 930]</a></span> “What I think is quite different. I think -that if a man <i>has</i> a house of his own, and there’s any one in big -trouble under the roof of it,—a woman most of all,—he’s a cheap skate -if he doesn’t get busy and try to help—just plain, straight <i>help</i>.”</p> - -<p>He saw in her eyes all her concentrated disdain of him, but he went on, -still obstinate and cool and grim.</p> - -<p>“I guess ‘help’ is too big a word just yet. That may come later, and -it mayn’t. What I’m going to have a try at now is making it easier for -you—just easier.”</p> - -<p>Her contemptuous gesture registered no impression on him, as he paused -a moment and looked fixedly at her.</p> - -<p>“You just hate me, don’t you?” It was a mere statement which couldn’t -have been more impersonal to himself if he had been made of wood. -“That’s all right. I seem like a low-down intruder to you. Well, that’s -all right, too. But what <i>ain’t</i> all right is what your mother has set -you on to thinking about me. You’d never have thought it yourself. -You’d have known better.”</p> - -<p>“What,” she said fiercely, “is that?”</p> - -<p>“That I’m mutt enough to have a mash on you.”</p> - -<p>The common slangy crassness of it was a kind of shock. She caught her -breath and merely stared at him. But he was not staring at her; he was -simply looking straight into her face, and it amazingly flashed upon -her that the extraordinary words were so entirely unembarrassed and -direct that they were actually not offensive. He was merely telling her -something in his own way, not caring the least about his own effect, -but absolutely determined that she should hear and understand it.</p> - -<p>Her caught breath ended in something which was like a half-laugh. His -queer, sharp, incomprehensible face, his queer, unmoved voice, were too -extraordinarily unlike anything she had ever seen or heard before.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to be brash, and what I want to say may seem kind of that -way to you; but it ain’t. Anyhow, I guess it’ll relieve your mind. Lady -Joan, you’re a looker—you’re a beaut from Beautsville. If I were your -kind, and things were different, I’d be crazy about you—crazy. But I’m -<i>not</i> your kind—and things <i>are</i> different.” He drew a step nearer -still to her in his intentness. “They’re <i>this</i> different: why, Lady -Joan, I’m dead stuck on another girl!”</p> - -<p>She caught her breath again, leaning forward.</p> - -<p>“Another—”</p> - -<p>“She says she’s not a lady; she threw me down just because all -this darned money came to me,” he hastened on, and suddenly he was -imperturbable no longer, but flushed and boyish, and more of New York -than ever. “She’s a little bit of a quiet thing, and she drops her h’s; -but gee! You’re a looker—you’re a queen, and she’s not. But little Ann -Hutchinson—Why, Lady Joan, as far as this boy’s concerned,”—and he -oddly touched himself on the breast,—“she makes you look like thirty -cents.”</p> - -<p>Joan quickly sat down on the chair she had just left. She rested an -elbow on the table and shaded her face with her hand. She was not -laughing; she scarcely knew what she was doing or feeling.</p> - -<p>“You are in love with Ann Hutchinson,” she said, in a low voice.</p> - -<p>“Am I?” he answered hotly. “Well, I should smile!” He disdained to say -more.</p> - -<p>Then she began to know what she felt. There came back to her in flashes -scenes from the past weeks in which she had done her worst by him; in -which she had swept him aside, loathed him, set her feet on him, used -the devices of an ingenious demon to discomfit and show him at his -poorest and least ready. And he had not been giving a thought to the -thing for which she had striven to punish him. And he plainly did not -even hate her. His mind was clear, as water is clear. He had come back -to her this evening to do her a good turn—a good turn! Knowing what -she was capable of in the way of arrogance and villainous temper, he -had determined, despite herself, to do her a good turn.</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand you,” she faltered.</p> - -<p>“I know you don’t. But it’s only because I’m so dead easy to -understand. There’s nothing to find out. I’m just friendly—friendly, -that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“You would have been friends with me!” she exclaimed. “You would have -told me, and I wouldn’t let you! Oh!”—with an impulsive flinging out -of her hand to him,—“you good—good fellow!”</p> - -<p>“Good be darned!” he answered, taking the hand at once.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_931" id="Page_931">[Pg 931]</a></span></p> -<p>“You <i>are</i> good to tell me! I have behaved like a devil to you. But, -oh! if you only knew!”</p> - -<p>His face became mature again, but he took a most informal seat on the -edge of the table near her.</p> - -<p>“I do know, part of it. That’s <i>why</i> I’ve been trying to be friends -with you all the time.” He said his next words deliberately. “If I was -the woman Jem Temple Barholm had loved, wouldn’t it have driven <i>me</i> -mad to see another man in his place—and remember what was done to -him? I never even saw him, but, good God!”—she saw his hand clench -itself,—“when I think of it, I want to kill somebody! I want to kill -half a dozen. Why didn’t they <i>know</i> it couldn’t be true of a fellow -like that!”</p> - -<p>She sat up stiffly and watched him.</p> - -<p>“Do—<i>you</i>—feel like that—about <i>him</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Do I!” he said hotly. “There were men there that <i>knew</i> him, there -were women there that knew him: why wasn’t there just <i>one</i> to stand -by him? A man that’s been square all his life doesn’t turn into a -card-sharp in a night. Damn fools! I beg your pardon!” he said hastily. -And then, as hastily again: “No, I <i>mean</i> it. Damn fools!”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she gasped just once.</p> - -<p>Her passionate eyes were suddenly blinded with tears. She caught at his -clenched hand and dragged it to her, letting her face drop on it and -crying like a child.</p> - -<p>The way he took her breakdown was just like him and like no one else. -He put the other hand on her shoulder and spoke to her exactly as he -had spoken to Miss Alicia on that first afternoon.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you mind me, Lady Joan,” he said. “Don’t you mind me a bit. I’ll -turn my back. I’ll go into the billiard-room and keep them playing -until you get away up-stairs. Now we understand each other, it’ll be -better for both of us.”</p> - -<p>“No, don’t go! Don’t!” she begged. “It is so wonderful to find some one -who sees the cruelty of it.” She spoke fast and passionately. “No one -would listen to any defense of him. My mother simply raved when I said -what you are saying—what you said of him just now.”</p> - -<p>“Do you want”—he put it to her with a curious comprehending of her -emotion—“to talk about him? Would it do you good?”</p> - -<p>“Yes! yes! I have never talked to any one. There has been no one to -listen.”</p> - -<p>“Talk all you want,” he answered with immense gentleness. “I’m here.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t understand it even now, but he would not see me,” she broke -out. “I was half mad. I wrote, and he would not answer. I went to his -chambers when I heard he was going to leave England. I went to beg him -to take me with him, married or unmarried. I would have gone on my -knees to him. He was <i>gone</i>! Oh, why? Why?”</p> - -<p>“You didn’t think he’d gone because he didn’t love you?” he asked her -quite literally and unsentimentally. “You knew better than that?”</p> - -<p>“How could I be sure of anything? When he left the room that awful -night he would not <i>look</i> at me! He would not <i>look</i> at me!”</p> - -<p>“Since I’ve been here I’ve been reading a lot of novels, and I’ve found -out a lot of things about fellows that are not the common, practical -kind. Now, he wasn’t. He’d lived pretty much like a fellow in a novel, -I guess. What’s struck me about that sort is that they think they -have to make noble sacrifices, and they’ll just walk all over a woman -because they won’t do anything to hurt her. There’s not a bit of sense -in it, but that was what he was doing. He believed he was doing the -square thing by you, and you may bet your life it hurt him like hell. I -beg your pardon; but that’s the word—just plain hell.”</p> - -<p>“I was only a girl. He was like iron. He went away alone. He was -killed, and when he was dead the truth was told.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I’ve remembered,” he said quite slowly, “every time I’ve -looked at you. By gee! I’d have stood anything from a woman that had -suffered as much as that.”</p> - -<p>It made her cry, his genuineness, and she did not care in the least -that the tears streamed down her cheeks. How he <i>had</i> stood things! How -he had borne, in that odd, unimpressive way, insolence and arrogance -for which she ought to have been blackballed by decent society! She -could scarcely bear it.</p> - -<p>“Oh! to think it should have been <i>you</i>,” she wept, “just <i>you</i> who -understood!”</p> - -<p>“Well,” he answered speculatively,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_932" id="Page_932">[Pg 932]</a></span> “I mightn’t have understood as well -if it hadn’t been for Ann. By jinks! I used to lie awake at night -sometimes, thinking, ‘Supposing it had been Ann and me!’ That’s why I -understood.”</p> - -<p>He put out his hand and caught hers and frankly squeezed it—squeezed -it hard; and the unconventional clutch was a wonderful thing to her.</p> - -<p>“It’s all right now, ain’t it?” he said. “We’ve got it straightened -out. You’ll not be afraid to come back here if your mother wants -you to.” He stopped for a moment and then went on with something of -hesitation: “We don’t want to talk about your mother. We can’t. But I -understand her, too. Folks are different from each other in their ways. -She’s different from you. I’ll—I’ll straighten it out with her if you -like.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing will need straightening out after I tell her that you are -going to marry Little Ann Hutchinson,” said Joan, with a half-smile, -“and that you were engaged to her before you saw me.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that does sort of finish things up, doesn’t it?” said T. -Tembarom.</p> - -<p>He looked at her so speculatively for a moment after this that she -wondered whether he had more to say. He had.</p> - -<p>“There’s something I want to ask you,” he ventured.</p> - -<p>“Ask anything.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know any one—just any one—who has a photo—just any old -photo—of Jem Temple Barholm?”</p> - -<p>She was rather puzzled.</p> - -<p>“I know a woman who has worn one for eight years. Do you want to see -it?”</p> - -<p>“I’d give a good deal to,” he replied. She took a flat locket from her -dress and handed it to him.</p> - -<p>“Women don’t wear lockets in these days,”—he could barely hear her -voice, it was so low,—“but I’ve never taken it off. I wanted him near -my heart. It’s <i>Jem</i>!”</p> - -<p>He held it on the palm of his hand and stood under the light, studying -it as if he wanted to be sure he wouldn’t forget it.</p> - -<p>“It’s—sorter like that picture of Miles Hugo, ain’t it?” he suggested.</p> - -<p>“Yes; people always said so. That was why you found me in the -picture-gallery the first time we met.”</p> - -<p>“I knew that was the reason, and I knew I’d made a break when I butted -in,” he answered. Then, still looking at the photograph, he said: -“You’d know that face again most anywhere you saw it, I guess. A man -would know a face like that again wherever he saw it. Thank you, Lady -Joan.”</p> - -<p>He handed back the picture, and she put out her hand again.</p> - -<p>“I think I’ll go to my room now,” she said. “You’ve done a strange -thing to me. You’ve taken nearly all the hatred and bitterness out of -my heart. I shall want to come back here whether my mother comes or -not—I shall want to.”</p> - -<p>“The sooner the quicker,” he said. “And so long as I’m here, I’ll be -ready and waiting.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t go away,” she said softly. “I shall need you.”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t that great?” he cried, flushing delightedly. “Isn’t it just -great that we’ve got things straightened so that you can say that. Gee! -This is a queer old world! There’s such a lot to do in it, and so few -hours in the day. Seems like there ain’t time to stop long enough to -hate anybody and keep a grouch on. A fellow’s got to keep hustling not -to miss the things worth while.”</p> - -<p>The liking in her eyes was actually wistful.</p> - -<p>“That’s your way of thinking, isn’t it?” she said. “Teach it to me if -you can. I wish you could. Good night.” She hesitated a second. “God -<i>bless</i> you!” she added quite suddenly, almost fantastic the words -sounded to her, that she, Joan Fayre, should be calling down devout -benisons on the head of T. Tembarom—T. Tembarom!</p> - -<p class="p0 mtop2">H<span class="smaller">ER</span> mother was in her room when she reached it. She had come up -early to look over her possessions and Joan’s before she began -her packing. The bed, the chairs, and the tables were spread with -evening, morning, and walking-dresses, and the millinery collected -from their combined wardrobes. She was examining anxiously a -laces-appliquéd-and-embroidered white coat, and turned a slightly -flushed face toward the opening door.</p> - -<p>“I am going over your things as well as my own,” she said. “I shall -take what I can use. You will require nothing in London. What is the -matter?” she said sharply, as she saw her daughter’s face.</p> - -<p>Joan came forward, feeling it a strange thing that she was not in the -mood to fight—to lash out and be glad to do it.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_933" id="Page_933">[Pg 933]</a></span></p> -<p>“Captain Palliser told me as I came up that Mr. Temple Barholm had -been talking to you,” her mother went on. “He heard you having some -sort of scene as he passed the door. As you have made your decision, of -course I know I needn’t hope that anything has happened.”</p> - -<p>“What has happened has nothing to do with my decision. He wasn’t -waiting for that,” Joan answered her. “We were both entirely mistaken, -Mother.”</p> - -<p>“What are you talking about?” cried Lady Mallowe. “What do you mean by -mistaken?”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t want me; he never did,” Joan answered again. A shadow of a -smile hovered over her face, and there was no derision in it, only a -warming recollection of his earnestness when he had said the words she -quoted, “He is what they call in New York ’dead stuck on another girl.’”</p> - -<p>Lady Mallowe sat down on the chair that held the white coat, and she -did not push the coat aside.</p> - -<p>“He told you that in his vulgar slang!” she gasped out. “You—you ought -to have struck him <i>dead</i> with your answer.”</p> - -<p>“Except poor Jem Temple Barholm,” was the amazing reply she received, -“he is the only <i>friend</i> I ever had in all my life.”</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 class="nobreak" id="T_TEMBAROM_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII</h3> - -<div class="dc"> - <a id="i_933" name="i_933"> - <img class="w10em" src="images/i_933.jpg" alt="I" /></a> -</div> - -</div> - -<p class="p0"><span class="hide-first1">I</span>T was business of serious importance which was to bring Captain -Palliser’s visit to a close. He explained it perfectly to Miss Alicia a -day or so after Lady Mallowe and her daughter left them. He had lately -been most amiable in his manner toward Miss Alicia, and had given -her much valuable information about companies and stocks. He rather -unexpectedly found it imperative that he should go to London and Berlin -to “see people,” dealers in great financial schemes who were deeply -interested in solid business speculations such as his own.</p> - -<p>“I suppose he will be very rich some day,” Miss Alicia remarked the -first morning she and T. Tembarom took their breakfast alone together -after his departure. “It would frighten me to think of having as much -money as he seems likely to have quite soon.”</p> - -<p>“It would scare me to death,” said Tembarom. She knew he was making a -sort of joke, but she thought the point of it was her tremor at the -thought of great fortune.</p> - -<p>“He seemed to think that it would be an excellent thing for you to -invest in—I’m not sure whether it was the India Rubber Tree Company, -or the mahogany-forests, or the copper-mines that have so much gold and -silver mixed in them that it will pay for the expense of the digging,” -she went on.</p> - -<p>“I guess it was the whole lot,” put in Tembarom.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it was. They are all going to make everybody so rich that it -is quite bewildering. He is <i>very clever</i> in business matters. And so -kind. He even said that if I really wished it, he might be able to -invest my income for me and actually treble it in a year. But of course -I told him that my income was your generous gift to me, and that it was -far more than sufficient for my needs.”</p> - -<p>Tembarom put down his coffee-cup so suddenly to look at her that she -was fearful that she had appeared to do Captain Palliser some vague -injustice.</p> - -<p>“I am sure he meant to be most obliging, dear,” she explained. “I was -really quite touched. He said most sympathetically and delicately that -when women were unmarried, and unaccustomed to investment, sometimes a -business man could be of use to them. He forgot”—affectionately—“that -I had you.”</p> - -<p>Tembarom regarded her with tender curiosity. She often opened up vistas -for him as he himself opened them for the Duke of Stone.</p> - -<p>“If you hadn’t had me, would you have let him treble your income in a -year?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Her expression as that of a soft, woodland rabbit or a trusting -spinster dove.</p> - -<p>“Well, of course, if one were quite alone in the world and had only a -small income, it <i>would</i> be nice to have it wonderfully added to in -such a short time,” she answered. “But it was his friendly solicitude -which touched me.”</p> - -<p>“If the time ever comes when you haven’t got me,” said Tembarom, -buttering his toast,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_934" id="Page_934">[Pg 934]</a></span> “just you make a dead sure thing of it that you -don’t let any solicitous business gentleman treble your income in a -year.”</p> - -<p>“Temple,” gasped Miss Alicia, “you—you surely cannot mean that you do -not think Captain Palliser is—sincere!”</p> - -<p>Tembarom laughed outright his most hilarious and comforting laugh.</p> - -<p>“Sincere?” he said. “He’s sincere down to the ground—in what he’s -reaching after; but he’s not going to treble your income or mine. If he -ever makes that offer again, you just tell him I’m interested, and that -I’ll talk it over with him.”</p> - -<p>Their breakfast was at an end, and he got up, laughing again, as he -came to her end of the table, and put his arm round her shoulders in -the unconventional young caress she adored him for.</p> - -<p>“It’s nice to be by ourselves again for a while,” he said. “Let us go -for a walk together. Put on the little bonnet and dress that are the -color of a mouse. Those little duds just get me. You look so pretty in -them.”</p> - -<p>The sixteen-year-old blush ran up to the roots of her gray -side-ringlets. Just imagine his remembering the color of her dress and -bonnet, and thinking that anything could make her look pretty! She was -overwhelmed with innocent and grateful confusion. There really was no -one else in the least like him.</p> - -<p>“I wonder if it is wrong of me to be so pleased,” Miss Alicia thought. -“I must make it a subject of prayer.”</p> - -<p>She was pathetically serious, having been trained to a view of the -great first cause as figuratively embodied in the image of a gigantic, -irascible, omnipotent old gentleman specially wrought to fury by -feminine follies connected with becoming headgear.</p> - -<p>“It has sometimes even seemed to me that our Heavenly Father has a -special objection to ladies,” she had once timorously confessed to -Tembarom. “I suppose it is because we are so much weaker than men, and -so much more given to vanity and petty vices.”</p> - -<p>He had caught her in his arms and actually hugged her that time. Their -intimacy had reached the point where the affectionate outburst did not -alarm her.</p> - -<p>“Say,” he had laughed, “it’s not the men who are going to have the -biggest pull with the authorities when folks try to get into the place -where things are evened up. What I’m going to work my passage with is -a list of the few ‘ladies’ I’ve known. You and Ann will be at the head -of it. I shall just slide it in at the box-office window and say: ’Just -look over this, will you? These were friends of mine, and they were -mighty good to me. I guess if they didn’t turn me down, you needn’t. -I know they’re in here. Reserved seats. I’m not expecting to be put -with them, but if I’m allowed to hang around where they are, that’ll be -heaven enough for me.’”</p> - -<p>“I know you don’t mean to be irreverent, dear Temple,” she had gasped, -“I am quite sure you don’t. It is—it is only your American way of -expressing your kind thoughts.” Somehow or other, he was always <i>so</i> -comforting.</p> - -<p>He held her arm as they took their walk. She had become used to that -also, and no longer thought it odd. It was only one of the ways he had -of making her feel that she was being taken care of. They had not been -able to have many walks together since the arrival of the visitors, and -this occasion was at once a cause of relief and inward rejoicing. The -entire truth was that she had not been altogether happy about him of -late. Sometimes, when he was not talking and saying amusing New York -things which made people laugh, he seemed almost to forget where he was -and to be thinking of something which baffled and tried him. The way -in which he pulled himself together when he realized that any one was -looking at him was, to her mind, the most disturbing feature of his -fits of abstraction.</p> - -<p>As they walked through the park and the village, her heart was greatly -warmed by the way in which every person they met greeted him. They -<i>liked</i> him, really <i>liked</i> him. Every man touched his cap or forehead -with a friendly grin. It was as if there were some extremely human -joke between them. Miss Alicia had delightedly remembered the Duke of -Stone’s saying that he was “the most popular man in the county.”</p> - -<p>Tembarom was rather silent during the first part of their walk, and -when he spoke it was of Captain Palliser.</p> - -<p>“He’s a fellow that’s got lots of curiosity. I guess he’s asked you -more questions than he’s asked me,” he began at last, and he looked at -her interestedly, though she was not aware of it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_935" id="Page_935">[Pg 935]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I thought,—” she hesitated slightly because she did not wish to be -critical,—“I sometimes thought he asked me too many. He asked so much -about you and your life in New York, but more, I think, about you and -Mr. Strangeways. He was really quite persistent once or twice about -poor Mr. Strangeways.”</p> - -<p>“What did he ask?”</p> - -<p>“He asked if I had seen him, and if you had preferred that I should -not. He calls him your mystery, and thinks your keeping him here is so -extraordinary.”</p> - -<p>“I guess it is, the way he’d look at it,” Tembarom dropped in.</p> - -<p>“He was so anxious to find out what he looked like. He asked how old he -was and how tall, and whether he was quite mad or only a little, and -where you picked him up, and when, and what reason you gave for not -putting him in some respectable asylum. I could only say that I really -knew nothing about him, and that I hadn’t seen him because he had a -dread of strangers and I was a little timid.”</p> - -<p>She hesitated again.</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” she said, still hesitating even after her pause—“I wonder -if I ought to mention a rather rude thing I once saw him do?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you ought,” Tembarom answered promptly, “I’ve a reason for -wanting to know.”</p> - -<p>“It was such a singular thing to do—in the circumstances,” she went on -obediently. “He knew, as we all know, that Mr. Strangeways must <i>not</i> -be disturbed. One afternoon I saw him walk slowly backward and forward -before the west room window. He had something in his hand, and kept -looking up. That was what first attracted my attention—his queer way -of looking up. Quite suddenly he threw something which rattled on the -panes of glass; it sounded like gravel or small pebbles. I couldn’t -help believing he thought Mr. Strangeways would be startled into coming -to the window.”</p> - -<p>Tembarom smiled.</p> - -<p>“He did that twice,” he said. “Pearson caught him at it, though -Palliser didn’t know he did. He’d have done it three times, or more -than that, perhaps, but I casually mentioned in the smoking-room one -night that some curious fool of a gardener-boy had thrown some stones -and frightened Strangeways, and that Pearson and I were watching -for him, and that if I caught him, I was going to knock his block -off—<i>bing</i>! He didn’t do it again. Darned fool! And he’d better not -try it again when he comes back,” remarked Tembarom.</p> - -<p>Miss Alicia’s surprised expression made him laugh.</p> - -<p>“Do you think he will come back?” she exclaimed, “after such a long -visit?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, he’ll come back. He’ll come back as often as he can until -he’s got a chunk of my income to treble—or until I’ve done with him.”</p> - -<p>“Until you’ve done with him, dear?” she said inquiringly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, well,” he said casually, “I’ve a sort of idea that he may tell me -something I’d like to know. I’m not sure; I’m only guessing. But even -if he knows it, he won’t tell me until he gets good and ready, and -thinks I don’t want to hear it.”</p> - -<p>He would not talk any more of Captain Palliser or allow her to talk of -him. He began to make jokes, and led her to other subjects. He asked -her to go to the Hibblethwaites’ cottage and pay a visit to Tummas. -He had learned to understand his accepted privileges in the making of -cottage visits by this time; and when he clicked any wicket-gate, the -door was open before he had time to pass up the wicket-path. They -called at several cottages, and he nodded at the windows of others -where faces appeared as he passed by.</p> - -<p>They had a happy morning together, a pleasant drive in the afternoon, -and a cozy evening in the library.</p> - -<p>About nine o’clock he laid his paper aside and spoke to her.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to ask you to do me a favor,” he said. “I couldn’t ask it -if we weren’t alone like this. I know you won’t mind. I’m going to ask -you to go to your room rather early. I want to try a sort of stunt on -Strangeways. I want to bring him down-stairs if he’ll come. I’m not -sure I can get him to do it; but he’s been a heap better lately, and -perhaps I can.”</p> - -<p>“Is he so much better as that?” she said. “Will it be safe?”</p> - -<p>He looked as serious as she had ever seen him look, even a trifle more -serious.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know how much better he is,” was his answer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_936" id="Page_936">[Pg 936]</a></span> “Sometimes you’d -think he was almost all right, and then—The doctor says that if he -could get over being afraid of leaving his room, it would be a big -thing for him. He wants him to go to his place in London so that he can -watch him.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think you could persuade him to go?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve tried my level best, but so far nothing doing.”</p> - -<p>He got up and stood before the mantel, his back against it, his hands -in his pockets.</p> - -<p>“I’ve found out one thing,” he said. “He’s used to houses like this. -Every now and again he lets something out quite natural. He knew that -the furniture in his room was Jacobean—that’s what he called it—and -he knew it was fine stuff. He wouldn’t have known that if he’d been a -piker. I’m going to try if he won’t let out something else when he sees -things here, if he’ll come.”</p> - -<p>“You have such a wonderfully reasoning mind, dear,” said Miss Alicia as -she rose.</p> - -<p>“If Ann had been with him,” he said, rather gloomily, “she’d have -caught on to a lot more than I have. I don’t feel very chesty about the -way I’ve managed it.”</p> - -<p>Miss Alicia went up-stairs shortly afterward, and half an hour later -Tembarom told the footmen in the hall that they might go to bed. The -experiment he was going to make demanded that the place should be -cleared of any disturbing presence. He had been thinking it over for -some time past. He had sat in the private room of the great nerve -specialist in London and had talked it over with him. He had talked of -it with the duke on the lawn at Stone Hover. There had been a flush of -color in the older man’s cheek-bones, and his eyes had been alight as -he took his part in the discussion. He had added the touch of his own -personality to it, as always happened.</p> - -<p>“We are having some fine moments, my dear fellow,” he had said, rubbing -his hands. “This is extremely like the fourth act. I’d like to be sure -what comes next.”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to be sure myself,” Tembarom answered. “It’s as if a flash -of lightning came sometimes, and then things clouded up. And sometimes -when I am trying something out, he’ll get so excited that I daren’t go -on until I’ve talked to the doctor.”</p> - -<p>It was the excitement he was dubious about to-night. It was not -possible to be quite certain as to the entire safety of the plan; but -there might be a chance, even a big chance, of wakening some cell from -its deadened sleep. Sir Ormsby Galloway had talked to him a good deal -about brain-cells, and he had listened faithfully, and learned more -than he could put into scientific English. Gradually, during the past -months, he had been coming upon strangely exciting hints of curious -possibilities. They had been mere hints at first, and had seemed almost -absurd in their unbelievableness; but each one had linked itself with -another, and led him on to further wondering and exploration. When -Miss Alicia and Palliser had seen that he looked absorbed and baffled, -it had been because he had frequently found himself, to use his own -figures of speech, “mixed up to beat the band.” He had not known which -way to turn; but he had gone on turning because he could not escape -from his own excited interest, and the inevitable emotion roused by -being caught in the whirl of a melodrama. That was what he’d dropped -into—a whacking big play. It had begun for him when Palford butted -in that night and told him he was a lost heir, with a fortune and an -estate in England; and the curtain had been jerking up and down ever -since. But there had been thrills in it, queer as it was. Something -doing all the time, by gee!</p> - -<p>He sat and smoked his pipe and wished Ann were with him because he knew -he was not as cool as he had meant to be. He felt a certain tingling -of excitement in his body, and this was not the time to be excited. -He waited for some minutes before he went up-stairs. It was true that -Strangeways had been much better lately. He had seemed to find it -easier to follow conversation. During the last few days, Tembarom had -talked to him in a matter-of-fact way about the house and its various -belongings. He had at last seemed to waken to an interest in the -picture-gallery. Evidently he knew something of picture-galleries and -portraits, and found himself relieved by his own clearness of thought -when he talked of them.</p> - -<p>“I feel better,” he said two or three times. “Things seem -clearer—nearer.”</p> - -<p>“Good business!” exclaimed Tem-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_937" id="Page_937">[Pg 937]</a></span>barom. “I told you it’d be that way. -Let’s hold on to pictures. It won’t be any time before you’ll be -remembering where you’ve seen some.”</p> - -<p>He had been secretly rather strung up; but he had been very gradual in -approaching his final suggestion that some night, when everything was -quiet, they might go and look at the gallery together.</p> - -<p>“What you need is to get out of the way of wanting to stay in one -place,” he argued. “The doctor says you’ve got to have change, and even -going from one room to another is a fine thing.”</p> - -<p>Strangeways had looked at him anxiously for a few moments, even -suspiciously, but his face had cleared after the look. He drew himself -up and passed his hand over his forehead.</p> - -<p>“I believe—perhaps he is right,” he murmured.</p> - -<p>“Sure he’s right,” said Tembarom. “He’s the sort of chap who ought to -know. He’s been made into a baronet for knowing. Sir Ormsby Galloway, -by jingo! That’s no slouch of a name. Oh, he knows, you bet your life!”</p> - -<p>This morning when he had seen him he had spoken of the plan again. The -visitors had gone away; the servants could be sent out of sight and -hearing; they could go into the library and smoke and he could look at -the books. And then they could take a look at the picture-gallery if he -wasn’t too tired. It would be a change, anyhow.</p> - -<p class="p0 mtop2">T<span class="smaller">O</span>-<span class="smaller">NIGHT</span>, -as he went up the huge staircase, Tembarom’s calmness of -being had not increased. He was aware of a quickened pulse. The dead -silence of the house added to the unusualness of things. He could not -remember ever having been so anxious before, except on the occasion -when he had taken his first day’s “stuff” to Galton. But he showed -no outward signs of excitement when he entered the room and found -Strangeways standing, perfectly attired in evening dress.</p> - -<p>Pearson, setting things in order at the other side of the room, was -taking note of him furtively over his shoulder. Quite in the casual -manner of the ordinary man, he had expressed his intention of dressing -for the evening, and Pearson had thanked his stars for the fact -that the necessary garments were at hand. From the first, he had -not infrequently asked for articles such as only the resources of a -complete masculine wardrobe could supply; and on one occasion he had -suddenly wished to dress for dinner, and the lame excuses it had been -necessary to make had disturbed him horribly instead of pacifying him. -To explain that his condition precluded the necessity of the usual -appurtenances would have been out of the question. He had been angry. -What did Pearson mean? What was the matter? He had said it over and -over again, and then had sunk into a hopelessly bewildered mood, and -had sat huddled in his dressing-gown staring at the fire. Pearson -had been so harrowed by the situation that it had been his own idea -to suggest to his master that all possible requirements should be -provided. There were occasions when it appeared that the cloud over him -lifted for a passing moment, and a gleam of light recalled to him some -familiar usage of his past. When he had finished dressing, Pearson had -been almost startled by the amount of effect produced by the straight, -correctly cut lines of black and white. The mere change of clothes had -suddenly changed the man himself—had “done something to him,” Pearson -put it. After his first glance at the mirror he had straightened -himself, as if recognizing the fault of his own carriage. When he -crossed the room it was with the action of a man who has been trained -to move well. The good looks, which had been almost hidden behind a -veil of uncertainty of expression and strained fearfulness, became -obvious. He was tall, and his lean limbs were splendidly hung together. -His head was perfectly set, and the bearing of his square shoulders was -a soldierly thing. It was an extraordinarily handsome man Tembarom and -Pearson found themselves gazing at. Each glanced involuntarily at the -other.</p> - -<p>“Now, that’s first-rate. I’m glad you feel like coming,” Tembarom -plunged in. He didn’t intend to give him too much time to think.</p> - -<p>“Thank you. It will be a change, as you said,” Strangeways answered. -“One needs change.”</p> - -<p>His deep eyes looked somewhat deeper than usual, but his manner was -that of any well-bred fellow doing an accustomed thing. If he had been -an ordinary guest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_938" id="Page_938">[Pg 938]</a></span> in the house, and his host had dropped into his -room, he would have comported himself in exactly the same way.</p> - -<p>They went together down the corridor as if they had passed down it -together a dozen times before. On the stairway Strangeways looked at -the tapestries with the interest of a familiarized intelligence.</p> - -<p>“It is a beautiful old place,” he said as they crossed the hall. “That -armor was worn by a crusader.” He hesitated a moment when they entered -the library, but it was only for a moment. He went to the hearth -and took the chair his host offered him, and, lighting a cigar, sat -smoking it. If T. Tembarom had chanced to be a man of an analytical or -metaphysical order of intellect, he would have found during the last -month many things to lead him far in mental argument concerning the -weird wonder of the human mind—of its power where its possessor, the -body, is concerned, its sometime closeness to the surface of sentient -being, its sometime remoteness. He would have known, awed, marveling at -the blackness of the pit into which it can descend, the unknown shades -that may enfold it and imprison its gropings. The old Duke of Stone -had sat and pondered many an hour over stories his favorite companion -had related to him. What curious and subtle processes had the queer -fellow not been watching in the closely guarded quiet of the room -where the stranger had spent his days: the strange thing cowering in -its darkness; the ray of light piercing the cloud one day and seeming -lost again the next; the struggles the imprisoned thing made to come -forth—to cry out that it was only immured, not wholly conquered, -and that some hour would arrive when it would fight its way through -at last! Tembarom had not entered into psychological research. He -had been entirely uncomplex in his attitude, sitting down before his -problem as a besieger might have sat down before a castle. The duke -had sometimes wondered whether it was not a good enough thing that he -had been so simple about it, merely continuing to believe the best -with an unswerving obstinacy and lending a hand when he could. A never -flagging sympathy had kept him singularly alive to every chance, and -now and then he had illuminations which would have done credit to a -cleverer man, and which the duke had rubbed his hands in half-amused, -half-touched elation. How he had kept his head and held to his purpose!</p> - -<p>T. Tembarom talked but little as he sat in his big chair and smoked. -Best let him alone and give him time to get used to the newness, he -thought. Nothing must happen that could give him a jolt. Let things -sort of sink into him, and perhaps they’d set him to thinking and lead -him somewhere. Strangeways himself evidently did not want talk. He -never wanted it unless he was excited. He was not excited now, and had -settled down as if he was comfortable. Having finished one cigar, he -took another, and began to smoke it much more slowly than he had smoked -his first. The slowness began to arrest Tembarom’s attention. This was -the smoking of a man who was either growing sleepy or sinking into deep -thought, becoming oblivious to what he was doing. Sometimes he held -the cigar absently between his strong, fine fingers, seeming to forget -it. Tembarom watched him do this until he saw it go out, and its white -ash drop on the rug at his feet. He did not notice it, but sat sinking -deeper and deeper into his own being, growing more remote. What was -going on under his absorbed stillness? Tembarom would not have moved or -spoken “for a block of Fifth Avenue,” he said internally. The dark eyes -seemed to become darker until there was only a pin’s point of light -to be seen in their pupils. It was as if he were looking at something -at a distance—at a strangely long distance. Twice he turned his head -and appeared to look slowly round the room, but not as normal people -look—as if it also was at the strange, long distance from him, and he -were somewhere outside its walls. It was an uncanny thing to behold.</p> - -<p>“How dead-still the room is!” Tembarom found himself thinking.</p> - -<p>It was “dead-still.” And it was “a queer deal,” sitting, not daring to -move, just watching. Something was bound to happen, sure. What was it -going to be?</p> - -<p>Strangeways’s cigar dropped from his fingers and appeared to rouse him. -He looked puzzled for a moment, and then stooped quite naturally to -pick it up.</p> - -<p>“I forgot it altogether. It’s gone out,” he remarked.</p> - -<p>“Have another,” suggested Tembarom, moving the box nearer to him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_939" id="Page_939">[Pg 939]</a></span></p> - -<p>“No, thank you.” He rose and crossed the room to the wall of -book-shelves. And Tembarom’s eye was caught again by the fineness of -movement and line the evening clothes made manifest. “What a swell he -looked when he moved about like that! What a swell, by jingo!”</p> - -<p>He looked along the line of shelves and presently took a book down -and opened it. He turned over its leaves until something arrested his -attention, and then he fell to reading. He read several minutes, while -Tembarom watched him. The silence was broken by his laughing a little.</p> - -<p>“Listen to this,” he said, and began to read something in a language -totally unknown to his hearer. “A man who writes that sort of thing -about a woman is an old bounder, whether he’s a poet or not. There’s a -small, biting spitefulness about it that’s cattish.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Who</i> did it?” Tembarom inquired softly. It might be a good idea to -lead him on.</p> - -<p>“Horace. In spite of his genius, the ‘Lampoons’ make you feel he was -rather a blackguard.”</p> - -<p>“Horace!” For the moment T. Tembarom forgot himself. “I always heard he -was a sort of Y. M. C. A. old guy—old Horace Greeley. The ‘Tribune’ -was no yellow journal when he had it.”</p> - -<p>He was sorry he had spoken the next moment. Strangeways looked puzzled.</p> - -<p>“The ’Tribune,’” he hesitated. “The Roman tribune?”</p> - -<p>“No, New York. He started it—old Horace did. But perhaps we’re not -talking of the same man.”</p> - -<p>Strangeways hesitated again.</p> - -<p>“No, I think we’re not,” he answered politely.</p> - -<p>“I’ve made a break,” thought Tembarom. “I ought to have kept my mouth -shut. I must try to switch him back.”</p> - -<p>Strangeways was looking down at the back of the book he held in his -hand.</p> - -<p>“This one was the Latin poet, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65 -<span class="smaller">B</span>.<span class="smaller">C</span>. You know it,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, <i>that</i> one!” exclaimed Tembarom, as if with an air of immense -relief. “What a fool I was to forget! I’m glad it’s him. Will you go on -reading, and let me hear some more? He’s a winner from Winnersville, -that Horace is.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps it was a sort of miracle, accomplished by his great desire to -help the right thing to happen, to stave off any shadow of the wrong -thing. Whatsoever the reason, Strangeways waited only a moment before -turning to his book again. It seemed to be a link in some chain slowly -forming itself to draw him back from his wanderings. And T. Tembarom, -lightly sweating as a frightened horse will, sat smoking another pipe -and listening intently to “Satires” and “Lampoons,” read aloud in the -Latin of 65 <span class="smaller">B</span>.<span class="smaller">C</span>.</p> - -<p>“By gee!” he said faithfully, at intervals, when he saw on the reader’s -face that the moment was ripe, “He knew it all,—old Horace,—didn’t -he?”</p> - -<p>He had steered his charge back. Things were coming along the line to -him. He’d learned Latin at one of these big English schools. Boys -always learned Latin, the duke had told him. They just had to. Most of -them hated it like thunder, and they used to be caned when they didn’t -recite it right. Perhaps if he went on, he’d begin to remember the -school. A queer part of it was that he did not seem to notice that he -was not reading his own language.</p> - -<p>He did not, in fact, seem to remember anything in particular, but went -on quite naturally for some minutes. He had replaced Horace on the -shelf and was on the point of taking another book when he paused, as if -recalling something else.</p> - -<p>“Weren’t we going to see the picture-gallery?” he inquired. “Isn’t it -getting late? I should like to see the portraits.”</p> - -<p>“No hurry,” answered T. Tembarom. “I was just waiting till you were -ready. But we’ll go right away, if you like.”</p> - -<p>They went without further ceremony. As they walked through the hall and -down the corridors side by side, an imaginative person might have felt -that perhaps the eyes of an ancient, darkling portrait or so looked -down at the pair curiously: the long, loosely built New Yorker rather -slouching along by the soldierly almost romantic figure which in a -measure suggested that others not unlike it might have trod the same -oaken floor, wearing ruff and doublet, or lace jabot and sword. There -was a far cry between the two, but they walked closely in friendly -union. When they entered the picture-gallery, Strangeways paused a -moment again, and stood peering down its length.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_940" id="Page_940">[Pg 940]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It is very dimly lighted. How can we see?” he said.</p> - -<p>“I told Pearson to leave it dim,” Tembarom answered.</p> - -<p>He tried, and succeeded tolerably well, to say it casually as he led -the way ahead of them. He and the duke had not talked the scheme over -for nothing. As his grace had said, they had “worked the thing up.” As -they moved down the gallery, the men and women in their frames looked -like ghosts staring out to see what was about to happen.</p> - -<p>“We’ll turn up the lights after a while,” T. Tembarom explained still -casually. “There’s a picture here I think a good deal of. I’ve stood -and looked at it pretty often. It reminded me of someone the first day -I set eyes on it; but it was quite a time before I made up my mind who -it was. It used to drive me half dotty trying to think it out.”</p> - -<p>“Which one?” asked Strangeways.</p> - -<p>“We’re coming to it. I want to see if it reminds you of any one. And I -want you to see it sudden.” “It’s got to be sudden,” he had said to the -duke. “If it’s going to pan out, I believe it’s got to be sudden. When -he first sees that picture he’s <i>got</i> to get a jolt—he’s got to.”</p> - -<p>That was why Tembarom had the lights left dim. He had told Pearson to -leave a lamp that he could turn up quickly.</p> - -<p>The lamp was on a table near by and was shaded by a screen. He took -it from the shadow and lifted it suddenly, so that its full gleam -fell upon the portrait of the handsome youth with the lace collar and -the dark, drooping eyes. It was done in a second, with a dramatically -unexpected swiftness. His heart fairly thumped.</p> - -<p>“Who’s that?” he demanded, with abruptness so sharp-pitched that the -gallery echoed with the sound. “Who’s that?”</p> - -<p>He heard a hard, quick gasp, a sound which was momentarily a little -horrible, as if the man’s soul was being jerked out of his body’s -depths.</p> - -<p>“Who is he?” Tembarom cried again. “Tell me!”</p> - -<p>After the gasp, Strangeways stood still and stared. His eyes were glued -to the canvas, drops of sweat came out on his forehead, and he was -shuddering. He began to back away with a look of gruesome struggle. He -backed and backed, and stared and stared. The gasp came twice again, -and then his voice seemed to tear itself loose from some power that was -holding it back.</p> - -<p>“Th—at!” he cried. “It is—it—is Miles Hugo!”</p> - -<p>The last words were almost a shout, and he shook as if he would have -fallen. But T. Tembarom put his hand on his shoulder and held him, -breathing fast himself. Gee! if it wasn’t like a thing in a play!</p> - -<p>“Page at the court of Charles the Second,” he rattled off. “Died of -smallpox when he was nineteen. Miles Hugo! Miles Hugo! You hold on to -that for all you’re worth. And hold on to me. I’ll keep you steady. Say -it again.”</p> - -<p>“Miles Hugo,” the poor majestic-looking fellow almost sobbed it. “Where -am I? What is the name of this place?”</p> - -<p>“It’s Temple Barholm, in the county of Lancashire, England. Hold on to -that, too—like thunder!”</p> - -<p>Strangeways held the young man’s arm with hands that clutched. He -dragged at him. His nightmare held him yet; Tembarom saw it, but -flashes of light were blinding him.</p> - -<p>“Who,” he pleaded in a shaking and hollow whisper, “are you?”</p> - -<p>Here was a stumper, by jingo! and not a minute to think it out. But the -answer came all right.</p> - -<p>“My name’s Tembarom. T. Tembarom.” And he grinned his splendid grin -from sheer sense of relief. “I’m a New Yorker—Brooklyn. I was just -forked in here anyhow. Don’t you waste time thinking over me. You sit -down here and do your durndest with Miles Hugo.”</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 class="nobreak" id="T_TEMBAROM_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV</h3> - -<div class="dc"> - <a id="i_940" name="i_940"> - <img class="w10em" src="images/i_940.jpg" alt="T" /></a> -</div> - -</div> - -<p class="p0"><span class="hide-first1">T</span>EMBAROM -did not look as though he had slept particularly well, Miss -Alicia thought, when they met the next morning; but when she asked -him whether he had been disappointed in his last night’s experiment, -he answered that he had not. The experiment had come out all right, -but Strangeways had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_941" id="Page_941">[Pg 941]</a></span> been a good deal worked up, and had not been -able to sleep until daylight. Sir Ormsby Galloway was to arrive in -the afternoon, and he’d probably give him something quieting. “Had -the coming down-stairs seemed to help him to recall anything?” Miss -Alicia naturally inquired. Tembarom thought it had. He drove to Stone -Hover and spent the morning with the duke; he even lunched with him. -He returned in time to receive Sir Ormsby Galloway, however, and until -that great personage left, they were together in Mr. Strangeways’ rooms.</p> - -<p>“I guess I shall get him up to London to the place where Sir Ormsby -wants him,” he said rather nervously, after dinner. “I’m not going to -miss any chances. If he’ll go, I can get him away quietly some time -when I can fix it so there’s no one about to worry him.”</p> - -<p>She felt that he had no inclination to go much into detail. He had -never had the habit of entering into the details connected with his -strange charge. She did not ask questions because she was afraid she -could not ask them intelligently.</p> - -<p>During the passage of the next few weeks, Tembarom went up to London -several times. Once he seemed called there suddenly, as it was only -during dinner that he told her that he was going to take a late train, -and should leave the house after she had gone to bed. She felt as -though something important must have happened, and hoped it was nothing -disturbing.</p> - -<p>When he had said that Captain Palliser would return to visit them, her -private impression, despite his laugh, had been that it must surely be -some time before this would occur. But a little more than three weeks -later he appeared, preceded only half an hour by a telegram, asking -whether he might not spend a night with them on his way farther north. -He could not at all understand why the telegram, which he said he had -sent the day before, had been delayed.</p> - -<p>A certain fatigued haggardness in his countenance caused Miss Alicia -to ask whether he had been ill, and he admitted that he had at least -not been well, as a result of long and too hurried journeys, and the -strenuousness of extended and profoundly serious interviews with his -capitalist and magnates.</p> - -<p>“No man can engineer gigantic schemes to success without feeling the -reaction when his load drops from his shoulders,” he remarked.</p> - -<p>“You’ve carried it quite through?” inquired Tembarom.</p> - -<p>“We have set on foot one of the largest, most substantially capitalized -companies in the European business world,” Palliser replied with the -composure which is almost indifference.</p> - -<p>“Good!” said Tembarom, cheerfully.</p> - -<p>He watched his guest a good deal during the day. He was a bad color for -a man who had just steered clear of all shoals and reached the highest -point of success. He had a haggard eye as well as a haggard face. -It was a terrified eye when its desperate determination to hide its -terrors dropped from it for an instant, as a veil might drop. A certain -restlessness was manifest in him, and he talked more than usual. He -was going to make a visit in Northumberland to an elderly lady of -great possessions. It was to be vaguely gathered that she was somewhat -interested in the great company—the Cedric. She was a remarkable old -person who found a certain agreeable excitement in dabbling in stocks. -She was rich enough to be in a position to regard it as a sort of game, -and he had been able on several occasions to afford her entertainment.</p> - -<p>“If she can play with things that way, she’ll be sure to want stock in -it,” Tembarom remarked.</p> - -<p>“If she does, she must make up her mind quickly,” Palliser smiled, “or -she will not be able to get it. It is not easy to lay one’s hands on -even now.”</p> - -<p>Tembarom thought of certain speculators of entirely insignificant -standing of whom he had chanced to see and hear anecdotes in New York. -He always detested “bluff,” whatsoever its disguise.</p> - -<p>“He’s got badly stung,” was his internal comment as he sucked at his -pipe and smiled urbanely at Palliser across the room as they sat -together. “He’s come here with some sort of deal on that he knows he -couldn’t work with any one but just such a fool as he thinks I am. I -guess,” he added in composed reflectiveness, “I don’t really know <i>how</i> -big a fool I do look.”</p> - -<p>Whatsoever the deal was, he would be likely to let it be known in time.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_942" id="Page_942">[Pg 942]</a></span></p> -<p>“He’ll get it off his chest if he’s going away to-morrow,” decided -Tembarom. “If there’s anything he’s found out, he’ll use it. If it -doesn’t pan out as he thinks it will, he’ll just float away to his old -lady.”</p> - -<p>He gave Palliser every chance, talking to him and encouraging him to -talk, even asking him to let him look over the prospectus of the new -company and explain details to him, as he was going to explain them -to the old lady in Northumberland. He opened up avenues; but for a -time Palliser made no attempt to stroll down them. His walk would be a -stroll, Tembarom knew, being familiar with his methods. He seemed to be -thinking things over before he decided upon the psychological moment at -which he would begin, if he began. When a man had a good deal to lose -or to win, Tembarom realized that he would be likely to hold back until -he felt something like solid ground under him.</p> - -<p>After Miss Alicia had left them for the night, perhaps he felt, as a -result of thinking the matter over, that he had reached a foothold of a -firmness at least somewhat to be depended upon.</p> - -<p>“What a change you have made in that poor woman’s life!” he said, -walking to the side table and helping himself to a brandy and soda. -“What a change!”</p> - -<p>“It struck me that a change was needed just about the time I dropped -in,” answered his host.</p> - -<p>“All the same,” suggested Palliser, tolerantly, “you were immensely -generous. She wasn’t entitled to expect it, you know.”</p> - -<p>“She didn’t expect anything, not a darned thing,” said Tembarom. “That -was what hit me.”</p> - -<p>Palliser smiled a cold, amiable smile.</p> - -<p>“Do you purpose to provide for the future of all your indigent -relatives even to the third and fourth generation, my dear chap?” he -inquired.</p> - -<p>“I won’t refuse till I’m asked, anyhow,” was the answer.</p> - -<p>“Asked!” Palliser repeated. “I’m one of them, you know, and Lady -Mallowe is another. There are lots of us, when we come out of our -holes. If it’s only a matter of asking, we might all descend on you.”</p> - -<p>Tembarom, smiling, wondered whether they hadn’t descended already, and -whether the descent had so far been all that they had anticipated.</p> - -<p>Palliser strolled down his opened avenue with an incidental air -which was entirely creditable to his training of himself. His host -acknowledged that much.</p> - -<p>“You are too generous,” said Palliser. “You are the sort of fellow -who will always need all he has, and more. The way you go among the -villagers! You think you merely slouch about and keep it quiet, but you -don’t. You’ve set an example no other landowner can expect to live up -to. It’s too lavish. It’s pernicious, dear chap. I know all about the -cottage you are doing over for Pearson and his bride. You had better -invest in the Cedric.”</p> - -<p>Palliser had reason to be so much more eager than he professed to be -that momentarily he swerved, despite himself, and ceased to be casual.</p> - -<p>“It is an enormous opportunity,” he said—“timber lands in Mexico, you -know. If you had spent your life in England, you would realize that -timber has become a desperate necessity, and that the difficulties -which exist in the way of supplying the demand are almost insuperable. -These forests are virtually boundless, and the company which controls -them—”</p> - -<p>“That’s a good spiel!” broke in Tembarom.</p> - -<p>It sounded like the crudely artless interruption of a person whose -perceptions left much to be desired.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he replied rather stiffly.</p> - -<p>“There was a fellow I knew in New York who used to sell type-writers, -and he had a thing to say he used to reel off when any one looked like -a customer. He used to call it his ’spiel.’”</p> - -<p>Palliser’s quick glance at him asked questions, and his stiffness did -not relax itself.</p> - -<p>“Is this New York chaff?” he inquired coldly.</p> - -<p>“No,” Tembarom said. “You’re not doing it for ten per. He was.”</p> - -<p>“No, not exactly,” said Palliser. “Neither would you be doing it for -ten per if you went into it.” His voice changed. He became slightly -haughty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_943" id="Page_943">[Pg 943]</a></span> “Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to think you might care -to connect yourself with it. You have not, of course, been in the -position to comprehend such matters.”</p> - -<p>But the expression of Tembarom’s face did not change. He only gave a -half-awkward sort of laugh.</p> - -<p>“I guess I can learn,” he said.</p> - -<p>Palliser felt the foothold become firmer. The bounder was interested, -but, after a bounder’s fashion, was either nervous or imagined that -a show of hesitation looked shrewd. The slight hit made at his -inexperience in investment had irritated him and made him feel less -cock-sure of himself. A slightly offended manner might be the best -weapon to rely upon.</p> - -<p>“I thought you might care to have the thing made clear to you,” he -continued indifferently. “I meant to explain. You may take the chance -or leave it, as you like, of course. That is nothing to me at this -stage of the game. But, after all, we are, as I said, relatives of a -sort, and it is a gigantic opportunity. Suppose we change the subject.”</p> - -<p>Palliser paused in an unconcerned opening of a copy of the Sunday -“Earth.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t mind trying to catch on to what’s doing in any big -scheme,” said Tembarom.</p> - -<p>Palliser’s manner at the outset was perfect. He produced his papers -without too obvious eagerness. He spread them upon the table, and -coolly examined them himself before beginning his explanation. There -was more to explain to a foreigner and one unused to investment than -there would be to a man who was an Englishman and familiar with the -methods of large companies, he said. He went into technicalities, so to -speak, and used rapidly and lightly some imposing words and phrases, to -which T. Tembarom listened attentively, but without any special air of -illumination. He dealt with statistics and the resulting probabilities. -He made apparent the existing condition of England’s inability to -supply an enormous and unceasing demand for timber. He had acquired -divers excellent methods of stating his case to the party of the second -part.</p> - -<p>“He made me feel as if a fellow had better hold on to a box of matches -like grim death, and that the time wasn’t out of sight when you’d have -to give fifty-seven dollars and a half for a toothpick,” Tembarom later -said to the duke.</p> - -<p>What Tembarom was thinking as he listened to him was that he was not -getting over the ground with much rapidity.</p> - -<p>“If he thought I wanted to know what he thinks I’d a heap rather <i>not</i> -know, he’d never tell me,” he speculated. “If he gets a bit hot in the -collar, he may let it out. Thing is to stir him up. He’s lost his nerve -a bit, and he’ll get mad pretty easy.”</p> - -<p>“Of course money is wanted,” Palliser said at length. “Money is always -wanted, and as much when a scheme is a success as when it isn’t. -Good names, with a certain character, are wanted. The fact of your -inheritance is known everywhere; and the fact that you are an American -is a sort of guaranty of shrewdness.”</p> - -<p>“Is it?” said T. Tembarom. “Well,” he added slowly, “I guess Americans -are pretty good business men.”</p> - -<p>Palliser thought that this was evolving upon perfectly natural lines, -as he had anticipated it would. The fellow was flattered and pleased.</p> - -<p>He went on in smooth, casual laudation:</p> - -<p>“No American takes hold of a scheme of this sort until he knows jolly -well what he’s going to get out of it. You were shrewd enough,” he -added significantly, “about Hutchinson’s affair. You ‘got in on the -ground floor’ there. That was New York forethought, by Jove!”</p> - -<p>Tembarom shuffled a little in his chair, and grinned a faint, pleased -grin.</p> - -<p>“I’m a man of the world, my boy—the business world,” Palliser -commented, hoping that he concealed his extreme satisfaction. “I know -New York, though I haven’t lived there. I’m only hoping to. Your air of -ingenuous ignorance is the cleverest thing about you,” which agreeable -implication of the fact that he had been privately observant and -impressed ought to have fetched the bounder if any thing would.</p> - -<p>T. Tembarom’s grin was no longer faint, but spread itself. Palliser’s -first impression was that he had “fetched” him. But when he answered, -though the very crudeness of his words seemed merely the result of -his betrayal into utter tactlessness by soothed vanity, there was -something—a shade of something—not entirely satisfactory in his face -and nasal twang.</p> - -<p>“Well, I guess,” he said, “New York <i>did</i> teach a fellow not to buy a -gold brick off every con man that came along.”</p> - -<p>Palliser was guilty of a mere ghost of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_944" id="Page_944">[Pg 944]</a></span> start. Was there something -in it, or was he only the gross, blundering fool he had trusted to his -being? He stared at him a moment, and saw that there <i>was</i> something -under the words and behind his professedly flattered grin—something -which must be treated with a high hand.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” he exclaimed haughtily. “I don’t like your tone. Do -you take <i>me</i> for what you call a ’con man’?”</p> - -<p>“Good Lord, no!” answered Tembarom; and he looked straight at Palliser -and spoke slowly. “You’re a gentleman, and you’re paying me a visit. -You could no more try on a game to do me in my own house than—well, -than I could <i>tell</i> you if I’d got on to you if I saw you doing it. -You’re a gentleman.”</p> - -<p>Palliser glared back into his infuriatingly candid eyes. He was a far -cry from being a dullard himself; he was sharp enough to “catch on” to -the revelation that the situation was not what he had thought it, the -type was more complex than he had dreamed. The chap had been playing -a part; he had absolutely been “jollying him along,” after the New -York fashion. He became pale with humiliated rage, though he knew his -only defense was to control himself and profess not to see through the -trick. Until he could use his big lever, he added to himself.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I see,” he commented acridly. “I suppose you don’t realize that -your figures of speech are unfortunate.”</p> - -<p>“That comes of New York streets, too,” Tembarom answered with -deliberation. “But you can’t live as I’ve lived and be dead easy—not -<i>dead</i> easy.”</p> - -<p>Palliser had left his chair, and stood in contemptuous silence.</p> - -<p>“You know how a fellow hates to be thought <i>dead</i> easy”—Tembarom -actually went to the insolent length of saying the words with a touch -of cheerful confidingness—“when he’s <i>not</i>. And I’m not. Have another -drink.”</p> - -<p>There was a pause. Palliser began to see, or thought he began to -see, where he stood. He had come to Temple Barholm because he had -been driven into a corner and had a dangerous fight before him. In -anticipation of it he had been following a clue for some time, though -at the outset it had been one of incredible slightness. Only his -absolute faith in his theory that every man had something to gain -or lose, which he concealed discreetly, had led him to it. He held a -card too valuable to be used at the beginning of a game. Its power -might have lasted a long time, and proved an influence without limit. -He forbore any mental reference to blackmail; the word was absurd. -One used what fell into one’s hands. If Tembarom had followed his -lead with any degree of docility, he would have felt it wiser to save -his ammunition until further pressure was necessary. But behind his -ridiculous rawness, his foolish jocularity, and his professedly candid -good humor, had been hidden the Yankee trickster who was fool enough to -think he could play his game through. Well, he could not.</p> - -<p>During the few moments’ pause he saw the situation as by a photographic -flashlight. He leaned over the table and supplied himself with a fresh -brandy and soda from the tray of siphons and decanters. He gave himself -time to take the glass up in his hand.</p> - -<p>“No,” he answered, “you are not ‘dead easy.’ That’s why I am going to -broach another subject to you.”</p> - -<p>Tembarom was refilling his pipe.</p> - -<p>“Go ahead,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Who, by the way, is Mr. Strangeways?”</p> - -<p>He was deliberate and entirely unemotional. So was T. Tembarom, when, -with match applied to his tobacco, he replied between puffs as he -lighted it:</p> - -<p>“You can search me. You can search him, too, for that matter. He -doesn’t know who he is himself.”</p> - -<p>“Bad luck for him!” remarked Palliser, and allowed a slight pause -again. After it he added, “Did it ever strike you it might be good luck -for somebody else?”</p> - -<p>“Somebody else?” Tembarom puffed more slowly, because his pipe was -lighted.</p> - -<p>Palliser took some brandy in his soda.</p> - -<p>“There are men, you know,” he suggested, “who can be spared by their -relatives. I have some myself, by Jove!” he added with a laugh. “You -keep him rather dark, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t like to see people.”</p> - -<p>“Does he object to people seeing him? I saw him once myself.”</p> - -<p>“When you threw the gravel at his window?”</p> - -<p>Palliser stared contemptuously.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_945" id="Page_945">[Pg 945]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What are you talking about? I did not throw stones at his window,” he -lied. “I’m not a school-boy.”</p> - -<p>“That’s so,” Tembarom admitted.</p> - -<p>“I saw him, nevertheless. And I can tell you he gave me rather a start.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>Palliser half laughed again. He did not mean to go too quickly; he -would let the thing get on Tembarom’s nerves gradually.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m hanged if I didn’t take him for a man who is dead.”</p> - -<p>“Enough to give any fellow a jolt,” Tembarom admitted again.</p> - -<p>“It gave me a ‘jolt.’ Good word, that. But it would give you a bigger -one, my dear fellow, if he was the man he looked like.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” Tembarom asked laconically.</p> - -<p>“He looked like Jem Temple Barholm.”</p> - -<p>He saw Tembarom start. There could be no denying it.</p> - -<p>“You thought that? Honest?” he said sharply, as if for a moment he had -lost his head. “You thought that?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be nervous. Perhaps I couldn’t have sworn to it. I did not see -him very close.”</p> - -<p>T. Tembarom puffed rapidly at his pipe, and only ejaculated, “Oh!”</p> - -<p>“Of course he’s dead. If he wasn’t,”—with a shrug of his -shoulders,—“Lady Joan Fayre would be Lady Joan Temple Barholm, and -the pair would be bringing up an interesting family here.” He looked -about the room, and then, as if suddenly recalling the fact, added, “By -George! you’d be selling newspapers, or making them—which was it?—in -New York!”</p> - -<p>It was by no means unpleasing to see that he had made his hit there. T. -Tembarom swung about and walked across the room with a very perturbed -expression.</p> - -<p>“Say,” he put it to him, coming back, “are you in earnest, or are you -just saying it to give me a jolt?”</p> - -<p>Palliser studied him. The American sharpness was not always so keen as -it seemed. His face would have betrayed his uneasiness to the dullest -onlooker.</p> - -<p>“Have you any objection to my seeing him in his own room?” Palliser -inquired.</p> - -<p>“It does him harm to see people,” Tembarom said with nervous bruskness. -“It worries him.”</p> - -<p>Palliser smiled a quiet, but far from agreeable, smile. He enjoyed what -he put into it.</p> - -<p>“Quite so; best to keep him quiet,” he returned. “Do you know what -my advice would be? Put him in a comfortable sanatorium. A lot of -stupid investigations would end in nothing, of course, but they’d be a -frightful bore.”</p> - -<p>He thought it extraordinarily stupid in T. Tembarom to come nearer to -him with an eagerness entirely unconcealed, if he really knew what he -was doing.</p> - -<p>“Are you sure that if you saw him close you’d <i>know</i>, so that you could -swear to him?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>“You’re extremely nervous, aren’t you?” Palliser watched him with -smiling coolness. “Of course Jem Temple Barholm is dead; but I’ve no -doubt that if I saw this man of yours, I could swear he had remained -dead—if I were asked.”</p> - -<p>“If you knew him well, you could make me sure. You could swear one way -or another. I want to be <i>sure</i>,” said Tembarom.</p> - -<p>“So should I in your place; couldn’t be too sure. Well, since you ask -me, I <i>could</i> swear. I knew him well enough. He was one of my most -intimate enemies. What do you say to letting me see him?”</p> - -<p>“I would if I could,” Tembarom replied, as if thinking it over. “I -would if I could.”</p> - -<p>Palliser treated him to the far from pleasing smile again.</p> - -<p>“But it’s quite impossible at present?” he suggested. “Excitement is -not good for him, and all that sort of thing. You want time to think it -over.”</p> - -<p>Tembarom’s slowly uttered answer, spoken as if he were still -considering the matter, was far from being the one he had expected.</p> - -<p>“I want time; but that’s not the reason you can’t see him right now. -You can’t see him because he’s not here. He’s gone.”</p> - -<p>Then it was Palliser who started, taken totally unaware in a manner -which disgusted him altogether. He had to pull himself up.</p> - -<p>“He’s gone!” he repeated.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_946" id="Page_946">[Pg 946]</a></span> “You are quicker than I thought. You’ve got -him safely away, have you? Well, I told you a comfortable sanatorium -would be a good idea.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you did.” T. Tembarom hesitated, seeming to be thinking it over -again. “That’s so.” He laid his pipe aside because it had gone out.</p> - -<p>He suddenly sat down at the table, putting his elbows on it and his -face in his hands, with a harried effect of wanting to think it over in -a sort of withdrawal from his immediate surroundings. This was as it -should be. His Yankee readiness had deserted him altogether.</p> - -<p>“By Jove! you are nervous!” Palliser commented. “It’s not surprising, -though. I can sympathize with you.” With a markedly casual air he -himself sat down and drew his documents toward him. “Let us talk of -something else,” he said. He preferred to be casual and incidental, if -he were allowed. It was always better to suggest things and let them -sink in until people saw the advantage of considering them and you. To -manage a business matter without open argument or too frank a display -of weapons was at once more comfortable and in better taste.</p> - -<p>“You are making a great mistake in not going into this,” he suggested -amiably. “You could go in now, as you went into Hutchinson’s affair, -‘on the ground floor.’ That’s a good enough phrase, too. Twenty -thousand pounds would make you a million. You Americans understand -nothing less than millions.”</p> - -<p>But T. Tembarom did not take him up. He muttered in a worried way from -behind his shading hands, “We’ll talk about that later.”</p> - -<p>“Why not talk about it now, before anything can interfere?” Palliser -persisted politely, almost gently.</p> - -<p>Tembarom sprang up, restless and excited. He had plainly been planning -fast in his temporary seclusion.</p> - -<p>“I’m thinking of what you said about Lady Joan,” he burst forth. “Say, -she’s gone through all this Jem Temple Barholm thing once; it about -half killed her. If any one raised false hopes for her, she’d go -through it all again. Once is enough for any woman.”</p> - -<p>His effect at professing heat and strong feeling made a spark of -amusement show itself in Palliser’s eye. It struck him as being -peculiarly American in its affectation of sentiment and chivalry.</p> - -<p>“I see,” he said. “It’s Lady Joan you’re disturbed about. You want to -spare her another shock. You are a considerate man, as well as a man -of business.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want her to begin to hope if—”</p> - -<p>“Very good taste on your part.” Palliser’s polite approval was -admirable, but he tapped lightly on the paper after expressing it. “I -don’t want to seem to press you about this, but don’t you feel inclined -to consider it? I can assure you that an investment of this sort would -be a good thing to depend on if the unexpected happened. If you gave -me your check now, it would be Cedric stock to-morrow, and quite safe. -Suppose you—”</p> - -<p>“I—I don’t believe you were right—about what you thought.” The -sharp-featured face was changing from pale to red. “You’d have to be -able to swear to it, anyhow, and I don’t believe you can.” He looked at -Palliser in eager and anxious uncertainty. “If you could,” he dragged -out, “I shouldn’t have a check-book. Where would you be then?”</p> - -<p>“I should be in comfortable circumstances, dear chap, and so would you -if you gave me the money to-night, while you possess a check-book. It -would be only a sort of temporary loan in any case, whatever turned up. -The investment would quadruple itself. But there is no time to be lost. -Understand that.”</p> - -<p>T. Tembarom broke out into a sort of boyish resentment.</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe he did look like him, anyhow,” he cried. “I believe -it’s all a bluff.” His crude-sounding young swagger had a touch of -final desperation in it as he turned on Palliser. “I’m dead sure it’s -a bluff. What a fool I was not to think of that! You want to bluff me -into going into this Cedric thing. You could no more swear he was like -him than—than I could.”</p> - -<p>The outright, presumptuous, bold stripping bare of his phrases -infuriated Palliser too suddenly and too much. He stepped up to him and -looked into his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Bluff you, you young bounder!” he flung out at him. “You’re losing -your head. You’re not in New York streets here. You are talking to a -gentleman. No,” he said furiously,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_947" id="Page_947">[Pg 947]</a></span> “I couldn’t swear that he was like -him, but what I <i>can</i> swear in any court of justice is that the man I -saw at the window <i>was</i> Jem Temple Barholm, and no other man on earth.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_947" name="i_947"> - <img class="padtop1 mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_947.jpg" alt="Tembarom and Palliser" /></a> -</div> - -<p>When he had said it, he saw the astonishing dolt change his expression -utterly again, as if in a flash. He stood up, putting his hands in his -pockets. His face changed, his voice changed.</p> - -<p>“Fine!” he said. “First-rate! That’s what I wanted to get on to.”</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 class="nobreak" id="T_TEMBAROM_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV</h3> - -</div> - -<p class="p0">A<span class="smaller">FTER</span> this climax the interview was not so long as it was interesting. -Two men, as far apart as the poles, as remote from each other in -mind and body, in training and education or lack of it, in desires -and intentions, in points of view and trend of being, as nature and -circumstances could make them, talked in a language foreign to each -other of a wildly strange thing. Palliser’s arguments and points of -aspect were less unknown to T. Tembarom than his own were to Palliser. -He had seen something very like them before, though they had developed -in different surroundings and had been differently expressed. The -colloquialism “You’re not doing that for your health” can be made to -cover much ground in the way of the stripping bare of motives for -action. This was what, in excellent and well-chosen English, Captain -Palliser frankly said to his host. Of nothing which T. Tembarom said -to him in his own statement did he believe one word or syllable. The -statement in question was not long or detailed. It was, of course, -Palliser saw, a ridiculously impudent flinging together of a farrago -of nonsense, transparent in its effort beyond belief. Before he had -listened five minutes with the distinctly “nasty” smile, he burst out -laughing.</p> - -<p>“That is a good ‘spiel,’ my dear chap,” he said. “It’s as good a -‘spiel’ as your type-writer friend used to rattle off when he thought -he saw a customer; but I’m not a customer.”</p> - -<p>Tembarom looked at him interestedly for about ten seconds. His hands -were thrust into his trousers’ pockets, as was his almost invariable -custom. Absorption and speculation, even emotion and excitement, were -usually expressed in this unconventional manner.</p> - -<p>“You don’t believe a darned word of it,” was his sole observation.</p> - -<p>“Not a darned word,” Palliser smiled. “You are trying a ‘bluff,’ -which doesn’t do credit to your usual sharpness. It’s a bluff that is -actually silly. It makes you look like an ass.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s true,” said Tembarom; “it’s true.”</p> - -<p>Palliser laughed again.</p> - -<p>“I only said it made you <i>look</i> like an ass,” he remarked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_948" id="Page_948">[Pg 948]</a></span> “I don’t -profess to understand you altogether, because you are a new species. -Your combination of ignorance and sharpness isn’t easy to calculate on. -But there is one thing I have found out, and that is, that when you -want to play a particularly sharp trick you are willing to let people -take you for a fool. I’ll own you’ve deceived me once or twice, even -when I suspected you. I’ve heard that’s one of the most successful -methods used in the American business world. That’s why I only say you -<i>look</i> like an ass. You <i>are</i> an ass in some respects; but you are -letting yourself look like one now for some shrewd end. You either -think you’ll slip out of danger by it when I make this discovery -public, or you think you’ll somehow trick me into keeping my mouth -shut.”</p> - -<p>“I needn’t trick you into keeping your mouth shut,” Tembarom suggested. -“There’s a straight way to do that, ain’t there?” And he indelicately -waved his hand toward the documents pertaining to the Cedric Company.</p> - -<p>It was stupid as well as gross, in his hearer’s opinion. If he had -known what was good for him he would have been clever enough to ignore -the practical presentation of his case made half an hour or so earlier.</p> - -<p>“No, there is not,” Palliser replied, with serene mendacity. “No -suggestion of that sort has been made. My business proposition was -given on an entirely different basis. You, of course, choose to put -your personal construction upon it.”</p> - -<p>“Gee whizz!” ejaculated T. Tembarom. “I was ’way off, wasn’t I?”</p> - -<p>“I told you that professing to be an ass wouldn’t be good enough in -this case. Don’t go on with it,” said Palliser, sharply.</p> - -<p>“You’re throwing bouquets. Let a fellow be natural,” said Tembarom.</p> - -<p>“That is bluff, too,” Palliser replied more sharply still. “I am not -taken in by it, bold as it is. Ever since you came here, you have been -playing this game. It was your fool’s grin and guffaw and pretense of -good nature that first made me suspect you of having something up your -sleeve. You were <i>too</i> unembarrassed and candid.”</p> - -<p>“So you began to look out,” Tembarom said, considering him curiously, -“just because of that.” Then suddenly he laughed outright, the fool’s -guffaw.</p> - -<p>It somehow gave Palliser a sort of puzzled shock. It was so hearty -that it remotely suggested that he appeared more secure than seemed -possible. He tried to reply to him with a languid contempt of manner.</p> - -<p>“You think you have some tremendously sharp ‘deal’ in your hand,” he -said, “but you had better remember you are in England, where facts are -like sledge-hammers. You can’t dodge from under them as you can in -America. I dare say you won’t answer me, but I should like to ask you -what you propose to do.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what I’m going to do any more than you do,” was the -unilluminating answer. “I don’t mind telling you that.”</p> - -<p>“And what do you think <i>he</i> will do?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve got to wait till I find out. I’m doing it. That was what I told -you. What are <i>you</i> going to do?” he added casually.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to Lincoln’s Inn Fields to have an interview with Palford & -Grimby.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a good enough move,” commented Tembarom, “if you think you can -prove what you say. You’ve got to prove things, you know. I couldn’t, -so I lay low and waited, just like I told you.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, of course,” Palliser himself almost grinned in his -derision. “You have only been waiting.”</p> - -<p>“When you’ve got to prove a thing, and haven’t much to go on, you’ve -got to wait,” said T. Tembarom—“to wait and keep your mouth shut, -whatever happens, and to let yourself be taken for a fool or a -horse-thief isn’t as gilt-edged a job as it seems. But proof’s what -it’s best to have before you ring up the curtain. <i>You’d</i> have to have -it yourself. So would Palford & Grimby before it’d be stone-cold safe -to rush things and accuse a man of a penitentiary offense.”</p> - -<p>He took his unconventional half-seat on the edge of the table, with -one foot on the floor and the other one lightly swinging. “Palford & -Grimby are clever old ducks, and they know that much. Thing they’d know -best would be that to set a raft of lies going about a man who’s got -money enough to defend himself, and to make them pay big damages for it -afterward, would be pretty bum business. I guess <i>they</i> know all about -what proof stands for. <i>They</i> may have to wait; so may you, same as I -have.”</p> - -<p>Palliser realized that he was in the position of a man striking at an -adversary whose construction was of india-rubber. He struck home, but -left no bruise and drew no blood, which was an irritating thing. He -lost his temper.</p> - -<p>“Proof!” he jerked out. “There will be proof enough, and when it is -made public, you will not control the money you threaten to use.”</p> - -<p>“When you get <i>proof</i>, just you let me hear about it,” T. Tembarom -said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_949" id="Page_949">[Pg 949]</a></span> “And all the money I’m threatening on shall go where it belongs, -and I’ll go back to little old New York and sell papers if I have to. -It won’t come as hard as you think.”</p> - -<p>The flippant insolence with which he brazened out his pretense that he -had not lied, that his ridiculous romance was actual and simple truth, -suggested dangerous readiness of device and secret knowledge of power -which could be adroitly used.</p> - -<p>“You are merely marking time,” said Palliser, rising, with cold -determination to be juggled with no longer. “You have hidden him away -where you think you can do as you please with a man who is an invalid. -That is your dodge. You’ve got him hidden somewhere, and his friends -had better get at him before it is too late.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not answering questions this evening, and I’m not giving -addresses, though there are no witnesses to take them down. If he’s -hidden away, he’s where he won’t be disturbed,” was T. Tembarom’s -rejoinder. “You may lay your bottom dollar on that.”</p> - -<p>Palliser walked toward the door without speaking. He had almost reached -it when he whirled about involuntarily, arrested by a shout of laughter.</p> - -<p>“Say,” announced Tembarom, “you mayn’t know it, but this lay-out would -make a first-rate turn in a vaudeville. You <i>think</i> I’m lying, I <i>look</i> -like I’m lying, I guess every word I say <i>sounds</i> like I’m lying. To a -fellow like you, I guess it couldn’t help sound that way. And I’m not -lying. That’s where the joke comes in. I’m not lying. I’ve not told you -all I know because it’s none of your business and wouldn’t help; but -what I have told you is the stone-cold truth.”</p> - -<p>He was keeping it up to the very end with a desperate determination not -to let go his hold of his pose until he had made his private shrewd -deal, whatsoever it was. At least, so it struck Palliser, who merely -said:</p> - -<p>“I’m leaving the house by the first train to-morrow morning.” He fixed -a cold gray eye on the fool’s grin.</p> - -<p>“Six forty-five,” said T. Tembarom. “I’ll order the carriage. I might -go up myself.”</p> - -<p>The door closed.</p> - -<p class="p0 mtop2">T<span class="smaller">EMBAROM</span> was looking cheerful enough when he went into his bedroom. He -had become used to its size and had learned to feel that it was a good -sort of place. It had the hall bedroom at Mrs. Bowse’s boarding-house -“beaten to a frazzle.” There was about everything in it that any man -could hatch up an idea he’d like to have. He had slept luxuriously -on the splendid carved bed through long nights, he had lain awake -and thought out things on it, he had lain and watched the fire-light -flickering on the ceiling, as he thought about Ann and made plans, -and “fixed up” the Harlem flat which could be run on fifteen per. -He had picked out the pieces of furniture from the Sunday “Earth” -advertisement sheet, and had set them in their places. He always saw -the six-dollar mahogany-stained table set for supper, with Ann at one -end and himself at the other. He had grown actually fond of the old -room because of the silence and comfort of it, which tended to give -reality to his dreams. Pearson, who had ceased to look anxious, and who -had acquired fresh accomplishments in the form of an entirely new set -of duties, was waiting, and handed him a telegram.</p> - -<p>“This just arrived, sir,” he explained. “James brought it here because -he thought you had come up, and I didn’t send it down because I heard -you on the stairs.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right. Thank you, Pearson,” his master said.</p> - -<p>He tore the yellow envelop, and read the message. In a moment Pearson -knew it was not an ordinary message, and therefore remained more than -ordinarily impassive of expression. He did not even ask of himself what -it might convey.</p> - -<p>Mr. Temple Barholm stood still a few seconds, with the look of a man -who must think and think rapidly.</p> - -<p>“What is the next train to London, Pearson?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“There is one at twelve thirty-six, sir,” he answered. “It’s the last -till six forty-five in the morning. You have to change at Crowley.”</p> - -<p>“You’re always ready, Pearson,” returned Mr. Temple Barholm. “I want to -get that train.”</p> - -<p>Pearson <i>was</i> always ready. Before the last word was quite spoken he -had turned and opened the bedroom door.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_950" id="Page_950">[Pg 950]</a></span></p> -<p>“I’ll order the dog-cart; that’s quickest, sir,” he said. He was -out of the room and in again almost immediately. Then he was at the -wardrobe and taking out what Mr. Temple Barholm called his “grip,” but -what Pearson knew as a Gladstone bag. It was always kept ready packed -for unexpected emergencies of travel.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_950" name="i_950"> - <img class="padtop1 mtop1 illowe50" src="images/i_950.jpg" alt="Tembarom and Pearson" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mr. Temple Barholm sat at the table and drew pen and paper toward him. -He looked excited; he looked more troubled than Pearson had seen him -look before.</p> - -<p>“The wire’s from Sir Ormsby Galloway, Pearson,” he said. “It’s about -Mr. Strangeways. He’s done what I used to be always watching out -against: he’s disappeared.”</p> - -<p>“Disappeared, sir!” cried Pearson, and almost dropped the Gladstone -bag. “I beg pardon, sir. I know there’s no time to lose.” He steadied -the bag and went on with his task without even turning round.</p> - -<p>His master was in some difficulty. He began to write, and after dashing -off a few words, suddenly stopped, and then tore them up.</p> - -<p>“No,” he muttered, “that won’t do. There’s no time to explain.” Then he -began again, but tore up his next lines also. “That says too much and -not enough. It’d scare the life out of her.”</p> - -<p>He wrote again, and ended by folding the sheet and putting it into an -envelop.</p> - -<p>“This is a message for Miss Alicia,” he said to Pearson. “Give it to -her in the morning. I don’t want her to worry, because I had to go in -a hurry. Tell her everything’s going to be all right; but you needn’t -mention that anything’s happened to Mr. Strangeways.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir,” answered Pearson.</p> - -<p>Mr. Temple Barholm was already moving about the room, doing odd things -for himself rapidly, and he went on speaking.</p> - -<p>“I want you and Rose to know,” he said, “that whatever happens, you are -both fixed all right—both of you. I’ve seen to that.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, sir,” Pearson faltered, made uneasy by something new in his -tone. “You said whatever happened, sir—”</p> - -<p>“Whatever old thing happens,” his master took him up.</p> - -<p>“Not to <i>you</i>, sir. Oh, I hope, sir, that nothing—”</p> - -<p>Mr. Temple Barholm put a cheerful hand on his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Nothing’s going to happen that’ll hurt any one. Things may change, -that’s all. You and Rose are all right, Miss Alicia’s all right, I’m -all right. Come along. Got to catch that train.”</p> - -<p>In this manner he took his departure.</p> - -<p class="s5 center mtop1">(To be continued)</p> - -<div class="chapter mtop2"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_951" id="Page_951">[Pg 951]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="TOPICS_OF_THE_TIME" class="nodisp" title="TOPICS OF THE TIME"></h2> - -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_951" name="i_951"> - <img class="mtop3 mbot1 illowe50" src="images/i_951.jpg" - alt="Topics of the Time" /></a> -</div> - -<h3 id="THE_MOST_IMPORTANT_YEAR">THE MOST IMPORTANT YEAR</h3> - -<p class="p0 mtop2"><span class="drop-cap">T</span>HIS number of -T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> -closes its eighty-sixth volume, and -the November number will begin what we confidently believe will be the -most important year in the history of this magazine. The period through -which we are living is, in its display of scientific accomplishment -and clashing social forces, the most broadly significant and humanly -spectacular in our forty-three years of existence, and it is our -ambition to be, as nearly as possible, representative of the times in -which we live.</p> - -<p>Recognizing that this is, in a real and vital sense, the very age -of fiction, we plan that each number beginning with the November -C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> shall contain, in addition to a leading article on -modern conditions, an exceptional fiction feature. In fact the present -number, containing the beginning of the anonymous serial, “Home,” and -Colonel Roosevelt’s paper on the Progressive Party, illustrates our -purpose.</p> - -<p>In the November number the fiction feature will be an extraordinary -story by Stephen French Whitman entitled “The Woman from Yonder,” -and the non-fiction feature will be a paper entitled “The Militant -Women—and Women” by Edna Kenton, which, for dignity, power, and -clarity, states the case for the feminists as it never has been stated. -Indeed no person with a mind in the least open can read Miss Kenton’s -brief without sympathy and understanding. Also it is typical of many -clarifying papers on many timely subjects which we plan to publish -through the year.</p> - -<p>In December the non-fiction feature will be an absorbing paper on -“The Search for a Modern Religion” by Winston Churchill. In January -the fiction feature will be a most unusual story by May Sinclair. In -February we shall begin a new and important serial novel.</p> - -<p>Of course this does not mean that our leaders shall exhaust our -resources. Each number will contain other stories and other papers on -subjects of current importance. The leaders, however, are intended to -be the most important papers on their several subjects that the world -can produce.</p> - -<p>An eminent novelist declared to us years ago in his newspaper days his -belief that reporting was the noblest work of man. In later years, -when he had added art to his reports of life and was selling his -novels by the hundreds of thousands, he confirmed the statement of his -enthusiastic youth. Modern fiction is, literally, a report of life, -colored by personality, and formed by art. Its appeal is universal. Its -power is greater than any other engine of civilization. It is to this -period what poetry, what preaching, what oratory, and what editorials -have been to preceding periods. It is practically the only effective -means of approaching the minds of millions of intelligent persons. It -influences to a greater or a less degree the imagining, the thinking, -and the living of nearly all who are literate.</p> - -<p>During the coming years T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> will recognize this -important function of fiction, but in so doing it will not the less -regard fiction as an art. Roughly speaking, one half of each number -will be devoted to serials and short stories, and we shall, in their -selection, work toward an ideal. The problem of selection will be more -complex than for some other magazines, perhaps, for C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> -readers are of many and varied tastes. There must be fiction for all -kinds of cultivated readers, for the lovers of artistry and subtlety -and the fine distinctions of human nature and for those who revel in -plot and climax. There must be fiction for the laughter-loving and -fiction for those for whom fiction seriously interprets life. But -whatever its kind it must all possess a common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_952" id="Page_952">[Pg 952]</a></span> quality, and this, we -realize, it will take long to attain consistently.</p> - -<p>Apart from fiction and in addition to the distinguished series -of papers on great current movements already foretold, T<span class="smaller">HE</span> -C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> has planned for the coming year a number of features of -extraordinary interest and value. In November, for example, Professor -Edward Alsworth Ross, the distinguished sociologist of the University -of Wisconsin, will begin an examination into Immigration which cannot -fail to stir every American deeply, and undoubtedly will blaze the way -to greatly needed reforms. This is no sensational “campaign,” nor is -it a dry, scientific compilation, but a searching study of great human -facts and conditions that make their own prophecy. And, early in the -winter, Hilaire Belloc will begin an important series of papers on -French Revolutionary subjects.</p> - -<p>In literature we have in preparation several papers of permanent and -vital interest. Albert Bigelow Paine, for example, the biographer of -Mark Twain, will contribute, from European wanderings in an automobile -under his own leisurely guidance, papers bubbling with the humor that -is his special possession. The same note of vitality underlies the -year’s projects in biography, history, and science.</p> - -<p>In politics T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> will remain wholly non-partizan. -From time to time, as passing events or other occasions demand, we -shall deal with political personages and parties and policies from a -point of view altogether remote from any mere political interest, and -for the broad purpose of enlightening all citizens irrespective of -partizan creed. We expect, for example, when new situations develop, to -follow Mr. Roosevelt’s paper with papers by political leaders of equal -prominence upon the changing purposes and objects of their respective -parties.</p> - -<p>Art has always been T<span class="smaller">HE</span> C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span>’<span class="smaller">S</span> -special field, and our plans -involve an interesting and important year. But there is another use -for pictures than the selection and display of beautiful and admirable -specimens of art. One picture is often more descriptive than pages upon -pages of the most skilful text, and we purpose to reproduce freely, for -the information of C<span class="smaller">ENTURY</span> readers, examples illustrating the -more important transitional tendencies in the art and sculpture of our -day.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 id="IN_LIGHTER_VEIN" class="nodisp nopad nobreak">IN LIGHTER VEIN</h2> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_952" name="i_952"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe41" src="images/i_952.jpg" - alt="In Lighter Vein" /></a> -</div> - -<h3 id="HOMER_AND_HUMBUG">HOMER AND HUMBUG</h3> - -<p class="s3 center mbot1">BY STEPHEN LEACOCK</p> - -<p class="s6 center mbot2">Author of “Literary Lapses,” “Nonsense Novels,” etc.</p> - -</div> - -<p class="p0 mtop2"><span class="drop-cap">I</span> DO -not mind confessing that for a long time past I have been very -skeptical about the classics. I was myself trained as a classical -scholar. It seemed the only thing to do with me. I acquired such a -singular facility in handling Latin and Greek that I could take a page -of either of them, distinguish which it was by glancing at it, and, -with the help of a dictionary and a compass, whip off a translation of -it in less than three hours.</p> - -<p>But I never got any pleasure from it. I lied about the pleasure of it. -At first, perhaps, I lied through vanity. Any scholar will understand -the feeling. Later on I lied through habit; later still because, after -all, the classics were all that I had and so I valued them. I have seen -a deceived dog thus value a pup with a broken leg, and a pauper child -nurse a dead doll with the sawdust out of it. So I nursed my dead Homer -and my broken Demosthenes though I knew that there was more sawdust -in the stomach of one modern author than in the whole lot of them. -Observe, I do not say which it is that has it full of it.</p> - -<p>So, I say, I began to lie about the classics. I said to people who -knew no Greek that there was a sublimity, a majesty about Homer which -they could never hope to grasp. I said it was like the sound of the -sea beating against the granite cliffs of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_953" id="Page_953">[Pg 953]</a></span> Ionian Esophagus; or -words to that effect. As for the truth of it, I might as well have -said that it was like the sound of a rum distillery running a night -shift on half-time. At any rate this is what I said about Homer, -and when I spoke of Pindar,—the dainty grace of his strophes,—and -Aristophanes, the delicious sallies of his wit, sally after sally, each -sally explained in a note, calling it a sally, I managed to suffuse my -face with a coruscation of appreciative animation which made it almost -beautiful.</p> - -<p>I admitted of course that Vergil, in spite of his genius, had a -hardness and a cold glitter which resembled rather the brilliance of a -cut diamond than the soft grace of a flower. Certainly I admitted this: -the mere admission of it would knock the breath out of any one who was -arguing.</p> - -<p>From such talks my friends went away saddened. The conclusion was too -cruel. It had all the cold logic of a syllogism (like that almost -brutal form of argument so much admired in the Paraphernalia of -Socrates). For if:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Vergil and Homer and Pindar had all this grace, and pith, and these sallies,</div> - <div class="verse">And if I read Vergil and Homer and Pindar,</div> - <div class="verse">And if they only read Mrs. Wharton and Mrs. Humphry Ward,</div> - <div class="verse">Then where were they?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>So, continued lying brought its own reward in the sense of superiority, -and I lied some more.</p> - -<p>When I reflect that I have openly expressed regret, as a personal -matter, even in the presence of women, for the missing books of -Tacitus, and the entire loss of the Abracadabra of Polyphemus of -Syracuse, I can find no words in which to beg for pardon. In reality -I was just as much worried over the loss of the ichthyosaurus. More, -indeed: I’d like to have seen it; but if the books Tacitus <i>did</i> lose -were like those he didn’t, I wouldn’t.</p> - -<p>I believe all scholars lie like this. An ancient friend of mine, a -clergyman, tells me that in Hesiod he finds a peculiar grace that -he doesn’t find elsewhere. He’s a liar. That’s all. Another man, in -politics and in the legislature, tells me that every night before going -to bed he reads over a page or two of Thucydides to keep his mind -fresh. Either he never goes to bed or <i>he’s</i> a liar. Doubly so; no one -could read Greek at that frantic rate; and, anyway, his mind isn’t -fresh. How could it be?—he’s in the legislature. I don’t object to his -talking freely of the classics, but he ought to keep it for the voters. -My own opinion is that before he goes to bed he takes whisky; why call -it Thucydides?</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_953" name="i_953"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe25" src="images/i_953.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">THE ICHTHYOSAURUS DEVOURING TWO OF THE LOST BOOKS OF -TACITUS</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">I know there are solid arguments advanced in favor of the classics. I -often hear them from my colleagues. My friend the Professor of Greek -tells me that he truly believes the classics have made him what he is. -This is a very grave statement, if well founded. Indeed, I have heard -the same argument from a great many Latin and Greek scholars. They all -claim, with some heat, that Latin and Greek have practically made them -what they are. This damaging charge against the classics should not be -too readily accepted. In my opinion some of these men would be what -they are, no matter what they were.</p> - -<p>Be this as it may, I for my part bitterly regret the lies I have told -about my appreciation of Latin and Greek literature. I am anxious to -do what I can to set things right. I am therefore engaged on, indeed -have nearly completed, a work which will enable all readers to judge -the matter for themselves. What I have done is a translation of all -the great classics, not in the usual literal way but on a design that -brings them into harmony with modern life.</p> - -<p>The translation is intended to be within reach of everybody. It is so -designed that the entire set of volumes can go on a shelf twenty-seven -feet long, or even longer. The first edition will be an <i>édition de -luxe</i> bound in vellum, or perhaps in buckskin, and sold at five hundred -dollars. It will be limited to five hundred copies, and, of course, -sold only to the feeble-minded. The next edition will be the Literary -Edition, sold to artists, authors, and actors.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_954" id="Page_954">[Pg 954]</a></span></p> - -<p>My plan is to transpose the classical writers so as to give, not the -literal translation word for word, but what is really the modern -equivalent. Let me give an odd sample or two to show what I mean. -Take the passage in the First Book of Homer that describes Ajax, the -Greek, dashing into the battle in front of Troy. Here is the way it -runs (as nearly as I remember) in the usual word for word translation -of the classroom, as done by the very best professor, his spectacles -glittering with the literary rapture of it.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Then he too Ajax on the one hand leaped (or possibly jumped) into -the fight wearing on the other hand yes certainly a steel corselet -(or possibly a bronze under tunic) and on his head of course yes -without doubt he had a helmet with a tossing plume taken from the -mane (or perhaps extracted from the tail) of some horse which -once fed along the banks of the Scamander (and it sees the herd -and raises its head and paws the ground) and in his hand a shield -worth a hundred oxen and on his knees two especially in particular -greaves made by some cunning artificer (or perhaps blacksmith) and -he blows the fire and it is hot.</p> - -<p>Thus Ajax leaped (or, better, was propelled from behind) into the -fight.</p></div> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_954" name="i_954"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe25" src="images/i_954.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">AJAX, “PROPELLED FROM BEHIND”</p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1">Now that’s grand stuff. There is no doubt of it. There’s a wonderful -movement and force to it. You can almost see it move, it goes so -fast. But the modern reader can’t get it. It won’t mean to him what -it meant to the early Greek. The setting, the costume, the scene have -all got to be changed in order to let the modern reader have a real -equivalent so as to judge for himself just how good the Greek verse -is. In my translation I alter the original just a little, not much -but just enough to give the passage a form that reproduces for us -the proper literary value of the verses, without losing anything of -their majesty. It describes, I may say, the Directors of the American -Industrial Stocks plunging into the Balkan War Cloud:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container s5"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Then there came rushing to the shock of war</div> - <div class="verse">Mr. McNicoll of the C. P. R.</div> - <div class="verse">He wore suspenders and about his throat</div> - <div class="verse">High rose the collar of a sealskin coat.</div> - <div class="verse">He had on gaiters and he wore a tie,</div> - <div class="verse">He had his trousers buttoned good and high;</div> - <div class="verse">About his waist a woollen undervest</div> - <div class="verse">Bought from a sad-eyed farmer of the West.</div> - <div class="verse">(And every time he clips a sheep he sees</div> - <div class="verse">Some bloated plutocrat who ought to freeze.)</div> - <div class="verse">Thus in the Stock Exchange he burst to view,</div> - <div class="verse">Leaped to the post, and shouted, “Ninety-two!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="p0">There! That’s Homer, the real thing! Just exactly as it sounded to the -rude crowd of Greek peasants who sat in a ring and guffawed at the -rhymes and watched the minstrel stamp it out into “feet” as he recited -it!</p> - -<p>Let me take another example, this time from the so-called Catalogue of -the Ships, which fills up nearly an entire book of Homer. This famous -passage names all the ships, one by one, and names the chiefs who -sailed on them, and names the particular town, or hill, or valley that -each came from. It has been much admired. It has that same majesty of -style that has been brought to an even loftier pitch in the New York -Business Directory and the City Telephone Book. It runs along, as I -recall it, something after this fashion:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>And first indeed oh, yes, was the ship of Homistogetes, the -Spartan, long and swift, having both its masts covered with cowhide -and two banks of oars. And he, Homistogetes, was born of Hermogenes -and Ophthalmia, and was at home in Syncope beside the fast-flowing -Paresis. And after him came the ship of Preposterus, the Eurasian, -son of Oasis and Hysteria,</p></div> - -<p class="p0">—and so on, endlessly.</p> - -<p>Instead of this I substitute, with the permission of the New York -Central Railway, a more modern example, the official catalogue of their -locomotives, taken almost word for word from the list compiled by their -Chief Superintendent of Rolling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_955" id="Page_955">[Pg 955]</a></span> Stock and rendered into Homeric verse. -I admit that he wrote it in hot weather.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_955a" name="i_955a"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe20" src="images/i_955a.jpg" alt="Busy Bees" /></a> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container s5"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Out in the yard and steaming in the sun</div> - <div class="verse">Stands locomotive engine number forty-one;</div> - <div class="verse">Seated beside the windows of its cab</div> - <div class="verse">Are Pat McGraw and Peter James McNab.</div> - <div class="verse">Pat comes from Troy and Peter from Cohoes,</div> - <div class="verse">And when they pull the throttle, off she goes;</div> - <div class="verse">And as she vanishes there comes to view</div> - <div class="verse">Steam locomotive engine number forty-two.</div> - <div class="verse">Observe her mighty wheels, her easy roll,</div> - <div class="verse">With William J. McArthur in control.</div> - <div class="verse">They say her engineer some time ago</div> - <div class="verse">Lived on a farm outside of Buffalo,</div> - <div class="verse">Whereas her fireman, Henry Edward Foy,</div> - <div class="verse">Attended school in Springfield, Illinois.</div> - <div class="verse">Thus does the race of men decay and rot—</div> - <div class="verse">SOME MEN CAN HOLD THEIR JOBS AND SOME CAN NOT.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="p0">Please observe that if Homer had actually written that last line, it -would have been quoted for nearly three thousand years as one of the -deepest sayings ever said. Orators would still be rounding out their -speeches with the majestic phrase (in Greek), “Some men can hold their -jobs”; essayists would open their most scholarly dissertations with the -words, “It has been finely said by Homer that some men can hold their -jobs”; and the clergy in the mid-pathos of a funeral sermon would lift -an eve skyward and echo, “and some can not.”</p> - -<p>This is what I should like to do: I’d like to take a large stone and -write on it—</p> - -<p class="p0 mtop2 mbot2">“<i>The classics are only primitive literature. They belong in the -same class as primitive machinery, primitive music, and primitive -medicine,</i>”</p> - -<p class="p0">—and then throw it through the windows of a UNIVERSITY and hide behind -a fence to see the professors buzz!</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="CASUS_BELLI">CASUS BELLI</h3> - -</div> - -<p>T<span class="smaller">HERE</span> has long been current in New Haven what is sure to be an -apocryphal story of college loyalty, told at the expense of Anson -Phelps Stokes, the popular secretary of Yale. Secretary Stokes is an -ordained clergyman in the Episcopal Church, and, so the story goes, as -he was once journeying west on the train in non-clerical garb, a man of -the self-appointed missionary type approached, and asked him solemnly:</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, sir, but are you a Christian man?”</p> - -<p>Startled, Dr. Stokes looked up and said:</p> - -<p>“Oh, d—— it, no.”</p> - -<p>The man turned to go, saying in a deeply offended tone:</p> - -<p>“Well, I only asked you if you were a Christian man. I don’t see—”</p> - -<p>Impulsively, Dr. Stokes caught him by the arm.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I beg your pardon,” he said. “I beg your pardon. I thought you -asked me if I was a Princeton man!”</p> - -<div class="section padtop1"> - -<h3 id="Died"><span class="bbtd">   Died   </span></h3> - -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_955b" name="i_955b"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe20" src="images/i_955b.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">R. R.<br /> - <i>HIS LAST PORTRAIT</i></p> -</div> - -<p class="mtop1 hang1_5">RYMBEL.—Suddenly, of weariness, at his home in Lighter Vein; -Rondeau Rymbel, aged two months.</p> - -<p class="right mright3">Please omit flowers.</p> - -<p class="center mtop1">“<i>Blessed are the misunderstood.</i>”</p> - -<p class="s3 center"><span class="bbd">          </span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_956" id="Page_956">[Pg 956]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_956" name="i_956"> - <img class="mtop3 mbot1 illowe50" src="images/i_956.jpg" alt="Headpiece, THE HUSBAND SHOP" /></a> -</div> - -<h3 class="nopad nobreak" id="THE_HUSBAND_SHOP">THE HUSBAND SHOP</h3> - -<p class="center mtop1">A FABLE FOR HEIRESSES</p> - -<p class="center mtop1">BY OLIVER HERFORD</p> - -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse"><span class="drop-cap_poetry">A</span>BOVE the plate-glass window-pane,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Inviting every passing gaze,</div> - <div class="verse">Hung an inscription, large and plain,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">“<i>THE HUSBAND SHOP</i>.” This, in amaze,</div> - <div class="verse">Clorinda seeing, stopped wide-eyed,</div> - <div class="verse">And stared, then turned and stepped inside.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">A floor-walker whose faultlessness</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">And condescending air proclaimed</div> - <div class="verse">One of the <i>table d’haute noblesse</i>,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Approached Clorinda and exclaimed,</div> - <div class="verse">With graceful undulating palm:</div> - <div class="verse">“Something in husbands? <i>Oui, Madame.</i>”</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“We have the latest thing of all</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">In husbands; kindly step this way.</div> - <div class="verse">We’re using them on hats this fall,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">In place of plume or floral spray,</div> - <div class="verse">The creature being pinned or tied</div> - <div class="verse">With chiffon bows on either side.”</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">He leads the way, all wreathed in smiles,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">And wonderful in spotless spats</div> - <div class="verse">That flitter like twin butterflies</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Along an avenue of hats,</div> - <div class="verse">Each one displaying on its brim</div> - <div class="verse">A husband—fashion’s latest whim.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Clorinda tries them each in turn</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Before the glass; some are too small,</div> - <div class="verse">And some too cold, and some too stern,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">And some are slightly soiled, and all,</div> - <div class="verse">When punctured by the hat-pin’s steel,</div> - <div class="verse">Betray by squirms how bored they feel.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">At last Clorinda came to one</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Marked “<i>Dobbs</i>,” that scarce seemed worth her while;</div> - <div class="verse">But when she tried it on for fun,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">It met the hat-pin with a smile,</div> - <div class="verse">As if to say, “Oh, beauteous miss,</div> - <div class="verse">Even a stab from you is bliss!”</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“The very thing! but thrown away</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Upon a <i>hat</i>!” Clorinda cried.</div> - <div class="verse">“’T would make a sweet corsage bouquet.”</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">The shoppers stared quite stupefied</div> - <div class="verse">To see Clorinda Dobbs depart</div> - <div class="verse">Wearing a husband next her heart.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="section mtop2"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_957" id="Page_957">[Pg 957]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_957" name="i_957"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe35" src="images/i_957.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawing by F. R. Gruger</p> -</div> - -<h3 id="A_TRIUMPH_FOR_THE_FRESH-AIR_FUND">A TRIUMPH FOR THE FRESH-AIR FUND</h3> - -</div> - -<p class="p0"><i>Charity Note.</i> “Owing to the enterprise and generosity of the United -Welfare League, a gentleman, widely known in New York as Happy Harry, -was recently ‘rescued’ on the Bowery, washed, shaved, shod, and sent to -Sunnyside, in Sullivan County, New York.</p> - -<p>“We are glad to learn, from recent advices from Sunnyside, that the -stranger is wholeheartedly entering into the life and spirit of the -place.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_958" id="Page_958">[Pg 958]</a></span></p> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="THE_SENIOR_WRANGLER"><b>THE SENIOR WRANGLER</b></h3> - -<p class="s3 center mbot1"><i>SNOBBERY—AMERICA VS. ENGLAND</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="p0">“H<span class="smaller">OW</span> the Americans <i>do</i> love a Duke!” is a frequent comment of the -British journals, and they then proceed to the sober generalization -that “the United States is a nation of flunkies and of snobs.” Whoever -will be at the pains to follow British weekly journalism will find -this sentiment repeated every little while. Good old British Podsnap! -No half-way course for him. He is not the man to shilly-shally with -a nation, and he will speak the plain truth to any hemisphere, no -matter how it hurts the hemisphere’s feelings. Vulgarity is a matter of -geography. It is reckoned from Pall Mall as time is from Greenwich.</p> - -<p>But as to snobs. New York’s streets are of course often choked with -them. A duke, an elephant, a base-ball pitcher on Fifth Avenue, may -at any time be the center of a disproportionate and servile attention -from both the American people and the press. Yet the cult of the -egregious and the greatly advertised has never the deep devotion -of sound snobbery. It is not for an upstart and volatile people to -dispute the calm supremacy of British snobbery. Your true snob is not -inquisitive at all. He has no sense of any social values not his own. -It is among the tightly closed minds of the tight little island that he -is seen at his best. What other nation could produce, in journalism, -such inimitable snobs as the Lord Alfred Douglases and the Saturday -Reviewers?</p> - -<p>American snobbery is not a sturdy plant. There is too much social -uncertainty at the root of it. What the British take for snobbery -over here springs from quite alien qualities—curiosity, a vast -social innocence, and a blessed inexperience of rank. To be sure, if -King George comes to New York some one may clip his coat-tails for a -keepsake; and it is quite probable that Mrs. Van Allendale, of Newport, -if asked to meet him, will be all of a tremble whether to address -him as “Sire” or “My God.” But what has this in common with the huge -assurances of British snobbery—its enormous certainty of the Proper -Thing, in clothes, people, religion, sports, manners, and races, and -its indomitable determination not to guess again?</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_958" name="i_958"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe20" src="images/i_958.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">KING GEORGE IN NEW YORK</p> -</div> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="OUR_TENDER_LITERARY_CELEBRITIES"><i>OUR TENDER LITERARY CELEBRITIES</i></h3> - -</div> - -<p class="p0">O<span class="smaller">NE</span> day, not so very long ago, a well-known American author was laughed -at in a morning newspaper. It was apparently not meant for stinging -satire. But the author felt it somewhere about him and complained -to the editor of the pain. He wrote a letter for publication—long, -earnest, very indignant. I am, said he, the victim of a “malignantly -humorous attack.” By which process he turned a poor joke on himself -into a good one, and incidentally exposed a too tender private -temperament to the public gaze.</p> - -<p>Sometimes it seems as if the whole body of recent American literature -were not worth the damage sustained by character while consuming the -fruits of success. There are signs of a bad schooling, of too steady -a fare of sweets. For what doth it profit a man to run to a hundred -thousand if he turn out a prig? The thing too often happens. His -constitution may have been none too robust at the start, but it is -awful to think what might become of any of us. Undermined by reciprocal -endearments, we, too, might rage at the first word of criticism and -swoon at the sound of laughter. Potatoes will sprout in a warm cellar, -though some are worse than others. It is the effect of too much shelter -in the great author’s life.</p> - -<p>I condemn no man. I condemn the influences. Fortified against -displeasure, barricaded against even chaff, there comes a time when the -soul’s dark cottage needs ventilation. There should be more outside -breezes in The Literary Life.</p> - -<div class="section"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_959" id="Page_959">[Pg 959]</a></span></p> - -<h3 class="nodisp" id="OUR_PARENTS" title="OUR PARENTS -TWO POEMS BY CHARLES IRVIN JUNKIN -PICTURES BY HARRY RALEIGH"></h3> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_959a" name="i_959a"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe50" src="images/i_959a.jpg" alt="OUR PARENTS" /></a> -</div> - -</div> - -<h4 id="WHEN_PA_IS_SICK"><i>WHEN PA IS SICK</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">W<span class="smaller">HEN</span> pa is sick,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">He’s scared to death,</div> - <div class="verse">An’ ma an’ us</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Just holds our breath.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">He crawls in bed,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">An’ puffs an’ grunts,</div> - <div class="verse">An’ does all kinds</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Of crazy stunts.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">He wants “<i>Doc</i>” Brown,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">An’ mighty quick;</div> - <div class="verse">For when pa’s ill,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">He’s <i>awful</i> sick.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">He gasps an’ groans,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">An’ sort o’ sighs,</div> - <div class="verse">He talks s’ queer,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">An’ rolls his eyes.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Ma jumps an’ runs,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">An’ all of us,</div> - <div class="verse">An’ all the house,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Is in a fuss,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">An’ peace an’ joy</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Is mighty skeerce.—</div> - <div class="verse">When pa is sick,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">It’s somethin’ fierce.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_959b" name="i_959b"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe27_5" src="images/i_959b.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">“WHEN PA IS SICK, IT’S SOMETHIN’ FIERCE”</p> -</div> - -<h4 class="mtop2" id="WHEN_MA_IS_SICK"><i>WHEN MA IS SICK</i></h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">W<span class="smaller">HEN</span> ma is sick,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">She pegs away;</div> - <div class="verse">She’s quiet, though,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Not much t’ say.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">She goes right on</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">A-doin’ things,</div> - <div class="verse">An’ sometimes laughs,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Er even sings.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">She says she don’t</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Feel extry well,</div> - <div class="verse">But then it’s just</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">A kind o’ spell;</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">She’ll be all right</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">To-morrow, sure.</div> - <div class="verse">A good old sleep</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Will be the cure.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">An’ pa he sniffs,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">An’ makes no kick,</div> - <div class="verse">Fer women-folks</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Is always sick.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">An’ ma she smiles,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Lets on she’s glad.—</div> - <div class="verse">When ma is sick,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">It ain’t s’ bad.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_959c" name="i_959c"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe27_5" src="images/i_959c.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">“WHEN MA IS SICK, IT AIN’T S’ BAD”</p> -</div> - -<div class="section mtop2"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_960" id="Page_960">[Pg 960]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_960a" name="i_960a"> - <img class="mtop3 illowe20" src="images/i_960a.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption">HORACE.—</p> -</div> - -<h3 id="I_SING_OF_MYSELF">“I SING OF MYSELF”</h3> - -<p class="s5 center">(An ode by Horace.—Book II, Ode 20)</p> - -<p class="center">BY LOUIS UNTERMEYER</p> - -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">B<span class="smaller">EFORE</span> I end this glorious batch</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Of deathless verses, friend Mæcenas,</div> - <div class="verse">I’ve something still to add, to snatch</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">One laurel more to share between us.</div> - <div class="verse">(I mention all of this to no man</div> - <div class="verse">Except perhaps a friend—or Roman.)</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Now that my time has come to die</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">(Within a score or two of years),</div> - <div class="verse">I wish to have it known that I</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Shall gladly leave this “vale of tears,”</div> - <div class="verse">Because (and how my friends will chortle!)</div> - <div class="verse">I shall be more than just immortal.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Into the clear and boundless air</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">I shall ascend with sounding pinions.</div> - <div class="verse">Shouting a buoyant “I don’t care,”</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Laughing at kings and their dominions.</div> - <div class="verse">And folks will say (how well you know it!),</div> - <div class="verse">“Q. Flaccus? Ah, he <i>was</i> a poet!”</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">My wings shall sprout,—why, even now</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">I feel all creepy and absurd-like,—</div> - <div class="verse">My skin is roughening somehow,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">My legs are positively birdlike.</div> - <div class="verse">And see, sure as I’m growing older,</div> - <div class="verse">Feathers and quills on either shoulder!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">And I shall fly about as long</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">As I’ve the slightest inclination,</div> - <div class="verse">A veritable Bird of Song</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">Without a local habitation.</div> - <div class="verse">Like Icarus, I’ll travel surely</div> - <div class="verse">And (need I say it?) more securely.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">From where the Dacian hides in shame</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">To where the river Rhone runs muddy,</div> - <div class="verse">All men will celebrate my name;</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">My works will constitute a study.</div> - <div class="verse">I shall be loved by people pat in</div> - <div class="verse">The ways of elementary Latin.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Then let there be no dirge for me,</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">No petty grief or lamentation.</div> - <div class="verse">Why weep for one who’s sure to be</div> - <div class="verse mleft1">A joy and honor to creation?</div> - <div class="verse">Ah, you’re a lucky man, by Venus!</div> - <div class="verse">To have a friend like <i>me</i>, Mæcenas.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="NEWPORT_NOTE">NEWPORT NOTE</h3> - -<p class="center">THE LATEST SENSATION IN SMART SOCIETY</p> - -</div> - -<p class="p0 mtop2">“M<span class="smaller">RS</span>. A<span class="smaller">LGY</span> F<span class="smaller">LINT</span> gave an informal turkey-trot last evening at ‘On -the Rocks,’ her palace in Newport. Prizes were awarded to the best -dancers. The first prize (an Owen Johnson Salamander fire-screen—for -stenographers and débutantes) was won by Miss Dolly Marble, for a novel -little dance entitled ‘The Tangorilla.’ The second prize (a Pankhurst -forcible feeder—for infants and invalids) was awarded to Bertie Stone, -her clever and light-footed partner.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <a id="i_960b" name="i_960b"> - <img class="mtop1 illowe25" src="images/i_960b.jpg" alt="" /></a> - <p class="caption1">Drawing by Birch</p> - <p class="caption">“THE TANGORILLA”</p> -</div> - -<div class="section"> - -<h3 id="SOCRATIC_ARGUMENT">SOCRATIC ARGUMENT</h3> - -<p class="center">BY JOHN CARVER ALDEN</p> - -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container mbot1"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">S<span class="smaller">TRAIGHT</span>, at his ruler’s stern command,</div> - <div class="verse">The contents of the cup, offhand,</div> - <div class="verse">Inclusive of its dregs and lees,</div> - <div class="verse">Was promptly drained by Socrates.</div> - <div class="verse">More than his foes,—perhaps his wife—</div> - <div class="verse">Caused his Xanthippe-thy for life.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="s6 center padtop3"><span class="bt padtop0_5">  THE DE VINNE PRESS, -NEW YORK  </span></p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Century Illustrated Monthly -Magazine, October, 1913, by Various - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CENTURY ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 1913 *** - -***** This file should be named 63149-h.htm or 63149-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/1/4/63149/ - -Produced by Jane Robins, Reiner Ruf, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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